 Review by
Richard Sumrall"Legacy: Treasures of Black History"
represents a publishing first for African Americana: a publication based on
the unique collection in the Moorland Spingarn Research Center at Howard
University.
This extraordinary archive "is a significant contribution and an
engrossing, visually exciting exploration of the black experience and its
impact on our nation." The collection is composed of two distinct donations
to the university from donors Arthur Spingarn and Jesse Moorland and
contains over 200,000 bound volumes, 1,900 serials and 52,000 photographs.
Editors Thomas C. Battle and Donna M. Wells, both from the Moorland
Spingarn Center, have made extensive use of the center's holdings to compile
a comprehensive history of the African-American experience from its
pre-America beginnings in 1434 to the challenges faced in the 21st century.
The book's 12 chapters are representative of that history and form a useful
timeline for the reader. The titles of the chapters are:
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"African Exploration and
Trade, 1434-1800"
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"The Transatlantic Slave
Trade, 1450-1860s"
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"The Experience of
Enslavement, 1619-1865"
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"Antebellum, 1786-1861"
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"Runaways, Rebellions,
Abolitionism, 1700-1865"
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"The Civil War, 1861-1865"
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"Post-Civil War, 1865-1878"
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"Life and War Under Jim Crow,
1890-1945"
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"The New Negro, 1920-1939"
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‘Civil Rights, 1941-1968"
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"The Black Arts Movement,
1960s-1970s"
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"Leadership, 1970s-"
"African Exploration and Trade, 1434-1800"
Americans are sometimes surprised to learn that the story of
African-Americans, particularly their enslavement in the Americas, actually
begins long before the origins of colonial America or the antebellum South.
This misconception is partly the result of the bias in the surviving sources
of historical information. Those sources overwhelmingly represent a European
point of view and often contain one-sided accounts of their encounters with
the different African cultures. The deliberate blurring of African tribal
identity during the age of exploration was a convenient way for the Western
cultures to characterize these peoples as inferior and justify their
enslavement for economic and commercial exploitation.
"The Experience of Enslavement, 1619-1865"
It is one of the tragic ironies of history that 18th-century American
colonists fought for their liberty and freedom from England while
simultaneously engaging in the lucrative slave trade. Nowhere was this
paradox more eloquently expressed than in an 1860 speech by Frederick
Douglass. In "The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro Slavery or
Anti-Slavery?" Douglass made the argument that the Constitution contains six
objects for adoption
-- union, defense, welfare, tranquillity, justice and
liberty. According to Douglass, "These are all good objects, and slavery, so
far from being among them, it is a foe of them all."
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The word "slave" first appears in the records of colonial
Virginia, and the enslavement of Africans in the Americas continued
for the next 250 years. The particular kind of slavery practiced at
that time was known as chattel slavery. Chattel slavery was "the
legal ownership of one human being by another."
One of the book's most heartbreaking examples of this is
chronicled in the chapter entitled "Enslaved Children in the United
States." It documents the high percentage of children who were
captured in Africa and sold into slavery in the Americas. Estimates
of this human cargo are as high as one-fourth to one-third of the
entire number of transported Africans. These children received
little or no preferential treatment because of their age and "picked
cotton, suckled tobacco and weeded crops on plantations or farms. …
Children learned to perform chores satisfactorily or suffer corporal
punishment or other abuse."
"The New Negro, 1920-1939"
By the 1920s African-Americans had experienced changes in
American society and jurisprudence they once thought unimaginable --
the Emancipation Proclamation, the end of the Civil War and the
ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the
United States.
Unfortunately this did not ensure that they would be welcomed
with open arms into mainstream American society, nor would they
benefit from the rights and liberties guaranteed by that society.
These limitations on personal, economic and legal rights gave way to
a new form of racial inequality. This discriminatory practice was
given the name "Jim Crow" and continued to expose African-Americans
to "further injustices, violence and restrictions, sparking their
desire to improve opportunities and inspiring a concerted effort to
force change."
One result of Jim Crow segregation was the sociological
phenomenon known as the "Great Migration." This migration of
African-Americans from the South to the northern and western parts
of the country was instrumental in spreading their culture,
traditions and beliefs to other segments of American society. One
example is the Harlem Renaissance -- a literary, intellectual and
performing arts movement within the African-American community of
New York City. Instrumental in this movement was the author Langston
Hughes. Hughes is regarded as the "poet laureate of the black
people," and his poem "I, Too, Sing America" was his response to the
American poet Walt Whitman.
"Legacy: Treasures of Black History" is a seminal work on
African-American history, culture and art. According to author
Lawrence Otis Graham, this book "captures the black American
experience in a way that no other volume has done before. This
smart, beautifully illustrated book should be in every library,
school and home." This book is recommended to anyone who wishes to
increase their understanding of the African-American experience in
the United States.
[Text from file received
from Richard Sumrall,
Lincoln Public Library District] |
