tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/black-history-month-35552/articlesBlack History Month – The Conversation2024-02-11T13:51:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207382024-02-11T13:51:40Z2024-02-11T13:51:40ZBlack Londoners of Canada: Digital mapping reveals Ontario’s Black history and challenges myths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573874/original/file-20240206-20-tawyco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=285%2C457%2C1015%2C514&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reproduction of a landscape drawing of London, Ont. (Canada West) in 1855. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Map & Data Centre/Western Libraries at Western University) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Aurelia Jones was a prominent member of the Black community in mid-19th century London, Ontario, Canada, and the spouse of Abel Bedford Jones, a Black entrepreneur and religious and political leader. </p>
<p>After A.B.’s death, Aurelia moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The archival traces of her life tell the story of a migration from one Black community with British and American affiliations to another with strong Caribbean influences.</p>
<p>As research associates on the <a href="https://news.westernu.ca/2023/02/formerly-enslaved-black-londoners-digital-archive">Black Londoners Project</a> at Western University, we are finding historical clues about people like Aurelia Jones and exploring the Black history of London, Ont., by using a digital mapping approach. This methodology helps to understand the movements of individual people and how these movements, in turn, reveal connections within communities and to other places. </p>
<p>Black migration to and from Canada is an ongoing process dating back to the <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820329406/the-hanging-of-angelique/">17th century</a>. The migrations of Black individuals often reflect the geographic and cultural connections of Black communities across borders and further into the <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781580464536/the-african-diaspora/">African diaspora</a>. </p>
<h2>Black geographies, Canadian myths</h2>
<p>Scholars such as <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/black-geographies-and-the-politics-of-place">Katherine McKittrick</a>, <a href="https://www.queensu.ca/gnds/people/katherine-mckittrick">professor and Canada research chair in Black Studies</a>, have highlighted how understanding Black history means being attentive to how <a href="https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/blackgeographies/gettingstarted">geography, culture and race intersect</a> in the formation of Black communities.</p>
<p>Such considerations challenge persistent myths of Canada’s past. For example, Black Canadian historian <a href="https://www.barringtonwalker.com/">Barrington Walker</a> has argued there is a <a href="https://www.osgoodesociety.ca/book/the-african-canadian-legal-odyssey-historical-essays/">“deep psychic and emotional attachment to the idea of Canada as a refuge and a haven from U.S. slavery and racial injustice.</a>” </p>
<p>The promise of freedom on British soil <a>creates a moral binary between the United States and Canada</a> that obscures <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancestry-ad-gets-it-wrong-canada-was-never-slave-free-116051">the history of slavery in Canada</a>.</p>
<p>Further, the idea that African American refugees uniformly would become loyal British subjects misrepresents the enduring connections between Black Canadians and other parts of the <a href="https://libguides.northwestern.edu/AfricanDiaspora">African diaspora</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-black-snowshoers-who-walked-1-000-kilometres-across-canada-in-1813-126977">Meet the Black snowshoers who walked 1,000 kilometres across Canada in 1813</a>
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<p>Shifting the focus from nationalist discourse to migrations among Black communities helps us better understand everyday Black life. </p>
<h2>Digital Black history projects</h2>
<p>The Black Londoners Project approaches Black history geographically by supplementing the narratives of 16 Black refugees from slavery and racial oppression in the U.S. with archival evidence (among others, personal narratives, census information and newspaper articles) of their lives in London, Ont. </p>
<p>The project aims to form a map of Black spaces in London, and to trace the connection diverse African diasporas have to the city. Digital tools then visualize how Black communities shaped each other and Canadian society at large. </p>
<p>Users of our online site will be able to read biographical entries with digitized archival materials and to browse digital maps of Black historical sites in London. The website will also connect with other digital Black Canadian History projects: </p>
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<li><a href="https://www.blackpeopleshistory.ca/">A Black People’s History of Canada</a> aims to address and rectify the absences of Black Canadian history in school curricula. The project is headed by <a href="https://afuacooper.com/">Afua Cooper</a>, professor in the department of sociology and social anthropology at Dalhousie University; </li>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Afua Cooper speaks about ‘A Black People’s History of Canada.’</span></figcaption>
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<li><p><a href="https://www.blackpress.huronresearch.ca/">The Black Press in 19th-century Canada and Beyond</a> explores the history of journalism as intellectual activism in Black Canadian and international history. It is led by <a href="https://ccie.educ.ubc.ca/boulou-ebanda-de-bberi/">Boulou Ebanda de B'béri</a>, research director and professor in the department of communication at University of Ottawa, and <a href="https://huronatwestern.ca/profiles/faculty/nina-reid-maroney-phd/">Nina Reid-Maroney</a>, history professor at Huron University College; </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://mobaprojects.ca/">Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives</a> presents a map of museums and archives that house records of Black-centred histories and is led by <a href="https://www.drcherylthompson.com/">Cheryl Thompson</a>, associate professor of performance studies and director for the Laboratory for Black Creativity at Toronto Metropolitan University.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Black oral history, digital mapping</h2>
<p>Digital mapping of Black migrations allows us to centre Black historical presence in public memory and examine Black oral narratives outside of their abolitionist framing. The teacher and white abolitionist, Benjamin Drew, published narratives of Black refugees in Ontario in his 1856 anti-slavery report, <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/drew/drew.html"><em>The Refugee; or, A North-Side View of Slavery</em></a>. A primary narrative of A.B. Jones comes from Drew’s report. </p>
<p>A.B. Jones told Drew about his desires for liberty in Canada, stating: “I wished then to emigrate to some place where I could be really a FREE MAN … therefore, I came here, and am only sorry to say that I did not come years before I did.” The passing of the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/fugitive-slave-act-of-1850#:%7E:text=The%20Fugitive%20Slave%20Act%20of,in%20the%20South%20once%20captured.">Fugitive Slave Act in 1850</a> in the U.S. led to much Black migration across the border. </p>
<p>However, the attitude of many Black Canadians toward the potential of equality in Canada <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/black-american-missionary-in-canada--a-products-9780228014478.php">would change after the 1850s</a> as, for example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-history-how-racism-in-ontario-schools-today-is-connected-to-a-history-of-segregation-147633">access to education became increasingly segregated</a>.</p>
<p>Many would move <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487529178/unsettling-the-great-white-north/">within Canada, to the U.S. and other places</a> in search of support from and community with the African diaspora.</p>
<h2>Aurelia Jones</h2>
<p>Through A. B. Jones’s account, we learned of his spouse, Aurelia Jones (née Bonsor), in the marriage register of Upper Canada/Canada West. Following A. B.’s death around 1860, there are few records of Aurelia living in London. </p>
<p>Aurelia’s case shows how peripheral Black women are in the archive. In the words of African American Studies professor Ula Taylor, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/JOWH.2008.0010">“the clues to their experiences are limited, heavily tainted, or virtually nonexistent</a>.” A public record of Aurelia exists because of her husband: after she inherited his property, she appears as “Mrs. A.B. Jones” in tax records. </p>
<p>However, Aurelia reappears in <a href="https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.8_01136_2/212">Hutchinson’s Nova Scotia Directory of 1867</a> and in the <a href="https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1881/Pages/item.aspx?itemid=617606">1881 Canada census for Nova Scotia</a>, living in Halifax. There, Aurelia lived on Creighton Street with a Black couple from Antigua and Jamaica. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Drawing showing a waterfront with boats and what appears to be log-constructed cabins." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574244/original/file-20240207-26-ojnwih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">View of the city of Halifax, N.S., 1860, from Harper’s Weekly, Aug. 11, 1860.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015006963360">(HathiTrust)</a></span>
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<p>Nova Scotia’s Black communities emerged from layers of migration; for example, <a href="https://broadviewpress.com/product/black-slavery-in-the-maritimes/#tab-description">Black Loyalists</a> arrived during the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), and African Caribbean peoples came looking for work in the 19th and 20th centuries. Creighton Street was a centre of Black Haligonian life well into the 20th century.</p>
<h2>Migrations, diasporic connections</h2>
<p>As researchers, we explore circumstances behind Aurelia’s migration to Halifax. </p>
<p>What potential factors led her to leave London? How did she meet her Halifax roommates? Had she established a social network with Black peoples from inside and outside Canada? These questions have remained unanswered because of her erasure and the lack of historical documentation on the lives of Black Canadian women from the 19th century. </p>
<p>Tracing out these intersections of Black communities leads us to visualize history in a way that acknowledges, in the words of <a href="https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/africana-and-american-studies/faculty/faculty-directory/walcott-rinaldo.html">Africana and American studies professor</a> Rinaldo Walcott, how Black people <a href="https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/black-like-who-20th-anniversary-edition/9781554832071.html">“redraw and rechart the places/spaces that they occupy</a>.” </p>
<p>The Black documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter <a href="https://www.rd.com/article/why-black-history-month-shouldnt-be-a-single-month/">recently called for the need to expand public awareness of Black history beyond the shortest month of the year</a>. We recognize the irony in writing this piece during Black History Month. </p>
<p>For Black communities as well as activists and scholars, remembering Black history happens every day of the year. Visualizing Black geography asks us to think of more permanent, transnational ways of commemorating Black history and honouring lives like that of Aurelia Jones.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Hinds-Hueglin works for Dr. Miranda Green-Barteet and Dr. Alyssa MacLean's Black Londoners Project at Western University. The Black Londoners Project receives funding from Western's Strategic Priorities Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mitterauer works for Dr. Miranda Green-Barteet and Dr. Alyssa MacLean's Black Londoners Project at Western University. The Black Londoners Project receives funding from Western's Strategic Priorities Fund.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Kinghan works for Dr. Miranda Green-Barteet and Dr. Alyssa MacLean's Black Londoners Project at Western University. The Black Londoners Project receives funding from Western's Strategic Priorities Fund.</span></em></p>The Black Londoners Project approaches Black history geographically by supplementing narratives of 16 Black individuals with archival evidence about their lives.Elizabeth Hinds-Hueglin, Research Associate in English and Writing Studies, Western UniversityDavid Mitterauer, PhD Candidate, English, and Research Assistant, Western UniversityPatrick Kinghan, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Education and Research Assistant, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2222422024-02-11T13:50:31Z2024-02-11T13:50:31ZThe diversity within Black Canada should be recognized and amplified<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573888/original/file-20240206-22-3e51m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C50%2C6720%2C4416&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eden Hagos (right) the founder of Black Foodie, sits with fellow African content creator Yvonne Ben.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.blackfoodie.co/three-tips-for-enjoying-nigerian-food-at-home/">(Black Foodie)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It seems trite, in 2024, to suggest that the <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2024/smr08_278">Black population in Canada is diverse</a>. On the surface, this is a relatively uncontroversial point to make and one that most people would agree with.</p>
<p>However, are we curious enough about what this diversity actually looks like? Further, what are the implications of reckoning with these nuances as we support and shape Black-focused policies, programs, studies, and spaces? These questions lead us into less certain terrain.</p>
<p>Global music star Abel Tesfaye, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-musicians-fled-the-country-after-the-1974-revolution-how-their-culture-lives-on-206214">formerly known as The Weeknd</a>, is arguably one of the most recognizable contemporary Black Canadian figures. Piecing together some of the public details about his background and activities paints a picture that helps us appreciate the textured landscape of Black Canada today. </p>
<p><a href="https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/793-the-weeknds-east-african-roots/">Abel was born in Toronto to Ethiopian immigrant parents</a> and raised in Scarborough — a neighbourhood with diverse Black communities. His music draws on a wide repertoire of Black musical traditions, including R&B and <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/the-weeknd-ethiopian-heritage/">Ethiopian influences and melodies</a>. </p>
<p>His recent philanthropy is also notable, including donations to causes such as <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/the-weeknd-donated-500k-racial-justice-initiatives-9395412/">Black Lives Matter</a>, <a href="https://www.utoronto.ca/news/support-weeknd-u-t-s-ethiopic-program-soars-past-500000-endowment-goal">Ethiopic Studies at the University of Toronto</a> and humanitarian <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56638328">efforts in Tigray (northern Ethiopia)</a>. </p>
<p>When we zoom in to individual stories like Abel’s, we can appreciate the multifaceted nature of Black Canada and the connections between contemporary and historical processes and events.</p>
<h2>Black Canadian histories</h2>
<p>Black Studies scholars Peter James Hudson and Aaron Kamugisha remind us that “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26752055">despite Black Canada’s apparent marginality</a>,” it exists and matters as it relates to our histories, cultures, ideas and politics as a country. The new edited volume <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487529178/unsettling-the-great-white-north/"><em>Unsettling the Great White North: Black Canadian History</em></a> by history professors Michele A. Johnson and Funké Aladejebi underscores this point and demonstrates that we can trace Black people to every corner in Canada, across both space and time.</p>
<p>There are many historic Black communities in Canada established by people brought by, fleeing and descended from the transatlantic slave trade, <a href="https://humanrights.ca/story/story-africville">including Africville</a>, a Black settlement in Nova Scotia. </p>
<p>There was a new and large wave of <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-657-x/89-657-x2020001-eng.htm">Black people who arrived from the Caribbean beginning in the 1960s</a>, following the introduction of a point-based immigration system in Canada. Generations of Caribbean communities have made an indelible mark on Canada, from <a href="https://www.canadian-nurse.com/blogs/cn-content/2022/02/18/black-cross-nurses-were-the-heartbeat-of-providing">underpinning the health-care system</a> in the 20th century, to solidifying the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/short-docs/the-story-of-toronto-s-bizarre-1985-patty-wars-when-the-government-tried-to-rename-the-beef-patty-1.6352203">Jamaican beef patty as an essential staple</a> in the Toronto diet.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19s-impact-on-migrant-workers-adds-urgency-to-calls-for-permanent-status-148237">COVID-19's impact on migrant workers adds urgency to calls for permanent status</a>
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<p>This only begins to scratch the surface of the multiplicity of experiences, communities and stories encompassed within Black Canada. Yet even these few details are ones you rarely bump into, but rather have to go searching for on your own. The mainstream discourse around Blackness in Canada often <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-canadian-women-artists-detangle-the-roots-of-black-beauty-109560">leans too heavily upon American Black history and politics</a>, and/or monolithic depictions of “the Black community.”</p>
<p>There is utility and beauty found behind the broad and unifying banner of Blackness. We saw this most starkly during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, as a diversity of Black people, communities and organizations stood in solidarity and collective pain and grief. While it is important to amplify and stay attuned to these collective identities and movements, it should not be at the expense of attention to the details of this bigger picture.</p>
<h2>New waves of immigration</h2>
<p>Statistics Canada census data from both <a href="https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/statcan/89-657-x/89-657-x2019002-eng.pdf">2016</a> and <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2023/smr08_270">2021</a> captures changes that were already apparent to many of us living alongside, working with or paying attention to Black people in Canada. Demographics have shifted considerably, owing in large part to new waves and patterns in immigration trends. </p>
<p>To begin with, the Black population in Canada is growing rapidly — from <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2022/smr08_259">573,000 in 1996</a> to <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2023/smr08_270">1.5 million in 2021</a>. Around 60 per cent of Black people in Canada were born abroad. While earlier generations of Black immigrants were mostly from the Caribbean, more recent immigrants are coming from African countries, including Nigeria and Ethiopia. This is also shifting broader national demographics, as Africa is now the second largest source continent representing recent immigrants in Canada.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Statistics Canada chart showing the origin of Black immigrants from before 1981 to 2016. The proportion of immigrants from Africa increased from 4.8 per cent before 1981 to 65 per cent in 2016." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573603/original/file-20240205-19-hckuzj.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Statistics Canada data shows how the background of Black immigrants has changed over recent decades.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-657-x/89-657-x2019002-eng.htm">(Statistics Canada)</a></span>
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<p>These migration patterns are more than footnotes in Black Canadian history. This diversity intersects with vastly different migration pathways and immigration statuses, class differences, unique cultural and linguistic influences, a multitude of religious traditions, as well as a variety of local and transnational social and political practices. </p>
<h2>Diversity of Black experiences</h2>
<p>We need the language, and quite frankly the attention span, to make sense of these unique Black trajectories and stories in Canada. For example, experiences and insights coming from the Somali diaspora community in Etobicoke are likely different than long-established Black communities in Halifax. Also, despite living with the unifying experience of encountering anti-Black racism, new Black Canadians who arrive as economic migrants may benefit from resources and privileges unavailable to Black folks who grew up in structurally-induced intergenerational poverty.</p>
<p>There is also so much to make note of as far as how Blackness itself is being made and remade in Canada through these shifting tides. Eden Hagos is a young Black-Canadian entrepreneur and founder of the online food and culture platform <a href="https://www.blackfoodie.co/">Black Foodie</a>. Hagos was inspired to become an advocate for Black food and culture after <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/eden-hagoss-black-foodie-blog-examines-the-racial-rhetoric-of-food/article30755637/">experiencing a racist incident at a European restaurant in Toronto</a>. </p>
<p>When you peruse Black Foodie content (including her merchandise donning phrases such as “Injera + Chill” and “Jollof + Chill”), you see that Hagos’s expression of Blackness is filtered through her East African roots, and her culinary routes through various African, Caribbean and Black American traditions.</p>
<p>If we care to make Black communities more visible and amplify their voices and demands for change and belonging, it is critical we also tune into these diversity of experiences and perspectives. We should take care to ensure the hard-earned policies and initiatives intended to combat the legacy of <a href="https://theconversation.com/call-out-anti-black-racism-every-day-not-as-a-campaign-tactic-183792">anti-Black racism in Canada</a> are extended throughout Black communities, and not just to those who have the easiest access to them. </p>
<p>In public discourse and national remembering, we need to continue the project of raising consciousness around the stories of historic Black communities while also drawing attention to contemporary diasporic communities, like the <a href="https://www.torontomu.ca/arts/about/new-hires/sam-tecle/">forthcoming book</a> by sociologist Sam Tecle does.</p>
<p>From an academic perspective, Black Studies in Canada also needs to make note of and engage with this diversity of experience. It should foster a new set of research questions and curricula that reflect this dynamism and diversity.</p>
<p>While concepts like “Black Canada” are useful blanket terms and an important organizing identity, a closer look reveals a detailed and fascinating tapestry that also deserves to be put on display.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222242/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alpha Abebe has received funding from the the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for previous research that has informed this article.</span></em></p>While “Black Canada” is a useful blanket term and important organizing identity, a closer look reveals a detailed tapestry of communities that also deserves visibility.Alpha Abebe, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136972024-02-06T13:30:01Z2024-02-06T13:30:01ZBlack travelers want authentic engagement, not checkboxes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571338/original/file-20240125-19-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black travelers want to see the travel industry embrace their full identities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/african-woman-with-smartphone-vacationing-in-tokyo-royalty-free-image/1155295723?phrase=black+tourists&adppopup=true">AzmanL/ Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/06/26/travel-brands-rushed-post-blacklivesmatter-are-slow-share-how-theyre-taking-action/">travel brands</a> – including Delta Air Lines, Hilton and Enterprise – pronounced their support for diversity and the Black Lives Matter movement, our research group was motivated to conduct a study that collected data of the travel experiences of more than 5,000 Black people and people of color. </p>
<p>Our work, published in <a href="https://www.afar.com/magazine/black-travel-is-not-a-monolith">Afar magazine</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">Tourism Geographies</a>, found that Black travelers expressed dissatisfaction with how the travel industry promotes itself as inclusive.</p>
<h2>Authenticity matters</h2>
<p>Black travelers want more genuine and authentic engagement and representation, we found, that showcases an investment in the Black community by partnering with Black-owned travel businesses, guides and experiences. </p>
<p>We conducted in-depth interviews with several of the people who provided data to us. Those we interviewed told us plainly that they are weary of being perceived as a single, uniform entity. They want more attention paid to their <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">intersecting identities</a>. First coined by Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw back in 1989, intersectionality has come to mean that all oppression is linked to people’s complex identities related to their gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability and more.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/urbanistamom/?hl=en">Joshlyn Crystal Adams</a>, CEO of Urbanista Travel, told us, “It’s definitely more than being Black. It’s also as a woman, where do I feel safe going … if you go to this country as a gay person, just be mindful that if you’re caught doing this or that, you can be arrested. So it spins far beyond race. It’s definitely about gender and sexuality.” </p>
<p>We also found that Black travelers notice the small things that add up to an experience of feeling valued and seen – or not.</p>
<p>Some companies support Black-owned businesses by buying their products in limited amounts. For example, <a href="https://travelnoire.com/black-skincare-line-owner-partners-with-marriott-hotels">JW Marriott</a> sells <a href="https://travelnoire.com/black-skincare-line-owner-partners-with-marriott-hotels">Diamond’s Body Care</a> in their spas. But the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">people in our study emphasized</a> the need for brands and destinations to make a greater effort. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theroot.com/is-hotel-shampoo-kind-of-racist-1790876376">What do you know about my hair</a>? Nothing,” travel media personality, pilot and avid adventurer <a href="https://www.kelleesetgo.com/">Kellee Edwards</a> said about hotel shampoo. “Until they go ahead and mix that pot up and sprinkle some salt and pepper in it … this is what we’re going to be dealing with.” </p>
<h2>Diversity is not a box to check</h2>
<p>In the <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/traveling-through-jim-crow-america">Jim Crow era</a>, Black travelers were regularly denied access to crucial services such as gas, food, restrooms and lodging. Stopping in unfamiliar locations posed the threat of humiliation, threats or worse. </p>
<p>While it’s true that race relations and access to travel by Black people have improved in the United States since <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/statutes/civil-rights-act-of-1964">the Civil Rights Act of 1964</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040218-043750">generational trauma</a> has left a mark on Black travelers, affecting how and why <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1630671">they choose to travel</a>. </p>
<p>Edwards shared that identifying as a Black woman in a <a href="https://www.unwto.org/gender-and-tourism">traditionally male-dominated industry</a> is “exhausting.” </p>
<p>“Diversity is a lot of things, but … as women, we are very much underrepresented,” Edwards said. “While we need to focus on inclusion when it comes to race, we also must focus on gender.” </p>
<p>Travel often reinforces entrenched power dynamics, noted Christopher Carr, one of our study participants and an associate dean at George Mason University. </p>
<p>Carr said that destinations often engage in “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/lgbtq-pride-consumerism/">rainbow washing</a>” – superficial LGBTQ-friendly gestures meant to elicit positive feelings about a brand in order to sell something – with no real support going to the community, such as promoting pride flags while passing <a href="https://vogue.sg/rainbow-washing-pride-month/">anti-LGBTQIA corporate policies</a>. </p>
<p>That leaves him to wonder if “the attention that I’m receiving is genuine or is it because I’m somebody’s box to tick?” </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">interviewees</a> called for actions beyond symbolic gestures and real effort to engage the community.</p>
<p>“If companies want to understand how to be appeasing to our communities, they should go directly to us,” study participant and AfroBuenaventura Transformative Travel founder <a href="https://www.afrobuenaventura.com/">Ronnell Perry</a> said.</p>
<h2>Change the industry from within</h2>
<p>Black individuals hold fewer than 1% of top leadership roles – C-suite, director, CEO/president – in the U.S. hospitality industry, according to a <a href="https://www.ahla.com/sites/default/files/2022blackrepresentationinhospitalityindustryleadership_final_0.pdf">report by Castell Project</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, consultancies such as <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/why-diversity-matters">McKinsey</a> have made it increasingly clear that companies with more diverse workforces perform better financially.</p>
<p>In our recent publication “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">Black Travel Is Not Monolithic</a>,” we proposed a road map to help guide the travel sector toward authentic inclusion. However, change requires taking power from the hands of dominant white, heterosexual, nondisabled and first-world nation groups. </p>
<p>One of our top suggestions is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864043">diversify human resource departments</a> so that individuals from diverse identities and backgrounds can actively participate in the hiring process. From there, they can address culturally sensitive issues on a daily basis. Of course, this is true not just in travel but across industries.</p>
<p>Fostering an inclusive workplace also requires nurturing diverse leaders, inclusive of intersecting marginalized identities. </p>
<p>“Until you get people in who can represent us to say, ‘Hey, this is my community and I know something about this and we can represent this,’” Edwards said, “it’s not going to change.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black travelers want the tourism industry to recognize their full identity. That will require more than procedural checkboxes and targeted advertising.Alana Dillette, Assistant Professor. L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Tourism RESET, San Diego State UniversityStefanie Benjamin, Associate Professor of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management; Co-Founder of CODE, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212992024-02-05T13:31:04Z2024-02-05T13:31:04ZBlack communities are using mapping to document and restore a sense of place<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573098/original/file-20240202-25-m9rzc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C11%2C1856%2C1272&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These highways displaced many Black communities. Some Black activists are using mapping to do the opposite: highlight hidden parts of history.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2011593044/">Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When historian <a href="https://www.nps.gov/cawo/learn/carter-g-woodson-biography.htm">Carter Woodson</a> created “Negro History Week” in 1926, which became “<a href="https://guides.loc.gov/black-history-month-legal-resources/history-and-overview">Black History Month” in 1976</a>, he sought not to just celebrate prominent Black historical figures but to transform how white America saw and valued all African Americans. </p>
<p>However, many issues in the history of Black Americans can get lost in a focus on well-known historical figures or other important events.</p>
<p>Our research looks at how African American communities struggling for freedom have long used maps to protest and survive racism while affirming the value of Black life.</p>
<p>We have been working on the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00087041.2023.2256131">Living Black Atlas</a>,” an educational initiative that highlights the neglected history of Black mapmaking in America. It shows the <a href="https://mappingblackca.com/">creative ways</a> in which Black people have historically used mapping to document their stories. Today, communities are using “restorative mapping” as a way to tell stories of Black Americans.</p>
<h2>Maps as a visual storytelling technique</h2>
<p>While most people think of maps as a useful tool to get from point A to point B, or use maps to look up places or plan trips, the reality is all maps tell stories. Traditionally, most <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520292833/chocolate-cities">maps did not accurately</a> reflect the stories of Black people and places: Interstate highway maps, for example, do not reflect the realities that in most U.S. cities the building of major roads <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984784455/a-brief-history-of-how-racism-shaped-interstate-highways">was accompanied by the displacement</a> of thousands of Black people from cities. </p>
<p>Like many marginalized groups, Black people have used maps as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cart-2020-0011">visual story-telling technique</a> for “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44000276">talking back</a>” against their oppression. They have also used maps for enlivening and giving dignity to Black experiences and histories. </p>
<p>An example of this is the NAACP’s campaign to lobby for <a href="https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/naacps-anti-lynching-campaigns-quest-social-justice-interwar-years">anti-lynching federal legislation</a> in the early 20th century. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-black-cartographers-put-racism-on-the-map-of-america-155081">NAACP mapped</a> the <a href="https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore">location and frequency</a> of lynching to show how widespread racial terror was to the American public. </p>
<p>Another example is the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s efforts to document racism in the American South in the 1960s. The <a href="https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/sncc-national-office/research/">SNCC research department’s</a> maps and research on racism played a pivotal role in planning civil rights protests. SNCC produced conventional-looking county-level maps of income and education inequalities, which were issued to activists in the field. The organization also developed creative “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2019.1631747">network maps</a>,” which exposed <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718521000300">how power structures and institutions</a> supported racial discrimination in economic and political ways. These maps and reports could then identify urgent areas of protest. </p>
<p>More recently, artist-activist Tonika Lewis Johnson created the “<a href="https://www.foldedmapproject.com/interactive-maps">Folded Map Project</a>,” in which she brought together corresponding addresses on racially separated sides of the same street, to show how racism remade the city of Chicago. She photographed the “map twins” and interviewed individuals living at paired addresses to show the disparities. The project brought residents from north and south sides of Chicago to meet and talk to each other.</p>
<h2>Maps for restorative justice</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/carto.45.1.32">Restorative mapping</a> is an important part of the Living Black Atlas: It helps bring visibility to <a href="https://www.southerncultures.org/article/rooted/">Black experiences</a> that have been marginalized or forgotten. </p>
