Black History meets Allhallowtide

What happens when on a spooky night, Black history month meets axe wielders, martyrs, saints and the weirdly faithful of Allhollowtide, at Halloween in the English realm.

Ah...ha...ha..ha, the witches cackle as Lizzie Borden appears, smiling chillingly sweet, grasping tight to her bloody axe.

Once upon a moonlit Allhallowtide night in England, the air was thick with a mix of excitement and eerie anticipation. The banner floating above the world proclaimed:

"MY, THIS OCTOBER IS A VERY BUSY MONTH AIN'T IT. TIS CYBER SECURITY MONTH, BLACK HISTORY MONTH, NO BRA DAY, WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY, WORLD ARTHRITIS DAY, OCTOBERON, ALLHOLLOWTIDE, WORLD MENOPAUSE DAY, WORLD ALLERGY AWARENESS, WORLD...WOW!

"IT SURE IS A BIT CROWDED IN HERE"! Grumbles Halloween, trying to keep the spotlight focused on itself.

SUDDENLY...the Black History Month festivities ran headlong into Halloween, conjuring a uniquely spirited evening.

It was a small township, known for its raucous Halloween celebrations. The local historical society decided to honor the pioneers of Black British culture. The streets were awash with ghostly figures and the sound of drums, as DJ Professor Spook and his Skeleton Crew blasted afrobeat remixes of classic Halloween tunes.

They did the Monster Mash

Underneath a towering oak tree, the ghosts of Black historical figures, garbed in vintage attire, mingled with kids in costumes. There was Mary Seacole, who told tales of her battlefield nursing days while playfully cackling as she handed out caramel-coated apples. A ghostly Olaudah Equiano, swirling in the fog, regaled listeners with spooky stories from his days on the high seas.

As the night grew darker, the village's legendary Haunted House turned into an impromptu museum, with exhibits paying homage to trailblazers like Windrush migrants. This house wasn't just scary...it was educational. Instead of fake blood and plastic skeletons, each room was a vivid retelling of milestones in Black history, made all the more spine-tingling by the atmospheric creaks and groans of the ancient building.

The high point of the evening was when the ghost of Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba, decked out in regal African attire, delivered a stirring speech from the steps of the town hall. Her words carried through the night air, mixing history with haunting humor, creating an unforgettable historical lesson adding to the strangeness of the night's events.

So there it was: a night where history was as alive as the specters floating through the night, and where spooky met significant, making for a night the revelers wouldn't soon forget. 👻

👻 👻👻👻

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Olaudah Equiano was a writer and abolitionist. According to his memoir, he was from the village of Essaka in modern southern Nigeria. Enslaved as a child in West Africa, he was shipped to the Caribbean and sold to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more before purchasing his freedom in 1766.

As a freedman in London, Equiano supported the British abolitionist movement in the 1780s becoming one of its leading figures. Equiano was part of the abolitionist group the Sons of Africa, whose members were Africans living in Britain. His 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, sold so well that nine editions were published during his life and helped secure passage of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished the slave trade. The Interesting Narrative gained renewed popularity among scholars in the late 20th century and remains a useful primary source.

+

(See the Windrush Scandal). Or Windrush Generation.

The Windrush scandal was a British political scandal that began in 2018 concerning people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and in at least 83 cases, wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office. Many of those affected had been born British subjects and had arrived in the UK before 1973, particularly from Caribbean countries. They were members of the "Windrush generation", (so named after the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought one of the first groups of West Indian migrants to the UK in 1948).

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mike's prompt: