Assignments Archives • Page 2 of 2 • GloBelle Affairs

October 3, 2018

Africans-American Never Stopped Being African

I was scrolling through Pinterest while sitting in a salon chair on a Wednesday trying to find the perfect hairstyle for my friend’s upcoming Texas wedding. It’s unheard of to move to a new city and discover a salon home on the first try, but thanks to the help of Yelp, I found a professionally ran salon with multiple stylists who can do my natural hair. I remember giving the heads up, like I do every time I make an appointment at a new salon over the phone, that I need a stylist with experience with black hair. When I lived in Germany, the stylists gathered around in shock to hear me tell the challenges of getting a simple blow-out at just any American salon because competency with textured hair is a novelty that most salons do not have. Even when this salon confirmed they could, I was still skeptical. I’d heard that claim before. But with multiple visits with multiple stylists, they have never disappointed. Here, I don’t need a separate salon for braids, extensions, curls, processed, cutting, or my straight hair, I have it all in one here. This just doesn’t happen. In spite of Back Bay prices, the search is over.

I need these gowns in my closet!

When a gorgeous formal, European-cut gown in West African fabric popped up among the different natural hair options, my stylist and I both gasp in delight. Perhaps I should track down a dress like that to wear to the
wedding. That would be a show-stopper for sure.

Can you believe the girl to the right was told by her teacher than African dresses were too tacky for prom!?

“You know, there are Africans that don’t like us wearing their fabric,” I told my hairdresser, an immigrant from Haiti. I recalled a blog of a British Nigerian woman accusing African-Americans of cultural appropriation of Africans. My hairdresser paused in near disgust before responding in her sweet, girlie accent, “Well, that is their opinion. We can have ours.”

A discussion continued between me, her, and a Brazilian hairstylist who also does a great job with my hair but most would not visually identify as being part of the African diaspora. Who are “they” to exclude “us” from “our” heritage, we all agreed.

After my hairdresser had me looking like a chic it-girl, I attended a monthly Black Young Professionals mixer. This is the one time a month that I get to interact with other black people in Boston. In five months the only times that I’ve actually seen other black people is if I intentionally coordinate to meet up with a friend I met via social media (we had too many friends in common not to meet) or take an intentional cruise through Roxbury. I spent two years in SoCal with minimal black interaction. Outside of the hair salon or a deliberate visit to Englewood, I went two years without face-to-face interaction with black peers. I committed to not going another two.

I drop my car off with the parking garage attendant— a man with an accent. I ask where he hailed. “Africa — the original land,” he responds with a smile.

In Boston, there’s a significant Caribbean and African population. Out of curiosity, I asked him to specify where in Africa. He indicated Ethiopia.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

I wrestled with this. I always wrestle with this. What answer should I provide? Often I claim to be from the Air Force which explains my nomadic lifestyle. Most often I proudly claim Kentucky with Alabama roots even though I wasn’t born in either. I sometimes claim “The South” as a whole. But in this instance, I wondered if he was asking me to identify an African country, and I can’t. He sees the bewilderment on my face.

“You are also from Africa” he answers for me. He claimed me as part of him. And I was content.

Inside, a spread of young professionals with a beautiful array of skin hues still in their work clothes filled the space. I join a circle of women and make small talk about our careers, the upcoming cuffing season, and travel. You’ve got Harvard engineering graduate students, STEM professionals, accountants, classically trained musicians, and performers–all networking, discussing current events, and planning bougie black people activities like apple picking, weekends at the cape, going away parties for week-long vacations in Thailand, and upcoming NSBE galas. In this space, no one needs to ask what NSBE is, regardless of their discipline. The mixer is a refreshing space free of micro-aggressions, having our hair touched, being petted, conversation topic avoidance, explanations of who we are, and all the various other forms of small talk often used to “other” us from the in-group. It’s a place where all the young women have melodic names printed on their name tags. My own doesn’t stand out as unique, and people confidently pronounce it correctly on the first try.