<p>An important example of restorative mapping work comes from the <a href="https://www.honeypotperformance.org">Honey Pot Performance, a collective</a> of Black feminists who helped create the <a href="https://www.honeypotperformance.org/about-the-cbscm">Chicago Black Social Culture Map, or the CBSCM</a>. This digital map traces Black Chicagoans’ experiences from <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/migrations/great-migration">the Great Migration</a> to the rise of electronic <a href="https://www.thedjrevolution.com/the-history-of-electronic-dance-music/#:%7E:text=The%20early%20forms%20of%20house%20music%20began%20in%20the%20early,with%20drum%20machines%20and%20synthesizers">dance music in the city</a>. The map includes historical records and music posters as well as descriptions of important people and venues for that music. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five Black young men, dressed in suits, sit atop a white car with an Illinois number plate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573191/original/file-20240203-29-y8l8ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millions of African Americans migrated from the Deep South to the industrial North between 1942 and 1970. In this photo, Black youngsters are dressed for Easter on the South Side of Chicago, April 13, 1941.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TheGreatMigration/60132bf19f434519b6071ff3bb526a65/photo?Query=black%20history%20month%20chicago%20history%20music&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=817&digitizationType=Digitized&currentItemNo=14&vs=true&vs=true">AP Photo/Library of Congress/FSA/Russell Lee</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While engaging Black Americans in the effort, the CBSCM map tells the story of Chicago through a series of artistic movements that highlight African Americans’ <a href="https://www.chicago.gov/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Chicago_Black_Renaissance_Literary_Movement_Report.pdf">connection with the city</a>.</p>
<p>After years of gentrification and urban renewal programs that displaced Black people <a href="https://www.beyondthewhitecity.org/urban-renewal-and-bronzeville">from the city</a>, this project is helping remember those neighborhoods digitally. It is also inviting a broader discussion about the history of Black Chicago. </p>
<h2>Restoring a sense of place</h2>
<p>An important idea behind restorative mapping is the act of returning something to a former owner or condition. This connects with the broader <a href="https://bjatta.bja.ojp.gov/media/blog/what-restorative-justice-and-how-does-it-impact-individuals-involved-crime">restorative justice</a> movement that seeks to address historic wrongs by documenting past and present injustices through perspectives that are often ignored or forgotten.</p>
<p>The CBSCM map is not a conventional paper map. While it includes many things you would find in such a map, such as road networks and political boundaries, the map also includes links to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12679">fiction writing</a> and <a href="https://www.chicago.gov/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Lorraine_Hansberry_House_Landmark_Report.pdf">the Chicago Renaissance</a>, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520292833/chocolate-cities">art and music</a>, as well as expressions of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41279638">food</a>, family life, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2020.1784113">education</a> and politics that document a hidden history of Black life in the city. The map <a href="https://cbscmap.omeka.net/geolocation/map/browse">provides links to specific </a> historic documents, socially meaningful sites, and to the lives of people that tell the story of Black Chicago. </p>
<p>Thus, the map helps highlight how this geography is still present in Chicago in archives and people’s memories. Through this digital representation of Black Chicagoans’ deep cultural roots in the city, the mapping aims to restore a sense of place. Such work embodies what Black History Month is about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black activists have long used maps to help illustrate their communities’ history and to document historical injustices.Joshua F.J. Inwood, Professor of Geography and Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn StateDerek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2156242023-10-19T15:25:21Z2023-10-19T15:25:21ZWindrush: Portraits of a Pioneering Generation – collaborative approach reveals the people behind the paintings<p>Scotland’s first Black professor, Sir Godfrey Palmer, described the <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation">Windrush: Portraits of a Pioneering Generation</a> exhibition as “an acknowledgement that we are the same people from the past … who wouldn’t have [had] our portrait put up in this way”, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001n4cw/windrush-portraits-of-a-generation">in a recent BBC documentary</a>.</p>
<p>Palmer is one of ten people featured in the Royal Collection Trust’s exhibition, which <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/national-portrait">was commissioned by King Charles III</a> to “recognise and celebrate the immeasurable difference that they [the Windrush generation], their children and their grandchildren have made to this country”. The exhibition is on at London’s <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk">National Portrait Gallery</a>.</p>
<p>The timing of the exhibition is significant. It opened less than two weeks after the home secretary Suella Braverman’s declaration that multiculturalism in Britain <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/europe-home-secretary-united-states-multiculturalism-prime-minister-b2418911.html">had “failed”</a>. Windrush: Portraits of a Pioneering Generation suggests that Britain’s multicultural project hasn’t failed at all. If anything, these portraits – and the people they depict – hold up a mirror to a society that has underappreciated the Windrush generation for far too long.</p>
<p>Alongside Palmer, there are portraits of <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-linda-haye-obe">Linda Haye</a>, the first Black woman to work in the Police Complaints Authority, <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-jessie-stephens-mbe-slpm">Jessie Stephens</a>, the first Black woman to work at Companies House and <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-alford-gardner">Alford Gardner</a>, who served in the RAF and was one of the very first members of the Windrush generation.</p>
<h2>‘An unyielding monument’</h2>
<p>The exhibition is intended to be provocative. Honor Titus – the artist behind the portrait of RAF veteran <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-delisser-bernard">Delisser Bernard</a>, who was also part of the first HMT Empire Windrush voyage that arrived at Tilbury Docks on June 22 1948 – wants his piece to <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/national-portrait/portrait-of-delisser-bernard">challenge the viewer</a>. He asks: “What would being faced with an enduring figure like Delisser conjure in you?”</p>
<p>The portrait of <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-laceta-reid">Laceta Reid</a> is similarly hard to ignore. Whereas Delisser stands above the clouds, Laceta towers higher still – above the viewer’s eyeline – cutting a gentle but imposing figure. Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey blends Laceta’s outfit into the background “to represent his adapting to where he is”.</p>
<p>Then there’s Sonia Boyce’s representation of Black film and television pioneer <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-carmen-esme-munroe-obe">Carmen Esme Munroe</a>. Boyce, a professor of Black art and design whose work often involves experimenting with visual media, created a digital print from a photograph of Munroe sitting in a cinema. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most experimental portrait of the collection – and the one which most accurately reflects where Britain currently finds itself – is Deanio X’s depiction of <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-john-big-john-richards">John “Big John” Richards</a>. In the BBC documentary, Deanio X describes the challenge of making “something that Big John feels is familiar, resembles him … [and is] appreciated by himself and whoever he deems important”. </p>
<p>Deanio X uses acrylic, chalk, charcoal, graphite and ink to cast Big John as “a metaphor of an unyielding monument, unmoving in the face of rushing winds and treacherous waves”.</p>
<p>Richards’s granddaughter, who visits the portrait with him in the documentary, describes it as “a representation of everything he’s been through … what he’s had to overcome, and he’s still overcoming to this day”. </p>
<p>His portrait symbolises the troubles that the Windrush generation continue to endure. As of June 2023, four years after it was launched, only a quarter of the 6,348 applications to the Windrush compensation scheme had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/22/windrush-compensation-claims-scheme-payouts-criticism">received their payments</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/windrush-compensation-scheme-how-the-uk-government-is-failing-its-citizens-with-this-belittling-and-horrible-process-204840">Windrush compensation scheme: how the UK government is failing its citizens with this 'belittling and horrible' process</a>
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<h2>In their own image</h2>
<p>The Windrush scandal saw thousands of British citizens wrongfully threatened with (<a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/comment/windrush-scandal-was-failure-law-policy-politics-and-bureaucracy#:%7E:text=A%20review%20in%20to%20the,was%20affected%20is%20still%20unknown.">and in 164 cases, subjected to</a>) detention and deportation during the late 2010s. Subsequent media portrayals – such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/oct/10/after-windrush-paulette-wilson-visits-jamaica-50-years-on">The Guardian’s After Windrush documentary</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veviGfzuxTU">BBC Newsnight’s recent expose</a> on the failings of the Windrush compensation scheme – have arguably had a disempowering effect on the Windrush generation by over-identifying them as victims. </p>
<p>In doing so, they’ve overlooked the generation’s fundamental role in Britain’s history. <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en">The danger of a single story</a>, as Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says in her 2009 TED Talk on the topic, is that it shows “a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again – and that is what they become”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17503280.2022.2090701">In my doctoral research</a>, I argued that the Windrush generation should be depicted in visual arts media as “more than victims”. I gave the example of a collaborative documentary film project, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48670162">Windrush: The Years After - A Community Legacy on Film</a> (2023), where the director and production team consulted with their interviewees in terms of what the final product should look like. </p>
<p>The significance of a collaborative artistic process is that it allows for a more diverse set of stories and representations of the Windrush generation to emerge.</p>
<p>Each of the 10 artists in this exhibition spent a significant amount of time getting to know their sitters, making a meaningful effort to weave their stories into their portraits. </p>
<p>Derek Fordjour, for example, uses scraps of newspaper for Palmer’s portrait. He made the choice after hearing how Palmer came to the UK, aged 14, and was wrapped in newspaper for the flight by his grand aunt – so he wasn’t cold when he arrived. </p>
<p>Similarly, Amy Sherrald says the purpose of her portrait is to show <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/windrush-portraits-of-a-pioneering-generation/palace-of-holyroodhouse/portrait-of-edna-henry">Edna Henry</a> through Henry’s own words, rather than her own.</p>
<p>In its collaborative approach, this exhibition doesn’t just present images of the Windrush generation – it reveals the people behind the paintings. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Bramley received doctoral studentship funding from the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (accredited by the Economic and Social Research Council). </span></em></p>The portraits hold up a mirror to a society that has underappreciated the Windrush generation for far too long.Ryan Josiah Bramley, Lecturer in Education, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122452023-09-06T12:23:07Z2023-09-06T12:23:07ZThe untold story of how Howard University came to be known as ‘The Mecca’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546503/original/file-20230905-29-n66c1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4772%2C3250&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Howard University students assemble for a graduation ceremony in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Obama/6f638c11ec3448a7854719759a121bd3/photo?Query=howard%20university&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=27&currentItemNo=2&vs=true">Jose Luis Magana for the Associated Press</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you ask just about anyone at Howard University what’s the other name for their school, they will readily tell you: “The Mecca.”</p>
<p>The name has been extolled by former students, such as acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who wrote in his 2015 book “<a href="https://ta-nehisicoates.com/books/between-the-world-and-me/">Between the World and Me</a>” that his “only Mecca was, is, and shall always be Howard University.”</p>
<p>But ask anyone in the Howard community how and when the school came to be known as The Mecca – a question I’ve been researching for the past year – and blank stares are mostly the response.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A woman gestures as she speaks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President Kamala Harris, then a U.S. senator, speaks at Howard University in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020Democrats/08266c06a61a4dcbac23af1c6bdacb42/photo?Query=howard%20university%20kamala%20harris&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=95&currentItemNo=1">Manuel Balce Ceneta for the Associated Press</a></span>
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<p>In a 2019 article, The New York Times tried to find the origins of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/arts/howard-university-homecoming.html">the use of the term</a> for Howard when U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, <a href="https://magazine.howard.edu/stories/raising-up-kamala">one of the school’s most well-known alumnae</a>, was still a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.</p>
<p>Greg Carr, an <a href="https://www.drgregcarr.com/about">associate professor of Africana Studies at Howard University</a>, told the newspaper that the term “emerged after the Civil Rights Movement.”</p>
<p>“In the wake of the death of Malcolm X and in the spirit of the Black Power movement, students began to informally refer to the campus as ‘The Mecca of black education,’” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/arts/howard-university-homecoming.html">wrote Bianca Ladipo</a>.</p>
<p>It seemed intriguing to me as a <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/08/18/dropouts-tell-no-tales/">longtime admirer of Malcolm X</a> – and also as one who made the pilgrimage to the original Mecca in Saudi Arabia, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/08/archives/malcolm-x-pleased-by-whites-attitude-on-trip-to-mecca.html">Malcolm famously did in 1964</a>. Still, as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W8iRI5cAAAAJ&hl=en">veteran education writer</a> with an <a href="https://cmsi.gse.rutgers.edu/multimedia/media-coverage">extensive history</a> of covering <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/students/article/15101319/innovative-strategies-for-hbcus-proposed-at-cbc-conference">historically Black colleges and universities</a> – <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/news-roundup/article/15101322/comeys-speech-at-howard-prompts-protests">including Howard</a> – I decided to dig deeper. My efforts were not in vain. </p>
<h2>A new era</h2>
<p>Using Howard University’s <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/">digital archives</a>, I discovered that one of the earliest documented references to “The Mecca” is found in the Feb. 26, 1909, edition of the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=huj_v6">Howard University Journal</a>, a student-run publication. This was – contrary to what The New York Times said about the term emerging after the death of Malcolm X in 1965 – nearly 15 years before he was even born. </p>
<p>My finding comes at a time when Howard, located in Washington, D.C., is entering a new era. Its new president, Ben Vinson III, a <a href="https://alumni.dartmouth.edu/content/give-rouse-ben-vinson-iii-%E2%80%9992">leading scholar on the history of the African diaspora</a>, took the helm at the <a href="https://wamu.org/story/17/03/03/as-howard-university-turns-150-students-find-inspiration-in-its-history/">storied university</a> on <a href="https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/howard-university-appoints-revered-historian-and-academic-leader-ben-vinson-iii-phd-18th-president">Sept. 1, 2023</a>. </p>
<p>Thanks to a <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/institutions/hbcus/article/15306096/howard-earns-90-million-dod-contract-a-first-for-an-hbcu">five-year, US$90 million Department of Defense contract</a>, the school recently became the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/howard-university-hbcu-partner-pentagon/story?id=96636121">first HBCU to partner with the Pentagon to conduct research in military technology</a>.</p>
<p>The university is also <a href="https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/howards-historic-90-million-contract-university-affiliated-research-center-spotlights-stem-and-r1">on a quest to attain R-1 status</a>. R-1 is a classification level reserved for universities that grant doctoral degrees and also have <a href="https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/carnegie-classification/classification-methodology/basic-classification/">“very high research activity.”</a> </p>
<h2>Going way back</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/">Named after one of its founders</a>, Union general and <a href="https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/2473">Civil War hero</a> Oliver Otis Howard, the school opened in 1867 and was <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/howard-university.html">established through an act of Congress</a>. </p>
<p>Its founders <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/#:%7E:text=Howard%20University%20was%20incorporated%20on,four%20million%20recently%20emancipated%20slaves.">envisioned Howard</a> as a school for educating and training Black physicians, teachers and ministers from the nearly 4 million newly freed slaves.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/howard-chess-fundraise-competition-hbcu/">Malik Castro-DeVarona</a>, a political science major and a former president of the Howard University Chess Club, unwittingly helped me discover how the school came to be known as “The Mecca.” He suggested that I look in the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/hilltop/">digital archive for The Hilltop</a>, the campus newspaper <a href="https://thehilltoponline.com/2023/01/23/the-nations-oldest-celebrating-99-years-of-the-hilltop/">co-founded in 1924</a> by novelist <a href="https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/zora-neale-hurston/">Zora Neale Hurston</a>. </p>
<p>In my online search, I discovered a different digital archive: <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/huarchives/">Digital Howard</a>. There, I did a simple search for the term “Mecca” and got <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/do/search/?q=mecca&start=0&context=4339039&facet=">more than 400 results</a>, including the one from 1909.</p>
<h2>The meaning of ‘The Mecca’</h2>
<p>Through my research, I discovered that over the years “The Mecca” has been used in different ways. It is most often meant to preserve Howard’s reputation as a beacon of Black thought. </p>
<p>That first reference from February 1909 came in an article written by J.A. Mitchell, a student who referred to Howard as a potential Mecca for young Black students. Specifically, Mitchell wrote: “Howard indeed bids well to become the Mecca, toward which the eyes of our youth will instinctively turn,” Mitchell wrote in the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=huj_v6">Howard University Journal</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white image shows a large building with a clock tower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1900 image, the exterior of Founders Library is seen at Howard University in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-shows-an-exterior-view-of-founders-library-howard-news-photo/515351082?adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
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<p>“In fact,” Mitchell continued, “it seems as if the present outlook already forecasts a new era in the history of our school and tells of a future Howard, situated on a hill overlooking the national capital, that is second to no institution of its kind.”</p>
<p>That statement was prophetic. In its 2022 rankings, U.S. News and World Report ranked Howard as <a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/howard-university-1448">No. 2 among historically Black colleges and universities</a>, making Howard second only to Spelman College, an HBCU for women, located in Atlanta, according to the magazine.</p>
<p>Mitchell’s reference was not the only one. A few years later, in a <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=huj_v11">1913 edition of the Howard University Journal</a>, an article stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Howard is a strategic institution. She is "The Mecca” of higher education attended in main by Negro youths. … She commands the interest of multitudes of people throughout the land and gives impetus to the life of thousands of alumni and alumnae. Again, she nurtures fifteen hundred select youths of a race.“</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A different Mecca?</h2>
<p>Anyone familiar with the culture at Howard knows there’s a <a href="https://www.flofootball.com/articles/7960976-the-real-hu-behind-the-history-of-the-hampton-howard-rivalry">long-standing rivalry</a> between Howard University and Hampton University, located in Hampton, Virginia, over which school is ‶<a href="https://hbcubuzz.com/2021/02/who-is-the-real-hu/.">the real HU.</a>” My research shows there might have once been a debate over which school is “The Mecca” as well.</p>
<p>When Booker T. Washington <a href="https://virginiahistory.org/learn/civil-rights-movement-virginia/hampton-institute-and-booker-t-washington">arrived at Hampton in 1872</a> – five years after Howard University was <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/">founded in 1867</a> – Hampton, Virginia, was known as the “<a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=booker_manu">Mecca of the ambitious colored youth of the dismantled South</a>,” according to a 1910 Howard manuscript titled “A Ride with Booker T. Washington.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scores of Black students are standing in rows for a school assembly." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students attend an assembly at Hampton Institute in January 1899.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/school-assembly-in-hampton-institute-hampton-va-between-news-photo/1425873980?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hampton isn’t the only U.S. city to be known as a Black Mecca.</p>
<p>As noted in a <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1925-07_30_3/page/146/mode/2up?q=mecca">1925 edition of “The Crisis”</a> – the NAACP magazine <a href="https://modjourn.org/journal/crisis/#:%7E:text=Du%20Bois%20founded%20The%20Crisis,social%20injustice%20in%20U.S.%20history.">founded in 1910</a> by <a href="https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/web-dubois">W.E.B. DuBois</a> – Washington, D.C., was “regarded as the Mecca of the American Negro, for here he is under the wing of the eagle and can’t be made the victim of hostile legislation or rules.”</p>
<p>Around the same time, <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/alain-locke">Alain Locke</a>, who taught English and philosophy at Howard in the early 1910s and started the school’s philosophy department, proclaimed Harlem as the “<a href="https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17368696">Mecca of the new Negro</a>.” Locke is also known as the <a href="https://www.doaks.org/resources/cultural-philanthropy/alain-locke-collection-of-african-art">“dean of the Harlem Renaissance.”</a> </p>
<p>The point is this idea of a Black Mecca was constantly shifting and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/14/black-migration-south/">continues to shift to this day</a>.</p>
<h2>The Mecca of the future</h2>
<p>Despite archival records that show Howard was called The Mecca as early as 1909, other details have yet to be discovered. Perhaps under the leadership of President Vinson, a <a href="https://www.acls.org/digital-commission-sustaining-diverse-scholarship/">champion of digital scholarship</a>, Howard students and scholars can continue to research how Howard came to be known as The Mecca.</p>
<p>Doing so would be a fitting tribute to one of Howard’s most illustrious deans, Carter G. Woodson. </p>
<p>Hailed as the “<a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/02/celebrating-black-history-months-founder/">father of Black history,</a>” Woodson launched <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/black-history-month-legal-resources/history-and-overview">Negro History Week</a> in 1926. That <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/history-of-black-history-month.html">paved the way</a> for what today is known as <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/carter-g-woodson">Black History Month</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamaal Abdul-Alim has served as a volunteer adviser for the Howard University Chess Club. In addition to his role as an adjunct at the University of Maryland, he currently serves as education editor at The Conversation.</span></em></p>While it’s widely believed that Howard University came to be known as “The Mecca” in the 1960s, new evidence shows the nickname is more than half a century older than that.Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Lecturer in Journalism, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2067062023-09-01T12:42:46Z2023-09-01T12:42:46ZWhite men have controlled women’s reproductive rights throughout American history – the post-Dobbs era is no different<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545354/original/file-20230829-23-mvx2g4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5964%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat from Missouri, after participating in an abortion rights sit-in on July 19, 2022, in Washington.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-cori-bush-leaves-a-processing-area-after-being-arrested-news-photo/1409761529?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than a year after the Supreme Court ended federal protection for abortion rights in the United States, disagreements over abortion bans continue to reverberate around the country. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_brdDBHOT5E">Candidates sparred over the idea of a federal abortion ban</a> during the Aug. 23, 2023, Republican presidential debate. And abortion is likely to figure prominently in the November 2023 <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/27/pennsylvania-supreme-court-abortion-00113074">contest for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court</a>.</p>
<p>When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392">Roe v. Wade</a> in June 2022, removing women’s federal constitutional right to get abortions and giving states the power to pass laws about the legality of the procedure, the 6-3 vote was by a four white men, one Black man and a white woman majority.</p>
<p>Since that decision – <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a> – more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/jun/22/abortion-ban-politicians-who-voted-for-restrictions-who-are-they-men-women">1,500 state legislators, who are overwhelmingly white men</a>, have voted for full or partial abortion bans. </p>
<p>This is not the first period in U.S. history when white men have exercised control over women’s right to bear – or not bear – children, including during slavery. Then, it was a matter of numbers. The more people they enslaved, the more money white male enslavers could earn either from <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">selling the enslaved or from the forced labor</a> of the enslaved. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.430">White men controlled people’s reproductive rights during the 20th century</a>, too, with the <a href="https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism">American eugenics movement</a>. </p>
<p>From the late 1800s until the 2000s, white proponents of eugenics – the selective breeding of people – tried to determine who was fit or unfit to have children. While the American eugenics movement affected people of other races and ethnic backgrounds, as well as men, it was particularly harmful to Black women who, data from 1950 to 1966 shows, were sterilized at “<a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">three times the rate of white women and more than 12 times the rate of white men</a>.” </p>
<p>During both periods, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2017.0045">Black women and their health bore the brunt of the consequences</a> of white men’s control.</p>
<p>As a researcher who specializes in the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=566DVVQAAAAJ&hl=en">history of race and racism in the U.S.</a>, I study historical issues related to race, gender and social justice.</p>
<h2>Enslaved women forced to reproduce</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45129363">African midwives</a>, imported and enslaved as early as the 1600s, attended to the birthing needs of the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008526">enslaved and enslavers</a> until the beginning of the 19th century.</p>
<p>But, after 1808, enslavers in the United States <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/slave-trade.html">could no longer legally import</a> enslaved people. With this shift, enslavers stepped up the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_American_Slave_Coast/iwCKCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=slave+masters+forced+breeding+of+slaves+1808&pg=PT11&printsec=frontcover">forced breeding of enslaved women</a>. White men raped the Black women and <a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/hidden-voices/enslaved-women-and-slaveholder/sexual-violence">girls they enslaved</a>, and then enslaved the children born from those rapes. White men also <a href="https://notchesblog.com/2020/10/27/the-rape-of-rufus-sexual-violence-against-enslaved-men/">forced the Black women and Black men they enslaved to have sex </a> with one another to generate more babies, who would be born into slavery.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/736-how-capitalism-underdeveloped-black-america">This was a systemic way </a> of ensuring enslaved women <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/155575/killing-the-black-body-by-dorothy-roberts/">bore more children, which would increase profits</a> for their enslavers. </p>
<p>Because <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/More_Than_Chattel/td2yIa7X6H4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=midwives">the Black midwives and enslaved women often were blamed for or suspected</a> of using birth control and abortions to resist forced pregnancy and the enslavement of their offspring, enslavers turned increasingly away from midwives and to <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Birthing_a_Slave/ZussEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover">white male doctors</a> to figure out why nearly half of enslaved infants were stillborn or died within their first year of life and why so many enslaved women were infertile. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305243">These doctors also helped with difficult births</a>. </p>
<p>In the two decades after 1810, the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716878/">population growth rate of the enslaved averaged about 30%</a>, despite the ban on slave importation. This was just under the 1800 to 1809 average of 31.6% which was a century high. </p>
<p>In the 1800s, as the slave population increased, <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">profits in cotton did too</a>. And after the legal importation of slaves ended, the <a href="https://ir.vanderbilt.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1803/15814/vu06-w24.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">value of Black women of childbearing age increased</a> significantly. The forced breeding of these enslaved women was <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol7/iss1/4">linked to the profitability of southern economies</a>. </p>
<h2>Eugenics and control over women’s bodies</h2>
<p>Eugenicists believed that <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">increased breeding by white people</a>, whom they assumed had high IQs, would benefit American society. But people who did not embody their idea of racial perfection, such as Black people, Native Americans, certain immigrants, poor white people and people with disabilities, should be sterilized – typically via <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/fit-to-be-tied/9780813578910">tubal ligation and vasectomy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black woman, surrounded by large plants, sits with both hands resting on her crossed legs as she stares ahead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elaine Riddick, pictured at her home in Marietta, Ga., on July 15, 2022, was sterilized without her consent when she was 14, in North Carolina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elaine-riddick-at-her-home-in-marietta-georgia-on-july-15-news-photo/1242045819?adppopup=true">Tami Chappell for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this <a href="https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism">debunked pseudo-science</a>, eugenicists often <a href="https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1270&context=law-review">used intelligence tests</a> to determine who was fit or unfit to reproduce and to predict who would commit crimes, end up in poverty or have children who were mentally ill or intellectually disabled. And they worked to incorporate their ideas into state laws. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1098360021025909">Thirty-two states</a>, between 1907 and 1937, enacted forced sterilization mandates to prevent births by people eugenicists considered socially inadequate. </p>
<p>State-mandated procedures resulted in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">coerced sterilization of women</a>, particularly <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bioe.12977">African American, Native American and Hispanic American women</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/gyn.2021.0102">those from Southern and Eastern Europe</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/desegregation">Beginning in 1948</a> with President Harry Truman’s executive order to integrate the military, which extended to other areas, including education, employment and commerce, <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">sterilization rates for Black women increased</a>. For example, in North Carolina, which had the country’s third-highest sterilization rate, far more women than men were forcibly sterilized. And in the 1960s, <a href="https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BreedingOutVol15No1-1.pdf">Black women in the state made up 65% of the women sterilized</a>, while only making up 25% of the population. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="With people standing around her, a woman wearing a shirt that reads, " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abortion-rights activists counter-demonstrate as anti-abortion demonstrators gather for a rally in Federal Building Plaza on June 24, 2023, in Chicago to mark the first anniversary of the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abortion-rights-activists-counter-demonstrate-as-anti-news-photo/1501196070?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-history-of-forced-sterilization/">Between 1930 and 1970</a>, close to 33% of the women in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, were forcibly sterilized. In California, between 1997 and 2003, 1,400 female inmates, <a href="https://www.insider.com/inside-forced-sterilizations-california-womens-prisons-documentary-2020-11">mostly Black, were forcibly sterilized</a>. </p>
<h2>The post-Dobbs era</h2>
<p>White nationalists and some right-wing politicians in the U.S. see the nation’s demographic changes as dangerous. The Census Bureau <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.pdf">projects that in the 2040s</a>, non-Hispanic white people will no longer make up a majority of the U.S. population. The nation’s racial and ethnic makeup will then be what some call “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/opinion/us-census-majority-minority.html">majority-minority</a>.” Those projections scare racists, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-twisted-logic-behind-the-rights-great-replacement-arguments/">who believe in a conspiracy about white people being destroyed</a>, which they label the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2077654">great replacement theory</a> because they fear losing social, political and economic power.</p>
