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Books by Wilson
Jeremiah Moses
Golden Age of Black Nationalism,
1850-1925 (1988) /
The Wings of Ethiopia
(1990)
Alexander
Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent
(1992) /
Destiny & Race: Selected Writings, 1840-1898
(1992)
Black
Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary
Manipulations of a Religious Myth (1993)
Liberian Dreams: Back-to-Africa
Narratives from the 1850s
/
Afrotopia: The Roots of African American
Popular History
(2002)
Creative Conflict in African American Thought (2004)
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John Hope Franklin WPSU Booknotes
By Wilson J.
Moses
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Growing up in
Detroit during the 1940s I constantly heard the name of
the late American historian, John Hope Franklin. He
was born in 1915, and graduated from Tulsa, Oklahoma’s
segregated Colored high school three years ahead of my
mother, who always held him up to me as an example of
what we used to call “a truly representative Negro.” On
his first day in Harvard graduate school, one student
was deliberately rude. It didn’t matter. The
professor required all students in the seminar to have a
fluent reading knowledge of Latin, which Franklin
possessed and the bigot did not. As you can imagine the
legend of John Hope Franklin was pretty intimidating to
African Americans who went to graduate school in the
late 1960s. But, later, when, as an instructor at the
University of Iowa, I finally met Franklin, he was not
intimidating at all. He was always very kind and
gracious towards me, and in every way encouraging. He
understood that the consciousness of my post-war
generation, influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien, Angela
Davis, Malcolm X, and Timothy Leary, was profoundly
different than his own.
All the world
knows the story of how he volunteered for military
service during World War II. He simply presented
himself to his naval recruiter, told them he had a
Harvard University Ph. D., and offered himself as a
prospect for Officer’s Candidate School. That was the
first and last of his discussions concerning military
service. Too bad, Franklin was a handsome man with a
lustrous mahogany complexion, and with his aristocratic
manner, he would have been strikingly beautiful in a
naval lieutenant’s dress whites. But in those days,
African Americans in the United States Navy, served
mainly as food workers, or—as they were called—then,
“mess boys.”
Franklin was
the author of several books, but the most important, in
my opinion were the following three. First, his
doctoral dissertation,
The Free Negro in North
Carolina, 1790-1860, a classic example of scientific
history. It represents history at its most objective,
although it was produced under conditions that were
hardly conducive to objectivity. He had to do his
research under degrading conditions, in segregated
libraries. Indeed a less heroic character might have
found the research conditions unendurable. On one
occasion the librarians found it necessary and desirable
to put a screen around his work table, to preserve the
technicality of a racially segregated reading room.
In 1947
Franklin published his general history of African
Americans,
From Slavery to Freedom. You should
be warned that this is not light reading; it is a
tough-minded, old fashioned, no-nonsense text book, with
no frills, and very few pictures. I own several
editions of this textbook, which is currently in print,
and contains much new material contributed by my good
friend Professor Alfred Moss of the University of
Maryland. I once used it in a course at Penn State, and
while my students gained much from it, they also found
its flood of data overwhelming. When Franklin visited
Penn State, in 1999 to receive an honorary doctorate, I
asked him to sign my copy of the eighth edition, but he
declined because of an ongoing dispute with the
publisher. I believe part of the conflict had to do
with his refusal to “modernize.”
Among his
many books, Franklin told me his favorite was
The
Militant South (1956). This work was a brilliant
masterpiece combining imagination, moral commitment, and
stern intellectual discipline. A great historian is
expected, not only to report what has happened, but to
theorize as to why things happen. Franklin asked the
question, “What caused the Civil War,” and the answer
was unpopular, for he said it was the Southern love of
violence. The South rejoiced in violence as the
solution for every problem. The culture of violence,
and a belief that obscene bluster and masculine bravado
could solve all problems was the cause of the Civil
War. Franklin did not deny that these attitudes were
present in the North, as well, but he felt that in the
South they went practically unquestioned. Before wading
into the quicksand of Afghanistan, President Obama would
do well to learn something from Franklin’s theory of
history. Any region, any country, any society that
believes its own war propaganda and declares itself
unbeatable is likely to bring destruction on itself.
