Freedom on My Mind A History of African Americans with Documents
SECOND EDITION
Deborah Gray White
Rutgers University
Mia Bay
Rutgers University
Waldo E. Martin Jr.
University of California, Berkeley
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FOR BEDFORD/ST. MARTIN’S Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill Publisher for History: Michael Rosenberg Senior Executive Editor for History: William J. Lombardo Director of Development for History: Jane Knetzger Developmental Editor: Jennifer Jovin Editorial Assistant: Lexi DeConti Senior Production Editor: Rosemary Jaffe Media Producer: Michelle Camisa Production Supervisor: Robert Cherry History Marketing Manager: Melissa Famiglietti Copy Editor: Arthur Johnson Indexer: Leoni Z. McVey Cartography: Mapping Specialists, Ltd. Photo Editor: Cecilia Varas Photo Researcher: Bruce Carson Permissions Editor: Eve Lehmann Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik Text Design: Boynton Hue Studio Cover Design: John Callahan Cover Photos: Top to bottom: Olaudah Equiano: Portrait of an African, c. 1757–1760 (oil on canvas), Ramsay, Allan (1713–1784) (attr. to)/Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, Devon, UK/Bridgeman Images; Harriet Tubman: Lindsley, H. B., photographer (Harriet Tubman, full-length portrait, standing with hands on back of a chair) between c. 1860 and 1875. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2003674596; Madame C. J. Walker: The Granger Collection, New York; Shirley Chisholm: © Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo; U.S. President Barack Obama: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Copyright © 2017, 2013 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.
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ISBN 978-1-319-06604-8 (ePub)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the text and art selections they cover; these acknowledgments and copyrights constitute an extension of the copyright page.
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Preface for Instructors Why This Book This Way
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” wrote Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.” Written in April 1963 while he was incarcerated for participating in a nonviolent protest against racial segregation, King’s letter was a rebuttal to white religious leaders who condemned such protests as unwise and untimely. King’s understanding of freedom also summarizes the remarkable history of the many generations of African Americans whose experiences are chronicled in this book. Involuntary migrants to America, the Africans who became African Americans achieved freedom from slavery only after centuries of struggle, protest, and outright revolt. Prior to the Civil War, most were unfree inhabitants of a democratic republic that took shape around the ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Although largely exempted from these ideals, African Americans fought for them.
Writing of these enslaved noncitizens in the first chapter of The Souls of Black Folk (1903), black historian W. E. B. Du Bois proclaimed, “Few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro.” Du Bois saw a similar spirit among his contemporaries: He was certain that “there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes.” Yet Du Bois lived in an era when freedom was still the “unattained ideal.” Segregated and disfranchised in the South, and subject to racial exploitation and discrimination throughout the nation, black people still sought “the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire.” Moreover, as long as black people were not free, America could not be the world’s beacon of liberty. The black freedom struggle would continue, remaking the nation as a whole.
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Our Approach Like Du Bois, we, the authors of Freedom on My Mind, take African Americans’ quest for freedom as the central theme of African American history and explore all dimensions of that quest, situated as it must be in the context of American history. Our perspective is that African American history complicates American history rather than diverging from it. This idea is woven into our narrative, which records the paradoxical experiences of a group of people at once the most American of Americans — in terms of their long history in America, their vital role in the American economy, and their enormous impact on American culture — and at the same time the Americans most consistently excluded from the American dream. Juxtaposed against American history as a whole, this is a study of a group of Americans who have had to fight too hard for freedom yet have been systematically excluded from many of the opportunities that allowed other groups to experience the United States as a land of opportunity. This text encourages students to think critically and analytically about African American history and the historical realities behind the American dream.
The following themes and emphases are central to our approach:
The principal role of the black freedom struggle in the development of the American state. Our approach necessitates a study of the troubled relationship between African Americans and the American democratic state. Freedom on My Mind underscores the disturbing fact that our democracy arose within the context of a slaveholding society, though it ultimately gave way to the democratic forces unleashed by the Revolution that founded the new nation and the Civil War that reaffirmed federal sovereignty. Exempt from the universalist language of the Declaration of Independence — “all men are created equal” — African Americans have been, as Du Bois insightfully noted, “a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic.” Most vividly illustrated during the political upheavals of Reconstruction and the civil rights movement — which is often called America’s second Reconstruction — African American activism has been crucial to the evolution of American democratic institutions.
The diversity of African Americans and the African American experience. Any study of the African American freedom struggle must recognize the wide diversity of African Americans who participated in it, whether they did so through open rebellion and visible social protest; through more covert means of defiance, disobedience, and dissent; or simply by surviving and persevering in the face of overwhelming odds. Complicating any conceptions students might have of a single-minded, monolithic African American collective, Freedom on My Mind is mindful of black diversity and the ways and means that gender, class, and ethnicity — as well as region, culture, and politics — shaped the black experience and the struggle for freedom. The book explores African Americans’ search for freedom in slave rebellions, everyday resistance to slavery, the abolitionist movement, Reconstruction politics, post-emancipation labor struggles, the great migration, military service, civil rights activism, and the black power movement. It shows how American democracy was shaped by African Americans’ search for, as Du Bois put it, “human opportunity” — and the myriad forms and characters that this search assumed.
An emphasis on culture as a vital force in black history. Freedom on My Mind also illuminates the rich and self-affirming culture blacks established in response to their exclusion from and often adversarial relationship with American institutions — the life Du Bois metaphorically characterized as “behind the veil.” The rhythms
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and structure of black social and religious life, the contours of black educational struggles, the music Du Bois described as the “greatest gift of the Negro people” to the American nation, the parallel institutions built as a means of self-affirmation and self-defense — all of these are examined in the context of African Americans’ quest for freedom, escape from degradation, and inclusion in the nation’s body politic.
