Untold RVA

peace family and friends, it's me, free bangura sending you the greetings from the sun soaked shores of freetown sierra leone! 🇸🇱

it's february first, me and bill's birthday month! it will be different this year but traditons like ours never die.

on this first day of black history month, i am looking back fondly at my home town richmond and i know i must keep doing my part to "move the needle forward", as bill would surely say. what needle? i never thought to ask. a vinyl records needle? a tattoo needle? who knows lmk.

anyway y'all look closely at this so called 1860 photograph below. it's clearly AI but began circulating throughout social media today.

look how the woman is standing alongside the stiff and pretentious poses of the richmond elite. here stands our fictitous AI sister with spiritual eyes that we're led to believe can see straight across the atlantic and even across the veil between worlds.

this invention of a woman, standing in the shadow of an antebellum richmond mansion, is also being said to have used her society's sacred amulets consecrated to the spirits of her ancestor warriors to wage a silent rebellion against anyone who had the audacity to attempt her erasure.

it's comical the lengths to which people will go for clicks and likes but at the same time, it's a great conversation starter and we all know who loved those.

some of you reading already know and understand the very real power of a strand of beads to transmit a sacred and rhythmic west african prayer that both protects and broadcasts a secret code of unbroken lineage, proving our ancestors never truly belonged to those people who claimed them as their own.

though she is but a figment of the AI imagination, there are so many hidden stories about the quiet acts of resistance, fueled by the same deep curiosity that sparked that mischievious glint in the bespectacled eye of the late great .

that incorrigible and unrepentant oddball provocateur never stopped double dog daring me to hunt for new truths nobody else would have the gumption to talk about, nor the unmitigated gall to celebrate.

bill lived to specifically amplify narratives that make the powerful uncomfortable while helping our people realize the sheer intensity of our own resilient, self determined strength.

we all worked shoulder to shoulder to cement GABRIEL WEEK in the annals of richmond history to honor brother general gabriel, his wife nan and all his fearless richmond comrades.

since it's going viral anyway, let's use this fictitious richmond woman from yorubaland and her imagined but relatable self determination story to extend our resistance narratives and activate our impact across the atlantic.

beloved bill, who so many of you know was my biggest champion since the very start of my career, would be the first to support this leap. in fact the last conversations we had were indeed him doing just that.

he knew black richmond's untold stories do not end at the powhatan (james) river. they trace back and move us forward in one fell swoop and electrify our great migration and victory lap of glorious return.

now that bill has claimed his golden immortality, i must look to all of you to join me as partners in the next (r)evolution:

repatriation station, sacred salone and the chieftaincy initiation project, untold society.

untold has officially moved into the future of pan african repatriation, genetic genealogy and chieftaincy initiation for leadership development in support of the next gen archive activists and warrior scholars.

since receiving my dna-confirmed citizenship from his excellency the president of sierra leone in 2019, i have been painstakingly building the infrastructure for my richmond brothers and sisters (and far beyond) to come home too.

his excellency said anybody whose ancestors suffered in the slavery era is welcome to embrace sierra leone as their reclaimed pan african home.

i am fortunate to run one of a small number of fully licensed and authorized sierra leone tour operator organizations tasked with the work of facilitating people's pathway to citizenship.

i am also the first woman in my themne tribe to ever be crowned a woman king, representing the whole entire themne diaspora.

all sixteen tribal heads in freetow chose me to serve as their ambassador. it is big work but i know it's what i was born to do.

so this month, let’s stop just remembering the history of our oppression and resistance, both real and imagined. let's go deep into the roots of who we are and where we come from before we were forced to leave home.

let's start by reclaiming our birthright in the motherland. it's ok! nobody's chaining us down. we are free to go so why not?

speaking of freedom, i actually coined a new phrase a while back for freetown: the last stop on the underground railroad.

that pretty much means the depot to leave up out of here is in our beloved richmond. all aboard!

so y'all. aren't we still a conspiracy of good people like charles kuralt once called us? surely the ancestor warriors are still on our side.

didn't you hear? they tried to bury us but they didn't know we were seeds.

we are the children of those who chose to survive.

life is tough, my dear but so tf are we so keep going and don't ever stop.

may our collective work inspire generations!

power to the people!

may it be so.

i know a perfect way to honor and elevate our beloved bill martin:

press play and really watch ebony walden's curated conversation about racial equity in richmond.

it was 2021 and bill and i were the invited guests. the dialogue was so rich. the chemistry was incredible for an unscripted exchange.

it's been quite a while since i last watched this video but it was such a beautiful moment in which we both dropped precious jewels by the mouthful from start to finish.

bless you, Ebony Walden, for having the foresight to put this together. it's a treasure and a gift to have been a part of this iconic and unforgettable moment.

please everyone, take a look at this. pull out your pen and paper. write down the time stamps that resonate. share them with us below.

this talk is the blueprint, inked with scientific precision. study it. build on it. take it to the next level. let's see what y'all can do. the ball is in your court now.

long live the spirit of our dear friend bill martin bill martin bill martin.

say his name and never stop.

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Racial Equity in Richmond: Episode 6 with Free Bangura and Bill Martin History and Innovation - Historians Free Bangura of Untold RVA and The Valentine’s Bill Martin, explore how telling the story of history truthfully can spark...

bill martin.
bill martin.
bill martin.

dinamo. it's probably his all-time favorite restaurant.

he loved being with his favorite people there. he wanted us to cherish the wonderful feeling of sitting across (or beside) him at supper, sharing and giving and laughing and crying...

we've grieved the losses of our parents there, of the scary systemic changes to the order of the world, we've celebrated life-shifting accomplishments there, we even planned our funerals there.

dinamo is his happy place and he made it be so for me as well. i'm sure many of you would agree. we've eaten all the way up and down the menu a couple of times.

his favorites: some sort of liver spread with crostini that i refused to try, octopus i refused to try, rockfish neither of us could ever get enough of, soft shell crabs neither of us could ever get enough of, arugula with white beans neither of us could ever get enough of, big bowls of delicate, handmade pasta neither of us could ever get enough of and wine. lots and lots of complex, moody red wine.

at dinamo, you could really see a different side of him. it's public but intimate and sheltered. the dining area is ridiculously tiny and has less than six inches between the tables and chairs. iykyk.

the seating is so tight, it became the perfect excuse for PDA. he was an introvert who was known to flee from the midst of most people one moment and then get the urge to huddle close and kiki the next.

he was half "don't you even think about touching me" and the other half "come, sit. scooch over here".

true story: he slid in my DMs earlier this month. i was wondering if he was in his feelings or something. like everyone, he would get a touch of seasonal blues.

he was always a tiny bit emo about the holidays but he loved the sincerity of families being together. i could tell he really wanted me to come home for kwanzaa.

"just thinking about you", he wrote. "richmond is not the same...i am a fossil".

i told him that since i've been gone, i'd heard richmond had been overrun by infidels and that i wasn't sure what else was left to do in the city that we hadn't already done.

nevertheless, he stayed put. he didn't travel. he honestly wouldn't have rather be anywhere else but in richmond, warming his feet by his own cozy fire in church hill.

bill martin.
bill martin.
bill martin.

these are his Untold RVA stories.

say his name. never stop. all hail richmond's finest.

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