<p>There is no way to know if this theory factored into the majority’s votes in the Dobbs decision, but the argument that <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-fight-to-ban-abortion-is-rooted-in-the-great-replacement-theory/">not enough white people are being born</a> has been a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/23/body-politics">common historical thread</a> in the American anti-abortion movement.</p>
<p>But, while believers in the great replacement conspiracy want white women to have more babies, actual anti-abortion decisions like the Dobbs ruling <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/roe-v-wade-ruling-disproportionately-hurts-black-women-experts-say-2022-06-27/">harm Black women more</a> than any other group. <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-after-supreme-courts-dobbs-decision-black-women-still-struggle-for-access-to-reproductive-health-care-206369">Black women represent 39% of the country’s abortion patients</a>, but many live in communities that have limited access to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X2100009X">family planning clinics</a>. And they have <a href="https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/racial-disparities-in-maternal-and-infant-health-current-status-and-efforts-to-address-them/">disproportionately</a> higher rates of complications during pregnancy.</p>
<p>As a result, Black women – who experience <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/jwh.2020.8868">higher maternal complications</a> and mortality rates – <a href="https://www.whijournal.com/article/S1049-3867(23)00098-1/fulltext">will be forced to give birth to more babies</a>. </p>
<p>This is another period in the country in which the reproductive health decisions made by mostly white men will harm Black women.</p>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodney Coates does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the US, white men have long had the power to make decisions about women’s reproductive health care. Those decisions have often been especially harmful to Black women.Rodney Coates, Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1851112023-03-07T13:44:09Z2023-03-07T13:44:09ZLeading American medical journal continues to omit Black research, reinforcing a legacy of racism in medical knowledge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483105/original/file-20220906-16-z1jwf1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C3637%2C2709&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Medical research is one of the keys in providing health care. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/8hHxO3iYuU0">SJ Objio for Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The leading U.S. medical journal, read regularly by doctors of all specialties, systematically ignores an equally reputable and rigorous body of medical research that focuses on Black Americans’ health. </p>
<p>The American Medical Association created a segregated “whites only” environment more than 100 years ago to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0027968415309354">prohibit Black physicians</a> from joining their ranks. This exclusionary and racist policy prompted the creation in 1895 of the <a href="https://www.nmanet.org/page/History">National Medical Association</a>, a professional membership group that supported African American physicians and the patients they served. Today, the NMA represents more than 30,000 medical professionals. </p>
<p>In 2008, the AMA publicly apologized and pledged to right the wrongs that were done through <a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/american-medical-association-and-race/2014-06">decades of racism</a> within its organization. Yet our research shows that despite <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/ama-apology-african-americans.pdf">that public reckoning</a> 15 years ago, the opinion column of the AMA’s leading medical journal does not reflect the research and editorial contributions by NMA members. </p>
<p>Invisibility in the opinion column of one of the <a href="https://www.healthwriterhub.com/top-medical-journals/">most prominent medical journals</a> in the U.S. is another form of subtle racism that continues to <a href="https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-the-national-medical-association">lessen the importance of</a> equitable medical care and health issues for Black and underserved communities. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C38&q=mya+poe&btnG=">rhetoricians</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C38&q=gwendolynne+reid&oq=gwendolynne+r">researchers</a> who study scientific communication, we look at the ways scientific writing perpetuates or addresses racial inequity. Our <a href="https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/06/07/citational-racism-how-leading-medical-journals-reproduce-segregation-in-american-medical-knowledge/">recent study</a> traced how research is referenced by medical professionals and colleagues, known as citations, of flagship journals of the NMA and AMA: the <a href="https://www.nmanet.org/page/History">Journal of the National American Association</a> and the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama">Journal of the American Medical Association</a>. </p>
<h2>Invisible research</h2>
<p>Our research began with a question: Has the <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/ama-apology-african-americans.pdf">AMA’s 2008 apology</a> had any effect on the frequency with which JAMA opinion writers draw on insights and research of JNMA scholars and authors? </p>
<p>We studied opinion columns, also referred to as editorials, precisely because they are useful <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/document/1043716#document-details-anchor">indicators of current and future research as well as priorities and agendas</a>. The <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3190447/">purpose of editorials</a> is to critically analyze and sift through various opinions and evidence. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3190447/">Effective editorials</a> in scientific journals are especially rich forums for debate within the medical community. </p>
<p>Medical publications like JNMA and JAMA do not simply convey knowledge. They also establish professional community values through the topics that are studied and who is credited for ideas related to research. When writers choose to reference or cite another scholar, they are acknowledging and highlighting that expertise. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="X-ray of a chest, several ribs, shoulder bone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492834/original/file-20221101-26-bicird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Influential medical journals serve to inform and shape health care.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/ouyjDk-KdfY">Harlie Raethel for Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>As such, citations play an important role in the visibility of research. Articles and authors with more citations are more likely to have a greater effect on the scientific community and patient care. Opinion pieces can shape the broader conversation among medical professionals, and citations can widen that circle of communication. </p>
<h2>Invisible racism</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/06/07/citational-racism-how-leading-medical-journals-reproduce-segregation-in-american-medical-knowledge/">traced how frequently</a> JAMA and JNMA opinion writers referenced one another from 2008 to 2021 by reviewing the 117 opinion pieces published in JNMA and 1,425 published in JAMA during this 13-year period. We found that JAMA opinion columns have continued to, in effect, uphold racial bias and segregation by ignoring JNMA findings. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Black medical professional adjusts gloves in front of a mirror." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492836/original/file-20221101-18-bfntf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The work of Black medical proessionals is being overlooked in national medical journals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/kJwZxH6jins">Piron Guillaume for Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>Even when focusing on race, racism and health disparities, topics that JNMA has explored in great detail, JAMA opinion columns did not reference JNMA colleagues or research. Only two <a href="https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/06/07/citational-racism-how-leading-medical-journals-reproduce-segregation-in-american-medical-knowledge/">JNMA articles</a> were credited and referenced in the 1,425 JAMA opinion pieces that we reviewed.</p>
<p>Editors at JAMA did not respond to our requests for their comments on our analysis.</p>
<h2>Racial equity in medicine</h2>
<p>The story of the AMA and NMA is not only a reminder of the racist history of medicine. It demonstrates how the expertise of Black professionals and researchers continues to be ignored today. The lack of JNMA citations in JAMA research undercuts the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2780911">AMA’s own work on racial equity</a> and potentially compromises the quality of medical knowledge published in its journals. </p>
<p>For example, a recent study in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915378117">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> found that scientists from underrepresented groups innovate, or contribute novel scientific findings, at a higher rate than those from majority groups.</p>
<p>An article published in the weekly medical journal of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001918">Public Library of Science</a> noted that diverse research teams are often more successful in developing new knowledge to help treat women and underrepresented patients with greater precision. </p>
<h2>Dissolving systemic bias</h2>
<p>One way to intentionally tackle racial bias and segregation in medical knowledge is by deliberately referencing Black researchers and their work. To change this dynamic of racial bias, medical journals must pay attention to how much and how often the Black medical establishment is referenced. Health issues in underserved communities would likely become more visible and achieve greater quality of care in keeping with the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2780911">AMA’s commitment to social justice</a>.</p>
<p>Journal editors could tell writers and editorial staff to prioritize citation practices. Individual authors might conduct research and evaluate their reading habits to intentionally include research from the Black medical community. </p>
<p>However, this work must go beyond individuals. Undoing decades of collective habits and embedded racism requires collaborations that work across systems, institutions and disciplines. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="One hand holds a bottle of pills and the other hand holds three white pills." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492838/original/file-20221101-28600-4atxo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Racial disparities in health care often result in lower-quality medical treatment and worse health care outcomes for Black Americans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/medicine">Towfiqu Barbhuiya for Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>For example, libraries, databases, and search engines that help researchers find and evaluate medical publications might review today’s research tools. It is hard to contribute to a research conversation if your work is invisible or can’t be found.</p>
<p>Many tools, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4150161/">like impact factors</a>, rank research according to how influential it is. If research begins in a category of less importance, it can be harder for the technology to rank it equitably. JNMA’s work was already marginalized when the tools that rank research were developed. </p>
<p>Thus, search results can hinder efforts of individual authors to work toward equitable citation practices. Black researchers and their research of Black health were excluded from the beginning, and existing systems of sharing knowledge and drawing attention to important studies incorporate that structural racism.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/ama-apology-african-americans.pdf">AMA apology</a> in 2008 and its recent progress on <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2780911">addressing racism</a> in its publication process are promising steps. Influential medical journals serve to inform and shape health care. Who is referenced in these journals matters to the medical establishment, research funders and, ultimately, to the patients that are served by innovations in medicine.</p>
<p>Attention to citation can help <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178121005904?via%3Dihub">reduce systemic bias</a> in medical knowledge to achieve greater fairness in health care and, in the long run, help increase attention and resources that will help solve health issues in underserved communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185111/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The lack of visibility by Black researchers and physicians in scientific literature perpetuates systemic racism in medicine.Cherice Escobar Jones, PhD Candidate, Northeastern UniversityGwendolynne Reid, Assistant Professor of English, Emory UniversityMya Poe, Associate Professor of English, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1963452023-02-22T12:54:48Z2023-02-22T12:54:48ZGlobetrotting Black nutritionist Flemmie P. Kittrell revolutionized early childhood education and illuminated ‘hidden hunger’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509502/original/file-20230210-18-axl9fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=238%2C274%2C5663%2C3282&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">She traveled far and wide to support children and families around the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:549027">Cornell University</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nutrition is among the most critical issues of our time. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/08/31/1120004717/the-u-s-diet-is-deadly-here-are-7-ideas-to-get-americans-eating-healthier">Diet-related illnesses</a> are shortening life spans and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-urban-planning-and-housing-policy-helped-create-food-apartheid-in-us-cities-154433">the lack of conveniently located and affordable nutritious food</a> makes it hard for many Americans to enjoy good health.</p>
<p>Physicians are also alarmed by nutritional trends they see among the nation’s most vulnerable people: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/well/family/childhood-obesity-guidelines.html">children</a>. </p>
<p>I think that this situation would frustrate Black nutritionist <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/kittrell-flemmie-pansy-1904-1980/">Flemmie Pansy Kittrell</a> if she were alive today. Throughout a trailblazing career that spanned half a century, she worked to enhance food security and to improve both diets and children’s health – under the umbrella of home economics. </p>
<p>While you might view home economics as merely a set of practical skills concerning cooking and budgeting, <a href="https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/homeEc/masterlabel.html">in the mid-20th century it applied</a> scientific concepts to improve home management, strengthen parenting skills and enhance childhood development.</p>
<p>Kittrell went further, by making the case for healthy and strong families a tool for diplomacy. </p>
<p>While researching Black women’s global activism for rights and freedom, I became aware of Kittrell’s work on behalf of the U.S. State Department, women’s organizations and church groups. I was struck by her <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/ideology-in-u-s-foreign-relations/9780231201810">pragmatic approach to foreign relations</a>, which emphasized women, children and the home as the keys to good living and national and global peace and security.</p>
<p>I was also stunned by the Black nutritionist’s commitment to <a href="https://ww3.aauw.org/2016/02/24/flemmie/">shattering traditional assumptions about home economics</a> and improving the health of low-income families around the globe, especially for people of color. </p>
<h2>Humble roots</h2>
<p>Kittrell, the eighth of nine children born to a sharecropping family, grew up in Henderson, North Carolina. She began working as a nursemaid and cook when <a href="https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:45173968$3i">she was only 11 years old</a>. </p>
<p>In 1919, Kittrell enrolled at Hampton Institute, a small historically Black Virginia college that later became Hampton University. </p>
<p>A professor encouraged her to major in home economics. She initially rejected the suggestion, claiming the home was “<a href="https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:45173968$3i">just so ordinary</a>.” Kittrell reconsidered once she learned about <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/30/metro/ellen-h-swallow-richards-pioneer-sanitary-engineering-science/">Ellen H. Swallow Richards</a>, the first woman to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the nation’s earliest female professional chemists.</p>
<p>Kittrell realized that the field was about <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-bringing-back-home-economics-the-answer-to-our-modern-woes-161632">more than cooking and sewing</a>. Furthermore, women who majored in the subject could then <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/26/did-home-economics-empower-women">pursue sciences</a> that were closed to them because of their gender.</p>
<p>With a growing belief that the home and family were the basis of society, Kittrell chose to major in home economics rather than political science or economics.</p>
<h2>Nutrition and Black families</h2>
<p>After her 1928 graduation, Kittrell briefly taught at a high school before becoming the director of home economics and dean of women at <a href="https://www.digitalnc.org/blog/bennett-colleges-home-economics-institute-materials-now-online/">Bennett College</a>, a historically Black college in Greensboro, North Carolina. During a 12-year tenure there, she created a nursery center that trained parents and provided child care.</p>
<p>The center also served as a laboratory for experimenting with different teaching techniques. </p>
<p>Kittrell drew on this research when she became the <a href="https://www.human.cornell.edu/flemmie-kittrell-visiting-scholar-college-human-ecology">first Black woman to earn a doctorate at Cornell University</a>. In her 1936 doctoral dissertation, she argued that the health of Black families could be improved by focusing on infant feeding practices and parental education. She was the first Black woman to get a doctorate in nutrition at any college or university.</p>
<p>In 1940 she returned to Hampton. During World War II, Kittrell and her students taught local families how to ration and substitute food. The home economics department also joined female students in hosting evening activities, including dances for <a href="https://hamptonroadsnavalmuseum.blogspot.com/2018/03/hampton-institute-and-navy-in-second.html">Black military trainees and their families</a>. </p>
<p>Four years later, Kittrell became the head of Howard University’s home economics department. She remained on that faculty for 28 years. </p>
<p>Taking advantage of Howard’s Washington, D.C., location, Kittrell persuaded national leaders that <a href="https://ww3.aauw.org/2016/02/24/flemmie/">home economics could help transform society</a> at home and around the world. She spent so much time working and traveling for the U.S. government that one biographer called her “<a href="https://worldcat.org/title/958934382">a good will ambassador with a cookbook</a>.”</p>
<h2>‘Hidden hunger’ at home and abroad</h2>
<p>In 1947, the State Department sent Kittrell to Liberia to conduct a nutrition study. Her efforts supported an American commitment to strengthen diplomatic and military with countries around the world.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/reprints/230/">her follow-up report</a>, Kittrell explained that while food shortages and hunger were not significant issues, more than 90% of Liberians suffered from vitamin deficiencies, resulting in “hidden hunger.” Though she did not invent the term, she was among the first to draw widespread attention to the issue at home and abroad.</p>
<p>Arguing that what happens in one place often occurs in others, Kittrell implored the U.S. to examine diet issues at home.</p>
<p>In 1949, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/5545597277">she published a study</a> comparing the diet and food choices of Black and white Americans. She showed that the illnesses that many Black Americans experienced were tied to racial discrimination in housing, employment and medical services rather than poor decision-making. <a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/oc/np/HistoryofHumanNutritionResearch/HistoryofHumanNutritionResearch.pdf">In later years</a>, academic, professional and activist organizations similarly applied this intersectional lens to nutrition campaigns.</p>
<h2>Nutrition and democracy</h2>
<p>American foreign policy leaders found <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1999/winter/us-and-ghana-1957-1966-2.html">Kittrell’s pragmatic and balanced approach</a> indispensable in forging alliances during the Cold War. </p>
<p>In 1950, Kittrell persuaded the State Department’s Fulbright program to send her to India, which had recently won its independence from the U.K. She returned there in 1953 under <a href="https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/InternationalAid_Background.pdf">a government program that provided technical expertise</a> to newly independent nations as a form of diplomacy. </p>
<p>In the 1950s, Kittrell traveled across Africa to improve relations with African states that had criticized the U.S. for boasting of its freedoms while <a href="https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Keeping-the-Faith/Postwar-Foreign-Policy-Civil-Rights/">denying basic civil rights to many of its citizens</a>. </p>
<p>In September 1958, the nutritionist traveled to Ghana, the <a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/ghanaians-campaign-independence-british-rule-1949-1951">first West African country to gain independence</a> from a colonizing power. She met with Ghanaian political leaders and members of women’s organizations, delivering lectures on home economics and the value of higher education for women. </p>
<p>Ghanaians asked Kittrell about racial incidents, including the 1957 Little Rock crisis, in which a white mob tried to stop nine Black students from <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/central-high-school-integration">integrating a public high school</a>. Kittrell cast this incident, which violated the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483">Brown v. Board 1954 Supreme Court ruling</a> that rendered segregation in public schools unconstitutional, as a Southern dilemma rather than a national one.</p>
<p>She also optimistically emphasized Black Americans’ progress since emancipation and <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1999/winter/us-and-ghana-1957-1966-2.html">contended that the U.S. Constitution would prevail</a> in ensuring equality.</p>
<h2>An appetite for justice</h2>
<p>Though Kittrell’s answers sidestepped larger issues of discrimination at home, she claimed to reject U.S. boosterism in her thinking about cross-cultural interactions, family and society.</p>
<p>She argued that newly independent nations had much to teach Americans. Even more, Kittrell claimed to see herself not as a representative of the U.S. but as “<a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/ideology-in-u-s-foreign-relations/9780231201810">a citizen of the world</a>.” </p>
<p>A closer look at Kittrell’s activities reveals that she maintained a strong appetite for justice. Even as a dedicated bureaucratic infighter, Kittrell was willing to move beyond these bounds.</p>
<p>In 1967, for example, she protested apartheid in South Africa, the system of segregation that oppressed that country’s nonwhite communities and privileged a white minority. Incensed by American inaction, <a href="https://projects.kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/210-808-3403/ACOA12-6-67Summaryopt.pdf">Kittrell became one of five Americans to stage a fly-in</a> – an impromptu trip in which she and her colleagues sought to enter the country without visas to dramatize their protest. </p>
<p><a href="https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:45173968$3i">In a 1977 interview</a> with the Black Women’s Oral History Interviews Project of the Harvard University Radcliffe Institute, Kittrell hinted that she was engaged in other acts of protest, slyly suggesting that she “was very fortunate not to have gotten into more trouble.” </p>
<p>Three years later in an interview for a faculty profile with Howard University, Kittrell boldly claimed that she had not been “<a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/ideology-in-u-s-foreign-relations/9780231201810">afraid to speak against evil as I see it</a>.”</p>
<p>These statements suggest that she was more of a strategist and activist than many people at the time believed. </p>
<h2>Head Start</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx539W3E41w">Kittrell kept traveling extensively</a> in the 1960s. </p>
<p>She took trips to Russia and several African countries on behalf of the United Nations and professional, women’s and religious organizations, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the United Methodist Church. </p>
<p>Kittrell also increased her focus on the needs of U.S. children. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/10/how-the-geography-of-u-s-poverty-has-shifted-since-1960/">In the 1960s</a>, 1 in 5 U.S. children lived in poverty. With the conviction that good living began at a young age, <a href="https://worldcat.org/title/42072097">Kittrell expanded Howard University’s nursery program</a> with a deeper focus on parents, whom she contended were the key to stronger families.</p>
<p>That center became an early model for the <a href="https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/about-us/article/head-start-history">Head Start program</a>, which emerged as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.</p>
<p>Refusing to “<a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1116&context=finaid_manu">sit still enough to hold hands</a>,” Kittrell never married or had children.</p>
<p>Instead, as <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/finaid_manu/117/">her archival papers</a> at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center show, she dedicated herself to assisting others by cultivating strong families through nutritious habits and healthy children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brandy Thomas Wells does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kittrell’s legacy shows that home economics was always about more than cooking and sewing. It’s also a reminder that issues that affect families are simultaneously local and global.Brandy Thomas Wells, Assistant Professor of History, Oklahoma State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992322023-02-07T13:30:39Z2023-02-07T13:30:39ZW.E.B. Du Bois, Black History Month and the importance of African American studies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508198/original/file-20230205-15-zit4rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C124%2C4094%2C3225&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scholar-activist W.E.B. DuBois in 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/william-e-b-dubois-sociologist-scholar-and-cofounder-of-the-news-photo/159788642">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The opening days of Black History Month 2023 have coincided with controversy about the teaching and broader meaning of African American studies. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153434464/college-boards-revised-ap-african-american-studies-course-draws-new-criticism">On Feb. 1, 2023</a>, the College Board released a revised curriculum for its newly developed Advanced Placement African American studies course.</p>
<p>Critics have accused the College Board of caving to political pressure stemming from conservative backlash and the decision of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/22/1150259944/florida-rejects-ap-class-african-american-studies">ban the course</a> from public high schools in Florida because of what he characterized as its radical content and inclusion of topics such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">critical race theory</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/879041052/william-darity-jr-discusses-reparations-racial-equality-in-his-new-book">reparations</a> and the <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a> movement. </p>
<p>On Feb. 11, 1951, an article by the 82-year-old Black scholar-activist W.E.B. Du Bois titled “<a href="https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b210-i014">Negro History Week</a>” appeared in the short-lived New York newspaper The Daily Compass. </p>
<p>As one of the founders of the NAACP in 1909 and the editor of its powerful magazine <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-crisis">The Crisis</a>, Du Bois is considered by historians and intellectuals from many academic disciplines as America’s <a href="https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/815-turning-high-fashion-into-politics-henry-louis-gates-jr-on-web-du-bois-and-the-new-negro-movement-of-1900">preeminent thinker on race</a>. His thoughts and opinions still carry weight throughout the world. </p>
<p>Du Bois’ words in that 1951 article are especially prescient today, offering a reminder about the importance of Black History Month and what is at stake in current conversations about African American studies. </p>
<p>Du Bois began his Daily Compass commentary by praising <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fugitive_Pedagogy/dnUZEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=carter+g+woodson&printsec=frontcover">Carter G. Woodson</a>, founder of the <a href="https://asalh.org/">Association for the Study of Negro Life and History</a>, who established Negro History Week in 1926. The week would eventually become Black History Month.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An elderly black man dressed in a dark business suit poses for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black historian Carter G. Woodson in 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2016/02/lcm-trending-african-american-history-month/carterwoodson/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Du Bois described the annual commemoration as Woodson’s “crowning achievement.” </p>
<p>Woodson was <a href="https://www.nps.gov/cawo/learn/carter-g-woodson-biography.htm">the second African American</a> to earn a doctorate in history from Harvard University. <a href="https://guides.library.harvard.edu/hua/dubois">Du Bois was the first</a>.</p>
<p>Du Bois and Woodson did not always see eye to eye. However, as <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=7f443ffde35747ba69faca210faff07145fab78c">I explore</a> in my new book, “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374293154/the-wounded-world">The Wounded World: W.E.B. Du Bois and the First World War</a>,” the two pioneering scholars always respected each other.</p>
<h2>Reckoning with history and reclaiming the past</h2>
<p>Du Bois’ connection to and appreciation of Negro History Week grew during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/w-e-b-du-bois-and-black-history-month/">During this time</a>, whether in public speeches or published articles, he never missed an opportunity to acknowledge the importance of Negro History Week. </p>
<p>In the Feb. 11, 1951, article, Du Bois reflected that his own contributions to Negro History Week “lay in my long effort as a historian and sociologist to make America and Negroes themselves aware of the significant facts of Negro history.” </p>
<p>Summarizing his work from his first book, “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Suppression_of_the_African_Slave_tra/04mJJlND1ccC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade</a>,” published in 1896, through his magnum opus “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Black_Reconstruction_in_America_1860_188/Nt5mglDCNHEC?hl=en">Black Reconstruction in America</a>,” published in 1935, Du Bois told readers of the Daily Compass piece that much of his career was spent trying “to correct the distortion of history in regard to Negro enfranchisement.”</p>
<p>By doing so, the nation would hopefully become, Du Bois wrote further, “conscious that this part of our citizenry were normal human beings who had served the nation credibly and were still being deprived of their credit by ignorant and prejudiced historians.”</p>
<p>In addition to championing Negro History Week, Du Bois applauded other Black scholars, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/E-Franklin-Frazier">E. Franklin Frazier</a>, <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/02/11/black-history-month-charles-s-johnson-scholar-race-relations/23256961/">Charles Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/shirley-graham-du-bois">Shirley Graham</a>, who were “steadily attacking” the omissions and distortions of Black people in school textbooks. </p>
<p>Du Bois went on to chronicle the achievements of African Americans in science, religion, art, literature and the military, making clear that Black people had a history to be proud of.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of black men, women and children are marching on a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">W.E.B. Du Bois, third from right in the second row, joins other marchers in New York protesting against racism on July 28, 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prominent-african-americans-residents-of-the-city-paraded-news-photo/530843082?phrase=web%20du%20bois&adppopup=true">George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Du Bois, however, questioned what deeper meaning these achievements held to the issues facing Black people in the present.</p>
<p>“What now does Negro History Week stand for?” he asked in the 1951 article. “Shall American Negroes continue to learn to be ‘proud’ of themselves, or is there a higher broader aim for their research and study?”</p>
<p>“In other words,” he asserted, “as it becomes more universally known what Negroes contributed to America in the past, more must logically be said and taught concerning the future.”</p>
<p>The time had come, Du Bois believed, for African Americans to stop striving to be merely “the equal of white Americans.”</p>
<p>Black people needed to cease emulating the worst traits of America – flamboyance, individualism, greed and financial success at any cost – and support <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/web-du-bois">labor unions</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3041154">Pan-Africanism</a> and <a href="https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/web-dubois">anti-colonial struggle</a>. </p>
<p>He especially encouraged the systematic study of the imperial and economic roots of racism: “Here is a field for Negro History Week.”</p>
<h2>Black history and Black struggle</h2>
<p>Looking ahead, Du Bois declared that if Negro History Week remained “true to the ideals of Carter Woodson” and followed “the logical development of the Negro Race in America,” it would not confine itself to the study of the past nor “boasting and vainglory over what we have accomplished.” </p>
<p>“It will not mistake wealth as the measure of America, nor big-business and noise as World Domination,” Du Bois wrote in his article.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Under a large headline that reads The Shame of America, a newspaper advertisement lists a number of lynchings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1922, the NAACP ran a series of full-page ads in The New York Times calling attention to lynchings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6786">New York Times, Nov. 23, 1922/American Social History Project</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, Du Bois believed Negro History Week would “concentrate on study of the present,” “not be afraid of radical literature” and, above all else, advocate for peace and voice “eternal opposition against war between the white and colored peoples of the earth.” </p>
<p>Were he alive today, Du Bois would certainly have much to say about current debates around the teaching of African American history and the larger significance of African American studies. <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/05/specials/dubois-obit.html">Du Bois died</a> on Aug. 27, 1963, in Accra, Ghana. </p>
<p>But he left behind his clairvoyant words that remind us of the connections between African American studies and movements for Black liberation, along with how the teaching of African American history has always challenged racist and exclusionary narratives of the nation’s past. </p>
