This Black History honor goes to...

Peggy Brooks-Bertram

African Sisterhood © 1990
by Peggy Brooks-Bertram
April 22, 1990
Melanin Conference, Houston Texas

African sisters, we shook the universe last night.
Our souls intermingled when we held on tight,
to those who voices cracked in pain
and those who thought they could abstain,
with ancestors swirling all about,
urging us to sing and shout.
Demanding that we find the strength to break the chains that cause us
African women pain.
Like men, and hair and shades of skin and other demons locked within.

And, there were those who thought they could abstain
with ancestors swirling all about
directing us to sing and shout.

"Raise your hands in her direction, give that sister your protection."
Release her from her terrible pain, make this sister whole again.
Demons begone! Demons begone! Demons begone!

These African sisters claim their power and demand you leave within the hour!
And still there were those who thought they could abstain
with ancestors swirling all about,
urging us to sing and shout:

"This little light of mine, "I'm gonna let it shine," "This little light of mine,
"I'm gonna let it shine," "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine,"
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine."

Someone hold that sister, soothe her fears, kiss her face, wipe her tears.
One by one, each in turn would find the strength to stand and say,
I need you, I love you and I'm so glad I'm here today.

Till there were none who could abstain
with ancestors swirling all about,
directing us to sing and shout,
commanding demons to get out!

We shook the universe last night.
Our souls inter-mingled as we held on tight, promising each other to stay in touch
With the African sisterhood we need so much.
Yes, we shook the universe last night.

Peggy Brooks-Bertram is the youngest child and seventh daughter of Margaret Gilliam Brooks and Vernon Brooks of Richmond, Virginia. She moved to Buffalo, New York in 1986 with her husband, Dennis A. Bertram, and two children Dennison Ivor-Jean and Lillian-Yvonne Margaret Bertram. Lillian is a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon University majoring in Creative Writing, Spanish and a student at University of Pittsburgh in Latin American Studies. Dennison is a senior at University of Pittsburgh and a major in Eastern European Studies. He is currently in Prague.


She completed a B.A. in Political Science from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, and received a Masters and Doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. In June 2002, she completed a second doctorate in American Studies from the University at Buffalo. Currently she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University at Buffalo.

Dr. Bertram is a multi-talented individual with interests across a broad spectrum including public education, special topics in public health, journalism, creative writing, and independent scholarship on various topics in African American history. She is the founder and CEO of Jehudi Educational Services, an independent consultant firm specializing in K-12 curriculum development, staff development and training, conference and seminar planning, and specialized grant and proposal development.

Dr. Bertram is devoted to public education and has a distinguished record of advocacy for parents of children in public schools. Her previous activities included Chair, Parent Advisory Committee, Buffalo Board of Education; Chair, Early Childhood Centers; Member, African History Infusion Committee; Chair, Prevention Committee, Blue Ribbon Task Force on AIDS; and others. She remains a vocal advocate for parent involvement in public schools. Her advocacy resulted in the co-founding of Concerned Parents and Citizens for Quality Education, Inc., a group credited with increasing public awareness of educational issues, organizing parents as effective advocates, securing public funding to educate parents, and shaping public policy on review of Board of Education members.

Her interests and activities in public health include African American women and depression and developmental disabilities and African Americans. Her book chapters on depression include "Social and Psychological Aspects of Women's Health: A Diversified Perspective" in Psychiatric Issues in Women, Bailliere's International Practice and Research in Psychiatry (1997) and "African American Women: Disfigured Images in the Epidemiology of Depression", in African American Women and Health edited by Catherine Collins (1997). She also is interested in African American women and work-related depression.

She maintains a special interest in families of children with neurological impairments. She was instrumental in the creation of a parent-based organization called the Alliance of Neurological Impairments to provide services for families with children with "low incidence" conditions such as Prader Willi Syndrome, Neurofibromatosis, Narcolepsy, Spina Bifida, and other impairments. She is nationally known for her work with Prader Willi Syndrome and has successfully written grants for Buffalo agencies to provide services to these families.

Dr. Bertram is no stranger to broadcast media. For several years she maintained a bi-line, MAAT, with the Challenger newspaper. She produced her own radio program, Peggy's Place, which focused on issues pertinent to the African American community. She also was co-producer and host of an educational television program, Education in Review, which informed the community of major educational issues in Buffalo and beyond.

She is a playwright, poet, and dramatist. Her creative writing includes five children's books entitled, African On My Stairs. Illustrations from this series hang in the Rev. Bennett W. Smith Family Life Center at St. John Baptist Church. In 1988, her play, Dynasties of Kush, was selected to be included in the University at Buffalo, First International Women's Playwright Conference. It was enacted at the Langston Hughes Institute.