A synthesis that makes black history’s texture and complexity clear. While culture is central to Freedom on My Mind, we offer an analytical approach to African American culture that enables students to see it as a central force that both shaped and reflected other historical developments, rather than as a phenomenon in a vacuum. How do we process black art — poetry, music, paintings, novels, sculptures, quilts — without understanding the political, economic, and social conditions that these pieces express? When spirituals, jazz, the blues, and rap flow from the economic and social conditions experienced by multitudes of blacks, how can we not understand black music as political? Indeed, African American culture, politics, and identity are inextricably entwined in ways that call for an approach to this subject that blends social, political, economic, religious, and cultural history. Such distinctions often seem arbitrary in American history as a whole and are impossible in chronicling the experiences of African Americans. How can we separate the religious and political history of people whose church leaders have often led their communities from the pulpit and the political stump? Therefore, Freedom on My Mind sidesteps such divisions in favor of a synthesis that privileges the sustained interplay among culture, politics, economics, religion, and social forces in the African American experience.
Twenty-first-century scholarship for today’s classroom. Each chapter offers a synthesis of the most up-to- date historiography and historiographical debates in a clear narrative style. So much has changed since Du Bois pioneered the field of African American history. Once relegated to black historians and the oral tradition, African American history as a scholarly endeavor flowered with the social history revolt of the 1960s, when the events of the civil rights movement drew new attention to the African American past and the social upheaval of the 1960s inspired historians to recover the voices of the voiceless. Women’s history also became a subject of serious study during this era, and as a result of all of these changes, we now survey an American history that has been reconstituted by nearly a half century of sustained attention to race, class, and gender.
Drawing on the most recent scholarship, this text not only will deepen students’ understanding of the interconnectedness of African American and American history but also will link African American struggles for political and civil rights, individual autonomy, religious freedom, economic equity, and racial justice to other Americans: white, red, yellow, and brown. As Americans, these groups shared a world subject to similar structural forces, such as environmental changes, demographic forces, white supremacy, and the devastating effects of world events on the American economy in times of global economic upheaval or war. Sometimes blacks bonded with other groups, and sometimes their interests clashed. Often the experiences of other Americans ran parallel to the African American experience, and sometimes African American resistance served as a template for the resistance of others. Freedom on My Mind recounts this complex historical interaction. Although more than a century has unfolded since Du Bois wrote Souls, we have tried to remain true to the spirit of that text and write, with “loving emphasis,” the history of African Americans.
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The Docutext Format We believe that the primary goals of our book — to highlight the deep connections between black history and the development of American democracy, illustrate the diversity of black experience, emphasize the centrality of black culture, and document the inextricable connections among black culture, politics, economics, and social and religious life — could not be realized to their fullest extent through narrative alone. Thus Freedom on My Mind’s unique docutext structure combines a brief narrative with rich, themed sets of textual and visual primary documents, reimagining the relationship between the narrative and the historical actors who form it. The narrative portion of each chapter is followed by a set of primary sources focused on a particular chapter topic. Each set is clearly cross-referenced within the narrative so that students can connect it to and interpret it in terms of what they’ve learned. Carefully developed pedagogical elements — including substantive introductions, document headnotes, and Questions for Analysis at the close of each set — help students learn to analyze primary documents and practice “doing” history.
These visuals and documents showcase and examine a rich variety of African American cultural elements and underscore the abiding connections among African American political activism, religious beliefs, economic philosophies, musical genres, and literary and fine art expression. A host of pictorial source types — from artifacts, photographs, paintings, and sculpture to cartoons and propaganda — and documentary sources ranging from personal letters, memoirs, and poetry to public petitions and newspaper accounts illuminate the primary evidence that underpins and complicates the history students learn. Taken together, documents and images as varied as slave captivity narratives, early American visual portrayals of black freedom fighters, the writings of free blacks like Absalom Jones and James Forten, scenes of everyday realities in the 1930s, accounts from Tuskegee Syphilis Study participants, the narratives of the civil rights era, reflections on redefining community in a diverse black America, and the responses of #BlackLivesMatter protesters and the police to the deaths of young black men all provide students with a vivid and appealing illustration of the interplay of societal forces and the centrality of African American culture to American culture. By placing these historical actors in conversation with one another, we enable students to witness firsthand the myriad variations of and nuances within individual and collective black experiences and to appreciate the points at which African Americans have diverged, as well as those at which they have agreed. Together with a narrative that presents and analyzes their context, these documents facilitate students’ comprehension of the textured, complicated story that is the history of African America.
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Support for Students Freedom on My Mind includes a variety of carefully crafted pedagogical features to help students grasp, assimilate, analyze, and recall what they’ve learned. Each chapter opens with a thematic vignette illustrating the issues confronting African Americans of that time period and then transitions to an informative introduction that sets out the thesis and takeaway points of the chapter. A chapter timeline highlights the most significant events of both African American history and general United States history during that time period, providing a quick reference for students. At the end of each chapter’s narrative, a Conclusion allows students to retrace their steps through the chapter and previews the chapter that follows. A Chapter Review section provides a list of key terms — all of which are bolded when first defined in the narrative and listed with their definitions in a Glossary of Key Terms at the end of the book — as well as three to five Review Questions encouraging students to think critically about the deeper implications of each chapter section and the connections between sections.
In addition to the visual sources in the document sets, the narrative is enhanced by the inclusion of over 160 images and 35 maps and By the Numbers graphs, each with a substantive caption that helps students relate what they’re seeing to what they’ve read and analyze quantitative data.
To facilitate further research and study, we have included extensive Notes and section-specific lists of Suggested References at the close of every chapter. Finally, we have provided an Introduction for Students that introduces students to the work of the historian and the practice of primary source analysis, and two Appendices that include a wide variety of tables, charts, and vital documents, many of them annotated to provide a deeper reference tool. We are confident that these elements will be useful not only for students but also for instructors who wish to introduce students to the practice of history and provide the resources their students will need for research projects, further reading, and reference.
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Support for Instructors We structured this book with the instructor in mind as well as the student: We believe that the book’s docutext format provides the convenience and flexibility of a textbook and source reader in one, allowing instructors a unique opportunity to incorporate primary readings and visuals seamlessly into their classes and introduce students to primary-source analysis and the practice of history. The Document Projects and the pedagogy that supports them can be used in many ways — from in-class discussion prompts to take-home writing assignments or essay questions on exams. An Instructor’s Resource Manual for Freedom on My Mind provides a variety of creative suggestions for making the best use of the documents program and for incorporating rich multimedia resources into the course. The Bedford Lecture Kit and online test bank provide additional instructional support. For more information on available student and instructor resources and the wide range of books that can be packaged with this text at a discount, see the Versions and Supplements section on pages x–xii.