<p>Du Bois also reminds us that Black History Month is rooted in a legacy of activism and resistance, one that continues in the present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199232/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chad Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the 20th century’s preeminent scholar-activist on race, W.E.B. Du Bois would not be surprised by modern-day attempts at whitewashing American history. He saw them in 1930s and 1940s.Chad Williams, Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1975112023-02-03T13:31:04Z2023-02-03T13:31:04ZA brief history of the Black church’s diversity, and its vital role in American political history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507146/original/file-20230130-189-3y4vap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=383%2C315%2C3697%2C2816&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The exterior view of the Bethel African American Methodist Episcopal Church at 125 S. 6th St. in Philadelphia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tile.loc.gov/image-services/iiif/service:gdc:gdcwdl:wd:l_:09:25:1:wdl_09251:W026/full/pct:100/0/default.jpg">Breton, William L., circa 1773-1855 Artist via the Library of Congress, World Digital Library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With religious affiliation <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/faith-among-black-americans/#religiously-unaffiliated-black-americans">on the decline</a>, continuing racism and increasing income inequality, some scholars and activists are soul-searching about the Black church’s role in today’s United States. </p>
<p>For instance, on April 20, 2010, an African American Studies professor at Princeton, <a href="https://aas.princeton.edu/people/eddie-s-glaude-jr">Eddie S. Glaude</a>, sparked an online debate by provocatively declaring that, despite the existence of many African American churches, “<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-black-church-is-dead_b_473815">the Black Church, as we’ve known it or imagined it, is dead</a>.” As he argued, the image of the Black church as a center for Black life and as a beacon of social and moral transformation had disappeared.</p>
<p>Scholars of African American religion responded to Glaude by stating that the image of the Black church as the moral conscience of the United States has <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/bupdated-with-responseb-the-black-church-is-dead-long-live-the-black-church/">always been a complicated matter</a>. As historian <a href="https://rels.sas.upenn.edu/people/anthea-butler">Anthea Butler</a> argued, “The Black Church may be dead in its incarnation as agent of change, but as the imagined home of all things black and Christian, it is alive and well.”</p>
<p>As <a href="https://virginia.academia.edu/JasonOEvans">a scholar of Christian theology and African American religion</a>, I’m aware of this long history of the Black church and its contribution to American politics. Its story began in the 15th and 16th centuries, when European empires authorized the capture, auction and enslavement of various peoples from across the coast of Western and Central Africa. </p>
<h2>Origins of African American Christianity</h2>
<p>As millions were transported through the “Middle Passage” to the Americas, Europeans forcefully baptized the enslaved into the Christian faith despite many of them adhering to traditional African religious systems and Islam. European slave traders dismissed Africans as “heathenish” to justify their enslavement of Africans and the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/african-american-histor/african-american-religions-15002000-colonialism-democracy-and-freedom?format=PB">coercive proselytization to Christianity</a>. </p>
<p>In the 1600s, British missionaries traveled throughout the American Colonies to convert enslaved Africans and the Indigenous peoples of the continent. Originally, however, white slaveholders were hesitant to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity because they feared that Christian baptism would lead to the enslaved Africans’ freedom, causing both economic ruin and social upheaval. They widely supposed that <a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9780812294903/christian-slavery/">British laws mandated the freedom of all baptized Christians</a>, and thus white slaveholders initially refused to grant missionaries permission to instruct enslaved Africans into the Christian faith. </p>
<p>By 1706, six Colonies had passed laws that declared that Africans’ Christian status <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/slave-religion-9780195174120?lang=en&cc=us">did not alter their social condition as slaves</a>. Consequently, missionaries created “slave catechisms,” modified religious instruction manuals that instructed enslaved Africans about Christianity while reinforcing their enslavement. </p>
<p>Over time, <a href="https://www.ivpress.com/the-rise-of-evangelicalism">evangelical Protestant groups</a> followed suit in their proselytization of the enslaved community, most notably during the First and Second Great Awakenings, the Protestant religious revivals that swept across the American nation in the mid-18th and early 19th centuries.</p>
<h2>Denominations that form the Black church</h2>
<p>Both during and after the end of slavery, African Americans began to establish their own congregations, parishes, fellowships, associations and later denominations. <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Frustrated-Fellowship-The-Black-Baptist-Quest-for-Social-Power-P183.aspx">Black Baptists</a> founded first the National Baptist Convention USA, in 1895, the largest Black Protestant denomination in the United States. The National Baptist Convention of America International and the Progressive National Baptist Convention <a href="https://www.judsonpress.com/Products/J285/a-history-of-the-black-baptist-church.aspx">were founded years later</a>. </p>
<p>The first independent Black denomination, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/religion-general-interest/african-methodist-episcopal-church-history?format=PB">the African Methodist Episcopal Church</a>, which was formalized in 1816, grew out of the Free African Society founded by Richard Allen, a former enslaved man and Methodist minister, in the city of Philadelphia in 1787. Allen and his colleague Absalom Jones walked out of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church after white members demanded that Allen and Jones, who had been kneeling in prayer, leave the ground floor and go to the upper balcony, which was designated for Black worshippers.</p>
<p>Other Black Methodists founded two other denominations – the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1821 and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in 1870. The <a href="https://www.uapress.com/product/the-rise-to-respectability/">Church of God in Christ</a>, the largest Black Pentecostal denomination in the United States, was founded by Charles Harrison Mason, a former Baptist minister, in 1897 and incorporated in 1907. </p>
<p>Other Black Christians belong to mainline Protestant denominations. Additionally, there are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/15/black-catholics-in-america/">3 million Black Roman Catholics</a> in the United States, and a smaller number of African Americans who attend Eastern Orthodox churches. Moreover, a number of African Americans belong to independent nondenominational congregations, while others belong to white conservative evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic churches. </p>
<h2>Contributions to American politics</h2>
<p>The Black church has played a vital role in the shaping of American political history. African American churches provided spaces for not only spiritual formation but also political activism.</p>
<p>Black churches were spaces where slave abolitionism was envisioned, and insurrections were planned. Black preachers such as <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/155764/denmark-vesey-by-david-robertson/">Denmark Vesey</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/nat-turner-9780195177565?cc=us&lang=en&">Nat Turner</a> were actively involved in attempted and successful slave insurrections in the South</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white drawing of a young woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507909/original/file-20230202-9545-57ddc9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ida B. Wells organized and led Bible study classes for young Black men.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/cph/3c00000/3c07000/3c07700/3c07756_150px.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
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<p>During the Reconstruction era, the African Methodist Episcopal Bishop <a href="https://utpress.org/title/bishop-henry-mcneal-turner-and-african-american-religion-in-the-south/">Henry McNeal Turner</a> served as one of the first African American legislators for the state of Georgia. Turner was famous for his scathing critiques of American Christianity and the nation at large. <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/ida-a-sword-among-lions-paula-j-giddings?variant=32123075526690">Ida B. Wells</a> was an investigative journalist and educator who wrote extensive accounts of the lynchings of Black people in the South, fought against Jim Crow policies, and advocated for Black women’s right to vote. An active churchgoer, Wells also organized and led Bible study classes for young Black men at Grace Presbyterian Church, a predominantly Black church founded in 1888 in the city of Chicago. </p>
<p>Many Black Christians participated in the Civil Rights movement, including Bayard Rustin, an openly gay Quaker, who was instrumental in organizing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963. Despite his contributions to advancing Black people’s freedom, Rustin was pushed to the background by his peers <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3644370.html">because of his homosexuality</a>. </p>
<p>Pauli Murray, the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/jane-crow-9780190656454?cc=us&lang=en&">first Black woman to be ordained in the Episcopal Church</a>, was a lawyer, legal scholar, civil rights and gender equality advocate and poet. Murray compiled an extensive collection of laws and ordinances <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820350639/states-laws-on-race-and-color/">that mandated racial segregation</a> and wrote extensively on women’s rights. </p>
<h2>An influential institution</h2>
<p>The Black church is far from monolithic. Its members hold different theological positions and hail from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, education levels and political affiliations. </p>
<p>Some African American Christians did not participate in efforts to end racial segregation, fearing violent backlash from white people. Today, Black Christians are divided over other social justice issues, such as whether to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/gender-sexuality-and-religion/">support LGBTQ equality</a>. Nevertheless, African American Christians have drawn insights from their experience of enduring racism and their Christian faith to contest racial subjugation and advocate for their freedom and human dignity. </p>
<p>Despite the rise of the religiously unaffiliated or “Nones” within the African American community, the Black church, I believe, continues to be an influential institution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Oliver Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Millions of enslaved Africans were forcefully converted to the Christian faith. The Black church came about when African Americans began to establish their own congregations.Jason Oliver Evans, Ph.D. Candidate in Religious Studies, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984732023-02-02T13:27:09Z2023-02-02T13:27:09ZNew Advanced Placement African American Studies course is a watered down version of itself<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507720/original/file-20230201-25-qjy88l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C69%2C5150%2C3353&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black students are underrepresented in Advanced Placement courses.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/students-listening-in-classroom-royalty-free-image/103056208?phrase=black%20students%20high%20school&adppopup=true">Hill Street Studios / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>On February 1, 2023– the first day of Black History Month – the College Board released the <a href="https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/advanced-placement-program-releases-official-ap-african-american-studies-framework">framework for its new Advanced Placement African American Studies course</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has criticized the pilot version of the African American studies course as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/gov-desantis-defends-rejection-of-african-american-studies-course/">lacking educational value</a>, and his administration has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/23/1150716064/florida-ap-african-american-studies">banned the course </a>from Florida’s public schools.</em></p>
<p><em>In the following Q&A, Suneal Kolluri, who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3J0bLuMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">specializes in the study of AP courses</a>, provides insight into where the course hits the mark and where it comes up short.</em></p>
<h2>1. What stands out most about the new AP African American Studies course?</h2>
<p>The course curriculum puts Black people at the center. This is significant for two reasons.</p>
<p>First, Advanced Placement has long had courses focused on topics like <a href="https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-european-history">European history</a> and <a href="https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-french-language-and-culture">French language and culture</a>, but no class that focuses primarily on the Black experience. This fact is particularly troubling given the struggles AP courses have had in recruiting and serving Black students. Black students make up <a href="https://edtrust.org/press-release/black-and-latino-students-shut-out-of-advanced-coursework-opportunities/">just 9% of AP participants, despite making up 15% of high school students</a> across the United States.</p>
<p>Given the prestige of Advanced Placement and the benefits afforded to those who participate – like more experienced teachers and better college outcomes – a course with the potential to attract more Black students to take AP is significant. </p>
<p>Second, across the country, few classes – with or without the AP label – are available to students interested in studying the Black experience. This course will likely give many students that opportunity for the first time.</p>
<h2>2. Is the new AP African American studies course different from earlier versions?</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the course has been watered down compared to its <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/ap-african-american-studies-course-florida-rejected-rcna67112">pilot version</a>. The pilot course, first made available in January 2023, was heavy on African and African American history, but in its fourth and final unit, included a robust examination of issues of race, racism and oppression in the present day. In the new course framework – released on February 1, 2023 – many of these current discussions of race, racism and oppression have disappeared.</p>
<p>The course is billed as an African American Studies course, not an African American history course. Interrogating present-day oppression is central to the discipline of African American studies. I believe eliminating this content produces a course that leaves students insufficiently prepared to participate in a multiracial democracy.</p>
<h2>3. How did the political environment shape the new course?</h2>
<p>The College Board <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/academics-revising-ap-african-american-studies-course-insist-wont-cave-rcna68207">insists</a> that the political environment did not influence the recent revisions, but evidence suggests otherwise. In late January 2023, the DeSantis administration <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/politics/ron-desantis-ap-african-american-studies/index.html">wrote to the College Board that</a> it would not allow the implementation of AP African American Studies in Florida schools. The AP responded, not in defense of the pilot curriculum, but to assert that the content remained under revision until February 1 – the first day of Black History Month.</p>
<p>In the latest official course framework, many of the exact topics with which DeSantis had taken issue had been stricken from the required curriculum. Discussions in the pilot course about reparations, redlining, and Black Lives Matter are now included as topics that are not required as part of the course. Instead, they are listed to be covered optionally by students in their research projects for the class.</p>
<p>The College Board goes on to emphasize that this list of topics can be refined by states and districts. In my experience examining AP content, optional content is rare in AP curriculum. </p>
<h2>4. What does this course leave out?</h2>
<p>Specifically, the course has omitted content that would invite students to discuss racial oppression in the modern day. Perhaps in response to bans on <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">critical race theory</a>, authors like <a href="https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kimberle-w-crenshaw">Kimberlé Crenshaw</a>, a scholar who pioneered the field of critical race theory, have been stricken from the curriculum.</p>
<p>Other topics – like Black Lives Matter, incarceration and reparations – have been left out of the required curriculum, and are now included as optional topics for a research project. </p>
<h2>5. What kind of grade would you give this course and why?</h2>
<p>The grade would depend on whether I am grading on a curve. Comparing the course to other available options in U.S. high schools, the course would earn an A. To the best of my knowledge, no other broadly available course delves so deeply into the Black experience.</p>
<p>However, grading the course for its commitment to the ideals of African American Studies, its attempt to holistically present the Black experience in the United States, and its ability to prepare students for participating in democracy, the course fails. It gets an F. </p>
<p>African American Studies is not just African American history. Racism is not a relic of the past. African American Studies scholars know this, but Advanced Placement African American Studies students may not learn that. Unfortunately, I believe this is an abject failure for efforts to bring African American studies into high schools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suneal Kolluri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A college readiness scholar says the new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies has been weakened by political pressure from the right.Suneal Kolluri, Assistant Professor of Education, University of California, RiversideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1986412023-02-01T16:20:07Z2023-02-01T16:20:07ZWe curated a podcast playlist for you: Revisit these conversations for Black History Month<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506652/original/file-20230126-36527-f14kx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C23%2C3976%2C2203&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black Lives Matter demonstration, July 2016, New York City.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicole Baster/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>February is Black History Month, and this year the theme is Resistance.</p>
<p>The podcast episodes on this playlist showcase some of our favourites from <em>The Conversation Canada</em>’s audio content related to Black history, from our flagship podcast, <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em>.</p>
<p>These conversations with scholars and activists are as urgent and important now as they were when we first recorded them. The episodes on this playlist span the start of the pandemic with its worldwide demonstrations against anti-Black racism, to the most recent violence this winter. </p>
<p>In all of these episodes, passionate experts get into their research and ideas, helping to provide context, history and their unique analysis to current events, trends and breaking news. </p>
<p>Topics in this playlist include: Why the n-word is so traumatic, how to live peacefully and joyfully while continuously confronting racism; how to explain what critical race theory is; why long COVID impacts women of colour at higher rates; and how we need to do something about the rising violence in schools. </p>
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<p>As we share this playlist, we are also busy putting together Season 5 of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em>. <a href="mailto:theculturedesk@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>! Send us ideas on what you’d like to hear about, what you don’t want to hear about, and story ideas for what you think we should cover.</p>
<p>And be on the lookout! We are creating another playlist of fellow podcasters who are also examining the world around us and current events through a critical race lens. (Someone on Twitter recently said, instead of calling it critical race theory, <a href="https://twitter.com/Strandjunker/status/1615061385842462758?s=20&t=he4G_2rCyvGnZalKZFtW-w">we should just call it American history</a>). So send us your favourite episodes and we will add it to the list.</p>
<p>Join our conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> using #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<p><strong>Here is our <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> playlist and below are the links and descriptions to individual episodes.</strong></p>
<h2><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> playlist:</h2>
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<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-in-a-word-how-to-confront-150-years-of-racial-stereotypes-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-1-153790">What’s in a word? How to confront 150 years of racial stereotypes</a></h2>
<p>We keep hearing stories about people, including scholars, who continue to use the n-word. Toronto-based Professor Cheryl Thompson, author of <em>Uncle: Race, Nostalgia and the Politics of Loyalty</em>, discusses why it’s not OK. She talks about how North American culture has spent the last 150 years building anti-Black tropes, how they continue to persist today — and how we can confront it.</p>
<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-deal-with-the-pain-of-racism-and-become-a-better-advocate-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-2-154631">How to deal with the pain of racism — and become a better advocate</a></h2>
<p>The global protest movement that grew after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 that called for an end to racism and police brutality sparked new conversations about racism. But it also surfaced a lot of pain for those who deal daily with racism. In this episode, Zen priest, writer and activist, Reverend angel Kyodo williams speaks about the pain of racism, and how she uses meditation to combat it and become a stronger anti-racist activist in America today.</p>
<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-spark-change-within-our-unequal-education-system-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-3-152355">How to spark change within our unequal education system</a></h2>
<p>Education experts have long been sounding the alarm about the future of racialized children in our schools. These warnings became more prevalent in the past two years as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated a deepening divide in how racialized students experience the education system. Carl James, professor of education at York University and Kulsoom Anwer, a high school teacher who works out of one of Toronto’s most marginalized neighborhoods, Jane and Finch, join us to discuss the injustices and inequalities in the education system — and the way forward.</p>
<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/black-health-matters-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-5-155950">Black health matters</a></h2>
<p>When COVID-19 first appeared, some said it was the great equalizer. But the facts have now revealed a grim reality: COVID-19 disproportionately impacts Black, Indigenous, poor and racialized communities. Roberta K. Timothy, assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, joins us to talk about her global research project, Black Health Matters, and why racial justice is a public health matter.</p>
<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-7-165933">How stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future</a></h2>
<p>Stories are a powerful tool to resist oppressive situations. They give writers from marginalized communities a way to imagine alternate realities, and to critique the one we live in. In this episode, Vinita speaks to two storytellers who offer up wonderous “otherworlds” for Indigenous and Black people. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is an L.A-based screenwriter who wrote for Jordan Peele’s <em>The Twilight Zone</em> and is currently writing the screenplay for Esi Edugyan’s <em>Washington Black</em>. Daniel Heath Justice is professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous literature and expressive culture at the University of British Columbia.</p>
<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/making-our-food-fairer-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-12-171554">Making our food fairer</a></h2>
<p>In 2021, studies showed that one out of every eight households in Canada is food insecure. For racialized Canadians, that number was higher – two to three times the national average. In this episode, Vinita explored what is happening with our food systems, and what we can do to make them fairer with two women who have been tackling this issue for years. Melana Roberts is Chair of Food Secure Canada and one of the leaders behind Canada’s first Black food sovereignty plan. Also joining the conversation is Tabitha Robin Martens, assistant professor at UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems. Martens researches Indigenous food sovereignty and works with Cree communities to bolster traditional land uses.</p>
<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-shouldnt-be-afraid-of-critical-race-theory-podcast-183973">Why you shouldn’t be afraid of critical race theory</a></h2>
<p>In this episode, we explore how applying critical race theory in classrooms across Canada helps both students and teachers. Teresa Fowler, assistant professor of Education at Concordia University of Edmonton joins us. So does Dwayne Brown, a PhD student in Education at York University, and a grade seven teacher with the Toronto District School Board. Both Brown and Fowler use critical race theory in their classrooms every day, and say that it helps them to see and evaluate their own biases — while also making students feel truly included in their own education.</p>
<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-isnt-anyone-talking-about-who-gets-long-covid-podcast-191659">Why isn’t anyone talking about who gets long COVID?</a></h2>
<p>Long COVID has been called a mass-disabling event. It hits one in every five people infected with the virus, and hits Black and Latinx women especially hard. Vinita dives into why that is — and why we’re not talking about it — with Margot Gage Witvliet, who has insights into long COVID both as a Black woman who has been suffering the effects of it, and as a social epidemiologist who studies it. Margot is an assistant professor at Lamar University in Beaumont, Tex. She has presented her long COVID findings to the United States Task Force on equity and COVID and runs an online support and advocacy group for BIPOC women living with long COVID.</p>
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<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-slow-down-youth-gun-violence-podcast-194145">How can we slow down youth gun violence?</a></h2>
<p>In 2007, 15-year-old Jordan Manners became the first student to be shot and killed inside a Toronto school. Since then, youth violence hasn’t let up in Canada’s largest city. In fact, it’s getting worse. Devon Jones and Ardavan Eizadirad say it’s a major problem that needs a more holistic approach. Ardavan is an assistant professor in the Department of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University who studies the root causes of gun violence. He and Devon run Y.A.A.A.C.E. — a community organization started by Devon that tackles the root causes of youth gun violence in Toronto. They join Vinita to talk about what has been going wrong and how to get it right.</p>
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<h2>Follow and listen</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The episodes on this playlist span the start of the pandemic with its worldwide demonstrations against anti-Black racism, to the most recent violence this winter.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientAteqah Khaki, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1985742023-02-01T13:19:30Z2023-02-01T13:19:30ZA Black history primer on African Americans’ fight for equality – 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507391/original/file-20230131-14-13dugc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Barack Obama presents NBA champion and human rights advocate Bill Russell the Medal of Freedom on Feb. 15, 2011.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-barack-obama-presents-basetball-hall-of-fame-news-photo/109136617?phrase=bill%20Russell&adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the father of Black history, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carter-G-Woodson">Carter G. Woodson</a> had a simple goal – to legitimize the study of African American history and culture.</p>
<p>To that end, in 1912, shortly after becoming the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/cawo/learn/carter-g-woodson-biography.htm">second African American</a> after <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=1011">W.E.B. Du Bois</a> to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard, Woodson founded the <a href="https://asalh.org/">Association for the Study of Negro Life and History</a> in 1915.</p>
<p>More than 100 years later, Woodson’s goal and his work detailing the struggle of Black Americans to obtain full citizenship after centuries of systemic racism is still relevant today. </p>
<p>As dozens of <a href="https://theconversation.com/florida-gov-desantis-leads-the-gops-national-charge-against-public-education-that-includes-lessons-on-race-and-sexual-orientation-196369">GOP-controlled state legislatures</a> across the U.S. have either considered or enacted laws restricting how race is taught in public schools, The Conversation U.S. has published numerous stories over the years exploring the rich terrain of Black history – and the never-ending quest to form what the Founding Fathers called <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution">a more perfect union</a>.</p>
<h2>1. From the Underground Railroad to Civil War battlefields</h2>
<p>Armed with a deep faith, Harriet Tubman is most famous for her successes along the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/hatu/index.htm">Underground Railroad</a>, the interracial network of abolitionists who enabled Black people to escape from slavery along secret routes in the South to freedom in the North and Canada.</p>
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<img alt="A group of black men and women are posing for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Harriet Tubman, far left, poses with her family, friends and neighbors near her barn in Auburn, N.Y., in the mid-to-late 1880s.</span>
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<p>But Tubman’s activities as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/02/08/harriet-tubman-spy-civil-war-union/">Civil War spy</a> are less well known. </p>
<p>As historian and Tubman biographer <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/wsrc/scholars/current.html">Kate Clifford Larson</a> wrote, <a href="https://theconversation.com/harriet-tubman-led-military-raids-during-the-civil-war-as-well-as-her-better-known-slave-rescues-179730">Tubman’s devotion</a> to America’s promise of freedom endured, despite suffering decades of enslavement and second-class citizenship.</p>
<p>“I had reasoned this out in my mind,” <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/harriet/harriet.html">Tubman once said</a>. “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harriet-tubman-led-military-raids-during-the-civil-war-as-well-as-her-better-known-slave-rescues-179730">Harriet Tubman led military raids during the Civil War as well as her better-known slave rescues</a>
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<h2>2. Juneteenth and the myths of emancipation</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://as.tufts.edu/history/people/faculty/kris-manjapra">a scholar</a> of race and colonialism, Kris Manjapra wrote that Emancipation Days – Juneteenth in Texas – are <a href="https://theconversation.com/juneteenth-celebrates-just-one-of-the-united-states-20-emancipation-days-and-the-history-of-how-emancipated-people-were-kept-unfree-needs-to-be-remembered-too-183311">not what many people think</a>. </p>
<p>“Emancipations did not remove all the shackles that prevented Black people from obtaining full citizenship rights,” Manjapra noted. “Nor did emancipations prevent states from enacting their own laws that prohibited Black people from voting or living in white neighborhoods.”</p>
<p>Between the 1780s and 1930s, over 80 emancipations from slavery occurred, from Pennsylvania in 1780 to Sierra Leone in 1936.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="With a blue sky in the background, a Black woman stands over a crowd of people, raising her fist in the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467240/original/file-20220606-26-nw9stq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467240/original/file-20220606-26-nw9stq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467240/original/file-20220606-26-nw9stq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467240/original/file-20220606-26-nw9stq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467240/original/file-20220606-26-nw9stq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467240/original/file-20220606-26-nw9stq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467240/original/file-20220606-26-nw9stq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Black woman raises her fist in the air during a Juneteenth reenactment celebration in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prescylia-mae-raises-her-fist-in-the-air-during-a-news-photo/1233550531?adppopup=true">Mark Felix /AFP/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, there were 20 separate emancipations in the United States alone from 1780 to 1865. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/juneteenth-celebrates-just-one-of-the-united-states-20-emancipation-days-and-the-history-of-how-emancipated-people-were-kept-unfree-needs-to-be-remembered-too-183311">Juneteenth celebrates just one of the United States’ 20 emancipation days – and the history of how emancipated people were kept unfree needs to be remembered, too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. An image of a lynching found in a family photo album</h2>
<p>As director of the Lynching in Texas project, historian <a href="https://www.shsu.edu/academics/history/faculty/jeffrey-l-littlejohn-phd">Jeffrey L. Littlejohn</a>
provided the <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-familys-photo-album-includes-images-of-a-vacation-a-wedding-anniversary-and-the-lynching-of-a-black-man-in-texas-183704">very kind of analysis</a> that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican legislators in Texas want to ban from public schools. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Dozens of men wearing hats have their heads down as they look at the site where three black men were burned at the stake." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465119/original/file-20220524-26-dcg4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465119/original/file-20220524-26-dcg4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465119/original/file-20220524-26-dcg4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465119/original/file-20220524-26-dcg4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465119/original/file-20220524-26-dcg4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465119/original/file-20220524-26-dcg4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465119/original/file-20220524-26-dcg4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scene of the burnings of Johnny Cornish, Mose Jones and Snap Curry in Kirvin, Texas, on May 6, 1922.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063130335364">Jeff Littlejohn</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the many documents and relics Littlejohn has received, one package stood out. Inside was a family album of photographs filled with the usual images of memories – a vacation, a wedding anniversary dinner – but also, one of the lynching of a Black man.</p>
<p>During the Jim Crow era, <a href="https://lynchingintexas.org/tours/show/4">lynchings occurred regularly</a> in Texas – with 16 in 1922 alone.</p>
<p>But in 2021, the GOP-controlled state Legislature in Texas <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=871&Bill=SB3">enacted a law</a> prohibiting K-12 educators from teaching that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from … the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.” </p>
