Hi Guys!

I know, I know…IT’S we don’t care about black history anymore because it’s MARCH. BUT. I was on vacation AND I came back to office feckery. So yesterday was NOT the day, and I don’t plan these out so you get what you get when I give it to you [WOW. I am really turning into my mama]. ALSO. It’s the second to last BHFOTD until next February*. OR. Until I feel like writing a surprise fact, which definitely won’t be happening any time soon. ON TO TODAY’S FACT!

SO. As I write this fact Spanky is supposed to be somewhere studying for midterms, but I’m fairly certain that she’s watching/waiting on a giraffe to give birth.
Senioritis, y’all. The struggle is real. [ALSO: HOOOOW IN ALL TF IS SHE ALREADY GRADUATING?! I JUST DROPPED HER OFF TO FRESHMAN ORIENTATION YESTERDAY]
*sniff*
BUT. I will say that she’s had an amazing experience.
Last semester she “studied” abroad.
“Studied?”
Yes. Because that chile sent me pictures of her everywhere but class. Clubs. Restaurants. Her bed. Other countries.

Me: How you gettin’ any school work done?
ALSO ME: As long as she’s passing her classes, do I really care?

No. If we’re gonna be honest. And I am, because hello! In fact, sounded like she learned more from traveling that I expected. She messaged me from Munich to tell me that her and her friends went to the Dachau Concentration Camp memorial. I ain’t get any pictures, because Spanky knows that I would fly to wherever she was to knock her phone on the ground. But, she told me how heartbreakingly sad it was to SEE. And how cold it was when she was there and she was layered up. She told me couldn’t imagine being in that weather with no jacket or shoes. She couldn’t understand how people could watch other people being marched 3 miles from the train station to certain death. [Short answer: because people have no problem letting horrifying things happen to other people so long as that people is not them] She also told me that every German student is required to tour a concentration camp. Because they’re pretty serious about this terrible history not repeating itself.

And in typical me fashion, I said: This is what it looks like to really be sorry for things that you’ve done. You acknowledge it, and learn from it, AND YOU DON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.

And in typical YOU fashion I’m sure you realized that I’ve finally gotten to my fact for today:

Did you know that there is such a thing as America’s Black Holocaust Museum? It was located in Milwaukee, WI. It was founded in 1988 by James Cameron, the only known survivor of a lynching attempt. When Cameron was 16, he and two friends were charged in the murder of a white man during an armed robbery attempt. He said he ran away before the man was killed. The three were arrested. A lynch mob “broke” into the jail and the two friends were beaten and hanged. Cameron was beaten but before he was hanged an unidentified woman intervened, saying he was not guilty. He was returned to the jail. After that come to Jesus (literally), he changed his life, got an education, and studied all his life about slavery and the African-American experience in the United States. He worked in civil rights, wrote independent articles, and collected materials having to do with African-American history.

After retirement, Cameron and his wife visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Israel. He thought that the focus on the personal history of individuals and their stories, rather than on numbers and processes, led to a better understanding of the reality of the Holocaust. Then living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1988 he founded the museum, with the help of philanthropist Daniel Bader, having been collecting materials on the African-American experience in the US for many years.

ABHM’s facility, located in Milwaukee, was the only memorial dedicated specifically to the victims of the enslavement of Africans in the United States. The building was closed due to financial issues, but re-opened as a virtual facility on February 25, 2012 (Me: with another typical belated birthday shout out). The Virtual Museum has guided tours related to six distinct historic earas:
• Before Captivity in Africa
• The Middle Passage
• Slavery in the Americas
• Reconstruction era of the United States
• Civil Rights
• Modern Day Injustices [I’m assuming this one isn’t linked because it’s AN ONGOING PROJECT. So as a favor, here’s one from YESTERDAY.]

ABHM unlike these here united states welcomed visitors of all races and backgrounds, and encouraged community understanding of the nation’s history of racism, prejudice, social change and cross-cultural understanding.

*Y’all get a second fact, just because I hate ending BHM with sad and depressing facts.