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New to the Second Edition Based on reviewer feedback to the first edition, we decided to consolidate the written and visual primary sources at the ends of the chapters into mixed-source Document Projects. As a result, we were able to expand the number and types of documents offered on a particular topic, such as those on the Middle Passage (chapter 1), debt peonage (chapter 9), lynching (chapter 9), and the Tuskegee experiments during World War II (chapter 11). The new edition also gave us the opportunity to add wholly new document sets on the codification of slavery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (chapter 2) and the Black Lives Matter movement (chapter 15).
Outside of the Document Projects, we expanded coverage of key topics in both African American and general U.S. history. In the eighteenth century, we further explore the impact of the Great Awakening on slaves’ lives (chapter 3) and go into more depth about the significance of Crispus Attucks to American Revolutionary history (chapter 3). We examine African Americans’ roles in the War of 1812, both as members of the nation’s military forces and as free black civilians (chapter 4). We added to our examination of the evolution of race relations over the last one hundred years by discussing racial discrimination in labor unions (chapter 10), white backlash against affirmative action in the late 1960s and early 1970s (chapter 14), increased tension among blacks and other racial groups that also felt marginalized and oppressed (chapter 14), and the relationship between the black community and law enforcement (chapter 15). Finally, we updated the last chapter to include an analysis of President Obama’s second term.
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Acknowledgments In completing this book, we owe thanks to the many talented and generous friends, colleagues, and editors who have provided us with suggestions, critiques, and much careful reading along the way.
Foremost among them is the hardworking group of scholar-teachers who reviewed the first edition for us. We are deeply grateful to them for their insights and suggestions, and we hope we do them justice in the second edition. We thank Luther Adams, University of Washington Tacoma; Ezrah Aharone, Delaware State University; Jacqueline Akins, Community College of Philadelphia; Okey P. Akubeze, University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee; Lauren K. Anderson, Luther College; Scott Barton, East Central University; Diane L. Beers, Holyoke Community College; Dan Berger, University of Washington Bothell; Christopher Bonner, University of Maryland; Susan Bragg, Georgia Southwestern State University; Lester Brooks, Anne Arundel Community College; E. Tsekani Browne, Montgomery College; Monica L. Butler, Seminole State College of Florida; Thomas L. Bynum, Middle Tennessee State University; Erin D. Chapman, George Washington University; Meredith Clark-Wiltz, Franklin College; Alexandra Cornelius, Florida International University; Julie Davis, Cerritos College; John Kyle Day, University of Arkansas at Monticello; Dorothy Drinkard-Hawkshawe, East Tennessee State University; Nancy J. Duke, Daytona State College, Daytona Beach; Reginald K. Ellis, Florida A&M University; Keona K. Ervin, University of Missouri–Columbia; Joshua David Farrington, Eastern Kentucky University; Marvin Fletcher, Ohio University; Amy Forss, Metropolitan Community College; Delia C. Gillis, University of Central Missouri; Kevin D. Greene, The University of Southern Mississippi; LaVerne Gyant, Northern Illinois University; Timothy Hack, Middlesex County College; Kenneth M. Hamilton, Southern Methodist University; Martin Hardeman, Eastern Illinois University; Jarvis Hargrove, North Carolina Central University; Jim C. Harper II, North Carolina Central University; Margaret Harris, Southern New Hampshire University; Patricia Herb, North Central State College; Elizabeth Herbin-Triant, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Pippa Holloway, Middle Tennessee State University; Marilyn Howard, Columbus State Community College; Carol Sue Humphrey, Oklahoma Baptist University; Bryan Jack, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville; Jerry Rafiki Jenkins, Palomar College; Karen J. Johns, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Winifred M. Johnson, Bethune-Cookman University; Gary Jones, American International College; Ishmael Kimbrough III, Bakersfield College; Michelle Kuhl, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh; Lynda Lamarre, Georgia Military College; Renee Lansley, Framingham State University; Talitha LeFlouria, University of Virginia; Monroe Little, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis; Margaret A. Lowe, Bridgewater State University; Vince Lowery, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay; Robert Luckett, Jackson State University; Steven Lurenz, Mesa Community College; Peggy Macdonald, Florida Polytechnic University; Bruce Mactavish, Washburn University; Gerald McCarthy, St. Thomas Aquinas College; Suzanne McCormack, Community College of Rhode Island; Anthony Merritt, San Diego State University; Karen K. Miller, Boston College; Steven Millner, San Jose State University; Billie J. Moore, El Camino Compton Center; Maggi M. Morehouse, Coastal Carolina University; Lynda Morgan, Mount Holyoke College; Earl Mulderink, Southern Utah University; Cassandra Newby- Alexander, Norfolk State University; Victor D. Padilla Jr., Wright College; N. Josiah Pamoja, Georgia Military College, Fairburn; Leslie Patrick, Bucknell University; Abigail Perkiss, Kean University; Alex Peshkoff, Cosumnes River College; Melvin Pritchard, West Valley College; Margaret Reed, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus; Stephanie Richmond, Norfolk State University; John Riedl, Montgomery College; Natalie J. Ring, University of Texas at Dallas; Maria Teresa Romero, Saddleback College; Tara Ross, Onondaga
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Community College; Selena Sanderfer, Western Kentucky University; Jonathan D. Sassi, CUNY–College of Staten Island; Gerald Schumacher, Nunez Community College; Gary Shea, Center for Advanced Studies and the Arts; Tobin Shearer, University of Montana; John Howard Smith, Texas A&M University–Commerce; Solomon Smith, Georgia Southern University; Pamela A. Smoot, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Karen Sotiropoulos, Cleveland State University; Melissa M. Soto-Schwartz, Cuyahoga Community College; Idris Kabir Syed, Kent State University; Linda D. Tomlinson, Fayetteville State University; Felicia A. Viator, University of California, Berkeley; Eric M. Washington, Calvin College; and Joanne G. Woodard, University of North Texas.