<p>In other words, as Littlejohn wrote, “this interpretation holds that slavery, racism and racism’s deadly manifestation, lynching, did not serve as systemic forces that shaped Texas history but were instead aberrations.”</p>
<p>The photo album serves as a direct challenge to that interpretation. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-familys-photo-album-includes-images-of-a-vacation-a-wedding-anniversary-and-the-lynching-of-a-black-man-in-texas-183704">One family's photo album includes images of a vacation, a wedding anniversary and the lynching of a Black man in Texas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. Black soldiers fight racism and Nazis during World War II</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/624655/half-american-by-matthew-f-delmont/">his book</a> “Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad,” historian <a href="https://history.dartmouth.edu/people/matthew-f-delmont">Matthew Delmont</a> explored <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-story-of-black-soldiers-and-the-red-ball-express-during-world-war-ii-179743">the idea of Black patriotism</a> and how many Black soldiers saw their service as a way to demonstrate the capabilities of their race. </p>
<p>Prompted by the <a href="https://newpittsburghcourier.com/">Pittsburgh Courier</a>, an influential Black newspaper during the 1940s, Delmont wrote that Black Americans rallied behind the Double V campaign during the war – victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black soldiers are seen filling up gasoline tanks for dozens of trucks used to transport military supplies." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455085/original/file-20220329-13-5bfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455085/original/file-20220329-13-5bfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455085/original/file-20220329-13-5bfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455085/original/file-20220329-13-5bfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455085/original/file-20220329-13-5bfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455085/original/file-20220329-13-5bfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455085/original/file-20220329-13-5bfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this October 1944 photograph, Black soldiers are filling up gasoline tanks for the Red Ball Express.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-taken-in-france-in-october-1944-showing-a-supply-news-photo/1172719702?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the war, the Red Ball Express, the Allied forces’ transportation unit that delivered supplies to the front lines, was one example of such exceptional performance.</p>
<p>From August through November 1944, the mostly Black force moved more than 400,000 tons of ammunition, gasoline, medical supplies and rations to battlefronts in France, Belgium and Germany.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-story-of-black-soldiers-and-the-red-ball-express-during-world-war-ii-179743">The forgotten story of Black soldiers and the Red Ball Express during World War II</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>5. An NBA champion’s cerebral fight for equal rights</h2>
<p>In his biography of Bill Russell, “King of the Court,” <a href="https://www.memphis.edu/history/faculty/faculty/aram-goudsouzian.php">Aram Goudsouzian</a> wrote that the NBA champion <a href="https://theconversation.com/bill-russells-legacy-of-nba-championships-and-cerebral-fight-for-equal-rights-188032">sought to find worth</a> in basketball amid the racial tumult of the civil rights movement.</p>
<p>He emerged from that crucible by crafting a persona that one teammate called “a kingly arrogance.”</p>
<p>Russell, who died July, 31, 2022, was the NBA’s first Black superstar, its first Black champion and its first Black coach.</p>
<p>As a civil rights activist, Russell questioned the nonviolence philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr. and defended the militant ideas of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. He refused to accept segregated accommodations in the Deep South and recalled instances of police brutality during his childhood in Oakland, California.<br>
“It’s a thing you want to scream,” Russell wrote. “I MUST HAVE MY MANHOOD.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bill-russells-legacy-of-nba-championships-and-cerebral-fight-for-equal-rights-188032">Bill Russell's legacy of NBA championships and cerebral fight for equal rights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198574/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
America’s complicated history with race can be told through the lives and times of Black Americans, a view that some GOP-controlled state legislatures want to restrict, if not outright ban.Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1972502023-01-30T13:13:56Z2023-01-30T13:13:56ZMeet Bayard Rustin, often-forgotten civil rights activist, gay rights advocate, union organizer, pacifist and man of compassion for all in trouble<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505703/original/file-20230121-31574-irg6sz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C106%2C3647%2C5044&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> In this Feb. 2, 1964, image, Bayard Rustin talks on a telephone from a church in Brooklyn, New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/civil-rights-activist-bayard-rustin-spokesman-for-the-news-photo/3248636?phrase=bayard%20rustin&adppopup=true">Patrick A. Burns/New York Times Co./Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As I began writing “Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer,” <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742545137/Bayard-Rustin-American-Dreamer">my biography</a> of the 20th-century radical leader and activist, one of my colleagues cautioned me not to “fall in love.” </p>
<p>This, of course, is good advice for any biographer, and I tried to follow it.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t easy, because <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bayard-Rustin">Bayard Rustin</a> was America’s signature radical voice during the 20th century, and yes, I believe those voices includes that of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Rustin trained and mentored. </p>
<p>His <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974941349/bayard-rustin-an-architect-of-the-civil-rights-movement-you-may-have-never-heard">vision</a> of nonviolence was breathtakingly broad.</p>
<p>He was a civil rights activist, a labor unionist, a socialist, a pacifist and, later in life, a gay rights advocate. </p>
<p>Today, scholars would call Rustin an <a href="https://www.intersectionaljustice.org/what-is-intersectionality">intersectionalist</a>, a man who understood the complex effects of multiple forms of discrimination, including racism, sexism and classism. </p>
<h2>Early days and activism</h2>
<p>Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 1912, Rustin was one of 12 children raised by their grandparents. It is believed that his devotion to civil rights was formed by his grandmother, whose <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/rustin-bayard">work with the NAACP</a> resulted in leaders of the Black community, such as <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/web-du-bois">W.E.B. Du Bois</a> and <a href="https://www.cookman.edu/history/our-founder.html">Mary McLeod Bethune</a>, visiting the Rustin home during his Quaker upbringing.</p>
<p>Rustin was present at the creation of a host of pivotal American liberation movements. He helped found the <a href="https://www.thecongressofracialequality.org/bayard-rustin.html">Congress of Racial Equality</a> and the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc">Southern Christian Leadership Conference</a>, two civil rights organizations that were focused on ending the Jim Crow era of racial segregation. </p>
<p>He worked with Black trade unionist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-Philip-Randolph">A. Philip Randolph</a> on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt6wr5b1">1941 March on Washington Movement</a>, which bore fruit in <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-8802">an executive order</a> by President Franklin Roosevelt banning racial discrimination in the nation’s defense industries.</p>
<p>Rustin and Randolph worked again in 1948 on a successful campaign <a href="https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/precursor-desegregating-armed-forces">to end segregation</a> in the U.S. military under President Harry Truman. </p>
<p>A pacifist, Rustin protested World War II by resisting the draft and, as a result, was imprisoned in 1944 as a conscientious objector.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two head shots of the same black man -- a side view and a head-on view -- are seen in these photographs taken in federal prison." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505701/original/file-20230121-20-h81yrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505701/original/file-20230121-20-h81yrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505701/original/file-20230121-20-h81yrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505701/original/file-20230121-20-h81yrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505701/original/file-20230121-20-h81yrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505701/original/file-20230121-20-h81yrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505701/original/file-20230121-20-h81yrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In these Aug. 3, 1945, images, Bayard Rustin is seen in federal prison after his conviction on draft evasion charges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bayard-rustin-one-of-the-organizers-of-the-1963-march-on-news-photo/644663420?phrase=bayard%20rustin&adppopup=true">Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After his release in 1946, Rustin became a major figure for the next two decades in two prominent pacifist organizations, the <a href="https://forusa.org/the-fellowship-of-reconciliation-and-bayard-rustin-an-amends/">Fellowship of Reconciliation</a> and the <a href="https://www.warresisters.org/resources/remembering-bayard-rustin-100">War Resisters League</a>, both of which opposed the use of violence to settle disputes between individuals or nations. </p>
<p>In 1947, he and members of the Congress of Racial Equality planned the <a href="https://snccdigital.org/events/cores-journey-of-reconciliation/">Journey of Reconciliation</a>, the first organized effort to desegregate interstate bus transportation in the South. </p>
<h2>Role in Montgomery bus boycott</h2>
<p>Because of that work to integrate public transportation, Randolph suggested in 1956 that <a href="https://www.history.com/news/bayard-rustin-march-on-washington-openly-gay-mlk">Rustin meet with a young preacher</a> in Alabama who was organizing a bus boycott there.</p>
<p>That meeting with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/rustin-bayard">Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956</a> changed both men forever.</p>
<p>From then on Rustin advised King on the principles of Gandhi and nonviolent direct action that – when combined with lawsuits, voter registration drives and lobbying efforts – ultimately led to passage of both the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act">Civil Rights Act of 1964</a> and the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>. </p>
<p>For Rustin, Black progress depended on politics and economics. To that end, in 1966 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5bgmFTJ1FQ">Rustin proposed</a> the “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg4r6">Freedom Budget for All Americans</a>” that promised every American employment, an income and access to health care. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men are sitting around a large table with sheets of paper in front of them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505694/original/file-20230121-23029-ifczsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505694/original/file-20230121-23029-ifczsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505694/original/file-20230121-23029-ifczsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505694/original/file-20230121-23029-ifczsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505694/original/file-20230121-23029-ifczsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505694/original/file-20230121-23029-ifczsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505694/original/file-20230121-23029-ifczsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civil rights leaders, from left, Bayard Rustin, Jack Greenberg, Whitney M. Young Jr., James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph and Courtland Cox attend NAACP meeting on July 29, 1964.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-york-ny-at-a-meeting-here-in-n-a-a-c-p-headquarters-news-photo/517350918?phrase=bayard%20rustin&adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His proposal became the template for progressive political activists in the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Jobs and freedom</h2>
<p>Rustin is best remembered as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/who-designed-the-march-on-washington/">the organizer and orchestrator</a> of arguably the seminal event in American civil rights history – <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/15/212338844/bayard-rustin-the-man-who-organized-the-march-on-washington">the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom</a>.</p>
<p>But it almost did not happen. </p>
<p>Rustin’s homosexuality had always been an issue, and not just to his opponents on the American right or to <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/bayard-rustin/bayard-rustin-part-01-of-07">J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI</a>. </p>
<p>Many progressive activists who were open-minded on matters relating to civil and labor rights were much less so when it came to Rustin’s sexuality. </p>
<p>Rustin had been fired by the Fellowship of Reconciliation after <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bayard-rustin-civil-rights-icon-tarnished-arrest-homosexual-encounter-pardoned-california-180974143/">his 1953 conviction in Pasadena, California</a>, on what was then known as a “public indecency” offense, involving sex with two other men in a parked car.</p>
<p>A few years later, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/rustin-bayard">King forced him out</a> of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, fearful of the damage the issue of Rustin’s homosexuality could do to his organization.</p>
<p>It took the direct intervention of Randolph, Rustin’s lifelong friend and champion, to get King and other major civil rights leaders to agree to his selection as the organizer and orchestrator of the March on Washington in 1963. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two Black men are standing next to a sign that says March on Washington for jobs and freedom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505702/original/file-20230121-15446-oomhc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505702/original/file-20230121-15446-oomhc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505702/original/file-20230121-15446-oomhc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505702/original/file-20230121-15446-oomhc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505702/original/file-20230121-15446-oomhc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505702/original/file-20230121-15446-oomhc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505702/original/file-20230121-15446-oomhc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bayard Rustin, left, is seen on Aug. 7, 1963, talking with Cleveland Robinson during the March on Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bayard-rustin-left-and-cleveland-robinson-shown-during-the-news-photo/639609323?phrase=bayard%20rustin&adppopup=true">Orlando Fernandez/Library of Congress via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rustin then had to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/23/bayard-rustin-march-on-washington">survive a denunciation</a> by segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond on the floor of Congress shortly before the march, during which the South Carolina lawmaker read from FBI reports on Rustin’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/bayard-rustin.htm">flirtation with communism</a> – he had belonged to the Communist Party briefly as a young man – and his homosexuality and <a href="https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/king-confidante-arrested-in-pasadena-receives-posthumous-pardon">arrest in Pasadena</a>. </p>
<p>But Rustin’s ability to organize was now too valuable to lose, and this time King stood by him. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742545137/Bayard-Rustin-American-Dreamer">my research shows</a>, King knew that only Rustin, who had spent the previous two decades leading demonstrations and walking picket lines, had the knowledge and experience to move 250,000 people in and out of Washington, D.C., on a hot summer day. </p>
<p>King also knew that Rustin could manage everything in between, including the order of the speakers.</p>
<p>By insisting that King be placed last on the program, Rustin ensured that King would have the final word and maximum dramatic effect. Though Rustin didn’t know it at the time, King’s “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety">I Have a Dream</a>” remarks eventually constituted one of the greatest speeches ever delivered in American history. </p>
<h2>Rustin’s internal conflicts</h2>
<p>The constituent parts of Rustin’s radical vision were often at odds and difficult to achieve, forcing Rustin into wrenching choices, as I learned during my research. </p>
<p>During World War II, for instance, he chose pacifism over the cause of civil rights when he refused to bear arms against a racist Nazi regime.</p>
<p>During the Vietnam War, he chose socialism over pacifism when he muted his criticism of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s policies in the hope of enacting his <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/a-freedom-budget-for-all-americans-annotated/557024/">Freedom Budget for All Americans</a>.</p>
<p>And in 1968, as a white-led teachers union and Black activists struggled for control of New York City’s public education system during the bitter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/opinion/teachers-strike-liberals-ocean-hill-brownsville.html">Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis</a>, Rustin chose labor rights over civil rights and class over race as he lent his support to the union.</p>
<p>These choices <a href="https://jacobin.com/2018/05/the-tragedy-of-bayard-rustin">cost Rustin allies and friendships</a>, as former colleagues who afforded themselves the luxury of one-issue purity denounced him as an apostate, a hypocrite, a turncoat or worse.</p>
<p>But Rustin was none of those. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black man wearing sunglasses is sitting next to another Black man who is taking notes on a pad of paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505707/original/file-20230121-8930-3w8ef2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505707/original/file-20230121-8930-3w8ef2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505707/original/file-20230121-8930-3w8ef2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505707/original/file-20230121-8930-3w8ef2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505707/original/file-20230121-8930-3w8ef2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505707/original/file-20230121-8930-3w8ef2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505707/original/file-20230121-8930-3w8ef2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bayard Rustin, at right, sits next to acclaimed writer James Baldwin on the speakers’ platform in Montgomery, Ala., during the 1965 civil rights march from Selma.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speakers-platform-1965-selma-to-montgomery-alabama-civil-news-photo/459534210?phrase=bayard%20rustin%20randolph&adppopup=true">Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He dedicated his life to helping, as he put it, “people in trouble,” whomever and wherever they might be. </p>
<p>Accordingly, he put himself on the line for democracy advocates all over the world. They included African Americans, Latinos, working men and women, union members, the poor, war critics, anti-nuclear protesters, gays and lesbians, students, leftists, Soviet Jews, and Haitian, Hmong and Afghan refugees.</p>
<p>If those allegiances appear to be contradictions, in my view they were of the best kind. </p>
<h2>Love for Rustin?</h2>
<p>Above all else, Rustin chose to help people in trouble based on their condition, not their identity. </p>
<p>For that he has, if not my love, then my profound respect. </p>
<p>Of all the voices I’ve heard on my journeys through America’s 20th-century history, it is his that resonates most with me.</p>
<p>Rustin died in 1987, his radical vision unwavering until the end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerald Podair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bayard Rustin led a long and complicated life dedicated to the fight for equal rights. Targeted by the FBI, Rustin became a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr.Jerald Podair, Professor of History, Lawrence UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1964312023-01-24T13:23:57Z2023-01-24T13:23:57ZHow some enslaved Black people stayed in Southern slaveholding states – and found freedom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505473/original/file-20230119-21-os9hya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=578%2C228%2C2959%2C2185&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black fugitives fleeing slavery on the Underground Railroad,</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/fugitive-slaves-fleeing-from-maryland-to-delaware-by-way-of-news-photo/815687998?phrase=underground%20railroad%20slavery&adppopup=true">Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For generations, the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/underground-railroad">Underground Railroad</a> has been the quintessential story of resistance against oppression.</p>
<p>Yet, the story is incomplete. </p>
<p>What is far less known is that the majority of enslaved people who fled Southern slavery before the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation">1863 Emancipation Proclamation</a> never crossed <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mason-and-Dixon-Line">the Mason-Dixon line</a> to freedom in the Northern states.</p>
<p>Instead, they remained within the slaveholding Southern states.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/about-us/people/faculty/postdoctoral-researchers/viola-mueller">a scholar</a> of slavery, labor and resistance, I have written about the thousands of enslaved Black people who gravitated to the burgeoning cities and towns of the South, where they lived camouflaged among urban Black residents in Baltimore; Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans; and Richmond, Virginia.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469671062/escape-to-the-city/">my book</a> “Escape to the City: Fugitive Slaves in the Antebellum Urban South,” my research reveals that the resistance of Black people in the antebellum South was much larger and much more active than we have thought. </p>
<h2>A natural part of Southern cities</h2>
<p>Despite their numbers, this parallel story to the Underground Railroad did not leave a mark that is very discernible today. </p>
<p>Unlike fugitives who fled to the North – or to Mexico – those who stayed in the South did not cause political debates that historians can analyze.</p>
<p>And newspaper coverage was so meager that, for the most part, generations of historians have simply overlooked the fact that thousands of runaway slaves went to Southern cities. They overwhelmingly came from nearby plantations and towns.</p>
<p>Intriguingly, it is exactly this gap in the historical record which suggests that urban fugitives prevailed, because it testifies to their virtual invisibility.</p>
<p>My research has found snippets and snapshots of information about them. </p>
<p>Autobiographies, such as the ones by <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/runaway/menu.html">James Matthews</a> and <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/teamoh-george-1818-after-1887/">George Teamoh</a>, reveal how they procured work in a new place. </p>
<p>When Matthews went to Charleston, he wrote that he “went down to the stevedore’s stand and waited there with the rest of the hands” until he was recruited for “stowing away cotton in a vessel.” </p>
<p>Likewise, Teamoh wrote that he “found employment during a few days” at the dockyard at the Richmond Basin. </p>
<p>South Carolina slaveholders complained <a href="https://dlas.uncg.edu/petitions/petition/11385404/">in petitions</a> that their runaways were hired in Charleston to load vessels. Jail ledgers give insight into those who were caught.</p>
<p>For contemporary residents, escaped slaves in Southern cities were a normal occurrence, as the routine handling of them suggests. </p>
<p>When the New Orleans Daily Picayune in 1852 reported that runaway slaves “were hustled up by the police last evening,” it concluded that none of the cases “were of sufficient interest to be worth narrating.”</p>
<p>Some refugees from slavery were apprehended, but as I learned during my research, most could live and work unmolested by police, co-workers or neighbors. </p>
<p>They could be the washerwoman or the neighbor’s cleaning girl or the bricklayer in the street – all hidden in plain sight.</p>
<h2>Collective resistance</h2>
<p>When the Black populations in Southern cities grew throughout the antebellum era between 1800 and 1860, individual family members, friends and sympathizers offered support to Black fugitives to help find housing and work. </p>
<p>As a whole, Black society functioned as a community in which fugitives could remain invisible to slaveholders, police and authorities. </p>
<p>Harboring or aiding an enslaved Black fugitive had been a punishable offense long before the <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/fugitive-slave-act">Fugitive Slave Act of 1850</a>, which enabled anyone to capture and return any Black man or woman, often regardless of legal status, to slavery. If caught involved in an enslaved person’s escape, helpers could face as many as seven years in prison.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A poster claims to have a $100 reward for the capture of a runaway slave." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505648/original/file-20230120-24-hycurt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505648/original/file-20230120-24-hycurt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505648/original/file-20230120-24-hycurt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505648/original/file-20230120-24-hycurt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505648/original/file-20230120-24-hycurt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505648/original/file-20230120-24-hycurt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505648/original/file-20230120-24-hycurt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reward poster for a runaway enslaved person that circulated in Ripley County, Missouri, in March 1860.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/reward-poster-circulated-in-ripley-county-missouri-after-news-photo/517213316?phrase=%20slavery%20%20runaway&adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But shared social and political experiences bound people of African descent together. In contrast to Colonial times, it is well known that during the antebellum era, Black families often counted both free and enslaved members.</p>
<p>This mobilized a broad intraracial solidarity that furnished fugitives with the right environment to carve out new lives outside the reach of their masters and mistresses. My <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469671062/escape-to-the-city/">research</a> shows that men and women took the opportunity to find jobs, tie new friendships and join local churches.</p>
<h2>The need to be invisible</h2>
<p>Very clearly, fugitives in Southern cities could only make it with the help of others. </p>
<p>And while flight to the North by no means meant that safety was guaranteed, success in the South depended more than anywhere else on the silence of everyone involved, as my book shows.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of men and women in the antebellum years defied slavery by running away, thereby sending an explicit message of their refusal to accept exploitation and oppression. </p>
<p>Yet in Southern cities, there was no one like <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/06/reading-to-explore-the-resonance-of-douglass-famous-speech/">Frederick Douglass</a>, who used his writing and orating skills to fight for abolition, and no one like <a href="https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/15263">William Still</a>, who compiled records on the 649 people he helped gain freedom. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of Black men and women are posing for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458947/original/file-20220420-15105-eot9se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harriet Tubman, far left, poses with her family, friends and neighbors near her barn in Auburn, N.Y.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-american-abolitionist-harriet-tubman-as-she-news-photo/514885176?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nor was there a counterpart to <a href="https://theconversation.com/harriet-tubman-led-military-raids-during-the-civil-war-as-well-as-her-better-known-slave-rescues-179730">Harriet Tubman</a>, whose leadership qualities and survival skills earned her the nickname “Moses” because of her work on the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/what-is-the-underground-railroad.htm">Underground Railroad</a>. Between 1850 and 1860, she successfully rescued nearly 70 friends and family members, all of whom had been enslaved. </p>
<p>For those who remained in slaveholding states, publicity would have been way too risky, in large part because the law was in the hands of the largest slaveholders, who controlled state legislatures.</p>
<p>The strategy of runaways and those who aided them was not to attract attention. </p>
<p>Their lives depended on being invisible.</p>
<h2>What we won’t know</h2>
<p>While it is a story of how people defied all odds to fight against enslavement and built up new lives, the success of their strategies to seamlessly become part of a city comes at a delayed price – for historians. </p>
<p>The heroes in this story have no names. </p>
<p>And in the rare instances that they do, a name is all that’s left. </p>
<p>We will probably never know much about individual children, women and men who escaped slavery in Southern cities.</p>
<p>What we do know now is that this type of flight relied on collective resistance that permeated virtually the entire Black population – and it was done in whispers rather than shouts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Viola Franziska Müller received funding from the Dutch Research Council NWO. </span></em></p>Instead of using the secret routes along the Underground Railroad to find freedom in the North, thousands of enslaved Black people fled to free Black communities in Southern slaveholding states.Viola Franziska Müller, Postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in history, University of BonnLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973362023-01-19T15:36:42Z2023-01-19T15:36:42ZCurating early Black experiences in Kingston, Canada’s first capital, a city long defined by histories of whiteness<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/curating-early-black-experiences-in-kingston--canada-s-first-capital--a-city-long-defined-by-histories-of-whiteness" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Nineteenth century Black history is missing from the mainstream story of Kingston, Ont., but traces of this history in the city’s archives show that it undoubtedly had a Black presence. </p>
<p>Research undertaken for a curatorial collaboration at <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/">Agnes Etherington Art Centre</a> at Queen’s University is attempting to fill this gap.</p>
<h2>Early Black histories</h2>
<p>Kingston is a historical city. Located on Lake Ontario at the apex of the St. Lawrence and Cataraqui Rivers, <a href="https://www.cityofkingston.ca/explore/culture-history/history#">it was Canada’s first legislative capital</a>, and was always an important place for Indigenous gathering. </p>
<p>Today, the city acknowledges it sits on the traditional <a href="https://www.cityofkingston.ca/explore/culture-history/history/indigenous-people">homeland of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat</a> and is home to a “growing urban population of over 7,000 residents who identify as First Nations, Inuit or Métis.” </p>
<p>At Agnes, <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/digital-agnes/audio-file/meet-emelie-chhangur-director-agnes-etherington-art-centre/">Emelie Chhangur</a>, director and curator, <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/connect/news-and-stories/meet-sebastian-de-line-research-associate-indigenous-art/">Sebastian De Line</a>, associate curator care and relations, and myself, <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/connect/news-and-stories/qanita-lilla/">associate curator, Arts of Africa</a>, are piecing together early Black histories in a place that has long been defined by histories of Canadian whiteness. </p>
<h2>Broader historical reckoning</h2>
<p>Agnes has an art collection of <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/">over 17,000 pieces</a>, some of which have complex colonial histories. Today, the museum finds itself at a watershed moment of having to reckon with its past as well as Kingston’s.</p>
<p>At Agnes, Chhangur considers the transformative potential of the art museum, where new <a href="https://www.on-curating.org/issue-52-reader/institutional-inreach-as-a-feminist-curatorial-methodology.html#.Y786Ny_b3s0">collaborative curatorial methods can counteract</a> past colonial practices. These practices include extracting material and knowledge in a colonial way and overlooking people who do not conform to white dominance in society. </p>
<p>Along with my colleagues at Agnes, I see this work as part of a broader historical reckoning already being undertaken by dynamic groups like OPIRG Kingston and Keep Up With Kingston. OPIRG has a mandate of pursuing social justice work critical to the city, seen in <a href="https://opirgkingston.org/php">The People’s History Project</a>. </p>
<p>Networks like <a href="https://keepupwithkingston.com">Keep Up With Kingston</a> engage Black lived experience in the city by spreading news on food, cultural and literary events by Black-run businesses. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1539411271157784579"}"></div></p>
<p>As we at Agnes engage with people who are revitalizing Kingston, the city has become a place where new opportunities for dialogue are rising.</p>
<h2>History as distillation</h2>
<p>Our journey into Black history was precipitated by the artistic work of British-Nigerian artist Zina Saro-Wiwa, who will visit Kingston in March 2023. Saro-Wiwa’s <a href="https://www.theillicitgininstitute.com/about">“Illicit Gin Institute,” is an artistic project which takes up the theme of palm wine spirit (also known as “illicit gin”)</a> to expose deeper and surprising narratives about her place of origin, the Niger Delta. </p>
<p>Her <a href="https://www.theillicitgininstitute.com/assemblies">curated assemblies</a> are public gatherings that are responsive to the places they are situated in. In this way Saro-Wiwa uses gin as a lens through which to undertake multiple artistic investigations. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CiM4Qc4syzF","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>In preparation for the Kingston assembly, curators and the artist are thinking about Black histories as illicit to a city imagined as white. We think of the fermentation process as tied to the land, but we also consider how distillation might be a useful metaphor to rethink collaborative history recovery processes. </p>
<p>The gin distillation process involves <a href="https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/54078">three distinct stages known as</a> a head, heart and tail. The head is from the beginning of the run and contains a high percentage of low boiling point alcohols, the heart is the desirable middle and the tail has the highest percentage of oil — and is discarded. </p>
<p>White supremacist historical narratives have discarded essential and rich elements. Our collaborative curatorial process is about documenting history beginning with cherishing every little relational trace.</p>
<h2>Kingston’s Black histories</h2>
<p>Piecing together Kingston’s Black history has happened mostly through primary archival sources: newspaper articles on microfilm, adverts for businesses, legal petitions, diary entries, old photographs and city maps. </p>
<p>Secondary sources are from online blogs and websites. <a href="https://www.stoneskingston.ca/">Stones Kingston</a> is an archival website, from Queen’s University, that contains a <a href="https://www.stoneskingston.ca/black-history/">thread of local 19th-century Black history</a>. </p>