A guy joins the circle and takes a look at our name tags and asks if we’re all from Africa. Everyone except me nods their head. I would never have guessed, even after talking with them for a half-hour. Most of the girls initially identified different hometowns but when explicitly asked if they were African, they each surprised me when they dropped a different country.

This dude is one of my favorite people to talk to.

Later, in the evening I get asked where I’m from, and I proudly proclaim Kentucky.
That response elicits blank stares before the guy responds, “Ok, so regular black.”
Wait, What? There is nothing regular about a Kentuckian I think to myself. I’d never been labeled such a thing as “regular.” I understand the distinction he is making. Since then, “regular black” and “just black” has become the Boston norm in identifying Black Americans who could not identify what country they come from. The only other time I had heard of “regular black” was when I asked a friend if he considered himself light skin. He responded, “No. Regular black.” At the time, I took it as a color
reference rather than a cultural reference. I also thought it was funny.
In the span of one evening, I had been called “African,” “Just Black,” a member of the “African diaspora,” “Regular black,” and called “of African descent but not African.”
So naturally, that evening, along with the blog opinion by the British Nigerian rejecting my American African-ness, got me reflecting on associations and identity. At what point did we stop being African? Is African-ness something that can be lost, stolen, or stopped?

In 1787, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and others founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Philadelphia after white Methodists physically pulled the black Christians up from their praying knees. Even though the founders were born in Delaware Colony, they still identified as Africans. At the time of the Civil War, American colonies hosted 10 generations (over 200 years) of people born in America but originating from Africa, and yet they were still called Africans. The Articles of Secession from both Georgia and Texas discussed the servitude of Africans even though the document had been 53 years since the last legal arrival of imported Africans.
In 1868 Africans were granted citizenship by the 14th amendment but
without the benefits of citizenship and not the identification of Americans. This was the time frame that Africans shifted from being logged as taxable property items to being counted on the U.S. census. Mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon were labels forced upon black people in relation to their relative whiteness before utilizing “colored” as an all-encompassing catch-all (although I had classmates in Kentucky still using all of these dated terms in the 2000s).
Ida B. Wells (1861-1931) used the term Negro before switching to Afro-America as a conscious effort to connect to her ancestors. Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) wavered in the usage of Negro and Afro-American. MLK, Jr used the term “Negro,” and Malcolm X used, “so-called Negro” during the 1960s. It wasn’t until 2000 that the U.S. Census had “African-American” as an option; however, Jesse Jackson highly encouraged the use of the term back in 1988. Then there’s the widely popular, more inclusive “Black” which includes everyone of a certain skin hue range (although there are those with the same skin color who identify as brown) and the more segmented “Black-American.”
Perhaps more beneficial to the quest to understand when we stopped being African, is to discover why we ended being African.

In the past, I’ve identified as Black-American to make a distinction from African-Americans who had direct ties to a specific country in Africa. My grandmother, who has navigated life as a white-presenting black woman always scratches out the “African” in “African-American” when identifying her ethnicity. She is adamant about identifying as just as American as anyone else…no qualifier needed. Sometimes, people at doctor’s offices don’t even ask and mark her as white.

I have to go abroad to be an American. Rarely am I treated as “just American” while I’m in America. In subtle ways, like Almay calling Carrie Underwood’s look the, “true spirit of American beauty” to the not so subtle demands to, “go back to Africa” when someone disagrees with me, or a US representative warning the American president to, “Watch out, Real America is coming,” I am too often reminded I am an outsider in the land I claim.

I’m realizing now that my grandmother was identifying as “just American” and me recognizing as Black-American erases our connection to Africa. And perhaps that’s by colonial design. I think it may be instinctual to disassociate with Africa because Colonizers crafted a negative perception of Africa. For those who have not visited, Africa brings the connotation of poverty, disease, “jungle savages, cannibals, and nothing civilized.”

We both identify as black, but we aren’t always recognized by others the same way.

Likewise, for first-generation Africans and Caribbeans, Black-Americana holds the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow characterizations of blackness and various other unsafe, negative stereotypes. And thus, we disassociate from each other. Perhaps Black Americans claim the American label tighter in an unconscious effort to prove our American identity…something denied to us for centuries. Maybe we more closely identify with America since we’ve never lived in or perhaps even visited Africa.

