Pat Davis was just 10 years old when two black men came into his father's barbecue joint in the heart of the Mississippi Delta in 1947. A huge fuss ensued, with four racists shouting every name in the book.
"My daddy went over to their table and said, 'These are people who want to eat just like you want to eat. You don't bother them. You leave them alone,' " Davis says, the incident seared in his mind six decades later. "They told Daddy he could lose his business by letting black people come in."
It's not unusual to find a barbecue restaurant in the South where the ribs are so good you want to run home and kiss your mom. But it's a rare find to discover the South's main delicacy cooked up by Lebanese immigrants in Mississippi, who defied segregation and who've been doing it since 1924.
Welcome to Abe's BBQ, a living testament to good eats and to good people, where civil rights were put to the test and won. In the end, racism took a back seat to slow-cooked pit barbecue. Today, Abe's remains one of the oldest restaurants in Mississippi.
It's named after founder Abraham Davis, who arrived in Mississippi from Lebanon in 1913 when he was 13 years old.
Abe's sits at The Crossroads, the landmark spot at Highways 49 and 61 in Clarksdale where legend has it that blues king Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. Two giant guitars jut into the sky marking the spot where the deal went down.
You might be pausing here. Lebanese in Mississippi? Defying segregation? Sounds like something out of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County.
As you sit down with a platter of ribs this Labor Day weekend, this is one barbecue story you might enjoy over cole slaw, baked beans and beer.
The town of Clarksdale is located about 70 miles southwest of Memphis, Tennessee, with a population of about 20,000 people. It was once known as the "Golden Buckle in the Cotton Belt," complete with Lebanese, Italian, Chinese and Jewish immigrants along with local blacks and white plantation owners.
Much of the immigrant population has moved on. The town these days is perhaps best known for the Delta Blues Museum and for the nearby Ground Zero Blues Club, co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman. Blues purists may point you around the corner to Red's juke joint, a ramshackle place where raw Delta blues oozes from the walls. On this night, Eli Paperboy Reed and the True Loves brought the house down.
But it's Abe's that has stood the test of time. Abraham Davis started his pit barbecue as the Bungalow Inn in 1924. It moved to its current location around 1936, and Pat Davis renamed it after his father in 1960.
Davis says being an immigrant -- or in his case, the son of immigrants -- gives one a better respect for all people. "It was a humbling feeling, and we knew how the blacks must've felt," he says. "Being Lebanese, my parents weren't truly accepted as first-class citizens when they first got here."
Andrew Clark, a 58-year-old African-American, worked at Abe's from 1962 to 1990, beginning when he was 16. He says Abe's is a symbol of great barbecue and a shrine to the civil rights struggle.
"They didn't see us as colored. They saw us customers," Clark says. "It didn't matter whether you were white or black ... I never seen them turn down anyone."
Sometimes he'd hear racist comments from white customers. When that happened, Pat Davis always stepped in. "The whole family is really, really great people," Clark says. "This place really has good roots to it."
---click above to read the rest of the article---Pat Davis was just 10 years old when two black men came into his father's barbecue... more
Mazen Abdul Jawad, a Saudi man who spoke about losing his virginity and his sexual conquests on Lebanese channel LBC was arrested due to Saudi Arabian religious customs that forbid talk about sex in public and pre-marital sex.Mazen Abdul Jawad, a Saudi man who spoke about losing his virginity and his sexual... more
"It’s been interesting, to say the least, watching the public reaction to my Rolling Stone piece last week. I of course expected that some kind of highly unpleasant response would come my way from Goldman and its allies in the press, but I admit to being surprised a little by the form this response took. Obviously I don’t want to dwell on this business, because it’s beyond boring when someone in my position complains about his critics, but I feel like I have to say something about at least a few of the talking points of the inevitable Goldman counteroffensive, which in various forms (letters sent to me personally, public comments) have reached my desk in the last few days.
The most ludicrous of these, and the one that surprised me the most, is the accusation that my article was anti-Semitic propaganda. The first letter I got on this score I actually mistook for a joke sent to me by one of my friends. Then I got another one which I quickly realized was not a joke at all. “Isn’t it convenient,” it read, “that an Arab-American writer for Rolling Stone looks at Wall Street and picks the most prototypically Jewish firm around to demonize.”
The last time I heard something similar was a few years ago, when Debbie Schlussel, a severely dimwitted Detroit-based right-wing pundit, railed against my supposed Arabness after I wrote an article about the Lebanese population in Dearborn, Michigan. I wrote to her to let her know that I’m actually Irish and Filipino, and not at all an Arab, but never got a response. This time the charge is a little different, as several writers complained that my article was “a rehash of every classic anti-Jewish conspiracy theory” and “a pale copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
[continues at link]"It’s been interesting, to say the least, watching the public reaction to my Rolling... more
CNN's Video Report {Copy & Paste}: (http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2009/03/05/elwazer.lebanon.citizenship.cnn)
The Current Reality on Lebanese Soil:
All over Lebanon, women who marry foreigner mates are denied their ultimate and universal right to pass along their nationality. This basically extends to not only the husband (foreigner), but also to their children. Such a reality, however, is not faced by men who marry foreign women (thus easily passing their nationality to the man's whole family).
This rendered inequality of citizenship is discriminatory and it denies women a basic human right. It also has serious implications for children...Article also published on the activist Group on Facebook: (http://linkbee.com/LebWomanEquality) quoting: "Men of quality, RESPECT women's equality".
The various goals of the campaign include:
- Primary Objective: Advocating equal access of women to full nationality and citizenship rights
- The actual realization and display of equality WITHOUT reservation (thus by Law)
- Concentrate the public attention towards this subject matter, and accordingly acting upon it as soon as possible.