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<p>Through this portal we found the names of prominent Black business owners in the city: William Johnson, James and Marie Elder and <a href="http://www.stoneskingston.ca/black-history/george-mink-part-two-telegraph-house/">George Mink</a>.</p>
<p>George Mink was a well-known figure in early Kingston. He was a son of enslaved Mink senior who arrived in the city as the “property” of John Herkimer (also known as Johan Jost Herkimer) after the American Revolution. </p>
<h2>Black owned hotels, livery stables</h2>
<p>George Mink owned hotels and livery stables and was also awarded the contract for the stage coach and mail routes from Kingston to Toronto and <a href="https://www.thewhig.com/2014/03/31/wolfe-islands-roots-date-back-to-1675#">across Wolfe Island</a>. He was popular among his peers who nominated him as Alderman in 1850, a position he did not take up.</p>
<p>Many parts of Mink’s story remain untold and the sources are thin. It is unclear what happened to George Mink at the end of his life, because following the establishment of the railroad he lost his coach licenses and died in poverty. </p>
<p>According to a 1952 book <em><a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Kingston_the_King_s_Town.html?id=zQUVAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">Kingston, the King’s Town</a></em>, by James A. Roy, who retired from <a href="http://db-archives.library.queensu.ca/index.php/james-alexander-roy-fonds">the Queen’s University literature department in 1950</a>, Mink was laid to rest in an unmarked grave and his body was exhumed by Queen’s medical students. The author relays this as fact, but there are no reliable references to support this.</p>
<p>It is sad that Roy’s mention of George Mink is the only time this prominent Kingston resident appears in a monograph. A more significant piece of writing is a <a href="https://www.digitalkingston.ca/presents-from-the-past/black-history-in-kingston">1998 article</a> in the <a href="https://www.kingstonhistoricalsociety.ca/publications-and-articles">journal <em>Historic Kingston</em></a> written by Rick Neilson and published by the Kingston Historical Society. This article focuses on Mink’s businesses in Kingston but offers no clarity on the end of his life.</p>
<h2>Tobias Mink</h2>
<p>There are no photographs of George Mink, but we have found an 1864 portrait of his nephew, Tobias Mink. </p>
<p>In a photographic studio he sits in a chair holding a bottle of alcohol, wearing a hat and smoking a pipe. His torn clothes speak of a working man. Records state he was a “cartman” and that he did manual labour around town. </p>
<p>We know that Tobias lived at <a href="https://www.lennox-addington.on.ca/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/Traffic%2C%20Roads%20%26%20Bridges/bridges_L%26A.pdf">Minks Bridge in Napanee</a>, 48 kilometres from Kingston — a bridge named after his family — and that he was photographed in Stephen Manson Benson’s photographic studio. In a collection of 385 glass-plate negatives depicting the townspeople, Tobias Mink was the only Black person photographed.</p>
<h2>Lively, visible history</h2>
<p>This curatorial project aims to make this quiet Kingston history lively and visible. </p>
<p>As a curatorial team collaborating with artist Zina Saro-Wiwa, we seek to find networks of solidarity that were not afforded to us in the past. But we also aim to expose the challenges inherent to history writing so long forgotten. </p>
<p>Together we are trying to bring forth and distil local Kingston histories that have been submerged while thinking of new ways of assembling this rich history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Qanita Lilla does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A collaborative curatorial project is cherishing every little relational trace of Black lives found in archives in a city long defined by histories of Canadian whiteness.Qanita Lilla, Associate Curator Arts of Africa, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1772792022-02-28T22:32:23Z2022-02-28T22:32:23ZBlack youth yearn for Black teachers to disrupt the daily silencing of their experiences<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448960/original/file-20220228-21-1quaiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C49%2C5357%2C3268&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most youth in a Waterloo region study were found to have never been taught by a Black teacher. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The annual <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/black-history-month.html">Black History</a> month school assemblies is fading away with February. The 2022 theme picked by the Canadian government for Black History Month, “<a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/maple-leaf/defence/2022/02/black-history-month-celebrating-today-everyday.html">February and Forever: Celebrating Black History today and every day</a>,” itself is an admission that Black history month is currently a performative annual ritual. </p>
<p>Yet the realities raised in Black History month assemblies are year-long priorities requiring proactive enduring action.</p>
<p>Black students and families continue to urgently express concerns about something education scholar George Dei documented over 25 years ago: <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1495088">the marginalization of Black youth in schools, absences of Black and African Canadian history and an absence of Black teachers in the classroom</a>.</p>
<p>My research drew from data from a study <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526484215">that used Afrocentric approaches</a> to explore the experiences of 17 Black youth in the Waterloo Region in Ontario. I found that most of the Black youth have never been taught by a Black teacher. </p>
<p>These youth yearned for Black teachers to disrupt the daily silencing and dismissal of their experiences — and foster the sense of belonging that is so critical to their learning.</p>
<h2>Absence of Black teachers</h2>
<p>In Toronto, <a href="https://youthrex.com/report/towards-race-equity-in-education-the-schooling-of-black-students-in-the-greater-toronto-area/">racial minorities represent nearly 47 per cent of the population, yet make up only 15 per cent of educators</a>.</p>
<p>White people are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320500110519">over-represented in the teaching profession</a> and have benefited <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-history-how-racism-in-ontario-schools-today-is-connected-to-a-history-of-segregation-147633">from systemic racism</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-streaming-is-only-the-first-step-to-dismantling-systemic-racism-in-ontario-schools-142617">and white supremacist</a> hiring, promotion, power and influence.</p>
<p>Across the country, the teaching landscape looks similarly very white: Black teachers such as Saskatchewan educator <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/op-ed-sask-diversity-teachers-bipoc-1.5703711">Helen Vangol have shared how rare it is to find Black teachers — and how teacher education has not caught up with</a> the need to specifically recruit and support Black and racialized teachers in the teaching profession.</p>
<p>Scholarship demonstrates that having <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/04/10/522909090/having-just-one-black-teacher-can-keep-black-kids-in-school">just one Black teacher makes a difference in Black young lives</a>: A study to be published in the <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190573"><em>American Economic Journal: Economic Policy</em></a> finds that Black students randomly assigned to at least one Black teacher in kindergarten to Grade 3 are 14 per cent <a href="https://doi.org/10.3386/w25254">more likely to graduate from high school and 20 per cent more likely to enrol in college</a> than their Black schoolmates who have no Black teachers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black boy works at a computer assisted by a Black teacher." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448959/original/file-20220228-19-1rtwiym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448959/original/file-20220228-19-1rtwiym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448959/original/file-20220228-19-1rtwiym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448959/original/file-20220228-19-1rtwiym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448959/original/file-20220228-19-1rtwiym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448959/original/file-20220228-19-1rtwiym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448959/original/file-20220228-19-1rtwiym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Having even one Black teacher makes a difference in a child’s life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(UK Black Tech)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Black youth in Waterloo region</h2>
<p>Black youth in the Waterloo Region study report that the absence of Black teachers is harmful, makes them feel they cannot belong and are scared of the white gaze that constantly disdains them. </p>
<p>Youth in the study did not have Black teachers, and they wondered if Black people are unqualified to teach, or Canadian schools are only meant for white students. One of my study participants said her aunt was never hired in Waterloo Region because of her accent, but was hired in York Region. </p>
<p>Black youth decried the practice of schools only considering the needs of white students as they (Black students) get the message that schools have a “take it or leave it” attitude towards offering Eurocentric education. The curriculum, the white educators, the history taught, what schools value, the lack of safety for Black bodies, the universalizing of western culture in policies and teaching shows them school systems are built for white children.</p>
<p>Also concerning for Black youth <a href="https://www.toronto.com/news-story/10308287-ontario-wide-project-takes-aim-at-the-criminalization-of-black-students/">is the criminalizing of Black youth</a> resistance and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-curb-anti-black-racism-in-canadian-schools-150489">harsh punishments for Black youth</a>.</p>
<h2>Issues in Waterloo region</h2>
<p>While there are some signs of changes following advocacy from Black communities, the testimonies of students, as well recent incidents, show Waterloo region is still far from welcoming and inclusive.</p>
<p>Last year, the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) suspended the <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-a-fairer-education-system-get-the-police-out-of-schools-141552">Student Resource Officer program</a> in schools. The program purportedly partnered with schools to “develop a positive relationship between youth and police.” In reality, it disproportionately targeted and criminalized Black students.</p>
<p>A board representative also announced the board would begin removing <a href="https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/wrdsb-looking-to-remove-potentially-harmful-books-from-library-collections-1.5638379">racist books</a> from the school libraries — a welcome move, until some board trustees explained it away as a <a href="https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2021/11/03/dont-be-fooled-by-the-public-school-boards-attempt-at-damage-control.html">routine exercise</a>. </p>
<p>Black and racialized families continue to worry for the safety and well-being of their children in the wake of these and other recent situations: In November, <a href="https://kitchener.citynews.ca/police-beat/local-teacher-facing-charges-for-allegedly-taping-2-children-to-desks-at-school-4742029">two racialized children were allegedly tied with masking tape by a WRDSB teacher</a>, and in a separate Waterloo Catholic District School Board incident involving a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/education-minister-review-ordered-police-called-on-child-kitchener-1.6365121">four-year-old Black boy, police were called to a school</a>. </p>
<h2>Need for Afrocentric, anti-racist perspectives</h2>
<p>Black youth in the Waterloo region study report that teachers, guidance counsellors, administrators and social workers are custodians of the status quo, not agents of change. </p>
<p>Their experience is that after multicultural week, the status quo returns, the majority of students and teachers continue to see <a href="https://caos.library.ryerson.ca/index.php/caos/article/view/97">the African continent</a> as the jungle of Tarzan, from where nothing good comes. By extension, students of African descent are treated as deficient, incapable and up to no good.</p>
<p>Neither curricula nor mainstream teaching practices have integrated Afrocentric or anti-racist principles. </p>
<p>Instead, students continue to learn the warped logic that enslavers and colonizers became morally good by partitioning Africa, and plundering the continent’s goods and people to rescue “poor Africans”. </p>
<p>In 2022, this colonial logic and behaviour is justified as white western benevolence to deficient Africans. The ongoing systemic anti-Black racism rooted in white supremacy represents keeping the knee on the neck of Black youth throughout the school year. </p>
<p>Youth say attending school hurts. Their tummies churn at the thought of school, not because they are lazy, but because they are misunderstood, stereotyped and feared — by the fragile whiteness that crushes them mentally, and physically. Youth see no Black teacher who recognize their exclusion from group work for what it is — anti-Black racism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young Black man is seen in a T-shirt reading 'I love my history, I love my culture, I love me.' " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448954/original/file-20220228-15-1e355wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448954/original/file-20220228-15-1e355wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448954/original/file-20220228-15-1e355wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448954/original/file-20220228-15-1e355wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448954/original/file-20220228-15-1e355wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448954/original/file-20220228-15-1e355wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448954/original/file-20220228-15-1e355wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Belonging is critical to young Black students’ learning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Clay Banks/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Black teachers matter</h2>
<p>Black teachers matter because they can disrupt harmful rhetoric and exclusionary practices. </p>
<p>Black educators and culturally sensitive curricula are needed to support Black students who are racially targeted and criminalized for their political resistance. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-curb-anti-black-racism-in-canadian-schools-150489">How to curb anti-Black racism in Canadian schools</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Black youth in my study argued that they need support when they push back against racially motivated punishment. They expressed the view that Black teachers would believe in them, not stream them into dead-end pursuits that lead to low-income jobs. They would create safe spaces to teach <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/bringing-black-history-into-prairie-classrooms">Black history</a>.</p>
<p>Black youth in the study concluded that systemic racism is responsible for the lack of Black teachers in their lives.</p>
<p>Participants all agreed that <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/study-having-just-one-black-teacher-can-up-black-students-chances-of-going-to-college/2018/11">Black teachers matter</a>, as they offer hope, role models, support, cultural sensitivity and relevant curricular illustrations. </p>
<p>Every Black youth must see Back teachers at school, as they make a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-black-kids-benefit-from-black-teachers.html">unique difference</a> by bearing witness to Black youth’s daily experiences.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a story originally published on Feb. 28, 2008. It clarifies that police were called to a Waterloo Catholic District School Board school.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olufunke Oba receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)</span></em></p>Ensuring that every Black youth sees Back teachers at school is one critical piece of addressing systemic racism in schools.Funke Oba, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1762302022-02-25T13:45:37Z2022-02-25T13:45:37ZHow a Black writer in 19th-century America used humor to combat white supremacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448412/original/file-20220224-34050-nzcycs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C18%2C4051%2C2804&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charles Chesnutt was one of the first widely read Black fiction writers in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sarah-cabral-secretary-for-denver-postmaster-alan-catlin-news-photo/161065245?adppopup=true">RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Any writer has to struggle with the dilemma of staying true to their vision or giving editors and readers what they want. A number of factors might influence the latter: the market, trends and sensibilities.</p>
<p>But in the decades after the Civil War, Black writers looking to faithfully depict the horrors of slavery had to contend with readers whose worldviews were colored by racism, as well as an entire swath of the country eager to paper over the past.</p>
<p><a href="https://blackhistorynow.com/charles-chesnutt/">Charles Chesnutt</a> was one of those writers. Forced to work with skeptical editors and within the confines of popular forms, Chesnutt nonetheless worked to shine a light on the legacy of slavery. </p>
<p>His 1899 collection of stories, “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11666/11666-h/11666-h.htm">The Conjure Woman</a>,” took place on a Southern plantation and sold well. At first glance, the stories seemed to mimic other books set in the South written in a style called “<a href="https://public.wsu.edu/%7Ecampbelld/amlit/lcolor.html">local color</a>,” which focuses on regional characters, dialects and customs.</p>
<p>But Chesnutt had actually written a subversive counternarrative, using humor to poke holes in the nostalgic myths of the South and expose the contradictions of a racist society. </p>
<h2>Rewriting the past</h2>
<p>After the Civil War, there was a concerted effort to portray the South as a pastoral place possessed with a culture of honor. Slavery, meanwhile, had been a nurturing, even benevolent, institution.</p>
<p>These beliefs bled into the era’s fiction, with white authors such as <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/pageolevir/bio.html">Thomas Nelson Page</a> and <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/harrisj/bio.html">Joel Chandler Harris</a> writing stories that sentimentalized and softened the complex histories of the past. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Broadsheet with portrait of man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448410/original/file-20220224-17-1ql4g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Writer and editor Joel Chandler Harris published a magazine named for his famous character Uncle Remus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/advertisement-for-uncle-remuss-magazine-1907-the-ad-is-for-news-photo/152403497?adppopup=true">Jay Paull/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Many of these stories feature a formerly enslaved older male who’s given the affectionate moniker “Uncle.” These characters tended to describe the Civil War as an affront on the Southern way of life, while presenting the South and its landed gentry as heroic.</p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2306">A Story of the War</a>,” for example, Harris introduces the character Uncle Remus, who recounts the time his master went away to fight the Civil War. Overcome with concern for the man who enslaved him, Uncle Remus follows him and witnesses a Northern soldier preparing to shoot him. In a moment of panic, Remus shoots the Northerner, wounding him. </p>
<p>“A Story of the War,” like most Southern local color tales, appealed to readers invested in <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the/">the Lost Cause of the Old South</a>, a revisionist ideology that depicts the creation of the Confederate States and cause of the Civil War as just and heroic. </p>
<p>Historian <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41882242?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Fred Bailey</a> notes that stories like Page’s and Harris’ were “hailed by the South’s upper-classes,” while associations like the <a href="https://hqudc.org">United Daughters of the Confederacy</a> routinely read from these works at their meetings.</p>
<h2>Chesnutt’s revisionist humor</h2>
<p>At first glance, it would seem Chesnutt, who was mixed-race <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02690059808589583">and could have easily passed for white</a>, was merely working within the dominant literary form of his time and fashioning stories geared to a white audience. </p>
<p>Like his white contemporaries, Chesnutt, in “The Conjure Woman,” includes a character who’s an “uncle” living on the abandoned plantation where he once toiled. </p>
<p>But Chesnutt, as literary historian Dickson Bruce points out in his 2005 essay “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470996829.ch15">Confronting the Crisis: African American Narratives</a>,” used the setting of the plantation to present a more authentic representation of slavery.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover with elderly Black man and two rabbits." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448408/original/file-20220224-47124-164lb4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first edition cover of Charles Chesnutt’s ‘The Conjure Woman.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Conjure_Woman_book_cover.JPG">Documenting the American South</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Uncle Julius, who appears in each of the collection’s stories, isn’t nostalgic for some bygone era. Instead, he reflects on his own life and seeks to show the humanity of the enslaved. He uses his ability as a raconteur to cleverly swindle a white carpetbagger who bought the plantation Julius lived on during his bondage and after the Civil War. The stories are descriptive, corrective – and, most importantly, funny. </p>
<p>While Chesnutt’s tales explicitly engage with the hard history of slavery, each of the stories ends on a lighter note, with Uncle Julius often getting what he wants. Throughout the collection, he parodies the conventions of Southern fiction – whether refuting racist tropes or showing the cruelty of the ruling class – subtly poking fun at a culture enveloped by the fog of nostalgia.</p>
<h2>Bound by form</h2>
<p>At the same time, Chesnutt felt as if he couldn’t simply write broadsides against myths like the Lost Cause. In order to be published, Black writers needed to <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-conjure-woman-and-other-conjure-tales">appeal to the sensibilities of white readers and the demands of editors</a>.</p>
<p>For example, Uncle Julius spoke in a Black dialect that sounded similar to those of the uncles authored by white writers. This didn’t come easily for Chesnutt. <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674893313">In one letter to his editor</a>, Chesnutt described writing in this dialect as a “despairing task.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, he avoided completely pandering to mainstream expectations of how Black characters should be portrayed.</p>
<p>He rejected <a href="https://columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu/content/william-archibald-dunning-father-historiographic-racism-columbias-legacy-academic-jim-crow">the emergent historiography of Reconstruction</a> that refused to recognize the agency of African Americans, and despite working within the form, Chesnutt didn’t present Julius as a buffoon who was happy to serve the whites in his midst.</p>
<p>Even though his stories didn’t overtly denounce racism, Chesnutt <a href="https://humorinamerica.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/charles-chesnutt-subtle-humor-and-the-plantation-tradition/">hoped they might still chip away at prejudice</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“But the subtle almost indefinable feeling of repulsion toward the negro, which is common to most Americans – and easily enough accounted for, cannot be stormed and taken by assault; the garrison will not capitulate: so their position must be mined, and we will find ourselves in their midst before they think it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Humor opens doors</h2>
<p>Chesnutt is far from the only Black artist asked to make compromises. Poet <a href="https://theconversation.com/langston-hughes-domestic-pariah-international-superstar-133027">Langston Hughes</a> had a falling out with his patron, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlotte-Mason-American-philanthropist">Charlotte Osgood Mason</a>, who viewed African Americans as a link to the species’ primitive past and wanted his work to be devoid of political progressivism. </p>
<p>As Hughes wrote in his 1940 autobiography, “<a href="https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/hughesl-bigsea/hughesl-bigsea-00-h-dir/hughesl-bigsea-00-h.html">The Big Sea</a>,” “I was only an American Negro – who had loved the surface of Africa and the rhythms of Africa – but I was not Africa. I was Chicago and Kansas City and Broadway and Harlem. And I was not what she wanted me to be.”</p>
<p>In Chesnutt, I also see ties to contemporary Black comedians who center their humor around race.</p>
<p>During the third season of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353049/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Chappelle’s Show</a>,” Dave Chappelle famously suffered from an existential crisis because the comedian wasn’t sure how people were responding to his humor. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlScX2stRuo">2006 interview with Oprah Winfrey</a>, he explained how, when filming a sketch in blackface, “someone on the set, that was white, laughed in such a way – I know the difference of people laughing with me and laughing at me. And it was the first time I’d ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with.” </p>
<p>Shortly after, Chappelle quit the show. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man sitting on stage in front of red curtain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448409/original/file-20220224-5831-1mlwz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448409/original/file-20220224-5831-1mlwz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448409/original/file-20220224-5831-1mlwz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448409/original/file-20220224-5831-1mlwz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448409/original/file-20220224-5831-1mlwz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448409/original/file-20220224-5831-1mlwz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448409/original/file-20220224-5831-1mlwz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comedian Dave Chappelle struggled over whether the audience was laughing with him or at him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/comedian-dave-chappelle-attends-a-screening-and-q-a-session-news-photo/57056903?adppopup=true">Riccardo Savi/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Chesnutt was certainly not the first African American artist to use humor to depict the horrors of slavery, he was one of the first to reach the American mainstream. </p>
<p>The humor disarms readers, helping them cross a psychological threshold and enter a space where a more nuanced conversation about the history of the country can take place.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodney Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black writers like Charles Chesnutt had to contend with a dilemma writers today know all too well: give the audience and editors what they want, or wallow in obscurity.Rodney Taylor, Postdoctoral Fellow in African American Studies, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1753152022-02-24T21:14:20Z2022-02-24T21:14:20ZIn Mexico, how erasing Black history fuels anti-Black racism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443092/original/file-20220128-6424-qoz5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C614%2C5127%2C2998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Racism kills, here, there and in the whole world,' reads a sign in Mexico City, at the U.S. Embassy in May 2020, following protests after George Floyd's murder.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/in-mexico--how-erasing-black-history-fuels-anti-black-racism" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In early 2021, <a href="https://linotipia.com.mx/la-little-haiti-sobreviviendo-a-los-estragos-de-la-pandemia">a Ghanaian migrant known as Faruku died</a> in the northern Mexican city of Tijuana, near the Mexico-United States border, of an apparent stroke. </p>
<p>This was after <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Tijuana%2BReport%2B-%2BDecember%2B2021%2B-%2BFINAL.pdf">being turned away from a hospital and later being asked to pay for an ambulance before it would assist him</a>. A report from Refugees International notes that the circumstances “suggest medical racism” — negligence of care informed by racism.</p>
<p><a href="https://baji.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Impact-of-Anti-Black-Racism-on-African-Migrants-at-Mexico.pdf">Recent reports by</a> other <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Tijuana%2BReport%2B-%2BDecember%2B2021%2B-%2BFINAL.pdf">migrant rights and advocacy groups</a> describe various instances of anti-Black racism as medical negligence in immigration detention centres in Tijuana and also in the southern town of Tapachula. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/PuebloSF/status/1349876718610259970">Faruku’s story</a> has drawn attention to the plight of African and Haitian migrants in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/28/will-the-us-reinstate-a-controversial-trump-era-asylum-policy">a state of limbo</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWVGHJ0RRh8">since 2019</a>, when <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/28/will-the-us-reinstate-a-controversial-trump-era-asylum-policy">the U.S. first enforced laws forcing asylum-seekers trying to enter the country from Mexico to first await</a> a Mexican court date. </p>
<p>It’s also drawn attention to anti-Black racism in Mexico, which is <a href="https://www.openglobalrights.org/reckoning-with-racism-against-black-migrants-in-mexico">not only widespread</a>, but a pillar of Mexicanness. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Migrants seen crossing a river in aerial view." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447817/original/file-20220222-17-urhiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447817/original/file-20220222-17-urhiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447817/original/file-20220222-17-urhiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447817/original/file-20220222-17-urhiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447817/original/file-20220222-17-urhiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447817/original/file-20220222-17-urhiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447817/original/file-20220222-17-urhiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Migrants are seen wading between the U.S. and Mexico on the Rio Grande, in Del Rio, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Long denial of Black history</h2>
<p>Anti-Blackness includes the long denial of Black history in Mexico that affects the country’s <a href="https://twitter.com/AfroCensoMX/status/1353810638519349249">more than 2.5 million Afro-Mexicans</a>. According to 2015 figures, about <a href="http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1405-74252019000200273#:%7E:text=According%20to%20the%20data%20collected,in%20Mexico%20is%201'381%2C853">two-thirds of the country’s population that self-identifies as Afro-Mexican also self-identifies as Indigenous</a>.</p>
<p>Anti-Black racism in Mexico has been historically perpetuated by the legacies of slavery and the existence of a racist colonial-era racial caste system, and a modern nationalist myth that has associated true Mexicanness with being <em>mestizaje</em>. That means “mixed race,” a racial and cultural mix of Indigenous and Spaniard. </p>
<p>This ideology has romanticized a state-defined idea of Indigenity as anchoring authentic Mexican identity, even while the state enacted policies to <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/indigenous-nationalities-and-the-mestizo-dilemma">assimilate and marginalize Indigenous Peoples</a>. </p>
<h2>Legacy of Black resistance</h2>
<p>Colonists brought enslaved African people to the territory now known as Mexico <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.2001.00001">throughout the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries</a>. Some enslaved Africans attained their freedom <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2512614">by marrying free Indigenous people</a>, while others were allowed to “purchase” their freedom. </p>
<p>Amid the intensive <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/46/3/235/158429/Negro-Slave-Control-and-Resistance-in-Colonial">control and cruelties exerted over enslaved people in colonial Mexico</a>, as elsewhere in the Americas, Africans resisted relentlessly and in various ways.</p>
<p>Resistance against colonialism <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0229.xml">by escaping slavery and creating “Maronnage” communities on the margins</a> of slave society and slave rebellions were common <a href="https://www.politika.io/en/notice/maroons-and-their-communities-in-the-americas">throughout Latin America</a>, including Mexico.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Statue of a man looking up holding a pole." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447815/original/file-20220222-21-1aai7wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447815/original/file-20220222-21-1aai7wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447815/original/file-20220222-21-1aai7wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447815/original/file-20220222-21-1aai7wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447815/original/file-20220222-21-1aai7wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447815/original/file-20220222-21-1aai7wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447815/original/file-20220222-21-1aai7wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statue of Gaspar Yanga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia Commons)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In colonial present-day Mexico, African resistance intensified. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-46.3.235">By the early 17th century, the first free, autonomous African community in the Americas, San Lorenzo de los Negros, was formed</a> in what’s now the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/yanga-gaspar-c-1545/">municipality of Yanga</a>, named for its founder, African abolitionist Gaspar Yanga.</p>
<p>Historian Rhonda M. Gonzales notes that in New Spain in the 16th century, even while formerly enslaved labourers gained free status, “Africans, like Indigenous populations, were always <a href="https://www.pvamu.edu/tiphc/research-projects/afro-mexicans-afromestizos/the-african-presence-in-new-spain-c-1528-1700/">subject to hegemonic Spanish institutions, government and ecclesiastical entities, as well</a>.”</p>
<h2>The ‘Society of Castes’</h2>
<p>In this colonial era, Spanish colonists instituted a <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/sistema-de-castas-1500s-ca-1829/">Society of Castes</a>, a <a href="https://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/fulano_de_tal/2011/nov/04/the-mexican-caste-system">colonial legal racial classification system</a> that specified a hierarchical ordering of <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/colonial-americas/a/spaniard-and-indian-produce-a-mestizo-attributed-to-juan-rodriguez">race categories</a>. </p>
<p>As historian R. Douglas Cope notes in his book, <em>The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City</em>, a “<a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0322.htm">standard 17th-century format contained five to seven groups, ranked as follows</a>: Spaniard, <em>castizo</em>, <em>morisco</em>, <em>meztizo</em>, <em>mulatto</em>, [Indigenous] and Black.” Spaniards considered these to be hierarchically ranked as per their proximity to full Spanish ancestry. </p>
<p><em>Mulatto</em> referred to Spanish and African; <em>meztizo</em> referred to Spanish and Indigenous; <em>caztizo</em> referred to Spanish and <em>mestizo</em>; <em>morisco</em> to Spanish and <em>mulatto</em>. </p>
<p>But Cope also notes that “in its most extreme, this model distinguished more than 40 racial categories …”</p>
<p>People of African descent were often <a href="https://www.pvamu.edu/tiphc/research-projects/afro-mexicans-afromestizos/the-african-presence-in-new-spain-c-1528-1700/">systematically excluded from performing certain trades, such as tailoring or carpentry</a>. They were also <a href="https://nativeheritageproject.com/2013/06/15/las-castas-spanish-racial-classifications/">taxed more than other castes and banned from priesthood</a>.</p>
<p>The legacy of racism against Blackness and dark skin continues today.
