Black History
Gates examines period after Reconstruction in new book
FLORIDA COURIER — At the end of the Civil War, Sidney George Fisher, a White gentleman from Philadelphia, declared, “It seems our fate never to get rid of the Negro question.” Although slavery had been abolished, “the problem – what shall we do with the Negro – seems as far from being settled as ever. In fact it is incapable of any solution that will satisfy both North and South.”
By Dr. Glenn C. Altschuler, Special To The Florida Courier
At the end of the Civil War, Sidney George Fisher, a White gentleman from Philadelphia, declared, “It seems our fate never to get rid of the Negro question.” Although slavery had been abolished, “the problem – what shall we do with the Negro – seems as far from being settled as ever. In fact it is incapable of any solution that will satisfy both North and South.”
Between 1865 and 1877, the federal government sought to institutionalize for Blacks “a new birth of freedom,” through military occupation of the South, civil rights legislation, and amendments to the United States Constitution.
Resisted in the North as well as the South, the “experiment” was ultimately abandoned. In the “Redeemed” states of the former Confederacy, sharecropping replaced slavery, Blacks were prevented from voting, and subjected to pervasive, demeaning, violent forms of Jim Crow segregation.
Reconstruction and redemption
In “Stony the Road,’’ Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a university professor at Harvard, prolific author and documentary filmmaker, tells the story of Reconstruction and redemption. A synthesis of scholarly work on race between 1865 and the 1920s, with a focus on literature and visual culture, his book provides a powerful and timely reminder that African Americans have never stopped resisting White supremacy, despite the “unbearably hostile climate it has created.”
Gates documents the myriad ways in which racist ideology infiltrated every aspect of American life.
Well-credentialed scientists “proved” that Blacks were and would remain inferior to Whites, helping justify laws against miscegenation and intermarriage. Proponents of the Civil War as a noble “Lost Cause” insisted that plantation slaves were well-treated and content; during Reconstruction, they maintained, outside agitators unleashed the beasts previously dormant in them.
Intentional images
Images of ignorant, subhuman Sambos, Gates reveals, were ubiquitous in advertisements, consumer products, Uncle Remus stories, children’s games, greeting cards and sheet music. Postcards with photographs of the bodies of Blacks hanging from trees and Whites attending the lynchings were popular as well.
These images, and, of course, scenes from the box-office blockbuster “Birth of a Nation,’’ Gates writes, meant that when a White person encountered a real-live Black, the latter was “an already read text.”
As pseudo-scientists, historians, Supreme Court justices, and Ku Klux Klan vigilantes marched in lockstep to keep Blacks in their place, African Americans fought back to reclaim their rights and their image in what Gates calls “another kind of civil war, a war that was cultural as well as political, a war that featured the concept of “the New Negro.”
Among the disparate individuals and groups creating a counter-narrative to the claims that all Blacks were created unequal were W.E.B. Du Bois and his “Talented Tenth”; writers and poets of the Harlem Renaissance; jazz pioneers; the anti-lynching activists; members of the Niagara Movement and the NAACP.
Still work to do
Eventually, politics took precedence, Gates points out, because many Blacks concluded that cultural constructions without political agency were likely to be “empty signifiers.”
Equally important, Gates seems to endorse the view, held, ironically by both advocates of racial equality and unreconstructed Southerners, that “there never was an Old Negro or a New Negro; there were only Negroes.”
As the poet Sterling Brown proudly proclaimed, African Americans are the legatees of a great people. Not only did they “survive the storm of anti-black racism,” they somehow managed to thrive, create vital and vibrant cultures, “despite the obstacles placed upon them on that stoniest of roads.”
A century later, Professor Gates adds, amidst “ugly language spewed and ugly images strewn, daily across our ever-present screens,” it seems clear that racial justice is incomplete, “frighteningly vulnerable to reversal,” and there is a lot of work to do.
Dr. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He wrote this review for the Florida Courier.
This article originally appeared in the Florida Courier.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 20 – 26, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 20 – 26, 2024
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
-
Alameda County4 weeks ago
Michael P. Johnson Garners Major Support in Run for Alameda County Superior Court Judge
-
Activism4 weeks ago
Oakland Post: Week of February 28 – March 5, 2024
-
Antonio Ray Harvey4 weeks ago
Advocates Weigh in on Calif. Black Caucus Reparations Package
-
Activism3 weeks ago
Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024
-
Book Reviews4 weeks ago
Book Review: “Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You” by A’Ja Wilson
-
Activism3 weeks ago
Who are the Alameda County District 4 Supervisor Candidates’ Top Campaign Contributors?
-
#NNPA BlackPress3 weeks ago
Rep. James Clyburn Steps Down from House Leadership
-
#NNPA BlackPress3 weeks ago
PRESS ROOM: The Allen Lewis Agency Named Ally Supplier Diversity: Supplier of the Year for 2024
2 Comments