By: Ayana Young,
on 3/1/2016
There is a moment in the George Miller film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985) that has stuck with me over the two decades since I first saw it. A bedraggled Max (Mel Gibson) is escorted through the crumbling desert outpost of Bartertown.
The post W.E.B. Du Bois and the literature of upheaval appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Ayana Young,
on 2/28/2016
In 1996, decades before the trending hashtag, Reverend Jesse Jackson led a boycott protesting the lack of diversity at the Oscars. Having encouraged attendees to wear a rainbow ribbon in support of the issue, he was ridiculed for his efforts.
The post #OscarsSoWhite: new branding for an old problem appeared first on OUPblog.
By: hannahehrlich,
on 2/18/2016
Today on the blog we are honored to be able to interview Joseph McGill, Founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, which works to preserve extant slave dwellings and organizes overnight stays in them to bring attention to the history and experiences of enslaved people. Welcome, Mr. McGill!
When and how did you first get the idea for the Slave Dwelling Project?
As a former employee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, I would assist property owners in saving places. Those places were usually iconic and architecturally significant which left a void for those structures important to African Americans, especially those who were enslaved. I have also been a Civil War reenactor for over 20 years. Five years ago, my experience with being a preservationist and a Civil War reenactor morphed into the Slave Dwelling Project. The concept is simple, find extant slave dwellings and ask the owners if I can spend a night in them in order to bring much needed attention to these often neglected dwellings.
How many different slave dwellings have you slept in?
I have spent nights in over 80 slave dwellings, some more than once, in the states of Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Was there a particular dwelling or experience that moved you the most?
The experience that moved me the most was the opportunity to stand on an auction block at Seward Plantation in Brenham, Texas. I thought about enslaved people standing on auction blocks having to expose their backs to show the potential buyers that there were no scars on their backs. Scars were indications that they were defiant and were beaten. No slave owner wanted to buy a defiant enslaved person to insert among his already docile and broken enslaved people.
Why do you think it’s so important to preserve these places?
The buildings that we preserve fit the historical narrative that we espouse. In other words, we tend to show our history in the buildings we choose to preserve. Preserving only the architecturally significant buildings supports a false narrative. This false narrative suggests that the purging of Native Americans was just; interning Japanese Americans during World War II was just; the lynchings that occurred in this nation were just. There are lots of items that can be added to the aforementioned list because some of our preserved buildings and monuments honor some of the people who perpetrated some of those atrocities. It is imperative that we preserve extant slave dwellings because when properly interpreted, these buildings can help change the narrative.
What do we stand to lose if they are destroyed?
If these buildings are destroyed, we tend to lose the opportunity to change the narrative. If a visitor to a site that once enslaved people should leave that site thinking that slavery was a good thing, that site has failed in its attempt to interpret the institution of slavery. When the buildings are there, it is harder to deny the presence of the people who lived there.
How receptive have plantation and property owners been to your project?
The reception of this project to plantations and property owners has been mixed. As expected, five years ago trying to convince those property owners of my intent was a challenge. Despite that, far more stewards said yes than no, which gave me that confidence to step out on faith to embark on this journey. Five years later, the project is still going strong and has become the clearinghouse for all matters pertaining to extant slave dwellings. More site stewards now reach out to me than I reach out to them.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen this, but two children’s books came under fire recently for depicting smiling slaves (more info here and here). What are your thoughts on this? Do you have any advice for children’s book authors who want to write about slavery, or parents teaching their children about slavery for the first time?
Everyone should do their homework. No one should portray slavery 
as being good for this nation. No one should portray the enslaved as being satisfied with their lot in life because that is that false narrative that needs to be corrected.
What is the top thing you wish Americans knew or understood better about slavery?
Although movies and books are good sources for obtaining history, they do not always get it right. I encourage people of all races, especially African Americans, to visit sites that once engaged in enslaving people. The fact that African Americans have a tendency not to want to visit these sites, gives the stewards the unchecked opportunities to interpret these sites as they wish.
How can people support your work or get involved?
The opportunity to spend a night in a slave dwelling with me and others is an open invitation. You can find out more about upcoming stays or become a member of the Slave Dwelling Project by visiting the website at: www.slavedwellingproject.org.
Mr. Joseph McGill, Jr. is a history consultant for Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, SC and the founder of The Slave Dwelling Project, Inc. His extensive experience in preservation and education includes positions as a field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, as Executive Director of the African American Museum located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as Director of History and Culture at Penn Center, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, and as a Park Ranger at Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston, South Carolina.
Mr. McGill is also the founder of Company “I” 54th Massachusetts Reenactment Regiment in Charleston, South Carolina, the regiment portrayed in the award winning movie “Glory.” As a Civil War Reenactor, Mr. McGill participates in parades, living history presentations, lectures, and battle reenactments. He appears in the book Confederates in the Attic and is a member of the South Carolina Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Mr. McGill is a native of Kingstree, South Carolina.
By: rgarcia406,
on 2/16/2016
The month of February is a time when many communities pause and celebrate the great contributions made by African Americans in history. At Lee & Low we like to not only highlight African Americans who have made a difference, but also explore the diverse experiences of black culture throughout history, from the struggle for freedom in the South and the fight for civil rights to the lively rhythms of New Orleans jazz and the cultural explosion of the Harlem Renaissance.
We put together a list of titles – along with additional resources 
– that align with 7 core values and
themes to help you celebrate both Black History Month and African American culture all 365 days of the year.
It’s important to remember that heritage months, like Black History Month, can encourage a practice of pulling diverse books that feature a particular observed culture for only one month out of the year. To encourage a more everyday approach, we developed an 8-step checklist for building an inclusive book collection that reflects the diversity of the human experience. Teaching Tolerance also offers some helpful solutions to connect multicultural education with effective instructional practices and lists insightful “dos and don’ts” for teaching black history that are applicable to any culturally responsive curriculum or discussion.
How do you celebrate during Black History Month? Or, better yet, how do you help children discover the cultural contributions and achievements of black history all year long? Let us know in the comments!
Perseverance, Determination, & Grit
Leadership & Courage
Teamwork & Collaboration
Responsibility & Commitment
Optimism & Hope
Compassion & Love
Passion & Pride
Discussion questions when reading and learning about core values:
Further reading on teaching core values with students:
Looking for additional resources for teaching Black History? Check out these lesson plans, videos, and tips:
Veronica has a degree from Mount Saint Mary College and joined LEE & LOW in the fall of 2014. She has a background in education and holds a New York State childhood education (1-6) and students with disabilities (1-6) certification. When she’s not wandering around New York City, you can find her hiking with her dog Milo in her hometown in the Hudson Valley, NY.
By: rgarcia406,
on 2/11/2016
February is Black History Month. The origins of Black History Month began with historian Carter G. Woodson launching Negro History Week in 1926. Woodson felt that teaching African American history was essential for the survival of the African American race.
In 1969, students at Kent State University proposed expanding Black History Week to Black History Month. The first Black History Month was celebrated a year later. In 1976, Black History Month was recognized by the federal government and has been celebrated ever since.
Today, heritage months can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, relegating culturally diverse books to specific months of the year can mean these books are overlooked the rest of the year. It can also separate Black history from American history, when in fact black history is American history.
On the other hand, we are still working to undo a long history in which the achievements and contributions of people of color were routinely ignored. Having a special time of year to highlight these achievements can help fill in the gaps in our history.
Our opinion? Black History Month isn’t a time for once-a-year books; the books you use this month should be in your regular rotation. But Black History Month is a good time to give your collection of African American titles a little extra love–or updating, if it needs it.
LEE & LOW is proud to offer a number of different Black History Month collections. Check them out below:
Black History Month Collection, Grades K-2
This paperback collection features a mix of historical fiction and biographies from African Americans who excelled in arts and politics for young readers.