In 2017, Daniel Zizumbo-Colunga of Vanderbilt University, an expert in political psychology and behaviour, published a study confirming <a href="https://theconversation.com/study-reveals-racial-inequality-in-mexico-disproving-its-race-blind-rhetoric-87661">“darker skin is strongly associated with decreased wealth and less schooling,” and “race is the single most important determinant of a Mexican citizen’s economic</a> and educational attainment.”</p>
<p>Likewise, recent <a href="https://ceey.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/04-MGF-V%C3%A9lez-2020.pdf">research from the non-profit Centro de Estudios Espinoza Yglesias</a> reveals skin tone determines social mobility, where darker skin shades correlate with lower rates of upward intergenerational mobility.</p>
<h2>Idealized ‘mixed race’ identity</h2>
<p>In the 19th-century nation-building period throughout Latin America, the notion of a “post-racial” society that was <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03622-z"><em>mestizaje</em> (mixed race)</a> gained traction. Versions of mestizaje vary among countries.</p>
<p>In Mexico, after the country <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mexico/Independence">gained independence in 1821</a>, the caste system was officially dismantled and government envisioned the end of distinct racial identities codified in the caste system.</p>
<p>Heavily influenced by the essay <em><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/cosmic-race-la-raza-cosmica">The Cosmic Race</a></em> by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-Vasconcelos">writer and intellectual Jose Vasconcelos</a>, the country’s first education minister, the ideal emerged of a singular <em>mestizaje</em> Mexican national identity.</p>
<p>Vasconcelos helped consolidate <em>mestizaje</em> as a mythical story of building the Mexican nation through racial mixing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1468796810372305">where whiteness is desired and privileged</a> with the promise of an inclusive society. At least <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/afro-mexicans-census-history-identity">until recently</a>, Blackness was denied under <em>mestizaje</em>.</p>
<p>Part of promoting mestizaje identity <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/msem.2001.17.2.375">meant intellectual</a> and <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/artelogie/2201?lang=en">artistic movements</a> fostered a romanticized image of Indigenous people and sought to absorb Indigeneity into symbols of national pride — while enacting political, economic and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02344-1_31">educational policy</a> designed to assimilate Indigenous people. </p>
<p>Throughout the 20th century, the census of Indigenous Mexicans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20095-8_11">was exclusively based on language</a>. Mexico’s constitution <a href="https://minorityrights.org/minorities/indigenous-peoples-4/">has only recognized Indigenous populations and communities since 1992</a>. The government included a question allowing Indigenous people to self-identify on the 2000 census following Indigenous advocacy.</p>
<h2>Constitutional recognition</h2>
<p>The ability to even count <a href="https://twitter.com/AfroCensoMX/status/1353810638519349249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1353810638519349249%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fremezcla.com%2Fculture%2Fmexico-2020-census-results-historical-addition-of-afro-mexicans%2F">the Afro-Mexican community is a new event</a>: 2020 was the first year Mexicans of African descent were able to self-identify and be counted in Mexico’s census, following decades of activist work <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/afro-mexicans-fight-visibility-and-recognition">from Afro-descendant community organizers</a>.</p>
<p>Afro-Mexican advocates note that inclusion in the census can help redress institutional discrimination, increase <a href="https://elpais.com/mexico/2021-11-19/celeste-sanchez-la-primera-senadora-afromexicana-la-mayoria-de-las-victimas-de-feminicidio-son-mujeres-racializadas.html">inclusion in politics</a> and address <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/environmental-racism-in-mexican-lagoons/">environmental racism</a>, among other advances. </p>
<p>But they also note constitutional reform <a href="https://ladekonstruccion.com/2020/08/17/reflexiones-a-un-ano-de-la-inclusion-constitucional-afromexicana/?fbclid=IwAR1JBJ8JyKOlduiyA0dHasgiNfTaDbeh0WquD_gBTT2jNF6ekO1elmi745s">does not guarantee the state will enact effective public policy or that Afro-Mexicans will be able to exercise their equal rights or the pursuit for reparations</a> for slavery.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Sociologist Monica Moreno Figueroa who founded the Collective to Eliminate Racism in Mexico speaks about intersectional anti-racist organizing, using examples from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Affirming Black identity, dismantling racism</h2>
<p>Activists defending the rights of Afro-Mexicans such as <a href="https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/dr-monica-moreno-figueroa">sociologist</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFRzZQb4lyU&t=1414s">Monica Moreno Figueroa</a>, who co-founded <a href="https://colectivocopera.org/">the Collective for Eliminating Racism in Mexico (Colectivo para Eliminar el Racismo en Mexico)</a>, have long advocated for <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/afro-mexicans-make-their-mark/">the affirmation of Black identity in Mexico</a> and the many ways it’s important for dismantling anti-Black racism. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.redalyc.org/journal/5534/553458105011/html/">Rodrigo Zarate Moedano</a>, University of Veracruz education researcher and anti-racist expert, and other scholars seek to bolster community-based calls for racial justice <a href="https://www.aacademica.org/cristina.masferrer/21.pdf">by documenting how anti-Black</a> and <a href="https://www.redalyc.org/journal/5534/553458105020/html/">anti-Indigenous racism</a> is reproduced through school curricula or national narratives — and by advocating for anti-racist school curricula.</p>
<p>The Migration Policy Institute report on <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/mpi-african-migration-americas-eng_final.pdf">African Migration though the Americas</a> recommends that civil-society, anti-racist organizations provide anti-discriminatory training to immigration officials and public service agencies to combat anti-Black racism towards African migrants. </p>
<p>Such anti-racist efforts across sectors are urgently needed to challenge anti-Black racist colonial national myths and injustices that impact Afro-Mexicans, Afro-Indigenous and Black migrants and that deny the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/IndigenousPeoplesRightsInMexico.aspx">rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>.</p>
<p>It’s important that community leaders, activists and academics recognize the need to name anti-Blackness, and the work ahead to dismantle it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marycarmen Lara Villanueva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nationalist myth has associated ‘true Mexicanness’ with being ‘meztizo’ — a racial and cultural mix of Indigenous and Spaniard, even while the state enacted policies to assimilate Indigenous Peoples.Marycarmen Lara Villanueva, PhD Candidate, Department of Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1754692022-02-07T16:14:02Z2022-02-07T16:14:02ZHow American singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson became a hero in China<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443482/original/file-20220131-124991-1ad6k13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C19%2C1274%2C657&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 1941, Robeson recorded an album of Chinese fighting and folk songs with activist Liu Liangmo with the Chinese People’s Chorus — organized among members of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance in New York City’s Chinatown. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Gordon Parks for the U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information/Wikimedia/Keynote records)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chinese broadcasters have aired shows featuring <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Robeson">Paul Robeson (1898-1976)</a>, one of the most popular African American <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/paul-robeson-about-the-actor/66/#:%7E:text=Paul%20Robeson%20was%20the%20epitome,erased%20him%20from%20popular%20history.">singers and actors of his era</a> and a well-known <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-paul-robeson-said-77742433/">civil rights activist</a>, several times in recent years.</p>
<p>China National Radio and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv3YykCcg70&t=1516s">various channels</a> of the widely influential China Central TV showcased Robeson on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv3YykCcg70&t=1516s">programs</a> in 2021, 2012 <a href="https://tv.cctv.com/2009/11/30/VIDE1372319800852972.shtml">and 2009</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv3YykCcg70&t=1516s">narrating China’s resistence to foreign military aggressions</a>. This could seem like unusually frequent coverage related to an American who passed away decades ago. </p>
<p>My book, <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469664606/arise-africa-roar-china"><em>Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century</em></a>, unpacks the little-known yet important relationship between Paul Robeson and China, which continues to resonate powerfully today. </p>
<h2>New York City meeting</h2>
<p>Robeson is long remembered in China partly due to his contribution to popularizing the country’s future national anthem after the singer’s 1941 recording of an album of Chinese fighting and folk songs <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9JsXtKmmlU">with Liu Liangmo (ca. 1909-88)</a>, a prolific journalist, musician and Christian activist. </p>
<p>In November 1940, in New York City, Robeson received a phone call asking him to meet Liu, recently arrived from China. Liu’s accounts of his acquaintance with Robeson would be published in various Chinese-langauge periodicals.</p>
<p>Robeson met Liu within half an hour. When Robeson inquired about the mass singing movement that Liu had initiated in China, Liu related the backstory behind the new genre of Chinese fighting and folk songs he helped invent for war mobilization, singing some examples. </p>
<p>Liu noted Robeson’s favourite was the signature piece, “Chee Lai!” or “March of the Volunteers,” because, as Robeson explained, its lyric “arise, ye who refuse to be bond slaves!” expressed the determination of the world’s oppressed, including Chinese and Black people, to struggle for liberation. </p>
<p>In November 1941, Robeson, Liu and the Chinese People’s Chorus — which Liu had organized among members of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance in New York City’s Chinatown — recorded <em>Chee Lai! Songs of New China</em> for Keynote Records. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Keynote Records album, ‘Chee Lai! Songs of New China.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Solidarity album</h2>
<p>Liu’s liner notes for the album relay that he saw the collaboration as “a strong token of solidarity between the Chinese and the Negro People.” Robeson’s notes said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Chee Lai! (Arise!) is on the lips of millions of Chinese today, a sort of unofficial anthem, I am told, typifying the unconquerable spirit of this people. It is a pleasure and a privilege to sing both this song of modern composition and the old folk songs to which a nation in struggle has put new words.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In December 1941, the <em>New York Times</em> lauded the album as one of the year’s best and noted that profits went to <a href="https://archives.nypl.org/mss/3078">the China Relief Fund</a>, chartered in the state of New York that same year by founding aid organizations.</p>
<p>Robeson reprised this song in his numerous concerts in North America and Europe, sometimes amid entangled racial and ideological controversies. </p>
<p>“Chee Lai!” was eventually adopted by Hollywood. Robeson’s version of the song was featured in MGM’s film <em>Dragon Seed</em> (1944), an adaptation of <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1938/summary/">Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck’s</a> <a href="https://openroadmedia.com/ebook/dragon-seed/9781453263518">bestselling novel on China’s resistance against Japan</a>, starring Katherine Hepburn. </p>
<p>The U.S. Army Air Force Orchestra played the tune at the start and end of a film produced by the U.S. state department, <em>Why We Fight: The Battle of China</em> (1944), directed by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frank-Capra">Oscar-winning Frank Capra</a>. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. State Department film, ‘Why We Fight.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘March of the Volunteers’</h2>
<p>Robeson’s long-term alliances with sojourning leftist Chinese artists such as Liu, <a href="http://bdcconline.net/en/stories/lin-yutang">writer and philosopher Lin Yutang</a> and “The King of Beijing Opera,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinese-american-actresses-soo-yong-and-anna-may-wong-contrasting-struggles-for-recognition-in-hollywood-159174">Mei Lanfang</a> — along with American supporters like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Agnes-Smedley">Agnes Smedley, the American journalist</a> based in Shanghai in the 1930s — led to his mutual embrace with the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). </p>
<p>Chinese news sources reported that to celebrate the announcement of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev#:%7E:text=On%20October%201%2C%201949%2C%20Chinese,Republic%20of%20China%20(PRC).&text=The%20%E2%80%9Cfall%E2%80%9D%20of%20mainland%20China,Communists%20entering%20Beijing%20in%201949.">PRC’s establishment on Oct. 1, 1949</a>, Robeson sang “Chee Lai!” on the streets of Harlem. </p>
<p>Robeson famously telegrammed Mao Zedong to congratulate the new regime: “We celebrate the birth of the People’s Republic of China, because it is a great force in the struggles for world peace and human freedom.” The contents of the telegram were immediately published in <em>The People’s Daily</em>, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party.</p>
<h2>Robeson as role model</h2>
<p>Liu wrote an article, “People’s Singer Robeson,” that was widely circulated across China and Chinatowns in the United States between 1949 and 1950. After promoting the causes of China to the American public, particularly African Americans, for nearly a decade, Liu had just returned to China to serve as a high-level cultural official. </p>
<p>Liu’s article helped alter the narrative about Robeson within China from that of an “exotic entertainer” to a heroic role model for socialist citizens there. In the years leading up to the founding of the PRC, the representation of Black people in the media was dominated by coverage of Jazz musicians in nightclubs of treaty ports, who were dismissed as “foreign musical instrumental devils” — a view which
echoed with long-held <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/28/racist-africans-stereotypes-tv-colonial">stereotypes of the “primitive” African</a>.</p>
<p>Liu’s article focused on Robeson as an internationalist who “embodied the perfect marriage between art and politics.” It was subsequently followed by a body of printed materials about Robeson — such as stories in state-owned newspapers, biographies, collections of his songs and even a cartoon series for children —<br>
that stressed his heroism and model status.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white comic showing Paul Robeson speaking at a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443472/original/file-20220131-27-qx3ua1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443472/original/file-20220131-27-qx3ua1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443472/original/file-20220131-27-qx3ua1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443472/original/file-20220131-27-qx3ua1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443472/original/file-20220131-27-qx3ua1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443472/original/file-20220131-27-qx3ua1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443472/original/file-20220131-27-qx3ua1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sample 1949 page from the children’s cartoon series, ‘Today’s Hero: Black Singer Robeson.’ The caption on the top left reads: ‘He gets along very well with Chinese friends in the United States.’ Robeson says, ‘I salute the democratic revolution in China.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Yunxiang Gao/Xin ertong banyuekan 23, 2)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Film, meanwhile, also contributed to Robeson’s popularity as a hero in China. While the newly created communist nation generally rejected Hollywood and European films, a 1939 British film <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031828/">The Proud Valley</a></em>, starring Robeson, was brought to Chinese audiences around 1956 and was well received. The film showcased the popular singing and performance of a muscular Robeson playing an American miner in Wales struggling with local miners in a labour dispute. </p>
<p><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781466841505/w-e-b-du-bois-1919-1963">African American writer, sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois</a>, who was later welcomed in <a href="https://medium.com/fairbank-center/arise-africa-roar-china-black-and-chinese-citizens-of-the-world-in-the-twentieth-century-b9839359b467">China in 1959</a>, wrote in the publication <em>Crisis</em> in 1930 about how “some white folk are frightened of the naked manhood of Paul Robeson.” For Chinese audiences, Robeson provided an inspiring model of masculinity.</p>
<h2>Enduring legacy</h2>
<p>Robeson’s version of “Chee Lai!” was played in the Grand Hall of the People’s Congress in Beijing during Nie Er Music Week in 2009. Nie Er was the <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/composing-for-the-revolution-nie-er-and-chinas-sonic-nationalism">talented musician who composed “Chee Lai!”</a>.</p>
<p>Various state organs including China Society for People’s Friendship Studies and <em>China Daily</em> organized a tribute <a href="https://thesanghakommune.org/2017/05/26/beijing-110th-celebration-of-paul-robesons-birthday-in-photographs-2008/">on April 9, 2008, marking Robeson’s birthday</a>.</p>
<p>Robeson continues to be remembered as a loyal friend to China. He is celebrated for globalizing China’s national anthem, for his songs that set hearts stirring, for his contributions to the Chinese nation’s liberation — and to the friendship between peoples of China and the United States, <a href="https://medium.com/fairbank-center/black-power-in-china-maos-support-for-african-american-racial-struggle-as-class-struggle-7673f2a6abb">particularly African Americans</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gao Yunxiang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In China, Robeson continues to be remembered as a loyal friend celebrated for popularizing what became China’s national anthem and building solidarity between peoples of China and African Americans.Gao Yunxiang, Professor, Department of History, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1715542021-11-10T15:17:33Z2021-11-10T15:17:33ZMaking our food fairer: Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 12<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431117/original/file-20211109-19-hmxfiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=37%2C41%2C2447%2C1620&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Almost 30 per cent of Black households and 50 per cent of Indigenous households experience food insecurity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bart Heird/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/98b5cd5f-0305-4650-9bdf-731605667fb7?dark=true"></iframe>
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<blockquote>
<p>One of the most exciting parts of my job is the way that folks are rolling up their sleeves and they’re getting onto the land and taking the responsibility to feed each other again. - Tabitha Robin Martens</p>
<p>The best food banks say that they are working to put themselves out of business. Food banks are not a long-term solution. At the same time, I say it’s complicated because in this moment, because of the vast and dire nature of food insecurity, we’re talking about people’s lives, people having the sustenance to get from day to day, and people are truly dependent on that system. - Melana Roberts</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A lot of people think of Canada as a wealthy nation. But for many people across the country, access to healthy affordable food is still a real struggle. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://proof.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity/">recent stats</a>, one out of every eight households in Canada are food insecure. For racialized Canadians, that number increases to two to three times the national average. For Black and Indigenous households, that number jumps even higher: <a href="https://foodshare.net/custom/uploads/2019/11/PROOF_factsheet_press_FINAL.6.pdf">Almost 30 per cent of Black households</a> and 50 per cent of Indigenous households experience food insecurity.</p>
<p>The pandemic has only made things worse. </p>
<p>Like shelter, food is a basic necessity of life. </p>
<p>It provides the calories and nutrients we need to survive. And food is also connected to our mental health, our culture and families and our sense of self. </p>
<p>But our food systems are failing to feed all of us. </p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-12-making-our-food-fairer">In this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, we’re picking apart what is broken and talking about ways to fix it with two women who have been battling this issue for years.</p>
<p>Tabitha Robin Martens is a mixed ancestry Swampy Cree researcher and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems. When she’s not writing and teaching about Indigenous Food Sovereignty, she spends her time on land, working with her people and learning traditional Cree food practices.</p>
<p>And Melana Roberts is a food policy expert and food justice advocate, and the Chair of Food Secure Canada. She led the charge to help create North America’s first municipal <a href="https://www.toronto.ca/news/city-council-approves-first-black-food-sovereignty-plan/">Black Food Sovereignty Plan at the City of Toronto</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/making-our-food-fairer-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-12-transcript-171583">Read the transcript for this episode here.</a></p>
<h2>Additional Reading</h2>
<p>Each week, we highlight articles or books that drill down into the topics we discuss in the episode.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2019.09B.007">Our Hands at Work: Indigenous Food Sovereignty in Western Canada</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-babies-going-hungry-in-a-food-rich-nation-like-canada-165789">Why are babies going hungry in a food-rich nation like Canada? </a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-a-garden-can-also-bloom-eco-resilient-cross-cultural-food-sovereign-communities-121543">Growing a garden can also bloom eco-resilient, cross-cultural, food-sovereign communities</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/at-a-new-york-city-garden-students-grow-their-community-roots-and-critical-consciousness-117459">At a New York City garden, students grow their community roots and critical consciousness
</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-researchers-plant-seeds-of-hope-for-health-and-climate-106217">Indigenous researchers plant seeds of hope for health and climate
</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-traditional-seeds-and-crops-are-bringing-food-independence-to-timor-leste-147976">How traditional seeds and crops are bringing food independence to Timor-Leste
</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/seedkeeping-can-connect-people-with-their-roots-and-preserve-crops-for-future-generations-157036">Seedkeeping can connect people with their roots and preserve crops for future generations
</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-impacts-your-health-84112">Racism impacts your health</a></p>
<h2>Listen and follow</h2>
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<p>This is our last <a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-our-podcast-dont-call-me-resilient-season-2-168640">Don’t Call Me Resilient</a> episode of Season 2. We hope you had a chance to listen to all 12 of the episodes. If you are coming to us for the first time, you can listen and follow along <a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-our-podcast-dont-call-me-resilient-season-2-168640">right here</a> where you will find past episodes as well as links to <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a>, featuring stories from our global network. Other easy ways to find us are to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts. </p>
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<p><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. This podcast was produced with a grant for Journalism Innovation from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by Vinita Srivastava. Our producer is Susana Ferreira. Our associate producer is Ibrahim Daair. Reza Dahya is our sound producer. Our consulting producer is Jennifer Moroz. Lisa Varano is our audience development editor and Scott White is the CEO of The Conversation Canada. Zaki Ibrahim wrote and performed the music we use on the pod. The track is called Something in the Water.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171554/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Our food systems are failing to feed all of us.
In this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, we pick apart what is broken and ways to fix it with two women who battle food injustice.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1697002021-10-25T12:48:51Z2021-10-25T12:48:51ZFive plays about enslavement by Black British women playwrights<p>“There’s a sidestep that Europe does where it takes itself out of the triangle … I’m never quite sure how that sleight of hand is achieved, but it’s like, slavery, it’s that American thing, we don’t have to worry about it,” said playwright <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09z0bbc">Selina Thompson</a> when talking about Britain’s role in the transatlantic trade of humans from Africa. She’s not wrong. The narrative of slavery in the UK has long been shaped by the celebration of white abolitionists, while the violent part is often obscured.</p>
<p>Most plays, television shows and films about slavery are set in the US. They tend to repeat the same traumatic images of violence against Black people as if there is no other way of getting the horror across than in such visceral and gruesome scenes, particularly those involving Black women. </p>
<p>Speaking about Black British director Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave, and many films like it, Black feminist cultural critic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAaslq_ihyk">bell hooks</a> said:</p>
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<p>If I don’t see another Black woman naked, raped and beaten as long as I live, I will be just fine.</p>
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<p>hooks challenges storytellers to think about how enslavement is represented and to think about how these histories can be explored without re-traumatising Black performers and spectators.</p>
<p>Five recent plays by Black British women have taken this on as they tackle Britain’s missing history, rewriting the record of it as “the country that ended slavery”. They do not resort to violence to show the seriousness of their stories but do so through thoughtful writing and by drawing connections between real stories from our past and our present.</p>
<h2>debbie tucker green’s ear for eye</h2>
<p>A play in three parts, tucker green’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010t0c/ear-for-eye">ear for eye</a>, which has recently been adapted into a film for the BBC, is about the different ways that racism plays out in the UK and USA. While part two explores the power of language and how it can be weaponised to create dangerous stereotypes in the media and in conversation, parts one and three show clear threads that connect contemporary police brutality against Black people to legacies of colonial violence. </p>
<p>Part one portrays African American and Black British parents having “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12401792/police-black-parents-the-talk">the talk</a>” with their sons about how to conduct themselves when they’re stopped by the police. Many Black parents will know this talk; it stresses how the onus is placed upon young Black men to behave in ways that avoid appearing “threatening”, “aggressive”, “belligerent”, or “provocative”. Yet, the play suggests that any gesture he adopts can be misinterpreted.</p>
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<p>Intergenerational conversations about civil rights and contemporary activism are interspersed with scenes describing police officers teargassing Black protesters and using aggressive and humiliating arrest techniques. These are similar to scenes that played out across the world in 2020 as many <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-why-the-sight-of-these-brave-exhausted-protesters-gives-me-hope-139804">protested against racial injustice and police violence</a>. </p>
<p>Part three features excerpts from the US Jim Crow segregation laws and the British (Jamaican) and French slave codes, which are read aloud on camera by white actors and non-white actors. While US laws focused on keeping Black people and white people separate, British slave codes legislated the brutal punishments of runaways. Hamstrings were cut following a second attempt to escape and death was the punishment for a third. These infringements of Black human rights show how contemporary violence against Black people stems from much longer histories of racism. </p>
<h2>Janice Okoh’s The Gift</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jan/21/the-gift-review-black-britons-queen-victoria-janice-okoh">The Gift</a> also uses a three-part narrative structure that moves from Brighton in 1862 to the present day rural English countryside. </p>
<p>A story about the adopted African goddaughter of Queen Victoria, <a href="https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/real-stories/the-african-princess-sarah-forbes-bonetta/">Sarah (Forbes) Bonetta</a> are paralleled with present-day Sarah – “a black middle-class woman staying in a Cheshire village with her husband and [white adopted] small child”. </p>
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<p>Okoh implies that colonial ideas about race continue to shape understandings in the present. This is clear when well-meaning white neighbours drop by for a cup of tea and microaggressions start to slip out in comments about it being unusual for Black parents to adopt a white child. </p>
<h2>Juliet Gilkes Romero’s The Whip</h2>
<p>Contemporary resonances are also evident in Juliet Gilkes Romero’s <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-whip/">The Whip</a>, which focuses on the abolition of slavery in 1833. This play moves the narrative away from the celebration of white abolitionists by providing a backroom view of British politicians wrangling about abolition in parliament.</p>
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<p>Gilkes Romero focuses on the much-obscured part of this legacy – the £20 million borrowed to pay to “compensate” owners of enslaved people for the “loss of property.” This was such a large debt (the modern equivalent of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/treasury-tweet-slavery-compensate-slave-owners">£17 billion</a>) that it was only fully paid off in 2015 using taxpayer’s money. While enslavers were paid off, reparations to those descended from enslaved people have been denied – many of whom have unwittingly paid towards this “compensation” through taxes.</p>
<h2>Selina Thompson’s salt.</h2>
<p>A one-woman show, <a href="https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/salt/">salt.</a>, part of which has also been <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010zdp">adapted for the BBC</a>, narrates a journey that Thompson took on a cargo ship in 2016 to retrace the transatlantic triangular route from Europe to Africa and the Caribbean. Thompson explores African-American scholar Saidiya Hartman’s notion of the “<a href="https://iaphs.org/the-afterlife-of-slavery-how-racial-logics-maintain-racial-health-disparties/#:%7E:text=Author%20Saidiya%20Hartman%20writes%20in,afterlife%20of%20slavery%20also%20includes">afterlife of slavery</a>”, which is the idea that a racial logic that was established during slavery continues to disadvantage Black people through “skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration and impoverishment”.</p>
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<p>Thompson shows how colonial dynamics are reproduced in racist and sexist assertions of power on the ship and on the surveillance of her Black female body as she passes through border security controls. She experiences contradictory feelings as a Black woman visiting the dungeons of the notorious <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/27/africa/ghana-elmina-castle/index.html">Elmina’s Castle</a> in Ghana, where enslaved people were held before being transported, and in Jamaica, where she recognises the implicit racial dynamics of the tourist industry. </p>
<h2>Winsome Pinnock’s Rockets and Blue Lights</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/rockets-and-blue-lights">Rockets and Blue Lights</a> uses a dual narrative framework that is set in the present and the past. One strand portrays the making of a film about JMW. Turner’s 1840 painting, <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-50-autumn-2020/winsome-pinnock-jmw-turner-slave-ship">The Slave Ship</a> in the present day. The other strand is set in 1840 as “Londoners Lucy and Thomas try to come to terms with the meaning of freedom” and Turner boards a ship to research the sea for his paintings. </p>
<p>Turner’s painting is believed to be a response to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/jan/19/the-story-of-the-zong-slave-ship-a-mass-masquerading-as-an-insurance-claim">Zong massacre</a> of 1781, when the captain of a ship ordered the crew to throw 133 enslaved people overboard so that he could make an insurance claim for the loss of cargo. </p>
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<p>Pinnock’s use of past and present questions the responsibility of storytellers when exploring enslavement. The Black actress in the fictional film challenges the director’s decision to cut aspects of her story to give more space to Turner’s. This draws attention to how certain stories are written out of historical narratives while others are foreground.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynette Goddard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black British women have been staging plays in recent years about Britain’s role in slavery, a history the country is too eager to forget.Lynette Goddard, Professor of Black Theatre and Performance, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662332021-10-08T16:01:19Z2021-10-08T16:01:19ZJames McCune Smith: new discovery reveals how first African American doctor fought for women’s rights in Glasgow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421090/original/file-20210914-15-2i37hj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C14%2C973%2C667&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Engraving of James McCune Smith by Patrick H. Reason.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nyhistory.org/web/africanfreeschool/bios/james-mccune-smith.html">New York Historical Society</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>James McCune Smith was the first African American to receive a medical doctorate from a university. Born in 1813 to a poor South Carolina runaway slave who had escaped to New York City, he went on to attend Glasgow University during the 1830s. When he returned to America, he became a leading black physician, a tireless abolitionist, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FwvIir4VSX4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=black+hearts+of+men&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=black%20hearts%20of%20men&f=false">activist and journalist</a>.</p>
<p>McCune Smith led an amazing life. He exposed false medical data in the 1840 American census. He supported women’s suffrage alongside the noted feminist <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/susan-b-anthony">Susan B. Anthony</a>. And he wrote the introduction to Frederick Douglass’s sensational 1855 autobiographical slave narrative, <a href="https://archive.org/details/mybondagemyfreed00indoug">My Bondage and My Freedom</a>.</p>
<p>Now, for the first time, my research has revealed that McCune Smith was also the first African American known to be published in a British medical journal – and that he used this platform to reveal a cover-up by an ambitious medical professor who was experimenting on vulnerable women in Glasgow in the 1830s.</p>
<p>I am a historian of science and medicine. I study how people learned scientific skills and I am especially intrigued by the history of how scientists and physicians made discoveries and how that knowledge then circulated between the academy and the public.</p>
<p>One way to track this process is to compare what students learned in educational settings to how they used their scientific training to solve problems and make decisions later in life. My forthcoming book, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3769533/Media_and_the_Mind_Art_Science_and_Notebooks_as_Paper_Machines_1700_1830_Chicago_University_of_Chicago_Press_2022_550_pp_60_figures">Media and the Mind</a>, for example, uses school and university notebooks to reconstruct how students historically learned to create, analyse and visualise scientific data in ways that helped them understand the human body and the natural world when they finished their education. </p>
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<img alt="Black and white photograph of a man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421555/original/file-20210916-17-1fmymfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421555/original/file-20210916-17-1fmymfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421555/original/file-20210916-17-1fmymfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421555/original/file-20210916-17-1fmymfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421555/original/file-20210916-17-1fmymfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421555/original/file-20210916-17-1fmymfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421555/original/file-20210916-17-1fmymfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). Douglass, a former slave, was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/portrait-of-frederick-douglass-1818-1895-c1879-douglass-a-former-slave-was-an-american-social-reformer-abolitionist-orator-writer-and-statesman-image369103564.html?pv=1&stamp=2&imageid=9734BCF8-26ED-47AA-9F2A-215197A21E9E&p=176541&n=3&orientation=0&pn=1&searchtype=0&IsFromSearch=1&srch=foo%3Dbar%26st%3D0%26sortby%3D2%26qt%3DFrederick%2520Douglas%26qt_raw%3DFrederick%2520Douglas%26qn%3D%26lic%3D3%26edrf%3D0%26mr%3D0%26pr%3D0%26aoa%3D1%26creative%3D%26videos%3D%26nu%3D%26ccc%3D%26bespoke%3D%26apalib%3D%26ag%3D0%26hc%3D0%26et%3D0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3D0%26loc%3D0%26ot%3D0%26imgt%3D0%26dtfr%3D%26dtto%3D%26size%3D0xFF%26blackwhite%3D%26cutout%3D%26archive%3D1%26name%3D%26groupid%3D%26pseudoid%3D818036%26userid%3D%26id%3D%26a%3D%26xstx%3D0%26cbstore%3D1%26resultview%3DsortbyPopular%26lightbox%3D%26gname%3D%26gtype%3D%26apalic%3D%26tbar%3D1%26pc%3D%26simid%3D%26cap%3D1%26customgeoip%3DGB%26vd%3D0%26cid%3D%26pe%3D%26so%3D%26lb%3D%26pl%3D0%26plno%3D%26fi%3D0%26langcode%3Den%26upl%3D0%26cufr%3D%26cuto%3D%26howler%3D%26cvrem%3D0%26cvtype%3D0%26cvloc%3D0%26cl%3D0%26upfr%3D%26upto%3D%26primcat%3D%26seccat%3D%26cvcategory%3D*%26restriction%3D%26random%3D%26ispremium%3D1%26flip%3D0%26contributorqt%3D%26plgalleryno%3D%26plpublic%3D0%26viewaspublic%3D0%26isplcurate%3D0%26imageurl%3D%26saveQry%3D%26editorial%3D%26t%3D0%26filters%3D0">IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo</a></span>
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<p>Several years ago, I decided to investigate the history of how the testimony of hospital patients was transformed into scientific data by physicians. I eventually stumbled across the 1837 case of a young Glasgow doctor who sought to expose painful experimental drug trials that had been conducted on the impoverished women of a local hospital. </p>
<p>That doctor was James McCune Smith. He had written articles detailing how the women of a local charity hospital were being subjected to a painful experimental drug. It was a career changing moment for me because I had not encountered this kind of activism in my previous research on <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1112014/The_Language_of_Mineralogy_John_Walker_Chemistry_and_the_Edinburgh_Medical_School_1750_1800_London_Routledge_2008_hardback_2016_paperback_Full_text">medical education</a>. </p>
<h2>Early life</h2>