Thanks go out to: Schams Elwazer, Greta Sassine Nawas, Bilal Younes, Mohammad Ahmad, Zinab Chahine, and many others for all their continuous efforts, devotion to the subject matter and insistence to make the voice of all Lebanese mothers heard (and especially for the government to act)!
Publisher: Elias N.CNN's Video Report {Copy & Paste}:... more
Egypt's prosecutor has charged the chairman of developer Talaat Moustafa Group for hiring a man to kill Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim in Dubai, the prosecution said on Tuesday.
The indictment charges former police officer Muhsen el-Sukkari with killing Tamim on July 28 in return for $2 million from company chairman Hesham Talaat Moustafa.
Shares in Talaat Moustafa, one of Egypt's biggest real estate developers, fell 16 percent to 5.21 pounds ($0.97) on Tuesday as reports of the indictment reached the stock market.
Egypt's prosecutor has charged the chairman of developer Talaat Moustafa Group for hiring a man to kill Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim in Dubai, the prosecution said on Tuesday.
The indictment charges former police officer Muhsen el-Sukkari with killing Tamim on July 28 in return for $2 million from company chairman Hesham Talaat Moustafa.
Shares in Talaat Moustafa, one of Egypt's biggest real estate developers, fell 16 percent to 5.21 pounds ($0.97) on Tuesday as reports of the indictment reached the stock market.
Egyptian media reports have said that Sukkari has worked as a security officer at the Four Seasons Hotel in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which Talaat Moustafa built.
The indictment says Moustafa "took part through incitement, agreement and assistance with the first defendant (Sukkari) in killing the victim in revenge".
"He provided him with special information and amounts of money necessary to plan and carry out the crime," it said.
Sukkari went to Tamim's apartment in Dubai on July 28 and gained access by pretending to be a representative of the company which owns the building, bringing a present and a letter of thanks from the company, the indictment said.
"He then laid into her with the knife ... cutting her main arteries and her trachea," it added.
"This was on the instigation of the second defendant in return for obtaining from him the sum of $2 million for committing this crime," it said.
Beyond the reference to "revenge", the indictment did not speculate on Moustafa's motives for his acts.
Egypt's prosecutor has charged the chairman of developer Talaat Moustafa Group for... more
Moshe Sasson felt the gun pressed against his head, a Lebanese assailant poised to shoot, when the lights in the hall of his apartment building suddenly went out, allowing him to escape and take cover under a car.
The gunman, Samir Kantar, went on to kill three other people in one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history. Three decades later, he is about to be freed in exchange for two Israeli soldiers whose capture set off a monthlong Mideast war.
Moshe Sasson felt the gun pressed against his head, a Lebanese assailant poised to... more
A Lebanese Muslim -Aaron-Micaël Beydoun is trying to raise awareness about Jews in Lebanon and with the help of his website (thejewsoflebanon.org) he is trying to stop the segregation of this tiny minority.
In Concordia University Beydoun said:
"Let the Jews of Lebanon live," The 21-year-old said his mission is to help Jews of Lebanon realize "that they are not alone in their country." With his website, he helps Jewish Lebanese communicate with fellow Jews living all around the world.
"We can all live together," he said. Currently a member of the Lebanese American Chamber of Commerce and a contributing journalist for an alternative magazine in Beirut, Beydoun also started a NGO to help needy Jewish Lebanese through monetary assistance and to take part in projects such as renovating Beirut's great synagogue. It has become harder for Jews to practise their faith in Lebanon due to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Beydoun said the violence directed toward Jews must stop. The young man said the Lebanese youth is tired of sectarianism, "a cancer" as he called it. "The society is still sick of this mentality," he said. Beydoun added that the Lebanese youth does not want to continue on the path their parents and grand-parents paved before them.
The second topic of discussion at the event was the history of Sepharadi Jews. The chairperson of Spanish Language studies at Université de Montréal, Oro Anahory-Librowicz, said that culture must be preserved through a dynamic process. She explained that Sepharadi Jews are descendants of Spanish Jews who were expelled by the King of Spain. They settled in the Ottoman Empire, in Turkey and Lebanon. A Lebanese Muslim -Aaron-Micaël Beydoun is trying to raise awareness about Jews in... more
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- President Emile Lahoud said Friday that Lebanon is in a "state of emergency" and ordered the army to take over security powers, hours before he was stepping down without a successor and leaving a political vacuum in the divided country. The pro-Western government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora rejected the move, raising tensions.
The announcement by the pro-Syrian president immediately raised further confusion amid Lebanon's political turmoil, which many fear could explode into violence between supporters of the government and the opposition.BEIRUT, Lebanon -- President Emile Lahoud said Friday that Lebanon is in a "state of... more
Racial tensions that have have been mounting between Australians of Lebanese descent and other Australians exploded this weekend on Sydney's Cronulla Beach.Racial tensions that have have been mounting between Australians of Lebanese descent... more
The citizens of Lebanon are constantly bombarded with propaganda, explosions and gunfire. The BlakkBox team goes to the streets to look into the effect that the environment has on the people. An interview with Sharif, a theatre teacher who looks after a group of children in Lebanon, sheds a dark light on the consequences of living in a place like Lebanon.The citizens of Lebanon are constantly bombarded with propaganda, explosions and... more
The city of Peoria, IL has the second largest population of Lebanese people in the state outside of Chicago. When Isreal started bombing Lebanon in mid-July, many Peorians found themselves fleeing their native country in order to avoid the attacks on the country. This piece details two families, the Abi-Akar family and the Koury family as they evacuate a country in crisis.The city of Peoria, IL has the second largest population of Lebanese people in the... more
VC2 Producer Darren Connell takes to the streets of Sydney to explain how the race riots recently exploded.VC2 Producer Darren Connell takes to the streets of Sydney to explain how the race... more
