(Part 2) Best african american history books according to redditors
We found 140 Reddit comments discussing the best african american history books. We ranked the 73 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
38. Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era (Justice, Power, and Politics)
1 mention
A number of Scottish Masons were hired for the purpose. They had developed a number of specialized techniques that were designed to protect the kind of stone selected for use from water. James Hoban, an Irish Architect, styled it after a Ducal Palace in Ireland, which now happens to be where the Irish Parliament sits. So, using masons familiar with the processes used there seemed to make a great deal of sense.
That said, there were five slaves employed as carpenters in a list of workers on the White House project in 1795, three years into the eight year process. It's also probable that much of the quarrying and logging also included some portion of slave labor. Some records seem to indicate that the government itself owned some slaves at a quarry, the stone of which was used at both the White House and the Capitol Building.
So, the overwhelming majority of labor used on these sites were standard issue construction workers, but there was a smattering of slaves mixed in. To say that it was built by slaves might be misleading depending upon the context.
Edit:
According to the documentation provided by the White House Historical Association it was a case of the government hiring slaves owned by private citizens. There were a handful of slaves owned by the Federal Government kicking about in this time period, but none of them were used in the construction of the White House.
The Invisibles: Slavery in the White House and How it Shaped America is an interesting read.
Another, but only tangentially related one that is fascinating is A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons. Or maybe just read Jenning's own book: A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison published in 1865.
I want to build on this, because I think you're correct to point out a common misconception about the BPP in the early years. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded it as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense," and used the black panther as a symbol because, according to Newton, it never attacks un-provoked. The early efforts in the Neighborhood Patrols were a reaction to decades of white police harassment in majority black neighborhoods as a result of the Second Great Migration, only exacerbated racial tension brought about by post-War unemployment in Oakland. African Americans, mostly male, were routinely stopped without due case, harassed, called names, beaten, and imprisoned with little to no recourse. The BPP was there to bring attention to these if not unlawful, certainly unethical incidents.
The Neighborhood Patrols were 100% legal, as designed by Newton, who was studying law at the time. The goal was to educate blacks about their constitutional rights, such as shouting out their rights during traffic stops, distributing pocket copies of the Bill of Rights, and openly observing and reporting. I would liken them today to onlookers who record law enforcement encounters on their smart phones. These as certainly don't qualify as "acts of terror," as user/_allwittynamestaken_ notes. While there were certainly violent encounters between BPP members and law enforcement, I think it's important to recognize the non-violent aspects of the BPP before we blanketly state the BPP members brought the gun restrictions upon themselves.
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Sources:
Seconded on Black Against Empire, Bloom and Martin
Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, Donna Jean Murch
"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised": Community Activism and the Black Panther Party, 1966-1971, Ryan Kirkby
Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era, Ashley Farmer
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Please educate yourselves. Read this book. It chronicles all of the black soldiers and regiments that willingly fought for the confederacy:
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Confederates-Anthology-Southerners-Confederate/dp/1889332127
I didn't say it called out me. I said the article sucks and is a performance piece. And I stand by that, it is bad. This thing is pure outrage bait.
I learn about being an ally through real authors who put some time into their work.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CO4AUA4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Couple of things, I'll just list it off and give sources.
The first, and most important, is that a human being is an efficient retainer for value and equity. If I own someone and train them, I can roughly guess how much money they will produce barring no accidents. They do not spoil like produce, deteriorate like metal, etc. Any civilization that does not possess a government backed currency or other method for retaining value and equity is going to have some elements of slavery present.
Source: Debt: The First 5000 Years
Second, and this ties into the first point, just because they don't call it slavery doesn't mean it isn't slavery. European serfdom was essentially slavery. It's not until after the bubonic plague that serfs began to assert their right to work for different landowners, ask for competitive wages, and begin to negotiate the terms of their labor.
Source: English Law in the Age of the Black Death
Finally, while slaves are certainly more productive than free labor, it's not technically free. You can either feed them, clothe them, and shelter them out of your pocket OR let them do this themselves. Giving them that freedom gives them bargaining power, which they will use to push for better hours. It wasn't really efficient to have large numbers of slaves in the northern portion of the United States because you only need them at certain times of the year. Cotton, which created a massive boom in the South in the 1850's, is a year round crop. If you aren't planting and picking, you're ginning it or turning the soil. Without some kind of crop or resource that is profitable when slaves are harvesting it, the practice is going to fade.
Source: Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter
Pleased to learn today that my friend Kevin Levin's book, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth, has gone into a second printing just seven weeks after its original release by the University of North Carolina Press.
You're very welcome!