Franklin’s later opposition to the Vietnam war, which
was no secret, was an extension of ideas presented in
The Militant South.
With respect
to African American history, Franklin’s ideas were
deeply intellectual; they are often distorted through
abbreviation, thus he is often misrepresented, although
he made his point repeatedly. First in “The Dilemma of
the American Negro Scholar,” (1963), later in a famous
letter to the editors of
The New York Review of
Books, (September 26, 1991), he said, “African
American scholars sought to extend themselves into
various fields, they were pushed back into “Negro
studies” by white so-called scholars who would not
tolerate their presence in non-Negro fields. . . . The
Negro scholar can hardly be held responsible for this
sad turn of events. . . . seeking diligently to qualify
as scholars of authority and having been rebuffed by
white scholars in other fields, they retreated to the
study of Negroes . . . and that is how most African
American scholars went into so-called black studies, not
by choice but by the force of white racism that dictated
the nature of scholarship, as it did in virtually all
other aspects of American life.”
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A View from Duke University
John Hope Franklin, Scholar Who
Transformed African-American History, Dies at 94—He
is perhaps best known to the public for his work on
President Clinton’s 1997 task force on race. But his
reputation as a scholar was made in 1947 with the
publication of his book,
From Slavery to Freedom: A History of
African-Americans, which is still considered the
definitive account of the black experience in America.—
DukeNews
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“My challenge was to weave into the fabric
of American history enough of the presence of blacks
so that the story of the United States could be told
adequately and fairly,” he said when the 50th
anniversary of the book was celebrated in 1997.
“That was terribly important. . . .
Looking back, I can plead guilty of having provided
only a sketch of the work I laid out for myself.—
DukeNews
But the history of
the Negro in America is essentially the story of the
strivings of nameless millions who have sought
adjustment in a new and sometimes hostile world. . . . I
have given considerable attention to the task of tracing
the interaction of the Negro to the American
environment. It can hardly be denied that the course of
American history has been vitally affected by his
presence. At the same time it must be admitted that the
effect of acculturation on the Negro in the United
States has been so marked that today he is as fully
American as any member of other ethnic groups that make
up the American population.— Preface
From Slavery to Freedom,—The Man Who Changed
History
Dr. John Hope Franklin in the
3rd march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. in
1965 in a contingent of 30 historians. Photo
from Mirror to America: The Autobiography of
John Hope Franklin
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From the very
beginning of my own involvement in the academy, the goal
I sought was to be a scholar with credentials as
impeccable as I could achieve. At the same time I was
determined to be as active as I could in the fight to
eradicate the stain of racism that clouded American
intellectual and academic life even as it poisoned other
aspects of American society. Both challenges were
formidable. While I set out to advance my professional
career on the basis of the highest standards of
scholarship, I also used that scholarship to expose the
hypocrisy underlying so much of American social and race
relations. It never ceased being a risky feat of
tight-rope walking, but I always believed that if I
could . . . improve society it was incumbent on me to
make the attempt. Thus, in addition to teaching and
writing, I served as an expert witness in cases designed
to end segregation in education…and I marched in
Montgomery to make common cause with those who sought in
other ways to destroy racial hatred and bigotry.— Epilogue
to
Mirror to America,—The Man Who Changed
History
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Mirror to America
The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
By
John Hope Franklin
Franklin strove to evade the draft in WWII
after being treated shamefully by the draft
board when he tried to enlist, and did
research for Thurgood Marshall in Brown
v. Board of Education. Every aspect of
Franklin's life has been influenced by the
institutionalized racism he's experienced
since he was six, when he was forced off a
train for sitting in a car reserved for
whites. Yet Franklin relates this all in
dry, flat prose steeped in minutiae. The
larger aspects of his life are glossed over;
missing entirely is the emotional response
to the ubiquitous racism. Nor does Franklin
contextualize his experiences (e.g., in
1945, he refused to move to the back of the
bus, but he fails to juxtapose this event
with the Rosa Parks incident 10 years
later). This disappointing autobiography
fails to depict Franklin as the trailblazing
iconoclast he was and is.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Speak My Name
Black Men on Masculinity and the
American Dream
Edited by Don
Belton
It is rare in
America for African-American men to have the
opportunity to express who they are, what they
think, or how they feel. As the nemesis in the
American psyche, they have been silenced by an image
that is at once celebrated and maligned. In this
first anthology of contemporary African-American
men's writing, black men share their experiences as
the revered and reviled of America. Through the
voices of some of today's most prominent
African-American writers, including August Wilson,
John Edgar Wideman,
Derrick Bell, and
Walter Mosley,
Speak My Name explores the intimate
territory behind the myths about black masculinity.