Featured Books:
Love Twelve Miles Long, written by Glenda Armand and illustrated by Colin Bootman – Frederick Douglass’s mother travels twelve miles late at night to visit him in another plantation. Mama recounts why every step of the way is special to her.
Knockin’ On Wood, by Lynne Barasch – Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates, a legendary 20th century tap dancer, lost his leg in an accident at the age of twelve. He taught himself how to dance, first with crutches and then later with a peg leg.
Black History Month Collection, Grades 3-6
This collection explores the lives of great African Americans with a wide range of picture book biographies and historical fiction books for young readers.
Featured Books:
Little Melba and Her Big Trombone, written by Katheryn Russell-Brown and illustrated byFrank Morrison – This award-winning biography follows the life of Melba Liston, a trailblazing musician and a great unsung hero of jazz.
Ira’s Shakespeare Dream, written by Glenda Armand and illustrated by Floyd Cooper -Ira Aldridge dreamed of being on stage one day performing the great works of William Shakespeare. Due to little opportunity in the United States, Ira journeyed to Europe and through perseverance and determination became one of the most respected Shakespearean actors of his time.
Black History Month Collection, Grades 7-12
This collection is perfect for a wide range of middle to high school level readers. Readers will be able to explore the history of African American music, Civil Rights, and sports.
Featured Books:
i see the rhythm, written by Toyomi Igus and illustrated by Michele Wood – This book explores African American music throughout history, starting with its roots in Africa.
I and I Bob Marley, written by Tony Medina and illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson – This book of poems explores the life of famous musician Bob Marley.
Black History Month Special Collection This collection features a mix of award-winning hardcover and paperback biographies of great African Americans at a range of reading levels.
Featured Book:
Love to Langston, written by Tony Medina and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie – Fourteen original poems explore the life of Langston Hughes, one of America’s most beloved poets.
Black History Month Paperback Collection
This collection features hand-picked award winning books, available in paperback.
Featured Book:
In Her Hands, written by Alan Schroeder and illustrated by JaeMe Bereal – Augusta Savage enjoyed sculpting with clay, despite her stern father thinking it was a waste of her time. To pursue a career as an artist, Augusta leaves everything she knows behind and journeys to New York.
Further Reading:
Why Remember Florence “Baby Flo” Mills?
Storyline Online: Catching the Moon
Seven Core Values to Celebrate During Black History Month
Katheryn Russell-Brown on the Research Behind Little Melba and Her Big Trombone
Protesting Injustice Then and Now
Resources for Teaching About Wangari Maathai and Seeds of Change
Three Ways to Teach Etched in Clay
The Origins of the Coretta Scott King Award
More Resources
The Problem with Ethnic Heritage Months
African American History Month (Library of Congress)
By: Bridget Stokes,
on 2/9/2016
When Mary Church Terrell died on 24 July 1954, at the age of 90, her place in civil rights history seemed secure. She had served as the first president of the National Association of Colored Women. She had been a charter member of the NAACP.
The post Mary Church Terrell: a Capitol crusader appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Ayana Young,
on 12/4/2015
When the late Ken Harper first began pitching his idea for a show featuring an all black cast that would repeat and revise the popular plot of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, augmenting it with a Hitsville USA-inspired score, he had television in his sights.
The post The Wiz, then and now appeared first on OUPblog.
By: SoniaT,
on 7/10/2015
"When I went to the Iv'ry Coast, about thirty years ago, I remember coming off the plane and just being assaulted with not only the heat but the color." These were the first words of the most moving story I have ever heard—but it wasn’t the story I was there to collect. For me, the best oral histories are the ones that sound a human chord, stories that blur the spaces between historically significant narrative and personal development.
The post Uniqueness lost appeared first on OUPblog.
By: jilleisenberg14,
on 4/27/2015
It’s baseball season again. It’s also the 10th anniversary of Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream written by Crystal Hubbard and illustrated by Randy DuBurke. How can you celebrate both?
Catching the Moon was selected by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation for its latest read aloud on Storyline Online, an interactive literacy website where well-known actors read popular, award-winning children’s books to help students fall in love with reading.
Resources for Teaching After Reading and Watching Catching the Moon
Comprehension Questions for the Video or Read Aloud
Activity Suggestions
1. Have students compare and contrast Catching the Moon with other baseball biographies. How are their experiences similar? What barriers do they tackle? What character traits do they share that have allowed them to overcome obstacles? What legacies do they leave behind? How do they change people’s minds?
2. Have students research Mo’ne Davis, 13-year-old Philadelphia pitcher in the Little League and compare her experiences in baseball to Marcenia Lyle’s. The Anti-Defamation League’s Current Events Classroom has put together a lesson plan to learn more about Mo’ne Davis and explore gender stereotypes in sports.
3. Science in Baseball? Check out these extension ideas from Science Buddies:
4. Have students discover other women who played and were involved in black professional baseball. Check out the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum’s education resources made in partnership with Kansas State University. Students can learn about the roles African American women played at all levels of the league in the NLBM’s lesson plan.
5. Put Marcenia Lyle’s story in further context. With students, create a timeline of critical moments and milestones of women in American baseball. The National Baseball Hall of Fame has created a five lesson unit on women in baseball history.
If Youtube is blocked or unavailable at your school, find Storyline Online’s Catching the Moon read aloud video at:
How have you been teaching and celebrating Catching the Moon all these years? What lessons and activities did we miss? Share with us!
Jill Eisenberg, our Senior Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her weekly column at The Open Book, she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.
By: Ayana Young,
on 2/28/2015
Civil Rights icon Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a theologian and pastor, who used biblical texts and imagery extensively in his speeches and sermons. Here is a selection of five biblical quotations and allusions that you may not have noticed in his work (in chronological order). 1. “And there is still a […]
The post Five Biblical remixes from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Ayana Young,
on 2/25/2015
What do opera singer Leontyne Price, activist Victoria Gray Adams, civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin, and Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson have in common? They all attended or graduated from Wilberforce University. Located outside of Dayton, Ohio, Wilberforce was the first institution of higher education to be owned and operated by African Americans.
The post Wilberforce University: a pioneering institution in African American education appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Julia Callaway,
on 2/10/2015
Decades before P. Diddy, Jay-Z, and Russell Simmons, there was Frederick Bruce Thomas, known later in his life as Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas — one of the most successful African-American musical impresarios and businessmen of his generation.
Why isn’t he better known now?
The first reason is that a century ago, white America had no interest in celebrating black achievement.
The second is that he triumphed not in the United States, but in Tsarist Russia, which was one of the last places anyone would have expected to find a black American at the dawn of the twentieth century.
As we celebrate Black History Month, Thomas’s story — which until recently was virtually forgotten — provides a striking example of how blacks who fled the United States to escape racism could rise to the top of the economic pyramid in Europe and elsewhere, despite the wars, revolutions, and other hurdles they had to overcome.
Thomas was born in 1872 in Coahoma County, Mississippi and got his wings from his parents — freedmen who had become successful farmers. However, since the Thomas family lived in the Delta — which has been called the most “Southern place on earth” — their prominence was also the cause of their ruin. In 1886, a rich white planter who resented their success tried to steal their land. After fighting him as much as they could, the Thomases decided it would be prudent to get out of harm’s way and moved to Memphis.
Several decades before the Great Migration began, Thomas left the South and went to Chicago, and then Brooklyn. Seeking even greater freedom, he went to Europe in 1894, several decades before some black Americans began to seek a haven in Paris. And in 1899, after crisscrossing the Continent, mastering French, and honing his skills as a waiter and a valet, he signed on to accompany a nobleman to Russia, a country where people of African descent were virtually unknown.