Our debt to the many brilliant editors at Bedford/St. Martin’s is equally immeasurable. We are grateful to publisher Michael Rosenberg, senior executive editor William J. Lombardo, director of development Jane Knetzger, history marketing manager Melissa Famiglietti, editorial assistant Lexi DeConti, and the other members of Bedford’s outstanding history team for guiding the development of this second edition. We also thank Bruce Carson and Cecilia Varas for researching and clearing the book’s photographs, Kalina Ingham and Eve Lehmann for clearing the text permissions, Arthur Johnson for copyediting the manuscript, Roberta Sobotka and Linda McLatchie for proofreading, Leoni Z. McVey for indexing, Cia Boynton for her design of the book’s interior, and John Callahan for his design of the cover. We also want to acknowledge Rosemary Jaffe, our production editor for both the first and second editions, who coordinated the work of copyediting, proofreading, and illustrating this book with amazing grace, good humor, and attention to detail. Finally, we would like to thank Jennifer Jovin, whose careful editing of the second edition helped streamline and fine- tune the original text. Letting go of carefully crafted paragraphs and sections is always difficult, but Jennifer’s insight, patience, and gentle nudging made it easier than usual. Without her guidance we would not have been able to reimagine the book. We thank them all for making the writing of this book such a pleasant experience.
In writing this book we have also relied on a large number of talented scholars and friends within the academy to supply us with guidance, editorial expertise, bright ideas, research assistance, and many other forms of support, and we would like to thank them here. The enormous — but by no means comprehensive — list of colleagues, friends, students, and former students to whom we are indebted includes Isra Ali, Marsha Barrett, Rachel Bernard, Melissa Cooper, John Day, Jeff Dowd, Joseph L. Duong, Ann Fabian, Jared Farmer, Larissa Fergeson, Krystal Frazier, Raymond Gavins, Sharon Harley, Nancy Hewitt, Martha Jones, Stephanie Jones-Rogers, Mia Kissil, Christopher Lehman, Thomas Lekan, Emily Lieb, Leon F. Litwack, Julie Livingston, David Lucander, Catherine L. Macklin, Jaime Martinez, Story Matkin-Rawn, Gregory Mixon, Donna Murch, Kimberly Phillips, Alicia Rodriguez, David Schoebun, Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, Jason Sokol, Melissa Stein, Ellen Stroud, Melissa Stuckey, Anantha Sudakar, Patricia Sullivan, Keith Wailoo, Dara Walker, and Wendy Wright. Deborah would especially like to thank Maya White Pascual for her invaluable assistance with many of the documents in the last third of the book. Her insight, skill, and talent were absolutely indispensable.
Finally, all three of us are grateful to our families and loved ones for the support and forbearance that they showed us during our work on this book.
Deborah Gray White
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Mia Bay
Waldo E. Martin Jr.
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Brief Contents CHAPTER 1 From Africa to America, 1441–1808
CHAPTER 2 African Slavery in North America, 1619–1740
CHAPTER 3 African Americans in the Age of Revolution, 1741–1783
CHAPTER 4 Slavery and Freedom in the New Republic, 1775–1820
CHAPTER 5 Black Life in the Slave South, 1820–1860
CHAPTER 6 The Northern Black Freedom Struggle and the Coming of the Civil War, 1830–1860
CHAPTER 7 Freedom Rising: The Civil War, 1861–1865
CHAPTER 8 Reconstruction: The Making and Unmaking of a Revolution, 1865–1885
CHAPTER 9 Black Life and Culture during the Nadir, 1880–1915
CHAPTER 10 The New Negro Comes of Age, 1915–1940
CHAPTER 11 Fighting for a Double Victory in the World War II Era, 1939–1948
CHAPTER 12 The Early Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1963
CHAPTER 13 Multiple Meanings of Freedom: The Movement Broadens, 1961–1976
CHAPTER 14 Racial Progress in an Era of Backlash and Change, 1967–2000
CHAPTER 15 African Americans and the New Century, 2000–Present
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Contents Preface for Instructors
Versions and Supplements
Maps and Figures
Introduction for Students
CHAPTER 1 From Africa to America, 1441–1808
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Prince Henry’s African Captives
African Origins
The History of West Africa
Slavery in West Africa
The Rise of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Europe in the Age of the Slave Trade
The Enslavement of Indigenous Peoples
The First Africans in the Americas
The Business of Slave Trading
The Long Middle Passage
Capture and Confinement
On the Slave Coast
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Inside the Slave Ship
Hardship and Misery on Board
Conclusion: The Slave Trade’s Diaspora
Chapter 1 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Firsthand Accounts of the Slave Trade
OLAUDAH EQUIANO, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, 1789
• BELINDA, The Petition of Belinda, 1782
• JAMES BARBOT Jr., General Observations on the Management of Slaves, 1700
• A Slave in Revolt
• ALEXANDER FALCONBRIDGE, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa, 1788
• The Brig Sally’s Log
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 2 African Slavery in North America, 1619–1740
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: “20. and Odd Negroes”: The Story of Virginia’s First African Americans
Slavery and Freedom in Early English North America
Settlers, Servants, and Slaves in the Chesapeake
The Expansion of Slavery in the Chesapeake
The Creation of the Carolinas
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Africans in New England
Slavery in the Middle Atlantic Colonies
Slavery and Half-Freedom in New Netherland
Slavery in England’s Middle Colonies
Frontiers and Forced Labor
Slavery in French Louisiana
Black Society in Spanish Florida
Slavery and Servitude in Early Georgia
The Stono Rebellion
Conclusion: Regional Variations of Early American Slavery
Chapter 2 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Making Slaves
The Codification of Slavery and Race in Seventeenth-Century Virginia, 1630–1680
• The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, 1641
• An Act for Regulating of Slaves in New Jersey, 1713–1714
• The South Carolina Slave Code, 1740
• SAMUEL SEWALL, The Selling of Joseph, 1700
• The Code Noir
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 3 African Americans in the Age of Revolution, 1741–1783
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CHAPTER VIGNETTE: The New York Slave Plot of 1741
African American Life in Eighteenth-Century North America
Slaves and Free Blacks across the Colonies
Shaping an African American Culture
The Slaves’ Great Awakening
The African American Revolution
The Road to Independence
Black Patriots
Black Loyalists
Slaves, Soldiers, and the Outcome of the Revolution
American Victory, British Defeat
The Fate of Black Loyalists
Closer to Freedom
Conclusion: The American Revolution’s Mixed Results for Blacks