Nevertheless, when a Black American and Black African travel the globe, no one sees nationality. Everyone sees the continent. I cannot count the times Europeans have told me I look like the people from some African country they visited. Or just assumed I spoke French. Or Spanish. I’ve been pulled aside in international airports and asked if I’m coming from Kenya. Like, why, of all the countries in the world would they ask me, of all people, if I’m coming from Kenya? In America, Africans are regarded as the same as Black Americans.

Going back to Zipporah Gene’s original blog post, she states, “I’m not trying to start a war, but I would just like you all to realize the hypocrisy of seeing someone wearing a Fulani septum ring, rocking a djellaba, painted with Yoruba-like tribal marks, all the while claiming that this is meant to be respectful. It’s a hodgepodge, a juxtaposition, a right mess of regional, ethnic and cultural customs and it screams ignorance and cultural insensitivity.”

This response does a pretty solid job at explaining why it is not possible for African Americans to appropriate African culture. So does this response. So I’ll refrain from repeating the same sentiments but offer my perspective.

After many cries of foul play, Zipporah Gene wrote a follow-up blog post ironically titled No One Can Take My Africanness Away. In it she states,

“What people fail to understand is that unlike those from the diaspora, I can never look at the elegant wrappers/kente of Ghana and decide that I prefer their styles to my tribe and wear it. It is a near unspoken rule. We have our lines, and we don’t cross them.”

But what the author fails to understand, the thing about being part of the African Diaspora is. Those lines have been crossed. That is precisely who we are. We are a mix of Cameroon, Ghana, Angola, Senegal, Nigeria and more.

We are all of Western Africa rolled into one. Gene may only identify as Nigerian. It may very well be inappropriate for her to mix elements of cultures. But American-Africans are that hodgepodge, juxtaposition, and “right mess of regional, ethnic and cultural” identity. Colonialism and imperialism dislocated and built arbitrary borders where there once were none. For her not to recognize that screams of ignorance and cultural insensitivity right back.

Further, she identifies as both British and Nigerian and perhaps she’s not altogether familiar with Black American history. In what sounds like African elitism run amuck, she states, “Unlike a lot of people from the diaspora, I do know my tribe.”

I contend that American Africans have developed a new tribe out of many. Every tribe and every nation in Africa is different. There is not one thing that unifies Africans but Africa itself. If 4 million Yoruba people migrated to Norway, their attire, foods, and activities would change to adapt to the new environment alone. To survive, they will take on the language of their new land. Norwegian history will not magically become their own. They will not magically turn into Norwegians although their citizenship may say so, they will still be ethnic, native Yorubas, doing the things Africans would do to adapt to the Norwegian climate. Likewise, American Africans live the way “African-Africans” would live had they been kidnapped and treated like livestock for half a millennium. The culture, ethnicity, and identity fused and evolved but never dissipated.

I cannot help but notice that the author, Zipporah Gene, bears the same name as the wife of the Biblical figure, Moses. Moses, although adopted, given an Egyptian name, and raised in Egyptian culture (he wasn’t even circumcised and neither were his sons), never stopped being an Israelite. When he learned of his heritage, he felt an immediate kindred spirit when he saw the mistreatment of an enslaved Israelite. Moses didn’t learn all the cultural aspects of his true identity overnight. He had to grow and learn and fortunately he had people willing to show him the way. The Israelites, when they lost their way by abandoning their customs and worshiping the false gods of Egypt, never stopped being Israelites. Your location and practices may shape your experiences, but it doesn’t define who you are.

The British colonization of Africa left a similar inheritance of displacement that African-Americans experienced. The Brits relocated Sudan’s Nubian population to Kenya. When the British pulled out of Africa, they granted British citizenship to the Chinese they cajoled into fighting in their military but the Nubians who did the same lost citizenship to both Sudan and Kenya. They became stateless—belonging to no African country. This was the state of most Africans in America until late last century. It just so happened, that Nubians were dislocated within the continent of Africa that they uncontestably maintained their African-ness even without citizenship of an African nation. The examples of dislocated and relocated people who adapt yet keep their identity are endless.

