As always, we invite you to share this post with students, colleagues, and anyone else who is interested in the legacies of slavery. A link here does not imply agreement or endorsement by the Council of Independent Colleges.
Culture Creativity and the Black Experience
- Brandon Tensely, “How Music and Art Have Helped Black Americans Weather Troubling Times,” Capital B News (November 15, 2024): LINK. “For centuries, creativity has been a balm that’s helped us to endure racism. This salve will be all the more crucial as we brace for a new presidential administration poised to pursue an agenda that will likely be catastrophic for Black Americans and other vulnerable communities.”
- Samantha Ege, “The Curious Case of ‘Naughty Little Nora,’ a Jazz Age Shape Shifter,” New York Times (November 12, 2024): LINK. Nora Holt (c. 1884–1974) was a “pioneer of the Black classical music scene in Chicago, … [and] became an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age in Paris.” Her impressive life and work is discussed in the author’s new book, South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene (University of Illinois Press, 2024).
- Liz Kim, “Whitfield Lovell Quarries Black Histories,” Hyperallergic (November 10, 2024): LINK. African American artist Whitfield Lovell’s work draws deeply upon the history of Black folks before and after Emancipation. A new exhibit in San Antonio, TX, features work from the 1990s–2020s.
- “Legacy of slavery runs through African art biennale in Senegal,” South China Morning Post (November 11, 2024): LINK. The Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art, which brings together artists from across the African diaspora, includes seven “guest artists from the United States … [whose] work examines the past, present and future repercussions of slavery.”
Preserving Black History
- Logan Monteleone, “Chesapeake Heartland art project hosts conversation with African American history preservationist,” The Elm (November 14, 2024): LINK. Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, discusses the importance of preserving Black heritage sites: “We can demonstrate together that not until Black history matters will our nation fully honor Black lives: that they are one and the same.” (This public program was hosted by CIC member Washington College [MD].)
- Gabrielle Hays, “In St. Louis, a chance to preserve Black history,” PBS (November 12, 2024): LINK. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has been traveling around the country to help Black communities preserve their local history. In St. Louis, families brought photos, film reels, and other items from their homes for digitization.
- Sara Ivry, “Portico’s Part in Telling the Story of Emmett Till,” JSTOR Daily (November 13, 2024): LINK. Portico is a community-supported preservation archive organized by ITHAKA. It has partnered with the Emmett Till Memory Project to develop an app of digitized archival materials designed to educate the public about Till’s life, death, and impact.
Other Links
- LaGarrett King, “Still Fighting For Liberty and Justice For All: A Visual History of Black America,” Lithub (November 18, 2024): LINK. “[T]he concept of founding fathers gives short shrift to all the other persons who built the nation: the poor, migrants, soldiers, women, Native Americans, and Black people who have shaped what became the United States of America that we know today. Just as critical to our nation’s formation were Black Founders, who set a precedent for freedom for Black Americans and consequently for all Americans across our shared history.”
- J. Jacob Calhoun, “What Democrats Can Learn from America’s First Black Voters,” Time (November 15, 2024): LINK. Black voters during Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement knew that they had to present a united front in the face of racist rhetoric and political violence, refusing to succumb to demoralization and defeat.
- M. Keith Claybrook, Jr., “Malcolm X, MLK, and the Call for a Cultural Revolution,” Black Perspectives (November 15, 2024): LINK. In their own ways, both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. argued for a Cultural Revolution: “Radical change necessitates a societal and cultural shift in thinking and understanding of humanity. Malcolm X and Dr. King displayed commitment to African Americans, marginalized and oppressed peoples, and humanity.”
- Pamela L. Geller, “Hundreds of 19th-century skulls collected in the name of medical science tell a story of who mattered and who didn’t,” The Conversation (November 14, 2024): LINK. “[Racialized] studies of skulls and diseases undertaken by [19th-century physician Samuel George] Morton and his medical and scientific colleagues contributed to an understanding of U.S. citizenship that valued whiteness, Christianity and heroic masculinity defined by violence. It is an exclusionary idea of what it means to be American that persists today.”
- JT Moodee Lockman, “Maryland posthumously promotes Harriet Tubman to one-star general to honor her military service,” CBS News (November 11, 2024): LINK. And finally, a belated link for Veterans Day!