How were blacks in American slavery formed, out of a multiplicity of African ethnic peoples, into a single people? In this major study of Afro-American culture, Sterling Stuckey, a leading thinker on black nationalism for the past twenty years, explains how different African peoples
interacted during the nineteenth century to achieve a common culture. He finds that, at the time of emancipation, slaves were still overwhelmingly African in culture, a conclusion with profound implications for theories of black liberation and for the future of race relations in America.
By examining anthropological evidence about Central and West African cultural traditions--Bakongo, Ibo, Dahomean, Mendi and others--and exploring the folklore of the American slave, Stuckey has arrived at an important new cross-cultural analysis of the Pan-African impulse among slaves that
contributed to the formation of a black ethos. He establishes, for example, the centrality of an ancient African ritual--the Ring Shout or Circle Dance--to the black American religious and artistic experience.
Black nationalist theories, the author points out, are those most in tune with the implication of an African presence in America during and since slavery. Casting a fresh new light on these ideas, Stuckey provides us with fascinating profiles of such nineteenth century figures as David Walker,
Henry Highland Garnet, and Frederick Douglas. He then considers in detail the lives and careers of W. E. B. Dubois and Paul Robeson in this century, describing their ambition that blacks in American society, while struggling to end racism, take on roles that truly reflected their African heritage.
These concepts of black liberation, Stuckey suggests, are far more relevant to the intrinsic values of black people than integrationist thought on race relations.
But in a final revelation he concludes that, with the exception of Paul Robeson, the ironic tendency of black nationalists has been to underestimate the depths of African culture in black Americans and the sophistication of the slave community they arose from
... git up quick an be mighty buzy right soon, case de black snake whip reach fer 'em an reach quick. Effen deres a boy ... fixin to git a whippin. I seen some of dem run, and den they tied dem up wid chains to a post, and dey got lots worse ...
Fog Olwig , Karen 1985 Cultural Adaptation and Resistance on St. John . Gainesville : Univ . of Florida Press . Gaspar , David Barry Bondmen and Rebels : A Study of Master - Slave Relationships in Antigua . Baltimore , Md .: Johns ...
117–48 ; and David Barry Gaspar , Bondmen and Rebels : A Study of MasterSlave Relations in Antigua ( Baltimore , 1985 ) , pp . 65–68 , 93-99 . 3. Gaspar , Bondmen and Rebels , ch . 4 ; Robert V. Wells , The Population of the British ...
But to the contrary, Slavery and the Culture of Taste demonstrates that these two areas of modernity were surprisingly entwined.
This book offers a first-person perspective on the institution of slavery in America, providing powerful, engaging interviews from the WPA slave narrative collection that enable readers to gain a true sense of the experience of enslavement.
For brickmaking, see Lucy Bowles Wayne, “Burning Brick: A Study of a Lowcountry Industry” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 1992), esp. 51, 55; and Bradford L. Rauschenberg, “Brick and Tile Manufacturing in the South Carolina Low ...
This three-volume work stands apart from previous Slave Narrative collections in that it organizes the narratives thematically, bringing the rich tapestry of slave culture to life in a fresh way.
Slavery in Small Things: Slavery and Modern Cultural Habits isthe first book to explore the long-range cultural legacy of slavery through commonplace daily objects.
Woodard uses these texts to unpack how slaves struggled not only against social consumption, but also against endemic mechanisms of starvation and hunger designed to break them.
3 ; Finis Farr , Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta : The Author of Gone with the Wind ( New York : William Morrow & Company , 1965 ) , pp . 29-30 , 81 , 104 , 109 . Marian Elder Jones , " Me and My Book , " Georgia Review 16 ( Spring 1962 ) ...