Being from Kentucky, I am conscientiously southern. It is an identity that I defend. Perhaps because New Englanders, although never visiting the state have always assumed it was mid-West. Perhaps because some Southerners question belonging to the group I am hyper-aware of claiming southern as my identity.

I ponder if a Southerner moves to Wisconsin, and maintains southernisms, can that person still claim the south? If that same individual’s child grows up in the mid-west and learns ice-fishing, eats cheese curds, knows how to drive in the snow, doesn’t get gussied up to attend football games, can’t identify a grit or worse — puts sugar in them, is that descendant still a Southerner? Southernness is more than a geographical designation. It’s deeper than the superficial eating of grits. So is African-ness. Perhaps in claiming Africa, I’m continuing the 400-year-old resistance to having my identity taken away.

No doubt, we do not have to all agree on how to identify ourselves. Identities are often fluid and based on relation to others (i.e., I never needed a term for “Just black” until I was around a diversity of other black people). Even people within the same family identify in different ways (my mom, her sister, and their mom have different last names but all family) so expecting 41 million people self-identify the same way is fruitless. It is pivotal to recognize that race, nationality, and ethnicity are not mutually exclusive. Instead of identifying as this or that, consider identifying as this and that. It is possible to be Black, American, an Islander, and African. Recognizing alternative options on what fits you best be it Black-American, African-American, American African, or American And African may be beneficial and most accurate.

One of my last courses for my Master’s in International Relations required us to define our own culture. At the time I just didn’t have the resources, perspective, or time between deadlines to give the assignment justice. The task was more fascinating than I realized at the time and a fun conversation to have (with the right people). Perhaps I’ll devote more time to research and explore this later.

admin

3 Comments

In Assignments, Resources on

February 6, 2017

Twenty-Eight Black History Month Books That Should Be on Your Bookshelf

An extensive home library with a reading chair

My new year’s resolution for 2016 was to STOP buying books until I read all the ones I already had. That lasted until February. In fact, 2016 ended up being my most well-read year since fourth grade. It’s the best resolution I ever broke. During that time, I read a slew of books that made it to this Black History Month Books List.

Last year, I felt like I discovered a whole new world within black literature. In my first 13 years of school, only two black authors appeared on my reading list (and one was optional). Although I may be late to the black literary game, I know there are other folks like me who could benefit from knowing these titles. While reading Baldwin, I wondered how much richer and poetic American literature we’d share in our libraries today had America not missed the opportunity by outlawing literacy from 3.2 million individuals. While Reading Frederick Douglas, I realized nothing that is being discussed today about the racial climate is unique to what Frederick Douglas discussed nearly 200 years ago.

February 21, 1965

From a historian’s perspective (as opposed to a literary scholar), I consider these books the cannon of Black American Literature with historical significance. And Just in time for Black History Month, I wanted to share and give others the resources to learn. I know you won’t have the time to conquer all 28 in 28 days, however, if this month inspires you to purchase (or the more economical option—check out) the books, you’ll have them accessible to read or reference for rest of the year. Books not on the shelf are books that won’t get read. Music If you’ve missed it, I’ve already blogged a children’s reading list.

1. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (an Autobiography)

Without sugar-coated sweetness, Frederick Douglas speaks frankly on the common practices of slavery that he experienced in this memoir supporting abolition. Although hundreds of slave narratives were written prior to the start of the Civil War, Fredrick Douglas’ is one considered an American classic. The religious hypocrisy of slave owners is a recurring theme throughout the text. As the slave son of a white slave owner, Douglas is sold and leased out around the Maryland and Virginia area before making his escape to New York and later Bedford, Mass. His story is remarkable. He also has three others, but start with this one.