Thomas’s career in Moscow proved to be more successful than he could ever have imagined. He found no “color line” there, as he put it, and in a decade he went from being a waiter to an owner of a large entertainment garden called Aquarium near the city center. Within a year of acquiring it, he had transformed a failing business into one of the most successful venues for popular theatrical entertainment in Moscow.
Were it not for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Thomas would have happily spent the rest of his life in his adopted country. He married twice, acquired a mistress who became his third wife, and fathered five children. He also took Russian citizenship, and was possibly the first black American ever to do so.
But when the Bolsheviks seized power, Thomas suddenly discovered that he was on the wrong side of history. His newly acquired wealth trumped his past oppression as a black man in the United States, and nothing could mitigate this class “sin.”
To save himself, Thomas fled Soviet Russia. In 1919, after surviving hair-raising perils, he managed to reach Constantinople. Although he had lost all his wealth, within three months of arriving he opened an entertainment garden on the city’s outskirts. He was the first person to import jazz to Turkey, and its popularity among the city’s natives and swarms of well-heeled tourists consolidated his success and made him rich once again.
However, after escaping from Russia, Thomas was never again free of the burden of race, and it would be his undoing. Although his skin color was of no concern to the Turks, he could not avoid dealing with the diplomats in the American Consulate General in Constantinople, or with their racist superiors in the State Department. When he most needed their help, they refused to recognize him as an American and to give him legal protection. Abandoned by the United States, and caught between the xenophobia of the new Turkish Republic and his own extravagance, he fell on hard times, was thrown into debtor’s prison, and died in Constantinople in 1928. The New York Times was one of the few American newspapers that noticed his passing, and on 8 July in an article about Constantinople, referred to him as the city’s late “Sultan of Jazz.”
Perhaps if the United States ever becomes a genuinely post-racial society, Black History Month will fade in importance. But in the meantime, we can at least try to recover and remember the lives of extraordinary individuals like Frederick Bruce Thomas.
Heading image: Red Square, Moscow. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The post An African American in Imperial Russia: the story of Frederick Bruce Thomas appeared first on OUPblog.
By: DanP,
on 11/18/2014
On 9 August 2014, Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis) Police Department, shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old. Officer Wilson is white and Michael Brown was black, sparking allegations from wide swaths of the local and national black community that Wilson’s shooting of Brown, and the Ferguson Police Department’s reluctance to arrest the officer, are both racially motivated events that smack of an historic trend of black inequality within the US criminal justice system.
The fact that the Ferguson Police Department and city government are predominantly white, while the town is predominantly black, has underscored this distrust. So too have recent events in Los Angeles, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, St. Louis, and other places that suggest a disturbing pattern of white police personnel’s use of excessive force in the beatings or deaths of blacks across the nation. So disturbing, in fact, that this case and the others linked to it not only have inspired an organic, and diverse, crop of youth activists, but also have captured the close attention of President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, national civil rights organizations and the national black leadership. Indeed, not one or two, but three concurrent investigations of Officer Wilson’s shooting of Michael Brown are ongoing—one by the St. Louis Police Department and the other two by the FBI and the Justice Department, who are concerned with possible civil rights violations. The case also has a significant international following. The parents of Michael Brown raised this profile recently when they testified in Geneva, Switzerland before the United Nations Committee against Torture. There, they joined a US delegation to plead for support to end police brutality aimed at profiled black youth.
The details of the shooting investigations, each bit eagerly seized by opposing sides (those who support Brown and those who defend Wilson) as they become publicly available, still don’t give a comprehensive view of what actually happened between the officer and the teen, leaving too much speculation as to whether or not the Ferguson Grand Jury, who have been considering the case since 20 August, will return an indictment(s) against Officer Wilson.
What is known of the incident is that about noon on that Saturday, Michael Brown and a friend, Dorian Johnson, were walking down Canefield Drive in Ferguson when Darren Wilson approached the two in his squad car, telling them to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk. A scuffle ensued between Brown and Wilson within the police car. In his defense, Officer Wilson has stated that Brown attacked him and tried to grab his weapon. Dorian Johnson has countered that Wilson pulled Michael Brown into his car, suggesting that Brown was trying to defend himself from an overly aggressive Wilson. Shots were fired in Wilson’s police car and Brown ran down the street, pursued by Wilson. Autopsy reports indicate that Brown was shot at least six times, four times in his left arm, once through his left eye and once in the top of his head. The latter caused the youth’s death. Michael Brown’s body lay in the street, uncovered, for several hours while the police conducted a preliminary investigation, prompting even more outrage by black onlookers.
Since Michael Brown’s death, protestors from the area and across the nation have occupied the streets of Ferguson, demanding justice for the slain teen and his family. Nights of initial confrontations between police forces (the Ferguson Police, the St. Louis Police, the Missouri State Troopers and the National Guard have all been deployed in Ferguson at some time, and in some capacity, since the shooting) and though there has been some arson, looting, protestor and police violence, and arrests—even of news reporters—the protests generally have been peaceful. Not only police action during these protests, but their equipment as well, have sparked criticism and the growing demand that law enforcement agencies demilitarize. The daily protests have persisted, at times growing in great number, as during a series of “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” events that were held not just in Ferguson, but in many cities nationwide, including Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Omaha, Nebraska in August and September. The “hands up” stance is to protest Brown’s shooting which some, but not all, witnesses have stated came even with Brown’s hands up in a gesture of surrender to Wilson.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, and other state and local officials, along with many of the residents of Ferguson, fear that if the Grand Jury does not indict Darren Wilson for Michael Brown’s murder, civil unrest will erupt into violence, producing an event similar to the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. In Los Angeles, large numbers of persons rioted when it seemed that the legal outcomes of two back-to-back criminal cases smacked of black injustice—the acquittal of four white police officers indicted in the assault of black motorist Rodney King, and the no jail-time sentence of a Korean shopkeeper found guilty for the murder of Latasha Harlins, a black teen. The result was the worst race riot in US history, with more than 50 people killed, the burning of a substantial portion of the ethnic business enclave of Koreatown, and at least a billion dollars in property damage.
Certainly the fear is a legitimate one. The vast majority of US race riots that have centered on black participation have occurred with like conditions as a spark—the community’s belief that a youth or vulnerable person among them has been brutalized with state sanction. The nation has witnessed these events not only in Los Angeles in 1965 and 1992; but also in Harlem in 1935 and 1964; Richmond, California in 1968; San Francisco in 1986; Tampa, Florida in 1967 and 1986; Miami in 1980; Newark, New Jersey in 1967; York, Pennsylvania in 1969; Crown Heights (Brooklyn), New York in 1991; St. Petersburg, Florida in 1996; Cincinnati, Ohio in 2001; Benton Harbor, Michigan in 2003; Oakland, California in 2009 and 2010, and the list goes on. These events all have served as cautionary tales that, unfortunately, have not resulted in either the perception or reality of black equality before the law. It is this legacy that frustrates and frightens Ferguson residents.
The post The legitimate fear that months of civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri will end in rioting appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Connie Ngo,
on 10/17/2014
Scholars have written a lot about the difficulties in the study of religion generally. Those difficulties become even messier when we use the words black or African American to describe religion. The adjectives bear the burden of a difficult history that colors the way religion is practiced and understood in the United States. They register the horror of slavery and the terror of Jim Crow as well as the richly textured experiences of a captured people, for whom sorrow stands alongside joy. It is in this context, one characterized by the ever-present need to account for one’s presence in the world in the face of the dehumanizing practice of white supremacy, that African American religion takes on such significance.
To be clear, African American religious life is not reducible to those wounds. That life contains within it avenues for solace and comfort in God, answers to questions about who we take ourselves to be and about our relation to the mysteries of the universe; moreover, meaning is found, for some, in submission to God, in obedience to creed and dogma, and in ritual practice. Here evil is accounted for. And hope, at least for some, assured. In short, African American religious life is as rich and as complicated as the religious life of other groups in the United States, but African American religion emerges in the encounter between faith, in all of its complexity, and white supremacy.