Normally, I would list these books in addition to a small description and reasons why I found them particularly interesting or engaging. However, it’s getting a bit late, so I’m just going to give you a list of some books that I particularly recommend. I should have some time later this afternoon to talk about them more in depth, and to answer any questions that you might have.
If by that view you mean "DC has had corruption and so can't be trusted to run itself," if you don't have that immediate reaction to mismanagement in a white-run jurisdiction in the US, then yes, "that view," is racist. I'm reading Chocolate City : A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital and it is as advertised. It should be canon in American history.
There's a good book about this called The Heat of a Red Summer.
The "red summer" was a nation-wide flare-up of race riots in 1919. Severe racial unrest continued throughout 1920 and 1921.
You seem to be implying that changing race within a larger system doesn't change other aspects of the system. From a historical point of view, this is incorrect.
Take the abolition of slavery. Before emancipation, public education didn't exist. 40% of whites in Mississippi were illiterate because education cost money, and poor whites couldn't afford it (and, of course, all blacks were barred from it based on skin color). When slavery was abolished, freedmen demanded free public education as a civil liberty, and public education was made available to the masses (both black and white) for the first time. (Sources: The Wars of Reconstruction by Douglas Egerton and Angela Davis in her book Freedom is a Constant Struggle.)
Thanks to slavery, American capitalism is inextricable from our history of racial oppression. Addressing race has proven to be effective in addressing larger economic issues that affect the poor of all races.
>Historian Joseph Glatthaar’s statistical analysis of the 1861 volunteers in what would become the Army of Northern Virginia reveals that one in 10 owned a slave and that one in four lived with parents who were slave-owners. Both exceeded ratios in the general population, in which one in 20 owned a slave and one in five lived in a slaveholding household. “Thus,” Glatthaar notes, “volunteers in 1861 were 42 percent more likely to own slaves themselves or to live with family members who owned slaves than the general population.” In short, Confederate volunteers actually owned more slaves than the general population.
>In fact, non-slaveholding soldiers from regions with fewer African Americans likely received greater exposure to slavery for having joined the army. The military regularly used slaves and implemented proslavery policies. The army conscripted slave labor on a massive scale for transportation, and in construction of military defenses. It also captured and returned to slavery thousands of escaped and free black men and women. Soldiers acted on fears of “servile insurrection” when they summarily murdered United States Colored Troops at Fort Pillow and the Battle of the Crater.
https://acwm.org/blog/myths-and-misunderstandings-slaveholding-and-confederate-soldier
> Well as I understand the American Revolution was wanting to have independence from Britain.
A big part of the reason for that was that Britain was moving toward abolition for its colonies, for the simple reason that slavery was too DANGEROUS. The enraged and outraged slaves were poisoning the livestock, poisoning the masters, dropping the babies, setting fire to the big house and barns, and things had gotten so out of hand that the slaveowners were fleeing their plantations, leaving everything behind! This was the case in Jamaica, where the escaped slaves, known as "Maroons", hid out in the inaccessible mountains and, from there, mounted attacks on the plantations.
>The slaves, however, were unhappy with their status, so they rebelled whenever they could. Many of them were successful in running away from the plantations and joining the Maroons in the almost inaccessible mountains.
>Several slave rebellions stand out in Jamaica’s history for example, the Easter Rebellion of 1760 led by Tacky; and the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 which began on the Kensington Estate in St. James, led by Sam Sharpe. He has since been named a National Hero.
>The Maroons also had several wars against the English. In 1739 and 1740 after two major Maroon Wars, treaties were signed with the British. In the treaty of 1740, they were given land and rights as free men. In return they were to stop fighting and help to recapture run-away slaves. This treaty resulted in a rift among the Maroons as they did not all agree that they should return run-away slaves to the plantations.
>The frequent slave rebellions in the Caribbean was one factor that led to the abolition of the slave trade and slavery. Other factors included the work of humanitarians who were concerned about the slaves’ well-being. Humanitarian groups such as the Quakers publicly protested against slavery and the slave trade. They formed an anti slavery committee which was joined by supporters such as Granville Sharp, James Ramsay, Thomas Clarkson and later on, William Wilberforce.
>On January 1, 1808 the Abolition Bill was passed. Trading in African slaves was declared to be “utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be unlawful”. Emancipation and apprenticeship came into effect in 1834 and full freedom was granted in 1838. Source
The British government had been weighing abolition since the early-to-mid-1700s, as you can see from the events outlined above. The colonies caught wind of what was in the air; they knew what was coming. In "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the United States of America", author Gerald Horne makes a compelling case that the real reason for the War of Independence was to keep slavery. The writing was on the wall; Britain intended to outlaw slavery in her colonies. The only way to maintain this highly profitable monstrosity was to declare independence.