**2. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington**

A segment of this was assigned as required reading back in college. Nearly a whole decade later I finally got around to actually reading the whole thing (Hey, college students are very busy)… and my mind was blown! He’s a seriously sappy, gracious, bleeding-heart kind of writer. Unlike Frederick Douglas who seized and opportunity to escape, Booker T. Washington was freed at the end of the Civil War. The places he traveled, the people he met, and how he was able to manipulate the system to make it work for him as a black man during Reconstruction America and Jim Crow America are really quite remarkable.

3. The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. DuBois

Written during a time when there was public debate on whether black people had souls, readers might conclude the purpose of the book is to humanize people who had been considered real estate just 40 years earlier. You have to read Up From Slavery first, to fully appreciate W. E. B. DuBois’ epic
takedown of all Booker T’s methodology and beliefs on education in one pointed chapter. Fortunately, there’s a book called “Three Negro Classics” that maintains both works together conveniently so you can flip back and forth as a reference. Additionally, this is where W.E. B. DuBois introduces the concept of double consciousness, which is an important concept and theme to understand for all other African-American literature on this list. These
three books should be read independently but with the relationship of the
Authors’ and their diverse backgrounds in mind. You’ve got a fugitive, formerly enslaved man, a man freed at the end of sanctioned slavery, and a pedigreed man born in a free society, all giving their perspectives, which, of course, will be born from their experiences.

3 early history Black History Month books

4. The Miseducation of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson

Carter G. Woodson is considered the Father of Black History. He was one of the first to study the history of African-Americans, earning a degree from Berea College (in Kentucky) before attaining a PhD from Harvard. He also established Negro History Week in 1926, which evolved into Black History Month. So, of course, he’d be on my list of Black History Month Books. The miseducation he speaks of hinges on the education system’s failure to present an authentic black history in schools. There’s a scarcity of literature and humanities, distortion of facts, and overall erasure of black presence in the curriculum. When black people do appear in the school curriculum, it is in a menial, subordinate, inhuman role. Schooling thus becomes cultural indoctrination for white students and cultural subordination for black students rather than education.

5. The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man by James Weldon Johnson

This is a historical fiction based on real-life events of the reconstruction era. It discusses the horrific events that happened in America that led to the decision to no longer be black. The themes of loss of black childhood innocence through racial awakening are timeless throughout American history. It also introduces the three-tier economic class system within the Black American society in which most white people didn’t recognize at the time of publication. The story also brings up the complexities and sacrifices of passing as white.

6. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs

According to historian Henry Louis Gates, before the end of the Civil War, more than one hundred former slaves published moving stories of their captivities and their escape. No group of enslaved people anywhere during any other era left such a prolific testimony to the horror of their bondage and servitude. Many slave narratives, including Fredrick Douglas, speak of the commonality of slave rapes. But Harriot speaks to the dynamic, turmoil, and madness such actions and the potential of rape brings to all the women of the household—wives and enslaved girls.

7. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Why on Earth did I wait so long to be introduced to James Baldwin? I’ve never
wanted to be part of a writer’s social circle more than when reading any essay by this literary legend. The way he writes of being young, black, and gifted in
Harlem and the impact of the church on black American lives is not only artistically talented but timeless in its themes. There’s plenty of Baldwin out there but here is a good place to start. I enjoyed the thought-provoking layers of how sex and religion are intertwined in society Baldwin displayed in the reading. We get to witness a lot culture in this book. There’s plenty of Baldwin out there but here is a good place to start.

8. Native Son by Richard Wright

This was one of two books written by an African-American that made it on my school’s reading list in 13 years (and it was an optional summer reading). The title is a condemnation of American society. Bigger Thomas, the novel’s protagonist, is a “native son” of America—born and raised under the conditions of a black man in America, he is the product of the societal norms of the country. Local cultural and social forces shaped, created and led him to make the decisions he made. There is no nostalgia or romanticism in this direct critique of American society. This book must be read back to back with a James Baldwin work. If Twitter was a thing during mid-20th century America, we’d be sure to see some beef between these two, just like we saw with Washington and Dubois. So it is helpful to read them with the memory of the other writer in mind.