I take it that if the phrase African American religion is to have any descriptive usefulness at all, it must signify something more than African Americans who are religious. African Americans practice a number of different religions. There are black people who are Buddhist, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, and Baha’i. But the fact that African Americans practice these traditions does not lead us to describe them as black Buddhism or black Mormonism. African American religion singles out something more substantive than that.
The adjective refers instead to a racial context within which religious meanings have been produced and reproduced. The history of slavery and racial discrimination in the United States birthed particular religious formations among African Americans. African Americans converted to Christianity, for example, in the context of slavery. Many left predominantly white denominations to form their own in pursuit of a sense of self- determination. Some embraced a distinctive interpretation of Islam to make sense of their condition in the United States. Given that history, we can reasonably describe certain variants of Christianity and Islam as African American and mean something beyond the rather uninteresting claim that black individuals belong to these different religious traditions.
The adjective black or African American works as a marker of difference: as a way of signifying a tradition of struggle against white supremacist practices and a cultural repertoire that reflects that unique journey. The phrase calls up a particular history and culture in our efforts to understand the religious practices of a particular people. When I use the phrase, African American religion, then, I am not referring to something that can be defined substantively apart from varied practices; rather, my aim is to orient you in a particular way to the material under consideration, to call attention to a sociopolitical history, and to single out the workings of the human imagination and spirit under particular conditions.
When Howard Thurman, the great 20th century black theologian, declared that the slave dared to redeem the religion profaned in his midst, he offered a particular understanding of black Christianity: that this expression of Christianity was not the idolatrous embrace of Christian doctrine which justified the superiority of white people and the subordination of black people. Instead, black Christianity embraced the liberating power of Jesus’s example: his sense that all, no matter their station in life, were children of God. Thurman sought to orient the reader to a specific inflection of Christianity in the hands of those who lived as slaves. That difference made a difference. We need only listen to the spirituals, give attention to the way African Americans interpreted the Gospel, and to how they invoked Jesus in their lives.
We cannot deny that African American religious life has developed, for much of its history, under captured conditions. Slaves had to forge lives amid the brutal reality of their condition and imagine possibilities beyond their status as slaves. Religion offered a powerful resource in their efforts. They imagined possibilities beyond anything their circumstances suggested. As religious bricoleurs, they created, as did their children and children’s children, on the level of religious consciousness and that creativity gave African American religion its distinctive hue and timber.
African Americans drew on the cultural knowledge, however fleeting, of their African past. They selected what they found compelling and rejected what they found unacceptable in the traditions of white slaveholders. In some cases, they reached for traditions outside of the United States altogether. They took the bits and pieces of their complicated lives and created distinctive expressions of the general order of existence that anchored their efforts to live amid the pressing nastiness of life. They created what we call African American religion.
Headline image credit: Candles, by Markus Grossalber, CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.
The post What is African American religion? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Julia Callaway,
on 7/30/2014
On 27 July 1919, a black boy swam across an invisible line in the water. “By common consent and custom,” an imaginary line extending out across Lake Michigan from Chicago’s 29th Street separated the area where blacks were permitted to swim from where whites swam. Seventeen-year-old Eugene Williams crossed that line. He may have strayed across it by accident or may have challenged it on purpose. We do not know his motives because the whites on the beach reacted by throwing stones and Eugene Williams drowned. Police at the beach arrested black bystanders, infuriating other blacks so much that one black man shot at the police, who returned fire, shooting into the crowd of blacks. The violence spread from there. Over the next week, in the middle of that hot summer of 1919, 38 people died, 537 were hospitalized, and approximately 1,000 were left homeless. White and black Chicagoans fought over access to beaches, parks, streetcars, and especially residential space. The burning of houses, during this riot, inflamed passions almost as much as the killing of people. It took a rainstorm and the state militia to end the violence in July 1919, which nevertheless simmered just below the surface, erupting in smaller clashes between blacks and whites throughout the next four decades, especially every May, during Chicago’s traditional moving season.
Family leaving damaged home after 1919 Chicago race riot by Chicago Commission on Race Relations. Negro in Chicago: The Negro in Chicago; a study of race relations and a race riot (1922). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The 1910s were the first decade of the Great Migration, a decade when 70,000 blacks had moved to Chicago, more than doubling the existing black population. This was also a decade when the lines of Chicago’s residential apartheid were hardening. Historically, Chicago’s blacks found homes in industrial suburbs such as Maywood and Chicago Heights, domestic service hubs such as Evanston and Glencoe, rustic owner-built suburbs such as Robbins and Dixmoor, and some recently-annexed suburban space such as Morgan Park and Lilydale. Increasingly, though, blacks were confined to a narrow four-block strip around State Street on Chicago’s South Side known as the Black Belt. Half of Chicago’s blacks lived there in 1900, while 90% of Chicago’s blacks lived there by 1930.
The Black Belt was a crowded space where two or three families often squeezed into one-room apartments, landlords neglected to repair rotting floors or hinge-less doors, schools eventually ran on shifts so that each child was educated for only half a day, and the police tolerated gamblers and brothels. It was so unhealthy that Richard Wright called it “our death sentence without a trial.” Blacks who tried to move beyond the Black Belt were met with vandalism, arson, and bomb-throwers, including 24 bombs thrown in the first half of 1919 alone.
Earlier, some Chicago neighborhoods had welcomed black homeowners, but after the First World War there was an increasingly widespread belief that blacks hurt property values. Chicago realtor L. M. Smith and his Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners Association spread the notion that any black moving into a neighborhood was akin to a thief, robbing that street of its property values. By the 1920s, Chicago Realtors prohibited members from introducing any new racial group into a neighborhood and encouraged the spread of restrictive covenants, legally barring blacks while also consolidating ideas of whiteness. As late as 1945, two Chicago sociologists reported that, while “English, German, Scotch, Irish, and Scandinavian have little adverse effect on property values[,] Northern Italians are considered less desirable, followed by Bohemians and Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians, Greeks, and Russian Jews of the Lower class. Southern Italians, along with Negroes and Mexicans, are at the bottom of the scale.” As historians of race recognize, many European immigrants were considered not quite white before 1950. Those immigrants eventually joined the alliance of groups considered white partly because realtors, mortgage lenders, and housing economists established a bright line between the property values of “whites” and those of blacks.
The lines established in 1919 have lingered. As late as 1990, among Chicago’s suburban blacks, almost half of them lived in the same fourteen suburbs that blacks had lived in before 1920: they had not gained access to newer spaces. It was black neighborhoods that suffered disproportionately from urban renewal and the construction of tall-tower public housing in the twentieth century, further reinforcing the overlaps between race and space in Chicago. Many whites inherit property whose value has increased because of the racist real-estate policies founded after the violence of 1919. Recently, Ta-Nehisi Coates has recently used the history of Chicago’s property market to publicize “The Case for Reparations,” after generations of denying blacks access to homeowner equity.
It is worth remembering the events of 95 years ago, when Eugene Williams and 37 other people died, as Chicagoans clashed in the streets over emerging ideas of racialized property values.
Elaine Lewinnek is a professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton and the author of The Working Man’s Reward: Chicago’s Early Suburbs and the Roots of American Sprawl.
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By: VictoriaD,
on 6/3/2014
Perhaps Ernest Hemingway knew best when he claimed that Josephine Baker was the “most sensational woman anybody ever saw. Or ever will.” Indeed, Josephine Baker was sensational–as an African American coming of age in the 1920s, she took Paris by storm in La Revue Nègre and relished a career in entertainment that spanned fifty years. On what would be her 108th birthday, Baker’s fans on both sides of the Atlantic still celebrate her legendary charisma.