The problem was that slavery was unsupportable even then; the slave states had compulsory "slave militias" in which all white men were required to serve two years (I think) starting at age 21. These "slave militias" checked passes for any slaves caught off their plantations; captured runaway slaves; put down rebellions; and rescued plantation owners and their families from insurrections and fires. Slavery was becoming terribly dangerous!
This, BTW, was the basis for the 2nd Amendment, which provides for a "well-regulated militia" to be the legal basis for personal ownership of firearms, and for these to be administered at the state level. The slave states did NOT want the federal government conscripting their slave militias to serve in wars against foreign powers; those slave militias were desperately needed right there at home!
To give you a picture of how incendiary the slavery situation was becoming, the Haitian revolution began in August, 1791. That turned out to be the only successful slave rebellion ever, and there it was, right on the US's southern border. To illustrate the unsustainable nature of slavery - this is on the eve of the Haitian revolution:
>In 1789, whites numbered 40,000; mulattoes and free blacks, 28,000; and black slaves, an estimated 452,000. Source
Just HOW are 40,000 people supposed to control over ten TIMES that many people - who are enraged and murderous, and who have NOTHING to lose??
This is the population problem - once the slave population reaches a certain level, controlling it becomes impossible, and the masters are in mortal danger if they stay there. THEY knew; they were fleeing other slave-holding colonies across the Caribbean and emigrating to the American colonies.
But the slaveowners in the soon-to-be US were completely drunk on the profits of slavery; they were determined to keep it. Even if it meant fighting a war to do so.
>In my lifetime the only party that has ever benefited from the electoral college has been Republican because that party does whatever it can to gain power, even it means cheating the system, making certain citizens vote worth less by messing with the system or violating american citizens rights.
Mine as well. It is only REPUBLICAN candidates who "win" the Presidential election while losing the popular vote.
>Our government is now being ruled by White Nationalist now sadly.
With that horrid Stephen Miller, grandson of foreign immigrants, as their racist poster proud-boy.
>prior to Trump I had hoped it was going the better direction.
Me too :sigh:
YTA... somewhat. Good on you for apologizing and moving on. For all intents and purposes you're not the asshole... except that you're hanging onto this whole "double standard" thing.
Unless you're black (or possibly latino, there is some debate there for certain communities in Oakland, the Bronx, etc), just say "the n word." Whether or not it's a double standard, who cares? It might not mean much to you, but for classmates who have dealt with racism from friends, neighbors, random strangers, it's uncomfortable to be around someone using this word who's not black, because it carries a connotation of verbal harassment or violence, and it's dehumanizing. If you're stuck on the double standard thing, maybe dig a little deeper into the reasons why this word functions this way in our society. This video of Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about it briefly. And I'd recommend reading Jabari Asim's The N Word. It will give you a little more of an idea of what the arguments are against this being a double standard, so you can really decide if that's what you believe.
But if you don't feel like digging into the question deeper all I can say is... there are PLENTY of double standards, hypocrisies and injustices in the world for you to stand up against - trust me, this is NOT the hill to die on. You're gonna have a bad time.
Uno de los libros típicos es "Weary Feet, Rested Souls" de Townsend Davis. Es bastante conocido y reivindica bastante la resistencia no tan pacifica, pero bastante más suave e incendiaria que Malcolm X. De ahí anda bien "The Black Panthers: Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution" de Bryan Shih y Yohuru Williams. Es sobre cartas e historiografía del partido político más relevante de ese movimiento (también mas de corte pacifista).
De ahí el libro que da perspectiva desde varios angulos es Debating the Civil Rights Movement. Ahí se dejan ver que las acciones violentas lograron que el stablishment pusiera atención.
I picked up a book about race at random from the new ones featured at the front of the library.
It begins
>So, we face the painful reality that we’re headed down this perilous path. The toxic rhetoric over the last year has surfaced attitudes that we thought were confined to our history. We’re experiencing a steady and dangerous marginalization of immigrants, people of color, and the poor. We’re witnessing an uptick in hate crimes and hate speech. We’re seeing government officials issue policies propelled by the twin forces of arrogance and ignorance. And we can’t simply stand still and hope things will go well. We must take action, individually and collectively, to change the entire discussion of a nation. So, we’re here to redirect a base, insensitive, and destructive national public conversation. We’re here to reorient a country that seems to have lost its way. To paraphrase Dr. King’s letter from Birmingham jail, we’re here because injustice is here. We have work to do.