These intensely personal essays and stories reveal
contemporary black men from the vantage point of
their own lives - as men with proper names,
distinctive faces, and strong family ties. |
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Writing about everything from
"How it Feels to Be a Problem" to relationships
between fathers and sons, these men reveal to us
both great courage and in an amazing love for each
other and themselves. In a stunning tribute to a
centuries-old brotherhood of heroes, black men come
together to challenge America finally to see them as
individuals, to hear their long-silenced voices—to
speak their names.
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This diverse anthology,
mainly of original essays, serves as an excellent counterpoint
to media stereotypes of black men. Topics include black male
images, relations with women, family life and heroism. Some
favorites: soft-voiced scholar
Robin D.G. Kelley recounts how his newly shaved head scared
people; novelist
Randall Kenan recalls a mysterious, kind and loving mentor;
Quinn Eli faces the tendency of black men to accuse black women
of not being supportive; filmmaker
Isaac Julien and poet
Essex Hemphill debate whether black unity can include gay
men; novelist
Walter Mosley muses about why his PI protagonist, Easy
Rawlins, needs the backup of the remorseless killer Mouse to
survive in an oppressive world. Belton, a former reporter for
Newsweek who teaches at Macalester College, contributes his own
touching effort, which treats the gap between himself and the
ghetto-trapped nephew he loves.—Publishers
Weekly
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Black masculinity has built
and shaped America. It is an old story which our fathers taught
us; it is measured by their quiet dignity as well as their
fears. What is heroic about
Speak My Name
is the fact that the contributors are men who decided to become
writers. They all made the decision to use words instead of
fists. They are writers shaped by the 1960s, like Arthur
Flowers, who writes:
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And, understand, the 60s were more than street
battles or sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, the 60s
were about commitment. We cared. We tried. It was
important (and do-able) for us to make a better
world. It was important to save the race. And it
still is. |
While our society still
attempts to come to grips with the lyrics of tappers, Don
Belton's book is a gift which offers insight into how a few
Black men think and feel. For sisters who are still waiting to
exhale, it serves as testimony that there are good men in the
world and we only have to speak their names.
Belton's purpose for
editing the volume was to "experience a richer sense of
community and communion among other Black male writers." This is
evident in the interview conducted by Lewis Edwards of
Albert Murray. Here, a young writer sits at the feet of an
elder with an acknowledgment of inheritance and a respect for
tradition. When Murray (author of
The Omni-Americans and
Train Whistle Guitar) talks about his friendship with
Ralph Ellison during their days at Tuskegee, he conveys to
Edwards how two Black men enjoyed reading and developing their
intellect.
Speak My Name
, according to Belton, is structured in "jazz music's
compositional model of theme and variation, giving my
contributors a series of extended solos that develop toward
visions of masculinity as a struggle for hope." Belton divides
his book into five sections, although these categories are
unnecessary. One can enjoy the entire volume the way one
appreciates the old Ornette Coleman "Free Jazz" album; just open
the door to the studio and let the brothers play. The music will
find its own center.— Black
Issues in Higher Education, March 7, 1996 by E. Ethelbert
Miller—FindArticles
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Race Men
By Hazel V.