Born in St. Louis as Freda Josephine McDonald, Josephine’s early years were marked by financial struggles and racial conflict. She managed to escape what promised to be an otherwise dismal future with her innate ability to charm others through singing and dancing. Having taken the surname of her second husband (she had already been married once before at the age of thirteen), Josephine Baker left for New York City. She started out as a chorus girl in Shuffle Along, a vaudeville revue by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, and subsequently starred in Blake’s Chocolate Dandies. Later, she performed at New York’s renowned Plantation Club where she was “discovered” by producer Caroline Dudley and asked to be in La Revue Nègre. As part of Dudley’s assemblage of performers, Baker traveled to Paris in 1925, where she received rave reviews for her opening night performance at Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris. Shortly thereafter, she appeared on stage at the Folies-Bergère wearing only a “skirt” of bananas, a costume for which she became famous and one which left an indelible impression on the audience. After this, she often danced scantily clad, exuding a kind of exoticism that captivated her Parisian public.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Successful live performances led to her foray into film, beginning in 1927 with La Sirène des Tropiques. By 1930, she had dabbled in a career as a singer, having recorded for both Odeon and Columbia Records. Her Columbia recordings included songs such as “J’ai deux amours,” which she would perform at the Casino de Paris, one of the city’s great music halls. The Casino’s impresario, Henri Varna, not only showcased Baker’s talents, but he insisted that she act with the pizzazz and mystique of a superstar. To enhance her image, Baker was given a pet leopard named Chiquita, adorned with a diamond studded collar. The pair delighted (and occasionally shocked) the French public.
In the mid-1930s, she starred in two films, including Zouzou (1934), Princess Tam Tam (1935), neither of which was made readily available to the American public for another fifty-plus years. She also appeared in Moulin Rouge (1939), Fausse Alerte (1945), An Jedem Finger Zehn (1954), and Carosello Del Varietà (1955), but, as she also realized when doing studio recordings, she was only truly in her element on the stage.
After completing Princess Tam Tam, she returned to New York to appear in the Ziegfeld Follies, which featured choreography by George Balanchine, music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and notable performers including Bob Hope. In spite of the Follies’ display of talent, its appearance in New York was subjected to intensely vitriolic reviews. Some of the reviews attacked Baker specifically, by mapping current racial stereotypes and crippling expectations onto her and her performance–expectations which had not affected her career in France in such an irrevocably stark manner.
Although Baker was hurt by the Follies’ flop and the discrimination she faced in her home country, she chose to remain in the United States for the time being. In 1936, she announced her plans to open a night club on East 54th Street called Chez Josephine Baker. Within a year America’s racist climes became too much to bear and Baker returned to France, but France was no longer the utopian escape it once had been. Initial tensions with Germany and the subsequent German occupation ultimately made it very difficult for African-American entertainers to earn a living in France, despite the fact that they had been thriving just a decade earlier.
Portrait of Josephine Baker by Carl Van Vechten, 1951. Public domain via Library of Congress.
Baker, who had married a French Jew, Jean Lion, in 1937, soon became involved in the Resistance, eventually working out of Casablanca as an air auxiliary lieutenant. She received the Croix de Guerre in recognition for her services in the Resistance. Those services included carrying classified information, written in invisible ink on her sheet music, to Portugal for transmission to England.
During World War II, she performed for American and British troops and war workers. These appearances put to rest all rumors circulating in the press that she had died, rumors prompted by the fact that she suffered a series of illnesses in the 1940s.
She reemerged in the 1950s as a staunch supporter and champion of human and civil rights. In 1951, she cancelled an appearance at the NAACP meeting in Atlanta because she, as an African American, was refused lodging. In 1959, returned to the stage to raise funds for the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme–LICRA).
Her most demonstrative gesture was to come. Beginning in 1953, Baker adopted the first of twelve children representing different races and ethnicities. She called her brood the “Rainbow Tribe,” and they are featured in Matthew Pratt Guterl’s book Josephine Baker and the Rainbow Tribe (Harvard University Press, 2014). They lived in a fifteenth-century castle, “Les Milandes,” which Baker purchased in 1947 but relinquished under extreme financial duress in 1968. Fortunately, her friend and supporter, Princess Grace, offered Baker and her tribe a home in Monaco.
As she aged, Baker found it increasingly challenging to maintain her career on the stage, but she persevered. In fact, on 8 April 1975, she gave a triumphant performance at the Bobino Theatre in Paris, which seemed to foreshadow prosperous days to come. That was not to be.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Four days later, on 12 April 1975, Baker went to sleep and never woke up. Thousands of adoring fans paid their respects, and nearly 2,000 mourners, led by Princess Grace, attended funeral services in Monaco, where Baker was buried.
A woman as sensational as Josephine Baker indubitably lives on–a number of books and articles have been written about Baker’s life, including five autobiographies. Her life and career have also served as inspiration for biographies, novels, films, plays, a musical, a restaurant, and even a tribute featuring a woodwind quintet. In 2007, the Grammy Award-winning woodwind quintet “Imani Winds” released Josephine Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot! in celebration of Baker’s centennial. The recording features two original pieces composed by Imani members that depict Baker’s life, including French horn player Jeff Scott’s seven-movement La Belle Sirène Comme le Comédien and flautist Valerie Coleman’s Suite: Portraits of Josephine.
These and other materials about Josephine Baker, including a robust clipping file, can be found at the Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) in Chicago.
Founded at Columbia College Chicago in 1983, The Center for Black Music Research is the only organization of its kind. It exists to illuminate the significant role that black music plays in world culture by serving as a nexus for all who value black music, by promoting scholarly thought and knowledge about black music, and by providing a safe haven for the materials and information that document the black music experience across Africa and the diaspora.
Melanie Zeck is the Managing Editor of the Black Music Research Journal, the peer-reviewed journal of the Center for Black Music Research. She is currently co-authoring a book (OUP, forthcoming) on aspects of black music history with Samuel A. Floyd Jr., CBMR founder and Director Emeritus.
Oxford Music Online is the gateway offering users the ability to access and cross-search multiple music reference resources in one location. With Grove Music Online as its cornerstone, Oxford Music Online also contains The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
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By: Amanda,
on 9/11/2013
As Fast As Words Could Fly tells the story of Mason, a teenager growing up in North Carolina who becomes one of the first black students to attend an all-white high school. In this guest post, we interview author Pamela M. Tuck’s father, Moses Teel Jr., whose experience during integration inspired the New Voices award-winning title.
Moses Teel Jr. around the same age as Mason in As Fast As Words Could Fly
Lee & Low: In the Author’s Note, it says that you used your “typing talent to defy the prejudices of people who considered [you] inferior.” Did you also participate in a typing contest similar to the one Mason was in? What was that experience like?
Moses Teel Jr.: Yes. In my typing class, we had five-minute timed typing exercises. Five strokes counted for one word and every error took one word away from your total word count. I participated in a lot of these classroom competitions and won. That’s what helped me qualify for the tournament. By the time I had to compete, I felt pretty confident in my skill and I stayed focused by telling myself, “I can do this.”
L&L: How did you handle the hardships you encountered while at Belvoir-Falkland High School? Was there a piece of advice that you were given that inspired you? What advice would you give others who experience some form of prejudice directed toward them?
MT: The encouragement from my family and other members of the civil rights group helped me handle the hardships I faced. My dad had sacrificed a lot during the Civil Rights Movement so as to make a difference. Integrating the schools was one of the most important parts of the Civil Rights Movement in Pitt County during that time. By the time I started Belvoir-Falkland High School, I knew I had to remain humble in order to stay there. I went there for a better education, so I could make a difference in my community.
I can remember one black custodian at the school who inspired me. He would catch me and some of the few other black students outside the school to tell us that he was so proud of us for coming to that school to knock down some barriers. He told us to keep our heads up and to do the best we could.
