Annotated Bibliography: African American History
Mayer, R. (2000). "Africa As an Alien Future": The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds. Amerikastudien / American Studies, 45(4), 555-566.
Palmer, C. A. (1995). From Africa to the Americas: Ethnicity in the Early Black Communities of the Americas. Journal of World History, 6(2), 223-236.
According to Ruth Mayer’s Africa as an Alien Future (2000), there remains a connection between the African Diaspora community and the motherland. In the author’s words, African culture remains evident even in contemporary works such as “literature, installation art, [and] pop music” in which the passages between Africa and the Caribbean “are most glaringly reenacted and transformed” (Mayer, 2000, p.556). Accordingly, the Middle Passage remains an intricate part of black history as the sea assumed the role of “burial ground” and the mark of “a new beginning” for people taken from their homes and forced to labor for Europeans (Mayer, 2000, 561). Accordingly, Colin Palmer’s From Africa to the Americas (1995) focuses on the “cultural contacts between Africa and the Americas throughout the period of slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean (1995, p.223). In the article, Palmer reckons that the Middle Passage in no way eradicated the cultures of the people; on the contrary it merely facilitated its transfer to the New World. For that reasons, even as slaves, kinship ties such as marriages and family unity reflected the traditions of their homeland. By that logic, what historians perceive as acts of resistance by slaves to their deplorable conditions and a reaction to the society’s “attempts to dehumanize them,” was a display of African traditions (Palmer, 1995, 227). The two documents argue for the same ideology that the Middle Passage terrorized Africans but did not erase their connection to the mother country. Extensively, as a depiction of the capture and transportation of colored persons to the lands of white people so they could become human chattels, the Middle Passage is relevant to black history because it paved the way for black slavery.
The Underground Railroad
Gara, L. (1961). William Still And The Underground Railroad. Pennsylvania History, 28(1), 33-44.
Turner, E. R. (1912). The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 36(3), 309-318.
The Underground Railroad encompassed complex routes and hideouts that slaves used to escape from the Slave-holding States and into the sovereign territories of the United States, which were in the Northern regions. The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania (1912) by Edward Turner focuses on the subject State as a hideout for slaves and its residents’ decision to aid fugitive slaves. According to Turner, “the people of Pennsylvania [were] hostile to slavery”; hence, by 1800, they refused to “assist slave owners in any way” because the barbarity of the institution became palpable to the people (1912, p.310). The document highlights the important roles of Caucasians in the efficiency of the Underground Railroad because their skin color allowed them to enter places and buy provisions without hindrances. At the same time, their homes served as hideouts for the fugitive blacks and hindered the efforts of any pursuits. Still, the whites’ involvement did not mean that persons of African descent made no efforts. On the contrary, as Larry Gara’s William Still and the Underground Railroad (1961) informs readers, William Still was born to ex-slaves and was at the forefront of the abolition efforts. As part of the Underground Railroad effort, William Still’s colored skin and free status made him a double threat to the slavery system. Apparently, aside from the fact that his African heritage gained him “the confidence of the new arrivals”, his ability to move freely meant he knew other colored people and was able to find lodgings for the runaway slaves among families of free blacks (Gara, 1961, p.35). Still’s involvement represents that of many more free blacks who sought to aid their brethren to gain freedom away from the white man’s yoke of bondage. To that end, the main difference between the two articles revolves around the subjects: Turner focuses on whites and the Underground Railroad while Gara talks of the blacks’ involvement with the same. The Underground Railroad significantly impacted the successful stories of escape by black slaves and was the first and massive physical resistance to the institution of slavery.
Jim Crow and Segregation
Highsmith, A. R., & Erickson, A. T. (2015). Segregation as Splitting, Segregation as Joining: Schools, Housing, and the Many Modes of Jim Crow. American Journal of Education, 121(4), 563-595.
Wilson, W. J. (1976). Class Conflict and Jim Crow Segregation in the Postbellum South. The Pacific Sociological Review, 19(4), 431-446.