Chapter 3 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Black Freedom Fighters
PHILLIS WHEATLEY, A Poem to the Earl of Dartmouth, 1772
• PHILLIS WHEATLEY, Letter to the Reverend Samson Occom, 1774
• LEMUEL HAYNES, Liberty Further Extended, 1776
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• JEAN BAPTISTE ANTOINE DE VERGER, Soldiers in Uniform, 1781
• BOSTON KING, Memoirs of a Black Loyalist, 1798
• JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, The Death of Major Peirson, 1782–1784
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 4 Slavery and Freedom in the New Republic, 1775–1820
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Benjamin Banneker Questions Thomas Jefferson about Slavery in the New Republic
The Limits of Democracy
The Status of Slavery in the New Nation
Slavery’s Cotton Frontiers
Slavery and Empire
Slavery and Freedom outside the Plantation South
Urban Slavery and Southern Free Blacks
Gabriel’s Rebellion
Achieving Emancipation in the North
Free Black Life in the New Republic
Free Black Organizations
Free Black Education and Employment
White Hostility Rises, Yet Blacks Are Still Called to Serve in the War of 1812
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The Colonization Debate
Conclusion: African American Freedom in Black and White
Chapter 4 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Free Black Activism
ABSALOM JONES AND OTHERS, Petition to Congress on the Fugitive Slave Act, 1799
• JAMES FORTEN, Letters from a Man of Colour, 1813
• Sentiments of the People of Color, 1817
• SAMUEL E. CORNISH AND JOHN BROWN RUSSWURM, An Editorial from Freedom’s Journal, 1827
• Kidnapping of an African American Mother and Child, c. 1840
• EDWARD WILLIAMS CLAY, Bobalition, 1833
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 5 Black Life in the Slave South, 1820–1860
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: William Wells Brown and Growing Up in the Slave South
The Expansion and Consolidation of Slavery
Slavery, Cotton, and American Industrialization
The Missouri Compromise Crisis
Slavery Expands into Indian Territory
The Domestic Slave Trade
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Black Challenges to Slavery
Denmark Vesey’s Plot
David Walker’s Exile
Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the Amistad Case, and the Creole Insurrection
Everyday Resistance to Slavery
Disobedience and Defiance
Runaways Who Escaped from Slavery
Survival, Community, and Culture
Slave Religion
Gender, Age, and Work
Marriage and Family
Conclusion: Surviving Slavery
Chapter 5 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Slave Testimony
JAMES CURRY, Narrative of James Curry, a Fugitive Slave, 1840
• Slave Punishment
• LEWIS CLARKE, Questions and Answers about Slavery, 1845
• MARY REYNOLDS, The Days of Slavery, 1937
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 6 The Northern Black Freedom Struggle and the Coming of the Civil War, 1830–1860
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CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Mary Ann Shadd and the Black Liberation Struggle before the Civil War
The Boundaries of Freedom
Racial Discrimination in the Era of the Common Man
The Growth of Free Black Communities in the North
Black Self-Help in an Era of Moral Reform
Forging a Black Freedom Struggle
Building a National Black Community: The Black Convention Movement and the Black Press
Growing Black Activism in Literature, Politics, and the Justice System
Abolitionism: Moral Suasion, Political Action, Race, and Gender
Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War
Westward Expansion and Slavery in the Territories
The Fugitive Slave Crisis and Civil Disobedience
Confrontations in “Bleeding Kansas” and the Courts
Emigration and John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
Conclusion: Whose Country Is It?
Chapter 6 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Forging an African American Nation — Slave and Free, North and South
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SARAH MAPPS DOUGLASS, To Make the Slaves’ Cause Our Own, 1832
• HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET, An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America, 1843
• FREDERICK DOUGLASS, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?, 1852
• Escaping Slavery via the Underground Railroad
• Dred and Harriet Scott
• Jim Crow
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 7 Freedom Rising: The Civil War, 1861–1865
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Robert Smalls and the African American Freedom Struggle during the Civil War
The Coming of War and the Seizing of Freedom, 1861–1862
War Aims and Battlefield Realities
Union Policy on Black Soldiers and Black Freedom
Refugee Slaves and Freedpeople
Turning Points, 1862–1863
The Emancipation Proclamation
The U.S. Colored Troops
African Americans in the Major Battles of 1863
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Home Fronts and War’s End, 1863–1865
Riots and Restoration of the Union
Black Civilians at Work for the War
Union Victory, Slave Emancipation, and the Renewed Struggle for Equality
Conclusion: Emancipation and Equality
Chapter 7 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Wartime and Emancipation
ALFRED M. GREEN, Let Us . . . Take Up the Sword, 1861
• ISAIAH C. WEARS, The Evil Injustice of Colonization, 1862
• SUSIE KING TAYLOR, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, 1902
• WILLIAM TOLMAN CARLTON, Watch Meeting — Dec. 31st — Waiting for the Hour, 1863
• Private Hubbard Pryor, before and after Enlisting in the U.S. Colored Troops, 1864
• Freedmen’s Memorial, 1876
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 8 Reconstruction: The Making and Unmaking of a Revolution, 1865–1885
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Jourdon and Mandy Anderson Find Security in Freedom after Slavery
A Social Revolution
Freedom and Family
Church and Community
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Land and Labor
The Hope of Education
A Short-Lived Political Revolution
The Political Contest over Reconstruction
Black Reconstruction
The Defeat of Reconstruction
Opportunities and Limits outside the South
Autonomy in the West
The Right to Work for Fair Wages
The Struggle for Equal Rights
Conclusion: Revolutions and Reversals
Chapter 8 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: The Vote
SOJOURNER TRUTH, Equal Voting Rights, 1867
• PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION, A Debate: Negro Male Suffrage vs. Woman Suffrage, 1869
• MARY ANN SHADD CARY, Woman’s Right to Vote, early 1870s
• A. R. WAUD, The First Vote, 1867
• THOMAS NAST, The Ignorant Vote, 1876
• THOMAS NAST, Colored Rule in a Reconstructed(?) State, 1874
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 9 Black Life and Culture during the Nadir, 1880–1915
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CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Ida B. Wells: Creating Hope and Community amid Extreme Repression