Carby
Race men is a
term of endearment used by blacks to signify those
high-achieving African American men who "represent
the race," disproving bigoted notions of black
inferiority. In this engaging study, Yale African
American Studies Professor Hazel V. Carby seeks to
ask "questions about various black masculinities at
different historical moments and in different media:
literature, photography, film, music, and song." She
does so by discussing the lives and works of myriad
types of race men. Frederick Douglass's
uncompromising fight against slavery, W. E. B. Du
Bois's masterful
The Souls of Black Folk,
Martin Luther King's nonviolent struggles, and
Malcolm X's fiery rhetoric articulate the
intellectual-political prisms of black activism, for
example, while actor
Danny Glover represents the dilemma of the
black/white sidekick and the fight for a more
multidimensional Afro-American image. |
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Carby compares
Toussaint L'Ouverture, the ex-slave who liberated Haiti from
the French in the 19th century, to Trinidadian writer
C.L.R. James, whose Marxist interpretation of the Haitian
Revolution, the
Black Jacobins, unveiled the complexities of
colonialism, class, and the sexist aspects of radical black
leadership. She discusses jazz icon
Miles Davis's quest for freedom and his misogynistic persona
articulated in his autobiography, then praises science fiction
writer Samuel R. Delany's
Motion of Light in Water as "an effective counterpoint
to Miles ... a magnificent attempt to reject the socially
created obstacles separating desire from its material
achievement, and in the process demolishing and transcending the
limitations of heterosexual norms."
Indeed, for Carby the major flaw of race
men is that their upholding of "the race" does not prominently
address the concerns of African American women as well.—Eugene
Holley Jr.
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In a discussion of "The
Body and Soul of Modernism" Carby reads Nicolas Murray's nude
photographs of Paul Robeson, as well as black male nudes by
other European and American artists, and argues that for these
modernists the black male body represented "essentialized
masculinity." However, because the black subject was unable to
"gaze back at the viewer," these photographic texts reproduced
"the unequal relation of power and subjection of their
historical moment" in the early twentieth century. Carby also
discusses Robeson's roles in Eugene O'Neill's
Emperor Jones and
All God's Chillun Got Wings, concluding that, in
contrast to the character Robeson portrays in
Oscar Micheaux's film
Body and
Soul, O'Neill utilized a "strategy of inwardness" to
present racialized emotional conflicts for Robeson's character,
rather than outward resistance and rebellion. Carby's notes
that, with his expanding political consciousness and increased
commitment to the advancement of the working classes worldwide
in the 1930s, Robeson rejected these types of roles.
Unfortunately, how these ideological changes were reflected in
Robeson's racial consciousness (was Robeson a "race man"?) are
left unexplored.
Carby describes the
authentic and inauthentic nature of the relationship between
ex-convict and folk singer
Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter and folklorist
John Lomax and his son
Alan. She believes that this unusual partnership
demonstrated an attempt to use "the aesthetics of the folk" to
create a "fictive ethnicity of blackness" that allowed the
incorporation of potentially threatening black males into the
national community. For
C. L. R. James the
cricket field
in England's colonial territories not only was the space where
"ideologies of masculinity" were put to the test, but also was
"the battleground out of which nationhood . . . [had to] be
forged." Carby argues that in James's
Beyond the Boundary (1963) and the novel Minty Alley
(1936), "intellectual practice, racial politics, and cricket
were . . . unquestioningly imagined within a discourse of
autonomous, patriarchal masculinity." In
Black Jacobins(1938)
James posits the existence of a "revolutionary black manhood
that, both individually and collectively, gives birth to an
independent black nation state."— African
American Review, Fall, 2000 by V.P. Franklin,
FindArticles
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posted 10 April
2009
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