Dr. Bertram also is an independent scholar, researching and writing on the Dungy family of Virginia. Her particular interest is the life and writings of Drusilla Dunjee Houston, author of the obscure and forgotten text, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empires. She is author of a book chapter on Houston to be featured in the Oklahoma Encyclopedia Project, part of the 2007 celebration of the founding of the State of Oklahoma. She is also author of a book (in press) on Houston entitled, Drusilla Dunjee Houston: Uncrowned Queen in the African American Women's Literary Tradition. She has lectured on her scholarship at numerous Universities and colleges throughout the United States, Africa, Europe, and Canada.

In 2001, Morgan State University awarded her the university's first Distinguished Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to African American History and Culture. Other scholarly interests include the Old Testament dynasties of the ancient Kings of Kush. Her book chapter on the Kings of Kush appears in the Journal of African Civilizations, edited by Ivan Van Sertima (1997).

Dr. Bertram has been instrumental in building organizations to benefit community development. These include co-founding of the WASET Cultural Heritage Society, Saturday School for African American Children; Concerned Parents and Citizens for Public Education; and more recently, the Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women, Inc. The Uncrowned Queens Institute is derived from the Uncrowned Queens Project a web-based application of history and cultural enrichment for the African American community, http://wings.buffalo.edu/uncrownedqueens.

Community service awards include M.O.C.H.A. (Men of Color Helping All) of the Year Award, African-American Fire Fighters; Clifford G. Bell Community Service Award; and the National Association of Counties, Individual Achievement Award for Family Support Programs for Families of Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome.

More recently, Peggy received the University at Buffalo, UB Service Excellence Award for the Library Internship/Residency Program, 2001. In addition, she is the recipient of the UB Star Award 2001 for outstanding work on the Pan-American Exposition centennial celebration with the Uncrowned Queens Project. Awards from women's organizations include the Xi Epsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Excellence in Education Aware; the Mary B. Talbert Civic and Cultural Club's Award for Community Service and the prestigious Buffalo Urban League's 2002 Community Life Award. She also is the recipient of the William Wells Brown award from the Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier.

She is the co-author, along with Barbara Seals Nevergold, of a recently published book, Uncrowned Queens: African American Women Community Builders of Western New York. She is co-authoring a second book on the African/African American experience at the Pan American Exposition. It is entitled African, Darkies and Negroes: Black Faces at the Pan American Exposition of 1901.

Other community activities include membership on the Board of Directors of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society and the Kaleida Health Trustee Council

Dr. Bertram is a member of the St. John Baptist Church where she is Chair of the St. John Hospice Development Committee. In this position, she has a leadership role in developing the first Faith-based Hospice and Palliative Care center for an African American community in the nation.

Thank you, again, Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram for visiting our blog. We are honored to have you stop by & educate us. I had the opportunity to visit your website as well and to say I am enlightened would be an understatement! If there is anyone out there who does not believe or know about the accomplishments of African American women, they work they've done & continue to do & the support they provide for their communities, check out UncrownedQueens.com!

Info credit: UncrownedQueens.com

This Black History honor goes to...

Drusilla Dunjee Houston

*Thank you to Dr. Peggy Bertram-Brooks for visiting our blog & taking the time to educate us about the wonderful accomplishments of Drusilla Dunjee Houston. For without you, I would never have had the opportunity to "know" her!

America's Uncrowned Queens:
Dedicated to the Heroic, Toiling Black Woman
by Drusilla Dunjee Houston

October 26, 1917 - Black Dispatch
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society

'Neath a weary load upon dusky head,
Upon American streets is the tread
Of an uncrowned type of heroine,
Their labors untrumpeted and unseen.
It to her helpmate, life chance is denied
With undaunted courage, she stems the tide,
Meets some of homes needs, help make it fair;
That he may find a kingship there.

When manhood is shackled, into its place
Nature oft forces a courageous race
Of women, who with heroic spirit,
Stamp within unborn children the merit
Denied their fathers. For what man's disdain
Keeps from one generation, the next will gain.

We see them in rain, in cold and the heat,
As they pass us with patient, toil worn feet.
Behind some great universities wall
It is the boy or girl for whom she gives all
Sometimes the more sacrificial her fire
The less we praise it, the more we require.

Whipped with the lash, until the reddened stain,
Of her life blood ran from opening vein,
In slavery's hour, this type was true
To virtue. Today life's way they pursue
As heroically. No scorn or slight
Can change her ideals, she sees aright;
That duty done, in higher worlds will mean
That she will be more than an uncrowned queen.

Drusilla Dunjee was born on January 20, 1876 in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Her parents were Rev. John William Dunjee and Lydia Taylor Dunjee. Her father was influential in the American Baptist Home Missionary Society and traveled throughout the country establishing Baptist congregations in areas inhabited by poor Black rural dwellers. During these times Houston lived in numerous states on the Eastern Seaboard, in the South, the Northeast and finally the Midwest in Oklahoma. Houston and was one of ten siblings, only five of whom lived to adulthood. The other survivors included Roscoe, Irving, Blanche and Ella. The most famous of her siblings was Roscoe Conkling Dunjee, Editor of the Oklahoma Black Dispatch, an influential mid-western newspaper with national prominence. Houston was Contributing Editor but assumed major responsibility in keeping the paper financially solvent, while at the same time conducting her own research and writing on various historical and social matters.