After the abolition of black slavery on American soil, white supremacists promptly found new methods of protecting the country’s social order by ensuring African Americans remained inferior. Segregation as Splitting, Segregation as Joining (2015) by Andrew Highsmith and Ansley Erickson argues that discrimination laws did not seek only to separate the racial populace, but those who endorsed them believed that they made “community bondsstronger” (p.563). Hence, to the early twentieth century societies of the United States, the palpable nature of the color line through the maintenance of a strict social order was central to social cohesion. Otherwise, interactions between the whites and blacks would have been impossible. William Wilson asserts otherwise as he insists that segregation promoted racial divisions by the “strengthened and institutionalized” racists perceptions of Jim Crow (1976, p.432). In Class Conflict and Jim Crow Segregation in the Postbellum South (1976), Wilson informs readers that segregation law only targeted black people to ensure their permanent lower status in the social hierarchy. Thus, whites supported job, housing, and educational discrimination against persons of African descent but also encouraged racial prejudices and ideologies of racial suppression including racism itself. The two works provide different perceptions of the Jim Crow laws that encouraged black segregation. By focusing on the whites’ assertions, both Highsmith and Erickson highlight the apparently misplaced efforts of the Caucasians. Meanwhile, Wilson’s analysis from the perspective of African Americans shows the detrimental effects of racial separations. Jim Crow and Segregation encompassed the white populaces’ response to the abolition of slavery in the United States. Based on the Southern States, the topic helps one understand that the master/slave relations of the antebellum period remained intact after the American Civil War of between 1861 and 1865.
Lincoln and Slavery
McPherson, J. M. (1995). Who Freed the Slaves? Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 139(1), 1-10.
Zilversmit, A. (1980). Lincoln and the Problem of Race: A Decade of Interpretations. Papers of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 2, 22-45.
Lincoln’s relevance to the abolition of slavery in the United States revolves around his election as President in 1860, the ensuing secession of the Southern States, the American Civil War, and the Emancipation Proclamation that declared all slaves in the seceded regions as free. Lincoln and the Problem of Race (1980) by Arthur Zilversmit argues that the given facts do not guarantee Lincoln’s position as the “great emancipator”; rather, it merely shows he was a “cautious politician” (p.23). Apparently, the move to free black slaves came after the President sought to punish (or coerce?) the seceded States of the South for leaving the Union. After all, even during his campaigns the man repeatedly stated that his government would seek to prevent the expansion of slavery, not abolish the same. Renowned Historian James McPherson shares Zilversmit’s opinion in the 1995 publication of Who Freed the Slaves? According to the man, “secession and the refusal of the United States government to recognize its legitimacy” caused the American Civil War and not the institution of slavery (McPherson, 1995, p.3). After all, in comparison to the “black leaders, abolitionists, radical Republicans, and the slaves themselves” Lincoln’s move to emancipate the enslaved race came at a slow pace (McPherson, 1995, p.5). For that reason, President Lincoln was not solely responsible for the freedom of black slaves but merely used his power to facilitate the process of abolition to punish the South and finalize the efforts of those who sought black freedom for the sake of humanity and equality. The two articles shed more light on the role of Abraham Lincoln, the man who was President of the United States during the American Civil War, and highlight the fact that slavery was a small card in a game of wits between the Confederacy and the Union. The importance of Abraham Lincoln to the history of the African Americans stems from the mere truth that without his antics, slavery would have taken longer to abolish.
References
Highsmith, A. R., & Erickson, A. T. (2015). Segregation as Splitting, Segregation as Joining: Schools, Housing, and the Many Modes of Jim Crow. American Journal of Education, 121(4), 563-595.
Gara, L. (1961). WILLIAM STILL AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. Pennsylvania History, 28(1), 33-44.
Mayer, R. (2000). "Africa As an Alien Future": The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds. Amerikastudien / American Studies, 45(4), 555-566.
McPherson, J. M. (1995). Who Freed the Slaves? Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 139(1), 1-10.
Palmer, C. A. (1995). From Africa to the Americas: Ethnicity in the Early Black Communities of the Americas. Journal of World History, 6(2), 223-236.
Turner, E. R. (1912). The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 36(3), 309-318.
Wilson, W. J. (1976). Class Conflict and Jim Crow Segregation in the Postbellum South. The Pacific Sociological Review, 19(4), 431-446.
Zilversmit, A. (1980). Lincoln and the Problem of Race: A Decade of Interpretations. Papers of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 2, 22-45.
