By Jeff Thomas
A recent trip to the African American Museum of History and Culture was inspiring and motivational. Despite the current attempts to roll back recent progress, the general state of affairs for African Americans is paradoxically downtrodden yet optimistic. Chronic unemployment, massive underemployment, unfair police practices, overly harsh prison sentencing, and bad education systems juxtapose Barak Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Colin Kaperneak, lawyers, judges and doctors and community leaders across America.
The recent display of racism and bigotry during the removal of the confederate monuments is real evidence that the forces that see black people as inferior and seek to exploit blacks for financial gain are alive and well armed. That government currently sees these terrorists as above the law in NOLA is verified by the fact that no arrests were made despite these radicals breaking the law by openly carrying firearms within 100 feet of a school is alarming. Still the monuments were removed and New Orleans is now inspiring municipalities across the country to remove the reverences to hate and bigotry.
The museum in Washington, D.C. is a realistic, intelligent, and informative look at the transition to a race based view of humans, despite centuries of previous interactions as equals. Africans and Europeans traded goods and services for centuries. But a sudden and dramatic shift occurred when Europeans desired sugar in large quantities. The need for hard labor morphed into the forced labor as Europeans deceived their former trading partners and claimed harmless unforced labor for their captives. Today many scientists consider sugar an addictive substance. So Europeans actually supported their drug addictions by enslaving Africans to harvest and process sugar.
While Louisiana sugar cane plantations were the most dangerous and brutal places in the slavery universe, an interview with local activist and former Black Panther, Malik Raheim, revealed that Louisiana was also home to the most persistent slave revolts and runaway system in America. The maroons of Louisiana lived off the land navigating the bayous and estuaries of Mississippi delta. These runaways were heavily armed and traded with the American Indian tribes of the area.
“There was a free town on the westbank that whites dared not enter. Even the slave catchers dared not enter Freetown,” roared Raheim. “These men knew the bayous from Algiers to the Gulf and from Laplace to Lake Pontchartrain.” Louisiana slave catching police were notoriously barbaric. Chopping off a single foot to deter running away or brutally whipping men for the slightest disrespect regulated the daily travels between plantations of slaves. “Ironically the oldest township in Jefferson Parish,” says Raheim, “was a town for free black men and runaway slaves that even the white slave catchers were afraid to go into!”
A large section of the national museum focuses on Louisiana and supports the claims of Raheim. According to the museum, “Louisiana had the largest maroon or runaway settlements in North America. Escaping into the protection of the swamps and bayous, enslaved Africans and often Native Americans created societies apart from colonial governments. Usually well-armed, slaves and maroons from various plantations met regularly in the swamps and exchanged goods and news. By the time the American Revolution was drawing to a close, the maroons controlled vital parts of the Louisiana territory.”
Learning about the rich, vibrant and independent history of African Americans in our state and country will help transform the lives of people today.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu