Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Mary Jane McLeod was born in 1875 in a small log cabin near  Mayesville, South Carolina , on a rice and cotton farm in  Sumter County . She was the fifteenth of seventeen children born to Sam and Patsy (McIntosh) McLeod, both former slaves.   Most of her siblings had been born into slavery. Her mother worked for her former master, and her father farmed cotton near a large house they called "The Homestead." Her parents wanted to be independent so had sacrificed to buy a farm for the family. As a child, Mary would accompany her mother to deliver "white people’s" wash. Allowed to go into the white children’s nursery, Mary became fascinated with their toys. One day she picked up a book and as she opened it, a white child took it away from her, saying she didn’t know how to read. Mary decided then that the only difference between white and colored people was the ability to read and write. She was inspired to learn. McLeod attended Mayesville's one-room bl...

Mary Jane Holmes Shipley Drake, born in Missouri in 1841, was one of six children of Robin and Polly Holmes. From 1852 to 1853 Mary Jane was the subject of a fifteen-month legal battle known as Holmes v. Ford to obtain her freedom.  That battle also helped determine the status of slavery in the Oregon Territory.   The Holmes family was owned by Missouri farmer Nathaniel Ford.  In 1844 Ford brought the family west on the Oregon Trail, promising Robin and Polly their freedom if they would help him establish a farm in the Oregon Territory.   Ford refused to honor his promise for five years after their arrival, finally relenting in 1849.  He freed the parents and their new born son but refused to release nine-year-old Mary Jane and her other siblings including two who had been born in Oregon Territory.  Ford intended to sell each of the four children when they reached adulthood. Ford’s refusal to release Mary Jane Holmes and her siblings prompted R...

(1813 – August 4, 1882) Anna Murray-Douglass was an American  abolitionist , member of the  Underground Railroad , and the first wife of American social reformer and statesman  Frederick Douglass , from 1838 to her death.  Anna Murray was born in  Denton, Maryland , to Bambar(r)a  and Mary Murray.  Unlike her seven older brothers and sisters, who were born in slavery, Anna Murray and her younger four siblings were born free,  her parents having been  manumitted  just a month before her birth.  A resourceful young woman, by the age of 17 she had established herself as a laundress and housekeeper.  Her laundry work took her to the docks, where she met Frederick Douglass,  who was then working as a  caulker . Murray's freedom made Douglass believe in the possibility of his own. When he decided to escape slavery in 1838, Murray encouraged and helped him by providing Douglass with some sailor's clothing her ...