9. Autobiography of Malcolm X

After reading Native Son, Malcolm will stand out as another example of America’s Native Son. To actually know Malcolm X, is to go to the primary source and see for yourself rather than the opinions of someone who may not have even met him. Plus he had some help by Alex Haley (author of Roots and Queen).

10. Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or A Nightmare
by James H. Cone
As far as Black History Month books are concerned, this one is pivotal. Read this book after reading Malcolm’s biography (ok, who am I kidding? Most are just going to watch the movie…but I implore you to buy the book at least for reference!). This was required reading for my African American History course at the University of Kentucky. I re-read the book again this past Kwanzaa. After eight years of a changed perspective, I still find it relevant and a must. This book examines the legacies of two of the most influential leaders of last century. All too often, commentators ask, “What would MLK say?” about today’s issues. You cannot know Martin without the study of Malcolm, and yet Malcolm is not studied in schools.

Key Quote: “In order to offset Malcolm’s appeal to the black community, Martin was adopted as the darling of their white liberal community and was portrayed by the media as the ideal black leader.”

11. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation by Kwame Ture (Formerly Known as Stokely Carmichael) and Charles V. Hamilton.

I still have the “used” Wildcat Textbooks sticker for $10.40 on my copy. It’s one of the few required readings I maintained from college. Before coming to conclusions on the Black Panther Party based on the assessment of J. Edgar Hoover, read this book to get the full picture. This Black History Month book breaks down the Black Panther Party from those most intimately involved with the organization, which is the best source of information.

Key Quote: “Nevertheless, some observers have labeled those who advocate black power as racists; they have said the call for self-identification SELF DETERMINATION IS “RACISM IN REVERSE” OR “BLACK SUPREMACY.” This is a deliberate and absurd lie. There is no analogy-by any stretch of definition or imagination-between the advocates of Black Power and white racists. Racism is not merely exclusion on the basis of race but exclusion for the purpose of subjecting or maintaining subjugation. The goal of the racists is to keep black people on the bottom arbitrarily and dictatorially, as they have in this country for over three hundred years. The goal of black self-determination and BLACK SELF-IDENTITY — BLACK Power — is full
participation in the decision making process affecting the lives of black
people, and recognition of the virtues in themselves as black people.” P.
47

12. African-American Poetry: An Anthology 1773-1927 edited by Joan R. Sherman

This thin paperback is marked as only $1. It’s a creative walk through American history, starting with Phillis Wheatley, who was kidnapped from Senegal or Gambia and arrived in Boston from the ship called “Phillis” in 1761 and later became America’s first published African). It also includes the Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Negro National Anthem) by James Weldon Johnson. It was coined as The Negro National Anthem in 1919, twelve years before the Federal Government adopted the Star Spangled Banner. Never was the Negro National Anthem ever discussed in 20 years of school. Not even in Arts and Humanities. That is just another motivation for compiling this Black History Month Books list. To help close that gap in understanding and history.

Key Poems:

Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson

Not A Man, And Yet A Man, by fellow Kentuckian Alberry Alston Whitman (Hart County)

I, Too by Langston Hughes

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes

If We Must Die by Claude McKay

Sympathy by PLD (born of previously enslaved Parents from Kentucky)

13. The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, edited by Joanne M. Braxton
This book has been on my bookshelf since childhood. I actually think it belongs to my mom, technically…but hey, what’s her’s is mine, right? One of my favorites, “Negro Love Song” (page 49 in my edition), is not included in the African American Poetry Anthology. It must be recited in call-and-answer form.

14. Annie Allen by Gwendolyn BrooksI got a text message from a friend at a crazy hour while I slept (OK, so it was like 10:30p but still, I’m over 30).When I responded the next morning, “Why are you up so late?” I got the reply, “I lurk late,” accompanied by a SoundCloud audio of Ms. Brooks herself performing We Real Cool. I love that I have a friend who sends me the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poets via text. As far as poetry is concerned, her’s is a collection that should be on your shelf.

15. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

I was out to diner in Dayton, OH with the same friend mentioned above who spotted this book haphazardly tossed the top of the garbage can beside the entry of a restaurant.

“Hey, this is a black book,” He said.

We stepped outside and noticed we were right across the street from a giant bookstore. “Someone probably stole this book from that bookstore, realized it was about black people and threw it away here,” he hypothesized.

We both recognized finding this book as a treasure. He also mentioned he had no intention of reading it. It caused a minor debate on who should get to keep it, since it wasn’t going to get read if it went home with him. It still went home with him. I got to Amazon my own copy. Invisible Man deals with social issues of black people in 1950s America and is, predictably, timeless in its exploration of individuality and personal identity.

16. I know Why the Caged Bird Sings– Maya Angelou
This autobiographical journey depicts how Maya Angelou overcame insecurities, inferiority complexes, and youthful traumas into a self-actualized, respectable woman. Literature was her saving grace. The title was inspired by a line in a Langston Hughes poem.

17. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
This is the one and only book with black characters written by a black author who was assigned reading in school. On the first day of AP English, we were asked what made us choose our two choices from our four options on the summer reading list. One of my books was Richard Wright’s Native Son so, I frankly announced that it’s senior year and it’s the first time I’d been assigned a black author.

It’s important to know that I’d spent all summer at the Governor’s Scholars program, where I had black peers for the first time and spent time with students from Central High School (Historically Black high school in Louisville…and National Black History Academic Team Champions to 50 years in a row…or however many). The teacher’s face gave her away. After that, Ms. Hurston found her way in our class reading. It’s a country folk love story featuring a good-looking, spirited, black woman who doesn’t follow any of the conventions set for women at the time. First published in 1937, it was out of print for nearly 30 years when the University of Illinois Press reissued it in 1978, at which time it was instantly embraced by the literary establishment as one of the greatest works in the canon of American fiction.

18. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

This is the first novel by the Noble Prize for Literature-winning author. You know you’re in for a good read when you have a Nobel Prize Winner on the banned books list. Written while a professor at Howard in 1970, the book takes place in 1941 rural Ohio and discusses issues such as racism, incest, and child molestation. She explores the concepts of “colonization of the mind,” identity, classism within a race, and European standards of beauty versus black beauty standards in American society. My friend, Megan, invited me to her class in college where they were discussing this book (I think she got extra credit for bringing a friend). I think to get the most out of this book is to read and discuss with people with different perspectives so you don’t miss key points.

**19. Great Speeches by African Americans, edited by James Daley**

The collection begins with Henry Highland Garnet’s 1843, “An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” and continues with two centuries of orations on freedom in America. I think college and high school English and History classes are missing out on so much intellectual wealth by not critically examining these powerful, moving, and timeless speeches. After so many discussions in 2016 it became apparent that I wasn’t saying anything new. I wasn’t saying anything that Frederick Douglas had not already mentioned on July 5, 1852 or Mary Church Terrell described in “What it Means to Be Colored in the Capitol of the United States” in 1906. Sojourner Truth’s Aint I A Woman did come to mind on January 21, 2017 (during the woman’s march). I do wish the book included more speeches by King and more X and at least something from Michelle Obama, but this is one book that could really do so much in closing gaps of understanding.

20. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race And Inheritance by Barack Obama

This book follows the identity struggle of Barack Obama, the man, not the legend or political figure. His story reflects the experience of all Black Americans exploring their identity in America through the lens of double consciousness with the added hurdles of being the son of an absent African father and a white American mother who grows up as the only black person in his family and lives in Hawaii and later Indonesia. In his search for a workable meaning to his life, he travels to Africa and ends up in the South Side of Chicago as a Black American.

21. Black Feeling, Black Talk by Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni came into prominence after unleashing her heart on paper in response to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Robert Kennedy, and the pressing need she saw to raise awareness of the plight and the rights of black people. After the death of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965, Black American activists fell into two camps: Revolutionary Nationalists and Cultural Nationalists. Nikki Giovanni was a headliner in the Cultural Nationalist movement, using the arts to reflect pride in African American history, identity, and culture. Nikki is undoubtedly an intellectual. But before that, she is Black and a woman whose talent with words is merged with the universal Black experience. Her poems reflect the arts and history of the time. BTW, there’s a two-hour conversation between Nikki and James Baldwin available on YouTube. It’s profound. And again, their experiences in 1970 are the same and relatable as black experiences in America today.

