Revival History

 Haian Dalloul, a hero and an officer in the SAA, was taken prisoner by armed groups in the Northern Turkmen mountains in #Syria in July 2018. The groups included Ansar Al Islam and Turkmen Jihadists. The Syrian Government and Syrian/Russian  reconciliation teams are negotiating for Haian's release.  I met with the family in Salamiya during the last few days I spent in the region. While I cannot share details of the capture or of the negotiations for Haian's safety, I do stand in solidarity with his family who are suffering deeply and who pray for his safe return from the hands of these militant groups.  Haian was shot in the arm and the wrist and was among the only survivors of the attack that martyred 25 brave SAA soldiers. He refused to leave the battleground even when it became clear they would be overwhelmed.  Haian is 24 years old, he is not married. He did not abandon his country, he stood and fought for his family, his homeland and for his way of life ag...

 German medical orderly with a wounded Senegalese Rifleman POW, November 28, 1914. . This photograph, colourised by @in.colore.veritas and @colourbyrjm, was taken today 109 years ago at a German bandaging station in Etterbek, Belgium. .  Some 192,000 Senegalese Riflemen (Tirailleurs Sénégalais) fought for France in the First World War, of whom 134,000 fought on the Western Front. Although the name would suggest they were all from modern-day Senegal, the Senegalese Riflemen were recruited from all over French Colonial West and Central Africa. .  The Senegalese troops fought with distinction, often being deployed as stormtroopers, leading the French attacks and suffering heavy losses in doing so, but usually being very effective at conquering the German positions. For this reason, the Senegalese soldiers were notorious and feared among the Germans for their ferocity (accompanied by racial prejudices of Africans being barbarous savages). .  The Senegalese Riflemen fough...

 Left: James "J. E." Edward Ellington, and Right: Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington, the parents of Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington. Both of Duke Ellington's  parents were pianists. Daisy primarily played parlor songs, and James preferred operatic arias. They lived with Daisy's parents at 2129 Ida Place (now Ward Place) NW, in D.C.'s West End neighborhood.   Duke's father James was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15, 1879, and moved to D.C. in 1886 with his parents.  Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1879, the daughter of two formerly enslaved parents. The couple had three children, Baby Boy Ellington 1898–1898; Duke Ellington 1899–1974; Ruth Dorothea Ellington Boatwright 1915–2004. . James "J. E." Edward Ellington Born 15 Apr 1879 in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Son of James Ellington and Emma (Unknown) Ellington Brother of Jerry Ellington, Mary A Ellington, Joe Ella (Ellington) Rudisill, Columbus Ellington, Car...

 On this day, 26 November 1883, the formerly enslaved woman and pioneering feminist, Black emancipationist and poet Sojourner Truth died in Michigan aged 86.  She was born into slavery in a Dutch-speaking community in New York, and later gave birth to five children. She escaped in 1827, and with the support of an abolitionist family, successfully sued for the return of one of her sons who had been illegally sold in Alabama.  After moving to New York City, Truth became a charismatic preacher, helping enslaved people escape and advocating for abolitionism, and for women's rights, including women's suffrage.  During the civil war Truth assisted the Union side, and after the war she helped people formerly enslaved in the South build new lives, often as wage workers.  Truth remained active until the end of her long life, spending time in her later years campaigning for land redistribution to formally enslaved people – which was famously promised as "40 acres and a mu...

 On this day, 25 November 1960 three sisters – Patria Mercedes Mirabal Reyes, Minerva Mirabal Reyes and Antonia María Teresa Mirabal Reyes – were assassinated for their opposition to the US-backed Dominican dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (content note: mention of sexual violence).  They had started a group called the Agrupación Política 14 de Junio (14 June Movement), named after the date of a massacre Patria witnessed. Two of the sisters, Minerva and Maria Teresa, were imprisoned, raped and tortured on several occasions and their husbands arrested and tortured too. However, they persisted in their resistance and Trujillo decided to put an end to them once and for all.  On May 18, 1960, Minerva and Maria Teresa, along with their husbands, were convicted and were sentenced to three years in prison for undermining the security of the Dominican state. In a strange gesture, on August 9, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal were released by express provision of Trujillo. Their hu...

 On this day, 25 November 1941, three young Austrian boys, members of the Schlurf movement, were arrested by the Gestapo for destroying a Hitler Youth noticeboard.  The Schlurfs were working class Austrian youths who rejected Nazism, militarism, racism and the work ethic. They had long hair and listened to jazz and swing music. The boys wore sharp double-breasted suits and the girls or "Schlurf kittens" wore coloured dresses with knee length hemlines.  The Nazis campaigned against the "Schlurf menace", and many Schlurfs fought Hitler Youth in the streets.  After the Allied victory, the new "democratic" authorities continued to denounce as "Schlurfs" young workers who rejected work discipline and authority. 

 Mary Walker earned her medical degree from Syracuse Medical College in 1855, at a time when very few women became physicians. An abolitionist, she volunteered for service as a surgeon in the federal army during the Civil War, but she was turned down. Refusing the army’s offer to make her a nurse instead, Dr. Walker volunteered her services as a spy, but was turned down again. So, she began treating the wounded and sick as a volunteer civilian doctor, until ultimately the Army hired her as a contract surgeon, the first woman ever employed by the U.S. Army in that role. In April 1864 Dr. Walker was captured while behind Confederate lines. She was a prisoner of war for four months, until released in a prisoner exchange. For her services Mary Walker was awarded the Medal of Honor. She is the only woman in American history to receive the medal. Mary Walker was a suffragist, prohibitionist, war hero, and pioneering physician, but it was her preference for traditional male clothing that ...