Racism and Black Challenges
Racial Segregation
Ideologies of White Supremacy
Disfranchisement and Political Activism
Lynching and the Campaign against It
Freedom’s First Generation
Black Women and Men in the Era of Jim Crow
Black Communities in the Cities of the New South
New Cultural Expressions
Migration, Accommodation, and Protest
Migration Hopes and Disappointments
The Age of Booker T. Washington
The Emergence of W. E. B. Du Bois
Conclusion: Racial Uplift in the Nadir
Chapter 9 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Agency and Constraint
The Lynching of Charles Mitchell, 1897
• The Lynching of Virgil Jones, Robert Jones, Thomas Jones, and Joseph Riley, 1908
• A GEORGIA NEGRO PEON, The New Slavery in the South, 1904
• W. E. B. DU BOIS, Along the Color Line, 1910
• LETTER TO THE EDITOR, From the South, 1911
• Chain Gang
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 10 The New Negro Comes of Age, 1915–1940
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CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Zora Neale Hurston and the Advancement of the Black Freedom Struggle
The Great Migration and the Great War
Origins and Patterns of Migration
Black Communities in the Metropolises of the North
African Americans and the Great War
The New Negro Arrives
Institutional Bases for Social Science and Historical Studies
The Universal Negro Improvement Association
The Harlem Renaissance
The Great Depression and the New Deal
Economic Crisis and the Roosevelt Presidency
African American Politics
Black Culture in Hard Times
Conclusion: Mass Movements and Mass Culture
Chapter 10 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Communist Radicalism and Everyday Realities
W. E. B. DU BOIS, Negro Editors on Communism: A Symposium of the American Negro Press, 1932
• CARL MURPHY, Baltimore Afro-American
• W. P. DABNEY, Cincinnati Union
• ANGELO HERNDON, You Cannot Kill the Working Class, 1934
• RICHARD WRIGHT, 12 Million Black Voices, 1941
• RUSSELL LEE, Negro Drinking at “Colored” Water Cooler in Streetcar Terminal, Oklahoma City,
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Oklahoma, 1939
• ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN, Girl at Gee’s Bend, 1937
• MARION POST WOLCOTT, Negroes Jitterbugging in a Juke Joint on Saturday Afternoon, Clarksdale, Mississippi Delta, 1939
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 11 Fighting for a Double Victory in the World War II Era, 1939–1948
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: James Tillman and Evelyn Bates Mobilize for War
The Crisis of World War II
America Enters the War and States Its Goals
African Americans Respond to the War
Racial Violence and Discrimination in the Military
African Americans on the Home Front
New Jobs, Wartime Migration, and Race Riots
Organizing for Economic Opportunity
The Struggle for Citizenship Rights
Fighting and Dying for the Right to Vote
New Beginnings in Political and Cultural Life
Desegregating the Army and the GI Bill
Conclusion: A Partial Victory
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Chapter 11 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: African Americans and the Tuskegee Experiments
Interview with a Tuskegee Syphilis Study Participant, 1972
• Nurse Rivers
• Tuskegee Study Participants
• ALEXANDER JEFFERSON, Interview with a Tuskegee Airman, 2006
• Tuskegee Airmen
• WILLIAM H. HASTIE AND GEORGE E. STRATEMEYER, Resignation Memo and Response, 1943
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 12 The Early Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1963
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Paul Robeson: A Cold War Civil Rights Warrior
Anticommunism and the Postwar Black Freedom Struggle
African Americans, the Cold War, and President Truman’s Loyalty Program
Loyalty Programs Force New Strategies
The Transformation of the Southern Civil Rights Movement
Triumphs and Tragedies in the Early Years, 1951–1956
New Leadership for a New Movement
The Watershed Years of the Southern Movement
White Resistance and Presidential Sluggishness
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Civil Rights: A National Movement
Racism and Inequality in the North and West
Fighting Back: The Snail’s Pace of Change
The March on Washington and the Aftermath
Conclusion: The Evolution of the Black American Freedom Struggle
Chapter 12 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: We Are Not Afraid
ANNE MOODY, Coming of Age in Mississippi, 1968
• CLEVELAND SELLERS, The River of No Return, 1973
• ELIZABETH ECKFORD, The First Day: Little Rock, 1957
• Images of Protest and Terror
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 13 Multiple Meanings of Freedom: The Movement Broadens, 1961–1976
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Stokely Carmichael and the Meaning of Black Power
The Emergence of Black Power
Expanding the Struggle beyond Civil Rights
Early Black Power Organizations
Malcolm X
The Struggle Transforms
Black Power and Mississippi Politics
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Bloody Encounters
Black Power Ascends
Economic Justice and Affirmative Action
Politics and the Fight for Jobs
Urban Dilemmas: Deindustrialization, Globalization, and White Flight
Tackling Economic Injustice
War, Radicalism, and Turbulence
The Vietnam War and Black Opposition
Urban Radicalism
Conclusion: Progress, Challenges, and Change
Chapter 13 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Black Power: Expression and Repression
HUEY NEWTON AND BOBBY SEALE, October 1966 Black Panther Party Platform and Program
• LOÏS MAILOU JONES, Ubi Girl from Tai Region, 1972
• FAITH RINGGOLD, The Flag Is Bleeding, 1967
• COINTELPRO Targets Black Organizations, 1967
• FBI Uses Fake Letters to Divide the Chicago Black Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers, 1969
• “Special Payment” Request and Floor Plan of Fred Hampton’s Apartment, 1969
• Tangible Results, 1969
• Church Committee Report, 1976
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 14 Racial Progress in an Era of Backlash and Change, 1967–2000
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CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Shirley Chisholm: The First of Many Firsts
Opposition to the Black Freedom Movement
The Emergence of the New Right
Law and Order, the Southern Strategy, and Anti–Affirmative Action
The Reagan Era
The Persistence of the Black Freedom Struggle
The Transformation of the Black Panthers
Black Women Find Their Voice
The Fight for Education
Community Control and Urban Ethnic Conflict
Black Political Gains
The Expansion of the Black Middle Class
The Different Faces of Black America
The Class Divide
Hip-Hop, Violence, and the Emergence of a New Generation
Gender and Sexuality
All Africa’s Children
Conclusion: Black Americans on the Eve of the New Millennium
Chapter 14 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: Redefining Community
COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE, The Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977