My advice to others is to realize that prejudice does exist and you’re going to have to deal with it one on one. Just remember to stay humble and treat people the way you would like to be treated. Then you will be able to work your way through it.
L&L: Mason’s story takes place in the mid 1960s, a decade that saw the historic March on Washington, the Birmingham campaign, and the Freedom Summer of 1964. As a teenager, how strong was your sense that you were part of a greater national movement for equality?
MT: I was well aware that we were part of a national event. During that time, we had gone to a meeting to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak, and in part of his speech he told us to go back to our communities and make a difference. By my family being the first to integrate the school system, we felt stronger knowing that we were taking part in an integration movement that was happening all over the country.
L&L: Who were your role models growing up? How did these individuals influence your actions?
MT: Two of my role models were Golden Frinks and Reginald Frazier. Golden Frinks was a field secretary for the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). I realized how powerful Mr. Frinks was when we visited places that wouldn’t serve blacks, but after mentioning his name, attitudes changed and we were served. Reginald Frazier was a powerful attorney during that time period and I remember when he represented a black family during a racial case. The family couldn’t afford a lawyer, so he took the case for $1 and won.
These two men showed me how their determination to fight for equality could make such a difference, and how justice was more important than money. It was people like them who made me believe that with the right education, I could obtain justice in society.
L&L: When you first began at Belvoir-Falkland High School, was there anyone who surprised you with his or her kindness? Were there other African Americans who you befriended at the school or were you the only one?
MT: I’m afraid I’ll have to say no, there wasn’t, other than the black custodian. I didn’t receive much kindness from the students or faculty at Belvoir-Falkland. There were other black families who also had their children integrating during the same time, and the few of us watched out for one another. We had to stay to ourselves during physical activities because during the pick-up games we were never chosen to play with the white students. In later years, as we remained at the school, we began to be included in more activities.
L&L: Although we now have our first African American president, we still live in a country plagued by many types of inequality. How far do you think our country has come since you were a teenager in the 1960s? Where do you hope we will be ten years from now?
MT: I feel that we have improved about 70% in correcting some inequalities, but there are still a lot of hidden prejudices that have to be dealt with. I hope that ten years from now I can say we have improved 90%.
Moses Teel Jr. and his wife, Pauline Teel
By: Hannah,
on 2/25/2013
In this guest post, Dr. Henrietta M. Smith, Professor Emerita and the first African-American professor at the University of South Florida, School of Information shares her memories of how the Coretta Scott King Award began:
The news of the damage sustained by the boardwalk in Atlantic City during Hurricane Sandy brought back memories of where the Coretta Scott King Award started. This writer’s mind went back to an earlier time, to an American Library Association annual meeting in Atlantic City. 
The year was 1969. Two librarians walking through the exhibit hall stopped by a booth where a poster of the late Martin Luther King Jr. was on display. This was the start of a genial conversation that evolved into the observation that never since the inception of the Newbery Medal in 1922 and the Caldecott Medal in 1938 had any award committee recognized the work of a person of color.
John Carroll, a publisher from a small company in New York, overheard the conversation. It was reported that he said, rather matter of factly, “Then why don’t you ladies establish your own award?” The seed was planted. Before the conference ended, in an informal meeting on the boardwalk in Atlantic City under the leadership of Glyndon Greer and Mabel McKissick, the idea of a award for African American authors was shared with a group of African American librarians, including Augusta Baker, Charlemae Rollins, Ella Mae Yates, and Virginia Lacy Jones, to name a few. At this seaside gathering, the struggle for recognition began.
The ALA questioned the need for another award. A majority of publishers informed the committee that they did not have enough children’s books by African Americans to provide for evaluation. And many librarians were skeptical of anything becoming of this fragile brainchild. Undaunted and unconvinced that this venture was fruitless, the committee moved on. In 1970, the first Coretta Scott King Awards breakfast was scheduled in a hotel that just “happened” not to be on the ALA list of official hotels. After a meager meal and short program, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award was announced. A school librarian from New Jersey, Lillie Patterson, went down in history as the first winner of the award for her elementary level biography, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Man of Peace.
from Ray Charles
It was not until 1974 that the award breakfast was held in an ALA conference site, but even then, the CSK Award was not recognized as an official ALA award, nor was the award committee recognized as an official ALA body. But to the joy of all, publishers were now sending more quality books, and attendance at the 7:30 a.m. breakfast was steadily growing! Another change came in 1974 when the committee presented its first illustrator award. George Ford, who is still painting today, won for the illustrations he created for Sharon Bell Mathis’ biography Ray Charles.
In the years that followed, a major breakthrough came when E. J. Josey was elected president of the ALA. One of his first concerns was to bring the Coretta Scott King Committee into the official folds of the American Library Association. In 1980, the Coretta Scott King Committee became the Coretta Scott King Task Force, a viable part of Social Responsibilities Task Force (since 1993 a part of EMIERT), with founder Glyndon Greer as its first chair.
Growth and changes can be seen as the benchmark of this dynamic group of librarians. Artist Lev Mills designed the medal that is placed on each award-winning book. The symbols in the medal’s design each carry a special message; even the colors of the winner and honor book medals, and the more recent new talent award medal, have significance. The monetary prize for the winners was first given through the efforts of the late Basil O. Phillips of the Johnson Publishing Company, and today the encyclopedias from Britannica and World Book have moved from print into the digital age.
Following negotiations with the ALA parent body on Awards and Recognitions, and the late John Steptoe’s son, illustrator Javaka Steptoe, in 1995, the New Talent Award was established. It was named in honor of John Steptoe, whose first book, Stevie (1969), won national acclaim when the author/illustrator was only nineteen years of age.
With each meeting of the Coretta Scott King Task Force, new ideas for growth are on the docket. Among the newest is the Coretta Scott King/Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, which goes to an African American author, illustrator, author/illustrator, or practitioner (such as a librarian) for his or her body of work or contributions to reading programs involving African American literature. Changes are constantly in the works too. New ideas for creating greater visibility and wider use of Coretta Scott King Award books and materials are a part of every Task Force meeting.
To think that all this started with a meeting on the boardwalk in Atlantic City! The very spot may not be there now, but surely the news reports about Hurricane Sandy conjured up many of these same memories for those who met on the boardwalk way back in 1969.
Dr. Henrietta M. Smith, native New Yorker, received her MLS degree from Columbia University and EdD from University of Miami, Florida. She teaches in the Materials for Youth in the School of Information (University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida). Longtime member of the ALA, Smith has served on Newbery Caldecott, Wilder (Chair), and Pura Belpré Award committees for ALSC and has chaired the Coretta Scott King Task Force and the CSK Award Committee. Smith received the ALSC Distinguished Service Award in 2008 and in 2011 was the first practitioner recipient of the Coretta Scott King/Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement in Librarianship.
By: keilinh,
on 2/21/2013
Everyone knows Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., but there are many other African Americans who have contributed to the rich fabric of our country but whose names have fallen through the cracks of history.
We’ve asked some of our authors who chose to write biographies of these talented leaders why we should remember them. We’ll feature their answers throughout Black History Month.
Today, Alan Schroeder shares why he wrote about Florence Mills in Baby Flo: Florence Mills Lights Up the Stage:
Black History Month: Why Remember Robert Smalls?
Black History Month: Why Remember Toni Stone?
By: Alice,
on 1/30/2013
The editors of the Oxford African American Studies Center spoke to Professor Jim Downs, author of Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction, about the legacy of the Emancipation Proclamation 150 years after it was first issued. We discuss the health crisis that affected so many freedpeople after emancipation, current views of the Emancipation Proclamation, and insights into the public health crises of today.
Emancipation was problematic, indeed disastrous, for so many freedpeople, particularly in terms of their health. What was the connection between newfound freedom and health?