>Many of the events of the last year have shaken us, but to a certain extent they were inevitable. We were not as vigilant as we should have been, and we became a little complacent over the last eight years. Recent events have reminded us that we need to regain our vigilance, and we must take on the challenge of justice at every turn. People in their twenties and early thirties have known eight years of an administration that embraced many of our values, and reflected our diversity, and advanced our ideals. So the tone and the conduct of this new administration are jarring. An important conversation is taking place for the heart and soul of America. And we must take the country to task where it must be taken to task.
This was 1 month into the Trump Presidency. This is how a conversation with top legal scholars began at NYU.
I was referring to extreme liberal philosophy adopted by a subset of liberals (which I assume you are because you're defending this liberal argument whilst ironically violating it). I also think you should research what liberty and dignity entail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomy#International_human_rights_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity#United_Nations_Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights
(I have bolded the necessary parts)
>In June 1964, the World Medical Association issued the Declaration of Helsinki. The Declaration says at article 11, "It is the duty of physicians who participate in medical research to protect the life, health, dignity, integrity, right to self-determination, privacy, and confidentiality of personal information of research subjects."[42]
>
>The Council of Europe invoked dignity in its effort to govern the progress of biology and medicine. On 4 April 1997, the Council, at Oviedo, approved the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine. The convention's preamble contains these statements, among others:
>
>Conscious of the accelerating developments in biology and medicine;Convinced of the need to respect the human being both as an individual and as a member of the human species and recognising the importance of ensuring the dignity of the human being;Conscious that the misuse of biology and medicine may lead to acts endangering human dignity;Resolving to take such measures as are necessary to safeguard human dignity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual with regard to the application of biology and medicine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights#Rights_to_physical_integrity
Right to physical Integrity:
>Article 7 prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.[25] As with Article 6, it cannot be derogated from under any circumstances.[18] The article is now interpreted to impose similar obligations to those required by the United Nations Convention Against Torture, including not just prohibition of torture, but active measures to prevent its use and a prohibition on refoulement.[26] In response to Nazi human experimentation during WW2 this article explicitly includes a prohibition on medical and scientific experimentation without consent.[25]
I never said anything about the Left. Don't strawman my argument. I'm talking about Philosophy, not politics. If someone has a moral belief that it is forbidden to put anything into their blood or to put things into their blood which fit certain criteria (which some can and do), you have no choice but to accept it. For example, if the vaccine contains or is alleged to contain certain animal DNA, some refuse them on religious/moral grounds. What are you going to do? Strap them to a chair and force it upon them? With that same justification (under the guise of certain people doing what they think benefits the collective), you can force sterilization on certain ethnic groups using Pseudo-Science (what the practitioners think is Science) to back up your claims that one group of people are more likely to get ill or carry certain genetic deficiencies or traits (ie. forced sterilization because one group of people are inferior). Hence this being a "slippery slope" that another user alluded to.
Also, vaccines get tested on animals which can lead to death. Some who militantly oppose animal testing might also refuse vaccines on those ethical grounds. To force the vaccine upon them, is the same justification used to force feed people on hunger strike; if the person exercising his freedom to consume or not consume food dies, it will negatively impact the prison guards or their organisation and they would argue it could also lead to their deaths. The US government uses this justification when force feeding prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. They say if the prisoners were to die, it would put the lives of US service-men and women at risk by fueling anti-US sentiment. Hence, they argue it is right for them to violate the human rights of prisoners. And their justification is the exact same as yours, only with a different context.
To force a vaccine on someone who feels it violates his/her religious views is a violation of "freedom of religion" and hence a violation of their human rights. I, by and large, have no qualms with Left wing politics and that has nothing to do with this issue. If anyone believes in forcing something upon someone that is in violation of their religious freedom, you do not believe in freedom of religion because you think you have a right to force something upon them that is in violation of their religion. This is a very basic issue I don't know why I'm spelling it out.
Given the history of the Europeans (including Israel, America and other colonies) with regards to forced medical experimentation on dark skinned people and eugenics, I'm not very comfortable when people use liberal arguments to start trying to justify forced medical treatments based on what is today accepted by the Scientific community. What makes you think fascism will not return to power again? Are you really comfortable with setting the standard that forcing something on someone is right if it is in the medical/scientific interest of the collective?
And I hope now you understand why I chose the wording I did. It's hypocrisy.
>Thankyou. That's a really interesting perspective, and a big difference from the usual viewpoints I see.
Honestly this was a refreshing surprise thank you. After coming home from the beach I had a mailbox full of insulting replies.
You would do well to understand that most Americans have this view. It is ingrained in us. Just most are not so able to articulate it with historical context (Because our schools are atrocious.)
>Any favourite books?