• CLEO MANAGO, Manhood — Who Claims? Who Does It Claim?, 1995
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• DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, MARGARITA MOONEY, KIMBERLY C. TORRES, AND CAMILLE Z. CHARLES, Black Immigrants and Black Natives Attending Selective Colleges and Universities in the United States, 2007
• A Graffiti Artist in Long Island City, Queens, New York, 2009
• Run-DMC, 1987
• Salt-N-Pepa, 1994
Notes
• Suggested References
CHAPTER 15 African Americans and the New Century, 2000–Present
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Barack Hussein Obama, America’s Forty-Fourth President
Diversity and Racial Belonging
New Categories of Difference
Solidarity, Culture, and the Meaning of Blackness
Diversity in Politics and Religion
Trying Times
The Carceral State, or “the New Jim Crow”
9/11 and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Hurricane Katrina
Change Comes to America
Obama’s Forerunners, Campaign, and Victory
The New Obama Administration
Racism Confronts Obama in His First Term
The 2012 Election
Moving Forward
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Obama’s Second Term
African Americans and Law Enforcement
Conclusion: The Promise or Illusion of the New Century
Chapter 15 Review
DOCUMENT PROJECT: #BlackLivesMatter
ALICIA GARZA, A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, 2014
• Protesting the Killing of Unarmed Black Men
• Citizen-Police Confrontation in Ferguson
• “We Can’t Breathe” Headline
• The Police See It Differently
• PHOENIX LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSOCIATION, Recent Phoenix Police Officer Involved Shooting, 2014
• THOMAS J. NEE, Letter to President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, 2014
• SYBRINA FULTON, Letter to Michael Brown’s Family, 2014
Notes
• Suggested References
APPENDIX: Documents
The Declaration of Independence
• The Constitution of the United States of America
• Amendments to the Constitution
• The Emancipation Proclamation [1863]
• Presidents of the United States
• Selected Legislative Acts
• Selected Supreme Court Decisions
• Selected Documents
APPENDIX: Tables and Charts
African American Population of the United States, 1790–2010
• Unemployment Rates in the United States by Race and Hispanic Origin, 2005–2010
• African American Educational Attainment in the United States, 2011
• Educational Attainment in the United States, 1960–2010
• Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 1865–Present
• African American Occupational Distribution, 1900 and 2010
• African American Regional Distribution, 1850–2010
Glossary of Key Terms
Index
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Maps and Figures
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Maps MAP 1.1 Africa’s Diverse States and Geography, 900–1800
MAP 1.2 Slave Origins and Destinations, 1501–1867
MAP 1.3 The Triangle Trade
MAP 2.1 Distribution of Blacks and Whites, 1680 and 1740
MAP 3.1 Patriots and Loyalists
MAP 3.2 African Americans across the Developing Nation, 1770 and 1800
MAP 4.1 The Northwest Ordinance
MAP 4.2 The Louisiana Purchase
MAP 5.1 Agriculture and Industry in the Slave South, 1860
MAP 5.2 The Missouri Compromise
MAP 5.3 The Domestic Slave Trade, 1808–1865
MAP 6.1 The Underground Railroad
MAP 6.2 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
MAP 7.1 African Americans in Battle
MAP 7.2 Slave Emancipation
MAP 8.1 Black Political Participation in the Reconstruction South, 1867–1868
MAP 8.2 African American Population Distribution, 1860 and 1890
MAP 9.1 Jim Crow and Disfranchisement in Former Confederate States
MAP 9.2 School Segregation in the North and West
MAP 10.1 The Great Migration, 1910–1929
MAP 10.2 Cultural Harlem
MAP 11.1 African American Migration, 1940–1970
MAP 11.2 The Persistence of Lynching, 1940–1946
MAP 12.1 The Routes of the Freedom Rides, 1961
MAP 12.2 Key Southern Civil Rights Battlegrounds, 1954–1963
MAP 13.1 The Impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
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MAP 15.1 African Immigrants in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
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By the Numbers Black and White Populations in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake
The Growth of Slavery and Cotton, 1820–1860
Percent Change in Free Black Population, 1830–1860
African Americans in the Union Military
African Americans in the Vietnam War
The War on Drugs, 1980–2000
Black Poverty and Unemployment, 1980–1998
Black Male Incarceration Rates, 2000–2009
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Introduction for Students It is a joy to offer Freedom on My Mind to enhance your knowledge of both African American history and the craft of history. For us, the authors, history has never been just a series of dates and names. It is not just memorizable facts, consumed only to pass a test or complete an assignment. For us, history is adventure; it’s a puzzle that must be both unraveled and put together. Being a historian is like being a time-traveling detective. To be able to use our sleuthing skills to unveil the history of African Americans, a history that for too long was dismissed but tells us so much about American democracy, is not just a delight but a serious responsibility.
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The History of African American History Although black Americans first came to North America in 1619, before the Mayflower brought New England Pilgrims, the history of African American history has a relatively recent past. For most of American history black history was ignored, overlooked, exploited, demeaned, discounted, or ridiculed — much as African Americans were. Worse yet, history was often used to justify the mistreatment of African Americans: The history of Africans was used to justify slavery, and the history of slavery was used to justify the subsequent disfranchisement, discrimination, rape, and lynching of African Americans.
American blacks understood this connection between a history that misrepresented them and their citizenship, and they fought not only to free themselves from bondage but also to create a legacy that future generations could be proud of: a legacy that championed their self-inspired “uplift” and that countered the negative images and history that prevailed in American society. Take just one example: D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation (1915) used revolutionary cinematography to disseminate a history that represented slaves as happy and race relations as rosy, until the Civil War and Reconstruction unleashed black criminals and sexual predators on an innocent South. Many used Griffith’s film to justify the lynching of black men and the segregation of the races. Indeed, President Woodrow Wilson, the historian who as president introduced segregation into the government offices of Washington, D.C., premiered the film in the White House and praised its historical accuracy.