I would not say that emancipation was problematic; it was a critical and necessary step in ending slavery. I would first argue that emancipation was not an ending point but part of a protracted process that began with the collapse of slavery. By examining freedpeople’s health conditions, we can see how that process unfolded—we can see how enslaved people liberated themselves from the shackles of Southern plantations but then were confronted with a number of questions: How would they survive? Where would they get their next meal? Where were they to live? How would they survive in a country torn apart by war and disease?
Due to the fact that freedpeople lacked many of these basic necessities, hundreds of thousands of former slaves became sick and died.
The traditional narrative of emancipation begins with liberation from slavery in 1862-63 and follows freedpeople returning to Southern plantations after the war for employment in 1865 and then culminates with grassroots political mobilization that led to the Reconstruction Amendments in the late 1860s. This story places formal politics as the central organizing principle in the destruction of slavery and the movement toward citizenship without considering the realities of freedpeople’s lives during this seven- to eight- year period. By investigating freedpeople’s health conditions, we first notice that many formerly enslaved people died during this period and did not live to see the amendments that granted citizenship and suffrage. They survived slavery but perished during emancipation—a fact that few historians have considered. Additionally, for those that did survive both slavery and emancipation, it was not such a triumphant story; without food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, emancipation unleashed a number of insurmountable challenges for the newly freed.
Was the health crisis that befell freedpeople after emancipation any person, government, or organization’s fault? Was the lack of a sufficient social support system a product of ignorance or, rather, a lack of concern?
The health crises that befell freedpeople after emancipation resulted largely from the mere fact that no one considered how freedpeople would survive the war and emancipation; no one was prepared for the human realities of emancipation. Congress and the President focused on the political question that emancipation raised: what was the status of formerly enslaved people in the Republic?
When the federal government did consider freedpeople’s condition in the final years of the war, they thought the solution was to simply return freedpeople to Southern plantations as laborers. Yet, no one in Washington thought through the process of agricultural production: Where was the fertile land? (Much of it was destroyed during the war; and countless acres were depleted before the war, which was why Southern planters wanted to move west.) How long would crops grow? How would freedpeople survive in the meantime?
Meanwhile, a drought erupted in the immediate aftermath of the war that thwarted even the most earnest attempts to develop a free labor economy in the South. Therefore, as a historian, I am less invested in arguing that someone is at fault, and more committed to understanding the various economic and political forces that led to the outbreak of sickness and suffering. Creating a new economic system in the South required time and planning; it could not be accomplished simply by sending freedpeople back to Southern plantations and farms. And in the interim of this process, which seemed like a good plan by federal leaders in Washington, a different reality unfolded on the ground in the postwar South. Land and labor did not offer an immediate panacea to the war’s destruction, the process of emancipation, and the ultimate rebuilding of the South. Consequently, freedpeople suffered during this period.
When the federal government did establish the Medical Division of the Freedmen’s Bureau – an agency that established over 40 hospitals in the South, employed over 120 physicians, and treated an estimated one million freedpeople — the institution often lacked the finances, personnel, and resources to stop the spread of disease. In sum, the government did not create this division with a humanitarian — or to use 19th century parlance, “benevolence” — mission, but rather designed this institution with the hope of creating a healthy labor force.
So, if an epidemic broke out, the Bureau would do its best to stop its spread. Yet, as soon as the number of patients declined, the Bureau shut down the hospital. The Bureau relied on a system of statistical reporting that dictated the lifespan of a hospital. When a physician reported a declining number of patients treated, admitted, or died in the hospital, Washington officials would order the hospital to be closed. However, the statistical report failed to capture the actual behavior of a virus, like smallpox. Just because the numbers declined in a given period did not mean that the virus stopped spreading among susceptible freedpeople. Often, it continued to infect formerly enslaved people, but because the initial symptoms of smallpox got confused with other illnesses it was overlooked. Or, as was often the case, the Bureau doctor in an isolated region noticed a decline among a handful of patients, but not too far away in a neighboring plantation or town, where the Bureau doctor did not visit, smallpox spread and remained unreported. Yet, according to the documentation at a particular moment the virus seemed to dissipate, which was not the case. So, even when the government, in the shape of Bureau doctors, tried to do its best to halt the spread of the disease, there were not enough doctors stationed throughout the South to monitor the virus, and their methods of reporting on smallpox were problematic.
You draw an interesting distinction between the terms refugee and freedmen as they were applied to emancipated slaves at different times. What did the term refugee entail and how was it a problematic description?
I actually think that freedmen or freedpeople could be a somewhat misleading term, because it defines formerly enslaved people purely in terms of their political status—the term freed places a polish on their condition and glosses over their experience during the war in which the military and federal government defined them as both contraband and refugees. Often forced to live in “contraband camps,” which were makeshift camps that surrounded the perimeter of Union camps, former slaves’ experience resembled a condition more associated with that of refugees. More to the point, the term freed does not seem to jibe with what I uncovered in the records—the Union Army treats formerly enslaved people with contempt, they assign them to laborious work, they feed them scraps, they relegate them to muddy camps where they are lucky if they can use a discarded army tent to protect themselves against the cold and rain. The term freedpeople does not seem applicable to those conditions.
That said, I struggle with my usage of these terms, because on one level they are politically no longer enslaved, but they are not “freed” in the ways in which the prevailing history defines them as politically mobile and autonomous. And then on a simply rhetorical level, freedpeople is a less awkward and clumsy expression than constantly writing formerly enslaved people.
Finally, during the war abolitionists and federal officials argued over these terms and classifications and in the records. During the war years, the Union army referred to the formerly enslaved as refugees, contraband, and even fugitives. When the war ended, the federal government classified formerly enslaved people as freedmen, and used the term refugee to refer to white Southerners displaced by the war. This is fascinating because it implies that white people can be dislocated and strung out but that formerly enslaved people can’t be—and if they are it does not matter, because they are “free.”
Based on your understanding of the historical record, what were Lincoln’s (and the federal government’s) goals in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation? Do you see any differences between these goals and the way in which the Emancipation Proclamation is popularly understood?
The Emancipation Proclamation was a military tactic to deplete the Southern labor force. This was Lincoln’s main goal—it invariably, according to many historians, shifted the focus of the war from a war for the Union to a war of emancipation. I never really understood what that meant, or why there was such a fuss over this distinction, largely because enslaved people had already begun to free themselves before the Emancipation Proclamation and many continued to do so after it without always knowing about the formal proclamation.
The implicit claim historians make when explaining how the motivation for the war shifted seems to imply that the Union soldiers thusly cared about emancipation so that the idea that it was a military tactic fades from view and instead we are placed in a position of imagining Union soldiers entering the Confederacy to destroy slavery—that they were somehow concerned about black people. Yet, what I continue to find in the record is case after case of Union officials making no distinction about the objective of the war and rounding up formerly enslaved people and shuffling them into former slave pens, barricading them in refugee camps, sending them on death marches to regions in need of laborers. I begin to lose my patience when various historians prop up the image of the Union army (or even Lincoln) as great emancipators when on the ground they literally turned their backs on children who starved to death; children who froze to death; children whose bodies were covered with smallpox. So, from where I stand, I see the Emancipation Proclamation as a central, important, and critical document that served a valuable purpose, but the sources quickly divert my attention to the suffering and sickness that defined freedpeople’s experience on the ground.
Do you see any parallels between the situation of post-Civil War freedpeople and the plights of currently distressed populations in the United States and abroad? What can we learn about public health crises, marginalized groups, etc.?