Like many African American women writers swallowed up and languishing in the historical gap, Houston is one of the most prolific and all but forgotten African American women writers of the 20th century. Considered a “historian without portfolio” and dismissed as a serious historian and writer by leading Black male historians of Post Emancipation and the Harlem Renaissance, e.g., W.E.B. DuBois, Alaine Locke, Carter G. Woodson and others, Houston burst on the historical literary scene in 1926 with Volume I of her magnum opus Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire Book 1: Nations of the Cushite Empire, Marvelous Facts from Authentic Records thought to represent the crowning achievement of Drusilla Dunjee Houston’s literary life. With this work, Houston is remembered as the earliest known and possibly the only African American woman to write a multi-volume study of ancient Africa where she boldly proclaimed in 1926, an African origin of civilization and culture during one of the most turbulent periods for black Americans in American history.

Through this work, Houston left her own mark as a pioneering advocate of the study of Africa, especially ancient African history and is credited with creating a Pan African framework proclaiming the African origin of civilization. Obadeli Williams in a review of Houston’s second book noted that: “the Cushitic background and origin of the ancient Egyptians recorded by Dunjee-Houston has been confirmed by Cheikh Anta Diop’s 12 categories of evidence of their African origins. Fifty years before Martin Bernal’s Black Athena (1984) and a generation before George G.M. James Stolen Legacy (1954) while predating Diop’s African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality? (1974) by 40 years; Dunjee-Houston pioneered African-centered historiography. Dunjee-Houston is indeed the foremother of Africana historical writing and research. She sought to burst asunder vestiges of notions of the “Dark Continent” in both academia and among the lay populace. Her second book Wonderful Ethiopians Book II: Origin of Civilization from the Cushites created a wedding between the adherents of the Garvey movement and the Harlem Literary Renaissance.

Books I was only the beginning. Houston often reported that she had written at least six volumes in what she referred to as the Wonderful Ethiopians Series, including Origin of the Aryans, Astounding Lost African Empires, Cushites in Western Europe, Cushites in the Americas and others. Regrettably, all appear lost with the exception of Book II, Origin of Civilization from the Cushites which was recently discovered and published by a long time Houston researcher and scholar, Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram. The late Asa G. Hilliard, III in a commentary on Houston’s second, long lost manuscript describes Houston thusly:”When the roll is called of the great Africans who corrected the errors and defamation in the ancient story of African people, the list will include, …Arthur A. Schomburg, John G. Jackson, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Theophile Obenga, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Dr. Jacob Carruthers, and many others. However, with this and other masterworks, that roll of masters must never be called without the name of one, whose love for her people, and whose model of excellence we now know even better than before, Drusilla Dunjee Houston.”

Aside from her writings on ancient African history and later American history, Dunjee Houston was a multi-faceted figure, who, at one time or another during her wide-ranging career was an educator, elegist, racial uplift theorist, institution builder and journalist. Her writings cross multiple literary periods including the race writers, the Black Women’s Era (1890-1900), and the Harlem Renaissance or the New Negro era. Still, despite voluminous writings for more than four decades --including editorials, pamphlets, poetry, elegy, screenplays and historical texts—Houston remains one of the most overlooked African American women writers in African American women’s history and is also one of the most important African American women in the American West. Houston was a lover of children and from her early days teaching in the segregated schools of pre-Territorial Oklahoma—barely fifteen years of age--devoted her life to providing the correct historical information on Africa to the black children she regarded as “acres of diamonds.” It was for these children that she began building academic institutions, some privately financed, e.g., the McAlester Seminary, the Sapulpa Training School with the Baptist Convention and others.

A search for Houston over decades reveals an extraordinarily private woman who felt compelled to thrust herself into the major social and political dialogues of her era, especially the racial uplift work of the federated women’s clubs. When she began writing, it was clear that Houston was eager to first take her readers “Mountain Stepping,” and then “moleing and mining” in the old dusty books that presented what she believed to be the true history of ancient Africa. She educated hundreds of students throughout her life but was one of her own best students as she was the consummate self-taught student fluent in French, German, Greek and Latin. These skills are especially evident in other writings, particularly her screen play, “The Maddened Mob,” written in elegiac verse in 1915 as a refutation of Birth of a Nation. Arguably, Houston was the very first African American to write a blow by blow refutation of Birth of a Nation, which she hoped to become a “flashing photo play.”

Houston was always fearful that her works would be lost and forgotten and that they would never reach the audience she desired, namely the children. To some extent she was correct. On February 11, 1941, Houston died in Arizona after many years of illness from Tuberculosis. True to her deep faith, her grave marker reads: “To Die is to Gain.”

Info credit: Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram via Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH.com) & UncrownedQueens.com