The same year that The Birth of a Nation premiered, Harvard-trained black historian Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). Woodson’s ASNLH was the culmination of what has become known as the New Negro history movement, begun in the late nineteenth century. The organization’s goal was to counter Griffith-type images by resurrecting a positive black history and recounting all that African Americans had done for themselves and for America. Because professional American historical journals generally did not publish black history, the ASNLH, with Woodson as editor, issued the Journal of Negro History and the Negro History Bulletin. During the 1920s, the Journal of Negro History and the ASNLH focused much of their attention on proving Griffith wrong. Professionally researched articles and scholarly convention panels demonstrated that black people were not criminals or sexually dangerous. Black scholars wrote a history that showed how blacks, despite being mercilessly degraded, had in the one generation after slavery’s end become a mostly literate people who voted responsibly and elected representatives who practiced fiscal responsibility and pursued educational and democratic reforms. Because black history was excluded from public school curricula, the ASNLH also spearheaded the movement that brought about Negro History Week (later to be a month), observed first in African American communities and then in the nation at large. The second week of February was chosen because it marked the birthdays of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, and the great black freedom fighter, Frederick Douglass. Black leaders believed that a celebration of the lives of Lincoln and Douglass would evolve into the study of African Americans in general.
Black scholars did this because they understood the connection between their history and their status in America. The preeminent twentieth-century black historian W. E. B. Du Bois sternly warned against the erasure and/or distortion of the role played by African Americans in the building of the American nation.
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“We the darker ones come . . . not altogether empty-handed,” he said. African Americans had much to offer this country, much to teach America about humanitarianism and morality, and thus Du Bois pleaded for the study of black history and its inclusion in the national consciousness. Black history was even more important to African Americans, he instructed. Black people needed to know their history “for positive advance, . . . for negative defense,” and to have “implicit trust in our ability and worth.” “No people that laughs at itself, and ridicules itself, and wishes to God it was anything but itself ever wrote its name in history,” counseled Du Bois at the turn of the twentieth century. For him, black history, black freedom, and American democracy were all of a piece.
It should come as no surprise that when the freedom struggle moved onto the national stage in the mid- twentieth century, African American history became a central focus. Both black and white activists demanded not just an end to white terrorism, desegregation in all areas of American life, equality in the job market, voting rights, and the freedom to marry regardless of race, but also that non-distorted African American history and studies be included in elementary through high school public school curricula and textbooks, as well as in college courses. They insisted that colleges and universities offer degrees in African American studies and that traditional disciplines offer courses that treated black subjects as legitimate areas of study. In the 1960s, demands were made to extend Negro History Week to a full month, and in 1976, Woodson’s organization, by then renamed the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (1972), designated February as Black History Month — a move acknowledged and approved by the federal government.
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Debating African American History and Its Sources Historians rely on documents written in the past. Before we can analyze a period, we must locate and unearth our sources. Primary sources originate during the period under study. Some are official or unofficial documents issued by public and private institutions; items as varied as church records, government census records, newspapers and magazines, probate records, court transcripts, and schoolbooks are exceptionally revelatory of the past. Other records come from individuals. Personal letters and diaries, bank statements, photographs, and even gravestone inscriptions help historians figure out what happened during a particular time period. Once we assemble all of our documents, we write history based on our examination and analysis of them. Our histories become part of a body of secondary sources for the period under study — secondary because they originate from someone who has secondarily written an account that relied on first, or primary, sources.
Researching African American history has always presented a challenge for scholars. During their almost 250 years of enslavement, Africans and African Americans had few belongings they could call their own; thus they left few of the personal records that historians depend on to write history. Added to this obstacle is the fact that during slavery black literacy was outlawed. Schools for free blacks were regularly destroyed, and anyone teaching a slave to read could be arrested, fined, whipped, or jailed for corrupting a labor force that was considered most efficient when it was illiterate. Black Americans, therefore, developed a rich oral tradition. Certainly, as you will see from the sources presented in this book, some blacks, mostly those who were not enslaved, wrote letters, gave speeches, kept diaries, or wrote narratives of their experiences. However, most black communication and communion took place through personal interaction and via the spoken word. Before black history was committed to paper, it was committed to memory and passed down through folklore, art, and secular and religious music. This continued long into the twentieth century as segregation, disfranchisement, and attacks on black education forced African Americans to depend on their oral tradition.
For historians, who rely heavily on written sources, this presented a problem — as did the fact that the struggle for black freedom was often manifested in a struggle over who could and/or should write black history. This overlapped the problem of sources, because many thought it unfair to write black history using only those sources emanating from the very people and institutions responsible for the African American’s second-class citizenship. For example, in his 1935 post–Civil War history, Black Reconstruction, Du Bois, a Harvard-trained historian, railed against the professional historians who had written about the period using only the sources that came from the defeated South. It was to be expected, argued Du Bois, that these historians, who were mostly white, male, and southern, would find fault with the freedmen; their sources were those of defeated slave owners and others who had a stake in painting ex-slaves as unworthy of freedom. “The chief witness in Reconstruction, the emancipated slave himself, has been almost barred from court,” argued Du Bois. In presenting a case for using the written records of black representatives, which included the few biographies of black leaders and the unedited debates of the Reconstruction conventions, Du Bois called for true fairness: “If history is going to be scientific, if the record of human action is going to be set down with that accuracy and faithfulness of detail which will allow its use as a measuring rod and guidepost for the future of nations, there must be set some standards of ethics in research and interpretation.” In other words, history could not be written from just one point of view, or with sources that were highly prejudicial or exclusionary.
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But who was to say which sources were best, and who was best qualified to write African American history? Could not those sympathetic to black causes also use history for their own purposes and bend it to their needs? And given that so many African American sources were oral and not preserved in archives, or were personal artifacts packed away in family storage, how could the existing sources be accessed to produce written history?