Yes, I do, but I would prefer to put this discussion on hold momentarily and simply say that we can see parallels today, right now. For example, there is a massive outbreak of the flu spreading across the country. Some are even referring to it as an epidemic. Yet in Harlem, New York, the pharmacies are currently operating with a policy that they cannot administer flu shots to children under the age of 17, which means that if a mother took time off from work and made it to Rite Aid, she can’t get her children their necessary shots. Given that all pharmacies in that region follow a particular policy, she and her children are stuck. In Connecticut, Kathy Lee Gifford of NBC’s Today Show relayed a similar problem, but she explained that she continued to travel throughout the state until she could find a pharmacy to administer her husband a flu shot. The mother in Harlem, who relies on the bus or subway, has to wait until Rite Aid revises its policy. Rite Aid is revising the policy now, as I write this response, but this means that everyday that it takes for a well-intentioned, well-meaning pharmacy to amend its rules, the mother in Harlem or mother in any other impoverished area must continue to send her children to school without the flu shot, where they remain susceptible to the virus.
In the Civil War records, I saw a similar health crisis unfold: people were not dying from complicated, unknown illnesses but rather from the failures of a bureaucracy, from the inability to provide basic medical relief to those in need, and from the fact that their economic status greatly determined their access to basic health care.
Tim Allen is an Assistant Editor for the Oxford African American Studies Center.
The Oxford African American Studies Center combines the authority of carefully edited reference works with sophisticated technology to create the most comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. It provides students, scholars and librarians with more than 10,000 articles by top scholars in the field.
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The post Jim Downs on the Emancipation Proclamation appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Mayra Calvani,
on 3/13/2012
By: Kirsty,
on 12/1/2011
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move—and became the mother of the civil rights movement.
In 1955, strict segregation laws separated African Americans and whites in public settings across the South, including Parks’s home town, Montgomery, Alabama. That December evening, returning home from work, Parks sat with three other African Americans in a row just behind the fourteen whites in the front of the bus. Because the bus was full, a white man had to stand when he entered the bus. Under the South’s Jim Crow laws, whites sat and African Americans stood. The bus driver told Parks and the other three blacks to move to the back of the bus—the black section. The other three did, but Parks refused. The driver insisted, and she refused again. Faced with continued refusal, he used his powers under a city ordinance to arrest her. The driver summoned the police, and Parks spent the night in jail.
The arrest galvanized Montgomery’s African Americans. The local chapter of the NAACP had long resented the segregated buses and the drivers’ treatment of blacks; now they had a chance to act. The next day, a women’s council called for a boycott of the city bus system. African Americans by the thousands complied. By December 5, a new group—the Montgomery Improvement Association—was formed to coordinate the boycott. Inspired by young clergyman Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery’s African Americans kept up their boycott for more than a year, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation on buses unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of the early triumphs of the civil rights movement. Parks later admitted her surprise: “I had no idea when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the South.”
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By: Curious City,
on 10/28/2009
By: Rebecca,
on 1/16/2009
Since Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day I thought it would be nice to highlight another important civil rights leader, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. This excerpt comes from The Oxford African American Studies Center. It was written by Edward L. Jr. Lach and published in the African American National Biography. In celebration of next week’s Inauguration and in commemoration of Black History Month in February, the Oxford African American Studies Center is available to the public for free until March 1st. Visit here for instructions on how to login or use username:barackobama, password:president.
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., jurist and civil rights leader, was born Aloysius Leon Higginbotham in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Aloysius Leon Higginbotham Sr. , a laborer, and Emma Lee Douglass , a domestic worker. While he was attending a racially segregated elementary school, his mother insisted that he receive tutoring in Latin, a required subject denied to black students; he then became the first African American to enroll at Trenton’s Central High School. Initially interested in engineering, he enrolled at Purdue University only to leave in disgust after the school’s president denied his request to move on-campus with his fellow African American students. He completed his undergraduate education at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he received a BA in Sociology in 1949 . In August 1948 he married Jeanne L. Foster ; the couple had three children. Angered by his experiences at Purdue and inspired by the example of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall , Higginbotham decided to pursue a legal career. He attended law school at Yale and graduated with an LLB in 1952 .
Although Higginbotham was an honors student at Yale, he encountered racial prejudice when he tried to find employment at leading Philadelphia, law firms. After switching his sights to the public sector, he began his career as a clerk for the Court of Common Pleas judge Curtis Bok in 1952 . Higginbotham then served for a year as an assistant district attorney under the future Philadelphia mayor and fellow Yale graduate Richardson Dilworth . In 1954 he became a principal in the new African American law firm of Norris, Green, Harris, and Higginbotham and remained with the firm until 1962 . During the same period he became active in the civil rights movement, serving as president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); he was also a member of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.
Between 1960 and 1962 Higginbotham served as a special hearing officer for conscientious objectors for the United States Department of Justice. In 1962 President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the Federal Trade Commission, making him the first African American member of a federal administrative agency. Two years later President Lyndon Johnson appointed him as U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; at age thirty-six, he was the youngest person to be so named in thirty years. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. He became chief judge in 1989 and remained in the position until his retirement in 1993 .
As a member of the federal bench, Higginbotham authored more than 650 opinions. A staunch liberal and tireless defender of programs such as affirmative action, he became equally well known for his legal scholarship, with more than one hundred published articles to his credit. He also published two (out of a planned series of four) highly regarded books that outlined the American struggle toward racial justice and equality through the lens of the legal profession: In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process, the Colonial Period ( 1978 ), in which he castigated the founding fathers for their hypocrisy in racial matters, and Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process ( 1996 ).
Higginbotham also taught both law and sociology at a number of schools, including the University of Michigan, Yale, Stanford, and New York University. He enjoyed a long relationship with the University of Pennsylvania, where he was considered for the position of president in 1980 before deciding to remain on the bench. Following his retirement in 1993 , Higginbotham taught at Harvard Law School and also served as public service professor of jurisprudence at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. In addition, he served on several corporate boards and worked for the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison in both New York and Washington.
Although most of his career was spent outside the public limelight, Higginbotham came to the forefront of public attention in 1991 when he published an open letter to the Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Castigating Thomas for what he viewed as a betrayal of all that he, Higginbotham, had worked for, Higginbotham stated, “I could not find one shred of evidence suggesting an insightful understanding on your part of how the evolutionary movement of the Constitution and the work of civil rights organizations have benefited you.” Although widely criticized for his stance, Higginbotham remained a critic of Thomas’s after he joined the Supreme Court and later attempted to have a speaking invitation to Thomas rescinded by the National Bar Association in 1998 .
In his later years Higginbotham filled a variety of additional roles. He served as an international mediator at the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa in 1994 , lent his counsel to the Congressional Black Caucus during a series of voting rights cases before the Supreme Court, and advised Texaco Inc. on diversity and personnel issues when the firm came under fire for alleged racial discrimination in 1996 . In failing health, Higginbotham’s last public service came during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 , when he argued before the House Judiciary Committee that there were degrees of perjury and that President Clinton’s did not qualify as “an impeachable high crime.” The recipient of several honorary degrees, Higginbotham also received the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Award ( 1994 ), the Presidential Medal of Freedom ( 1995 ), and the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal ( 1996 ). After he and his first wife divorced in 1988 , Higginbotham married Evelyn Brooks, a professor at Harvard, and adopted her daughter. He died in a Boston hospital after suffering a series of strokes.
Although he never served on the Supreme Court, Higginbotham’s impact on the legal community seems certain to continue. A pioneer among African American jurists, he also made solid contributions in the areas of legal scholarship, training, and civil rights.
What a wonderful telling of the history of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards. Dr. Smith is much too modest about her own role in the history of the award. In addition to serving as Chair of the Task Force and of the Jury, she had edited numerous editions of the ultimate resource about the awards, “The Coretta Scott Awards”. She has been a support and mentor to many of its subsequent chairs. She has truly been the heart and soul of the awards, especially during its years as an official ALA Award. As the Awards look forward to their 45th Anniversary in 2014, Dr. Smith can take much pride in what they have become.