<p>Who was this doctor? What led him to speak out? Where did he learn to place his knowledge of science and medicine in the service of equality and justice? Upon closer examination, despite his many accomplishments, virtually nothing had been written about McCune Smith’s time in Glasgow or about his work as a practising physician in New York. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/frederick-douglass-the-ex-slave-and-transatlantic-celebrity-who-found-freedom-in-newcastle-90886">Frederick Douglass: the ex-slave and transatlantic celebrity who found freedom in Newcastle</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Like the children of many runaway slaves in New York, McCune Smith grew up in Five Points, Lower Manhattan, one of the poorest and most densely populated urban areas of America at that time. Though the state fully emancipated all former slaves <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TZx6A_M0yjQC&vq=1827&dq=New+york+An+Act+Relative+to+Slaves+and+Servants,+1817&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s">in 1827</a>, when McCune Smith was a teenager, discriminatory educational policies, unsanitary living conditions, chronic illness and infectious diseases ensured that the prospects for a free African American teenager in the early part of the 19th century were limited. </p>
<p>Indeed, in an article entitled Freedom and Slavery for African-Americans, published in the New York Tribune in 1844, McCune Smith <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zQUqIOmsdLkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=stauffer+black+hearts+of+men&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=new%20york%20tribune&f=false">observed</a> that only six of the 100 boys who attended school with him from 1826 to 1827 were “still now living”. He noted further that they were “all white”. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This story is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>Though technically “free”, the lives of African Americans in New York during the 1820s and 1830s were marred by the legacy of slavery and discrimination. Runaway slaves were <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ahfQDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+kidnapping+club&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwioivPjvuLyAhWDnVwKHQMjDx4Q6AEwAHoECAsQAg#v=onepage&q=the%20kidnapping%20club&f=false">openly hunted</a> in the city’s alleys, streets and wharves. McCune Smith reflected on these events <a href="https://archive.org/details/memorialdiscour00garn/page/n7/mode/2up">in an essay</a> that he wrote about the life of his school classmate, Henry Highland Garnet.</p>
<p>An abolitionist and Presbyterian minister, Garnet was the first African American to speak before Congress. McCune Smith recalled the trauma experienced by Garnet’s family in 1829 when they were tracked by slave-hunters. They barely escaped by jumping out of a two-story building and hiding in the house of a local grocer. When they returned to their home they found, in the <a href="https://archive.org/details/memorialdiscour00garn/page/24/mode/2up">words of McCune Smith</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The entire household furniture of the family was destroyed or stolen; and they were obliged to start anew in life empty-handed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite many challenges, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U4A7lqZHPokC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=black+gotham&source=gbs_navlinks_s">New York’s African Americans</a> founded their own businesses, churches, political associations, printing presses and more. In addition to receiving support and encouragement from a community of relatives and friends, McCune Smith’s path to becoming a doctor was significantly aided by his education at the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dkaODwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=educated+for+freedom&source=gbs_navlinks_s">African Free School</a>. </p>
<p>Older students were taught penmanship, drawing, grammar, geography, astronomy, natural philosophy and navigation. When American universities denied his medical school applications, the free school community played a role in raising funds for him to attend Glasgow University.</p>
<h2>Progressive Glasgow</h2>
<p>After sailing from New York to Liverpool, McCune Smith arrived in Glasgow in 1832. Thanks to maritime trade, it was one of the largest cities in the country and the university’s medical school was one of the best in Europe. </p>
<p>Britain had prohibited the slave trade <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/tradeindustry/slavetrade/">in 1807</a> and it fully abolished slavery the year after his arrival in 1833. Though there were not many African Americans in Glasgow, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3RNwDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=britain+abolition+slavery&source=gbs_navlinks_s">black writers</a> had been operating in Britain since the 1770s. Then, in 1809 Edinburgh University admitted <a href="http://uncover-ed.org/1809-william-fergusson/">William Fergusson</a> who was from Jamaica and was the university’s first student of African descent. </p>
<p>Though he took medical courses at the university, Fergusson did not stay to complete a medical doctorate. Instead, he received a license from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1813. He then practised as a surgeon in the British military and eventually became governor of the then-British colony of Sierra Leone. McCune Smith joined the ranks of these torchbearers and became the first African American known to graduate with a BA, MA and medical doctorate from Glasgow University.</p>
<p>By the time McCune Smith began his studies in Glasgow, opposition to slavery had moved beyond the walls of the university. There was a active abolitionist community and it founded the <a href="http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2641/">Glasgow Emancipation Society</a> in 1833. McCune Smith, still only an undergraduate, was one of the founding members. After he graduated, a number of black students attended the university over the course of the century.</p>
<p>Despite living in a foreign country, McCune Smith excelled at his studies and received several academic awards. The Glasgow medical faculty placed equal emphasis on scientific rigour and hands-on clinical experience. In addition to learning chemistry, anatomy and physiology from some of Britain’s leading doctors, he witnessed cutting-edge experiments and new medical technologies being demonstrated in his lectures. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white image of a Glasgow street in the 1820s." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421103/original/file-20210914-17-hc38o2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421103/original/file-20210914-17-hc38o2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421103/original/file-20210914-17-hc38o2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421103/original/file-20210914-17-hc38o2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421103/original/file-20210914-17-hc38o2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421103/original/file-20210914-17-hc38o2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421103/original/file-20210914-17-hc38o2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image of High Street, Glasgow, around 1821, looking south towards the Tolbooth Steeple at Glasgow Cross. The front of the Old College of the University of Glasgow is on the left side of the street, with the university tower looming above it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSA01107&t=2">Mitchell Library/Joseph Swan</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He graduated with honours in 1837 and was immediately given a prestigious clinical residency in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mHMIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA194&dq=coats+medical+institutions+glasgow&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwix_MrY2eLyAhUGV8AKHT_KCbkQ6AEwAHoECAMQAg#v=snippet&q=lock%20hospital&f=false">Glasgow’s Lock Hospital</a>. He worked there alongside the eminent Scottish obstetrician and gynaecologist, <a href="https://archive.org/details/memorialsoffacul00dunc/page/274/mode/2up?q=cumin">William Cumin</a>, treating women who had contracted venereal diseases.</p>
<h2>Missing records and racist medical theories</h2>
<p>The difficulty in pursuing a project of this nature is that many of the scientific papers and publications of black physicians have been lost to the sands of time. Unlike the many collections that university libraries have dedicated to preserving the legacy of white doctors who were alumni or donors, there is no “James McCune Smith Medical Collection” where scholars can go to study his medical career and scientific ideas. </p>
<p>No one has yet told the full story of how African Americans like McCune Smith became doctors or how they used their knowledge of medical science to fight injustice and prejudice. The hidden histories of these black physicians based in countries spread around the Atlantic Ocean led me to start my current research project on how they used their scientific training to counter the rise of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Kn5IMQAACAAJ&dq=tropical+freedom&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y">racist medical theories</a> – theories which erroneously suggested that black bodies were physically different from other bodies and could more easily withstand the stress, pain and labour of enslavement.</p>
<p>Though a number of McCune Smith’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zQUqIOmsdLkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mccune+smith&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=mccune%20smith&f=false">articles</a> were republished several years ago, the whereabouts of his personal medical library, clinical notebooks, patient records, office ledgers and article drafts are unknown. Likewise, his manuscript Glasgow diary and letters have been lost. Though aspects of his career have received attention from historians in <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Black_Hearts_of_Men/FwvIir4VSX4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=black+hearts+of+men&printsec=frontcover">recent years</a>, a biography of his extraordinary life has not been written.</p>
<p>This was the situation when I discovered his efforts to expose the harmful drug trials that were being conducted on the women of the Glasgow Lock Hospital. The evidence consisted of two articles that he had published during the spring and summer of 1837 in the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TPQaAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA971&dq=%22m%27cune+smith%22+london+medical+gazette&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=journal%201837&f=false">London Medical Gazette</a>, a weekly journal with articles about medicine and science. </p>
<p>I originally came upon these articles by reading page after page of medical journals housed in the <a href="https://www.nls.uk/">National Library of Scotland</a> in Edinburgh. When I found them, they immediately stood out because they took the testimony of poor female patients seriously. When I realised that McCune Smith was the first African American to graduate from a Scottish university, I could not believe what I had discovered.</p>
<h2>New discoveries</h2>
<p>Discovering McCune Smith’s articles was momentous because they are the first currently known to have been published by an African American medical doctor in any scientific journal. Scientists in the 19th century published articles for many reasons. Some wanted to popularise their research in a way that advanced their careers. Others hoped their research would benefit the general public. </p>
<p>The fascinating aspect about McCune Smith’s articles in relation to the historical emergence of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tIRaDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=alex+csiszar&source=gbs_navlinks_s">scientific journal</a> is that they were published to expose the unethical misapplication of scientific experiments. This means that they offer new insight into how he learned to combine the power of the press with his medical training to fight inequality and injustice in Britain prior to returning to New York.</p>
<p>The story they tell is extraordinary. The events occurred in the spring and summer of 1837 while McCune Smith was serving in the Glasgow Lock Hospital as a resident physician in gynaecology. The hospital was a charity institution set up by the city for impoverished women suffering from acute venereal diseases such as gonorrhoea and syphilis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A page of text from a medical journal." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423109/original/file-20210924-14-p0j994.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423109/original/file-20210924-14-p0j994.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423109/original/file-20210924-14-p0j994.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423109/original/file-20210924-14-p0j994.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423109/original/file-20210924-14-p0j994.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423109/original/file-20210924-14-p0j994.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423109/original/file-20210924-14-p0j994.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">McCune Smith’s article in the London Medical Gazette.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TPQaAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA971&dq=%22m%27cune+smith%22+london+medical+gazette&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=journal%201837&f=false">Google Books</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After consulting the ward’s records and speaking with the patients, McCune Smith discovered that <a href="https://archive.org/details/memorialsoffacul00dunc/page/280/mode/2up?q=hannay">Alexander Hannay</a>, a senior doctor in the hospital, was treating women suffering from gonorrhoea with an experimental drug called <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Silver-nitrate">silver nitrate</a>, a compound that a handful of doctors used as a topical treatment for <a href="https://archive.org/details/essayonuseofnitr00higg/page/n9/mode/2up">infected skin tissue</a> or to stop bleeding. But it was normally used in low concentrations mixed into a solution, with doctors emphasising that it should be applied with caution and as a last resort.</p>
<p>But Hannay was administering the drug in a solid form, which meant that it was highly concentrated and caused a terrible burning sensation. He fancied this usage to be innovative and was relatively unfazed when his patients repeatedly asked for less painful forms of treatment. After speaking with the women and further consulting the hospital’s records, McCune Smith realised that Hannay was effectively treating the women as guinea pigs – as non-consenting participants – in an experimental trial that involved a very painful drug. </p>
<p>At that time, silver nitrate was a newly available substance and its long-term effects were relatively unknown. There were a handful of <a href="https://archive.org/details/essayonuseofnitr00higg/page/n9/mode/2up">military doctors</a> who used it experimentally to cauterise skin ulcers or wounds of soldiers that would not stop bleeding. But some medical books classified it as a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TPQaAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA971&dq=%22m%27cune+smith%22+london+medical+gazette&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=journal%201837&f=false">poison</a>. Glasgow’s medical students, particularly those who studied with Prof William Cumin, avoided using it on internal organs due to its unknown effects. Instead, when it came to gynaecological cases involving ulcers or infections, students learned to use an <a href="https://archive.org/details/principlesofmidw00burnuoft/page/312/mode/2up?q=alum">alum solution</a> because its effects were generally considered to be effective and less painful.</p>
<p>Hannay went beyond using the silver nitrate on the skin. He applied it to the internal reproductive organs of women, at least one of whom was pregnant. McCune Smith’s article pointed out that the baby subsequently died through complications surrounding a miscarriage. It also intimates that a few women died after the application of silver nitrate. Since the drug’s effect on internal organs was unknown, he believed that that the deaths could not be treated as a separate occurrence.</p>
<p>In addition to being McCune Smith’s superior, Hannay was a medical professor at Glasgow’s newly established <a href="https://universitystory.gla.ac.uk/building/?id=35">Anderson University</a>. The easiest thing for McCune Smith to do was to say nothing. The plight of the Lock Hospital patients would not have been a major concern for many medical men at the time. The patients were impoverished women and most doctors assumed they were former prostitutes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of an old Glasgow college building and tower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421551/original/file-20210916-25-1moyy5y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421551/original/file-20210916-25-1moyy5y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421551/original/file-20210916-25-1moyy5y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421551/original/file-20210916-25-1moyy5y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421551/original/file-20210916-25-1moyy5y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421551/original/file-20210916-25-1moyy5y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421551/original/file-20210916-25-1moyy5y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anderson University, Glasgow, in the 1830s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/h8pckdyq/images?id=ykpgaavq">Wellcome Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But McCune Smith’s perspective was different. Unlike his peers, he had spent his early years in New York City witnessing the pain and suffering caused by poverty, inequality and exploitation. So he decided to place his knowledge of medical science in the service of these women.</p>
<p>McCune Smith knew that there were other effective treatments for gonorrhoea. This allowed him to see that Hannay was more interested in bolstering his reputation with a pharmaceutical discovery than helping his patients. But his studies had given him another equally powerful tool – data analysis. His ability to use this tool can be seen in his London Medical Gazette articles. The gazette was a journal of some repute, serving the British medical community as well as physicians based in Europe and America. In his article, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The materials of my paper on the subject of gonorrhoea of women were collected whilst I held the office of clerk to the Glasgow Lock Hospital.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He made his case against the experiments by extracting figures from handwritten registers that recorded the condition of patients being treated in the hospital over an entire year. He had learned to collect, categorise, and analyse data in the clinical lectures that were required for graduation. This method was part of the new science of “vital statistics” that used medical data to predict or prevent disease in people, cities and even countries. Known as “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ct_wofnMGlgC&dq=ultrich+troehler">medical statistics</a>” today, it was becoming more commonly used in journals that published articles on medical science. </p>
<h2>The cover-up</h2>
<p>McCune Smith’s articles showed that the drug trials were ineffective and presented an unwarranted risk. They also revealed that Hannay and his team of assistants had attempted to cover up data in the hospital records that damaged their claims about the drug’s efficacy and their position that its side effects were minimal. McCune Smith did not mince his words. He wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>By this novel and ingenious mode of recording the Hospital transactions for 1836, [Prof Hannay’s team] keeps out of view the evidence of the severity of the treatment, and the amount of mortality, while, at the same time, the residence of the patients in the house seems shorted, the cost of each diminished, and the treatment made to appear more than usually successful.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Accordingly, he called for the trials to stop immediately. But McCune Smith was not happy to simply cite statistics. He wanted to give these women a voice too. To achieve this, he emphasised the extreme pain that they were experiencing. Their suffering had been played down by those conducting the experimental trials. Hannay even suggested that the women were dishonest and unreliable witnesses. </p>
<p>To counter this suggestion, McCune Smith quoted the women themselves, some of whom said that the drug felt like it was “burning their inside with caustic”. This was strong language. They were effectively saying that the drug felt like a flame being applied to their bodies.</p>
<h2>‘Hidden gem’ in library archive</h2>
<p>McCune Smith’s decision to use this kind of visceral language on behalf of impoverished women in a scientific article was rare at the time. Nor was it common in the lengthy, fact-laden lectures given at Glasgow’s medical school. So where did McCune Smith learn to write like this? Finding an answer to this question has been difficult because hardly any of McCune Smith’s manuscripts from his Glasgow years are known to have survived. But thanks to a recent discovery that I made with the rare books librarian Robert MacLean in the Archives and Special Collections of Glasgow University, a better picture is starting to emerge. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A library borrowing register." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421563/original/file-20210916-27-lj9g5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421563/original/file-20210916-27-lj9g5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421563/original/file-20210916-27-lj9g5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421563/original/file-20210916-27-lj9g5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421563/original/file-20210916-27-lj9g5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421563/original/file-20210916-27-lj9g5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421563/original/file-20210916-27-lj9g5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James McCune Smith’s name can be seen at the top of his library borrowing record.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert MacLean, with the permission of University of Glasgow Library ASC.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Based on my previous research on <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11429336/The_Interactive_Notebook_How_Students_Learned_to_Keep_Notes_during_the_Scottish_Enlightenment_Book_History_19_2016_87_131">Scottish student notekeeping</a>, I knew that Glasgow University kept handwritten registers of books borrowed by students from its libraries during the 19th century. Luckily, it turned out that McCune Smith’s manuscript library borrowing record did, in fact, still exist. It was a gem that had remained hidden for the past two centuries in the dusty pages of Glasgow’s library registers.</p>
<p>The discovery was historic because it revealed that he definitely took the university’s moral philosophy class. The course was taught by <a href="https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/8941">James Mylne</a> and it encouraged students to judge the accuracy of statistical data when making moral decisions. The registers also showed that McCune Smith consulted the <a href="https://www.thelancet.com">Lancet</a>, the leading <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1498905/">medical journal</a> of research and reform that promoted the same kind of public health activism evinced in his 1837 Gazette articles.</p>
<p>Finding the student reading record for any historical figure is like striking gold. In McCune Smith’s case it was doubly exciting because so little is known about his intellectual development. In addition to literature relevant to his studies, he checked out several 1835 issues of the Lancet which regularly identified links between pain and maltreatment. </p>
<p>It is likely these accounts inspired him to use a similar approach in his gazette articles. But even the Lancet’s references to pain and cruelty barely addressed the plights of impoverished women, let alone those who had been regularly subjected to experimental drugs. In this respect McCune Smith’s concern for the Lock Hospital patients surpassed the reform agenda promoted by Britain’s most progressive medical journal.</p>
<h2>Legacy</h2>
<p>Further investigations have revealed that there were many other black physicians who lived in America in the decades after McCune Smith became a doctor. As revealed in research by the Massachusetts Historical Society, there was, for example, <a href="http://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2020/11/a-visit-with-dr-degrasse-the-medical-account-book-of-bostons-first-black-physician/">John van Surly DeGrasse</a>. He studied at Bowdoin College in Maine, received a medical doctorate in the 1840s, set up a practice in Boston and became the first African American member of the Massachusetts Medical Association. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421564/original/file-20210916-23-163oo43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421564/original/file-20210916-23-163oo43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421564/original/file-20210916-23-163oo43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421564/original/file-20210916-23-163oo43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421564/original/file-20210916-23-163oo43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421564/original/file-20210916-23-163oo43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421564/original/file-20210916-23-163oo43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Van Surly DeGrasse was one of only two African American physicians who received a commission in the army.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/bindingwounds/exhibition.html">Massachusetts African American Museum and the Massachusetts Historical Society</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26298851">Alexander Thomas Augusta</a>, who, despite Virginia laws that banned free blacks from learning to read, was educated by a minister, moved to Toronto and graduated from Trinity College’s medical school in 1856. Notably, both Augusta and DeGrasse served in the union army as physicians with the rank of major during the American Civil War.</p>
<p>After McCune Smith returned to America in the autumn of 1837, he served as a professional role model for African Americans who studied medicine from the 1840s onward. By the time younger black physicians such as DeGrasse and Augusta began their studies, McCune Smith had already opened a practice that served patients from both sides of the colour line and had published several scientific articles. For the rest of his career his name was a frequent byline in articles about health and society published by the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Y80OAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=african+american+press&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwid283ZkuXyAhWOXsAKHQqxB04Q6AEwAnoECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=african%20american%20press&f=false">African American press</a>, as well as larger newspapers with mixed readership, like the New York Tribune. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Old portait image of a Black man who served during the American Civil War." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421565/original/file-20210916-15-csxpml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421565/original/file-20210916-15-csxpml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421565/original/file-20210916-15-csxpml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421565/original/file-20210916-15-csxpml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421565/original/file-20210916-15-csxpml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421565/original/file-20210916-15-csxpml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421565/original/file-20210916-15-csxpml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Augusta became the first African American commissioned medical officer in the United States Army when he was appointed surgeon with the Union Army in April 1863.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/bindingwounds/inuniform.html">Oblate Sisters of Providence Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An excellent example of McCune Smith’s later medical activism is the collection of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zQUqIOmsdLkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=stauffer+black+hearts+of+men&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=new%20york%20tribune&f=false">articles</a> that he published during the 1840s about the national census. The main issue was that slavery advocates had noticed that the mortality rates of African Americans in northern asylums were higher than those of black people in the southern states. This led them to conclude, erroneously, that freedom somehow damaged their mental and physical health.</p>
<p>Rather than engage with their desire to co-opt convenient data, McCune Smith used his knowledge of medical statistics to skillfully undermine their attempts to find scientific data that fit their discriminatory world view. He conducted his own investigation and proved that the original collection of the figures on site in the northern asylums had been flawed and that, as a result, the data was incorrect and could not be used to accurately determine the health of black asylum patients. </p>
<p>McCune Smith did not stop there. He turned the tables on slavery advocates by transforming the new accurate mortality statistics into a tool that could be used to fight inequality. His 1844 New York Tribune <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zQUqIOmsdLkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=stauffer+black+hearts+of+men&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=new%20york%20tribune&f=false">article</a> about the census concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These facts prove that within 15 years after it became a Free State, a portion of the Free Black Population of New York have improved the ratio of their mortality 13.28% – a fact without parallel in the history of any People.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Put simply, the correct data revealed that the health of African Americans unburdened by the deprivation and forced labour of slavery thrived once they left the south and lived lives as free citizens in the north. </p>
<p>McCune Smith’s publications are a significant early chapter in the history of how black activists have worked tirelessly over the past two centuries to disentangle erroneous interpretations of scientific data from discriminatory claims about poverty, gender and race. They provide crucial historical insight into the relationships between race, science and technology that exist <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=G6-hDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&dq=race+after+technology&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=race%20after%20technology&f=false">today</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/honouring-the-slaves-experimented-on-by-the-father-of-gynaecology-148273">Honouring the slaves experimented on by the 'father of gynaecology'</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>In many respects McCune Smith’s desire to locate and publicise correct data about asylum patients built on the approach that he had developed in his articles about the mistreatment of women in Glasgow’s Lock Hospital. He continued to publish articles throughout his career that challenged those who sought to use science to justify discrimination and inequality. In 1859 he even went so far as to challenge former President Thomas Jefferson’s discriminatory racial assumptions when he <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zQUqIOmsdLkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=stauffer+black+hearts+of+men&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=will%20forever%20prevent&f=false">wrote</a>: “His arrangement of these views is so mixed and confused, that we must depart from it.”</p>
<p>McCune Smith’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FwvIir4VSX4C&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=stauffer+black+hearts+of+men&source=gbs_navlinks_s">activism</a> showed aspiring African Americans that becoming a professional black physician could be more than simply treating patients. For him, being an expert in medical science also included using his training to fight injustice and inequality. </p>
<p>His publications are an indispensable chapter in the American history of science and medicine. But they are an important part of British history too. Because it was in Britain where he first published articles that placed his knowledge of medicine in the service of equality and justice. It was the libraries of Glasgow University – which now has a building <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-45776580">named in his honour</a> – and the wards of the Lock Hospital which fed his towering intellect and fired his passion for medical knowledge, as well as the pursuit of justice for the powerless and oppressed.</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Daniel Eddy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>James McCune Smith was the first African American to receive a medical doctorate from a university. He dedicated his life to fighting injustice.Matthew Daniel Eddy, Professor and Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1684102021-10-08T14:22:48Z2021-10-08T14:22:48ZThe UK needs more regional Black archives so it can celebrate Black British history in its entirety<p>Located in the heart of Brixton, London, an area that instantly brings to mind the capital’s Black community, is the national Black Cultural Archives (<a href="https://blackculturalarchives.org/">BCA</a>). Founded in 1981, the BCA is the only national heritage centre dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating the histories of African Caribbean people in Britain. </p>
<p>Housed in the former Raleigh Hall, a striking Georgian townhouse in Windrush Square, it hosts a range of temporary exhibitions about the Black British experience and prominent Black Britons. BCA’s work has been important in remembering the people who shaped Black British history – but mainly Black British history in London.</p>
<p>Around the country, there are stories of individuals who worked tirelessly for their communities. However, many of them remain hidden within the folds of history because the UK lacks regional archives that celebrate or even document their contributions as much as those who fought in London, Birmingham and Bristol. </p>
<p>There are a handful of archives starting to do this important work. Nottingham Black Archive (<a href="http://nottinghamblackarchive.org/">NBA</a>) is dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the city. </p>
<p>Two such histories are those of activist and publishers Laurent Phillpotts and Oswald George Powe who contributed much to lives of Black people in Nottingham but also in the UK as a whole.</p>
<h2>Nottingham Black Archive</h2>
<p>The name <a href="https://brixtonblog.com/2015/09/bca-celebrates-100th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-claudia-jones/?cn-reloaded=1">Claudia Jones</a> is pretty well known. Jones was a prominent activist and founded the West Indian Gazette in London in 1958. However, few know of Jamaican born Laurent Phillpotts, because his activism was in Nottingham. </p>
<p>Phillpotts produced the first Black weekly newspaper The Colonial News in 1956, predating Claudia Jones’ by two years. <a href="https://windrushfoundation.com/profiles/lauren-phillpotts/">The Colonial News</a> provided information about what was going on in the Caribbean and reported on the lives of its diasporic community in Nottingham. </p>
<p>Aside from The Colonial News, little is known of Phillpotts’ earlier activist work in Nottingham, where he resided for seven years after the second world war.</p>
<p>Phillpotts fought hard against the discrimination Black people experienced in housing. At the time there existed a <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1953/may/01/colour-bar-abolition">colour bar</a> in the UK, which was a policy held by many institutions that meant Black and Asian people were stopped from entering pubs, bars, restaurants and where landlords refused to rent to particular immigrants.</p>
<p>This was something he experienced too having been charged at the Nottingham Magistrates court in 1952 for keeping a disorderly house and fined for selling cigarettes and alcohol illegally. He vehemently denied these charges, stating that he ran the property as a hostel and social club. He argued that finding accommodation for Black people was difficult, living conditions were substandard, and that there were few places Black people could socialise because of “colour bar” discrimination. </p>
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<img alt="Man stands before a display about the second world war." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425325/original/file-20211007-8001-94x228.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425325/original/file-20211007-8001-94x228.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425325/original/file-20211007-8001-94x228.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425325/original/file-20211007-8001-94x228.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425325/original/file-20211007-8001-94x228.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425325/original/file-20211007-8001-94x228.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425325/original/file-20211007-8001-94x228.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Laurie Phillpotts’ founded the UK’s first Black paper.</span>
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<p>He subsequently held interviews with social workers hoping to develop a chain of hostels to alleviate the poor living conditions of the ex-servicemen in Nottingham. These would also be a place for the community to socialise. By 1956, Phillpotts had set up a hostel for African and Caribbean ex-servicemen in agreement with Nottingham Council of Social Service. </p>
<p>When Phillpotts left Nottingham to join the Mirror Newspaper Group and the Printer Compositors’ Union in the early 1960s, he left behind a legacy of how to protest for change, skills he brought with him to London. </p>
<h2>Oswald George Powe</h2>
<p>Similarly, the activism of <a href="https://whenweworkedatraleigh.wordpress.com/2020/12/14/about-raleigh/">Oswald George Powe</a>, a second world war radar operator, born in Jamaica in 1926, is largely unknown but has left a long-lasting impact on Black people in Nottingham. </p>
<p>Powe was the author of <a href="https://whenweworkedatraleigh.wordpress.com/2020/12/14/about-raleigh/">Don’t Blame the Blacks</a>, a seminal publication that argued for an examination of the complex relationship between Britain and its Commonwealth citizens. </p>
<p>Powe was a keen labour rights activist and in 1956, Powe started a campaign against Raleigh Industries, one of the world’s oldest and best-known bike brands, to change their policies concerning Black workers. The campaign lead to greater equality in the workplace and Raleigh eventually became one of the largest employers of Black people in Nottingham.</p>
<p>He became leading figure in many other campaigns including the 1960s Anti-Colour Bar Campaign, which was set up in Nottingham to challenge the discriminatory practice of a local inn that refused to serve Black people. He was instrumental in the work of the Campaign to Abolish Special Officers for Coloured People in 1964. The campaign was founded to challenge the work of Nottingham City Council that sought to create a buffer between themselves and the Black community by appointing a welfare officer to deal with complaints. </p>
<p>He provided valuable advice to his countrymen and women on their immigration rights and was one of the central individuals involved in founding the African Caribbean National Artistic Centre (ACNA), in St Anns, Nottingham. <a href="https://acnacentre.co.uk/about/">ACNA</a> remains one of the oldest Black community centres in the country. It housed one of the first supplementary schools in the city and developed a programme of arts and educational activities to bolster the education of young people and adults. Powe also worked towards institutional reform becoming one of the first Labour Councillors in the County in an almost all-white area in the 1960s. </p>
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<p>In 2011, Powe began working with Nottingham Black Archive and made significant donations relating to the history of Black community activism and organising in Nottingham, including examples of Black print culture dating back to 1956. However, for all his community activism, he has received scant acknowledgement outside the city. </p>
<p>The stories of people like Powe and Phillpotts, people who have been unstudied and whose contributions have been neglected, are important.</p>
<p>Archives like NBA can capture the regional diversity and specificity of Black histories in different communities around the country. Mining local history can offer insights into how groups mobilised for protest and became absorbed in politics informing our present and future. This work can also help us map and give detail to the experiences of African Caribbean people adding to the knowledge we have about Black British history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Panya Banjoko is the founder of Nottingham Black Archive.</span></em></p>Nottingham Black Archive is recovering the stories of those who made important contributions to the national story of Black British history. The UK needs more like it.Panya Banjoko, PhD Researcher in Black Cultural History, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.