Book wise here for black history:
https://www.amazon.com/Black-against-Empire-Politics-Foundation-ebook/dp/B01LVU8UUT
And here:
https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Devil-Dixie-Activists-Alabama/dp/1613734166
And here:
https://www.amazon.com/Carry-Home-Birmingham-Climactic-Revolution/dp/1476709513
And here:
https://www.amazon.com/Burning-Massacre-Destruction-Tulsa-Race/dp/0312302479
For further reading google:
Mass lynching in the US
KKK and Black Activism
MLK and CC permit (he tried to arm himself before he was assassinated and was denied)
Race Riots during ww2 (even in Northern states)
A riveting Criminal Podcast (one of my favorite podcasts) about a KKK counter-protest where the KKK showed up and killed people:
http://wunc.org/post/criminal-birth-massacre#stream/0
These violent clashes were ALL OVER, even in the North. The history of the Civil Rights in the US has been largely whitewashed as if it was all a bunch of people peacefully holding hands. What happened recently here in the US in Charleston was how it used to be daily. Blacks too were denied the right to bear arms even to the end of the era. In fact the right to bear arms was first mentioned as an individual right (citizen's right) in the Supreme Court when it denied all Black people from this right in Dred Scott vs. Stanford in 1856. Blacks were not citizens therefore they had no right to keep and bear arms for their individual safety.
And regarding Labor Rights:
http://www.signature-reads.com/2017/09/history-movement-labor-day-books-read-now/
This list looks actually perfect. I've read Death in Haymarket and The Jungle by Upton Singclair. From Synopsis alone, I recommend "The Devil Is Here in These Hills" about the Blair Mountain Massacre (which is insane btw) and "Meet You In Hell" about another really bloody labor battle.
>The police are way, way less likely to kill you here too; they're not primed to assume everything is a gun and everyone's carrying, and they aren't as militarized
They used to be militarized, but bloody sunday caused the entire UK populace to rise up and disarm their police (even after strict gun laws - this had to be a separate thing), which was a good thing and I'm proud of you guys for that. It would never happen here though in the US.
I also HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend the Wild Wild West documentary on Netflix if you can get it. It's about a violent hindu cult that takes over a tiny tiny town in Oregon (near where I live about 2 hours away), and basically becomes the police. Although I warn you the doc takes an overly sympathetic view to the cultists and does not show how aboslutely fucked they were from the beginning.
>I'll keep your thoughts in mind, thanks again for sharing. It doesn't make me any more inclined to own a gun where I live. But it helps me see some more understandable reasons why some people want them.
Actually I appreciate that. TBH, reading our comments again I feel the need to explain to you about how totally wrong the idea of "random (home) searches" are.
That's a violation of the 4th amendment in the US. A massive violation of due process.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment
For that to be made possible do you understand that a kind of martial law would have to be declared over the whole country?
Also you should know too that the people who would be harassed in these circumstances would primarily be the poor and minorities, political enemies of the state (of whomever is in power), sex workers and immigrants.
Rich peoples/politicians mansions will never be searched.
You should also know that part of what lead to the rise of Nazism in Germany was a bloody massacre of communist/socialists that was associated with orders like these - random searches (read excuses to trash, steal, rape and abuse) of suspected communists in Berlin (for banned weapons). This lead to a massive protest, which lead to a massive massacre, which lead to radicalism spreading, which lead to the Nazis being popular.
>FTFY
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=FTFY
Double meaning actually. Sorry lol : ).
Thank you! I know it's tough to balance pragmatism and idealism, but goddammit, I'm sick of endless discussions that amount to jack shit. The left used to believe it could win!
And like most good American left-wing rhetoric, I'm pretty sure that phrase originated or was at least popularized by the Black Panthers.
The second amendment was to keep white people armed because black slaves were arming themselves and rebelling; it was to protect the US from those who actually wanted to overthrow it.
Edit: Source
>Face looks very similar to Jim Crow type caricature.
"Very similar"? Sounds like you've precisely defined what a "Jim Crow type caricature" is like. In which case, you can discuss it with us, especially given that it seems like an important issue for you. Please, share your knowledge with us.
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In my memory there are "black face" style cartoons. But those are very different from this drawing.
So, I am curious: which ones are you referring to?
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Could you please explain to us the ways in which this is "very similar" to a "Jim Crow type caricature"?
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For example:
I ask because I see ZERO similarity in the caricature techniques.
Serena's caricature is very accurate.
​
Here are examples of Jim Crow style caricatures:
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Jim-Crow-Memorabilia-Tolerance/dp/1629631140
https://ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/mammies/more/mammy-image-gallery-02.htm