22. The Rose That Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur’s most intimate and honest thoughts were uncovered only after his death with the instant classic The Rose That Grew from Concrete. Written in his own handwriting and with a foreword by Nikki
Giovanni, you get to close to the heart of the young lyricist before he came into the limelight.

23. Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored by Clifton Taulbert

The story of a young boy growing up in Mississippi during 1950s. It’s a story of family warmth and nostalgia and youthful innocence protected from the harshness of the American reality. This book captures a snapshot of the time of our country.

24. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories by Charles W. Chestnut

This story explores colorism and introduces the Blue Vein Society. It continues the themes of timeless struggles of identity and acceptance as a black person in America.

25. Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class by Lawrence Otis Graham

Debutante cotillions, the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of the black upper class and the focus of the first book written about the black elite by a member of this hard-to-penetrate group.

26. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly as a justification for discrimination, exclusion,
and social contempt. Yet, as legal star Michelle Alexander reveals,
today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against convicted criminals
in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against
African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of
discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food
stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are
suddenly legal.

27. Roots: The Saga of An American Family by Alex Haley
This Pulitzer Prize-winning epic was turned into a heavy miniseries that did not romanticize the reality of the slave-holding South. Although parts conflicted with genealogy work, and parts also were proved plagiarized, this work ignited a new fuel to African-American history and African-American genealogy work. Of course, due to poor documentation of African-American families, contradictions would be expected. My dear cousin read this entire work for a high school book report — significantly more pages than anyone else. And despite being encouraged to just watch the movie, of course, she got the emotion that the miniseries couldn’t capture. I encourage others to do the same.

This book was received into our family as a Kwanzaa gift to my dad from a family friend. In the inscription, she wrote:

“I am overwhelmed by all the life lessons you have taught me over the years. You epitomize the motto: It takes a village to raise a child.”

She went on to speak of her days being the only black student at the same high school I attended (although she graduated several years before I enrolled) on the same all-white dance team as me, attending the same predominantly white university, and even working in tech in California like me and how it framed her expedition on The African Continent. She visited the village of Alex Haley’s legacy and felt compelled to share the enlightening experience with those closest to her. The book has accompanied me through 5 different homes before I read it just last year.

This American story begins with 33 chapters of self-determination and autonomy in The Gambia, followed by seven chapters of horrors of on board a slave ship, then dedicated to 79 chapters documenting the American experience of an African family.

Key Quote: “Kunta wondered if he had gone mad. Naked, chained, shackled, he awoke on his back between two other men in a pitch darkness full of steamy heat and sickening stink and a nightmarish bedlam of shrieking, weeping, praying and vomiting. He could feel and smell his own vomit on his chest and belly. His whole body was one spasm of pain from the beatings he had received in the four days since his capture. But the place where the hot iron had been put between his shoulders hurt the worst.”

28. Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in he U.S. by Geneva Smitherman and H. Samy Alim

This reading is a study of linguistic studies. It makes the theisis that Obama owes his election success largly in his abilities to successfully coat-switch from a Washington insider to culturally Black modes of conversation. In addition to breaking down the necessity of linguistic code-switching, it goes into an unsugar-coated synopsis of American history.

Optional Reading

These last Black History Month Books are significant in American race-relations and historic literature. They capture the Black American experience from a white perspective. In some cases, like “To Kill A Mocking Bird” the entire book centers around the fate of a black man but his voice and autonomy is silenced throughout the entire novel. In most cases, you’ve probably already read them in school.

1. To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

2.   Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriot Beecher Stowe

3. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

4. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

What other books do you think should be on the Black History Month Books list? Comment below so I can check them out and add them to a later book list.

Charneice McKenzie

2 Comments

Newer Posts