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According to PEN America*, more than 30 states are actively banning books about Black History and those by numerous Black authors. Books like "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Haley, "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, "Their Eyes Are Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, and "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin are on the top of lists of books for banning. In 2023, 63% of book bans occurred in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.
Now, just how do you talk about the history of the United States without speaking about how the enslavement of African Americans affected the development of this country? At the height of slavery, in the 1860s, African Americans were 18% of the U.S. population. Chances were, by 1860, that 89% of the Black population was enslaved and not free.
Estimates of the addition of slavery to the U.S. gross national product range from 18% to 45%. Products and markets affected by enslaved Black people include cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, rum, and molasses. In the 1700s and 1800s, cotton made the U.S. king. Factories were built down South, along the East Coast, and in Britain to weave cotton into fabric. Cotton helped the Industrial Revolution tremendously. Rum and tobacco created markets in the U.S., Europe, Spain, Portugal and Cuba. So, not only were the direct markets supported by slavery, but peripheral markets were also supported. Take rum, which is from a sugar plantation. Wagons had to be built to transport the sugar cane. The barrels used to cure and store rum had to be built. Glassblowers had to make the bottles, and cork makers made the corks to use to seal the bottles.
Historically, the true history of enslaving an entire group of people based not only on the color of their skin but on the skills they had developed in Africa is riveting, heartbreaking, and dastardly. Africans were often chosen from areas where white slavers knew what the peoples' skills were. The Windward Coast of Africa, encompassing Senegal and Sierra Leone, was Africa's rice culture area. Senegambia had an incredibly developed horse culture, so Africans from that area were sought for the growing American horse trade in Texas.
So, how does one ignore these stories of survival of the Middle Passage of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade? It took an average of 80 days for a ship to leave Africa and sail across the Atlantic to arrive at a port in New England, Virginia, the Carolinas, Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, New Orleans, and others in the Caribbean like Cuba and Hispaniola (now Dominican Republic). We have histories of survivors of that passage written in chilling detail, like the author, Belinda Sutton, who sued her enslaver with her account of being taken from Africa onto a slave ship. There's Olaudah Equiano, whose personal account documented his capture in Africa, going onto a slave ship, being enslaved, and later freedom. Who can forget Zora Neal Hurston's book "Barracoon: The Last Black Cargo" as told to her by slave ship survivor Oluale Kossola, who recounts his being stolen from Africa in 1860 and enslaved on the last illegal slave ship bound for America, then purposely run aground to hide it by its owner, Timothy Meaher. The U.S. banned Slave ships from Africa in 1808. Mahler had put this illegal slave ship together on a bet that he could outwit the American authorities. That ship, The Clotida, now has been found not far from AfricaTown, Alabama, where Oluale Kossola settled.
The cuisine put together by enslaved Africans, like gumbo, jambalaya, black beans, rice, hoppin' John, corn cakes, and the rice culture of the South, were traditions that Africans enslaved brought to all of the Americas.
Instruments like the banjo, a gourd stringed instrument, were a direct descendant of the Kora, which dates back to the 23rd century from the Mali empire in Africa. From the Kora came the cello.
Inventions like the ironing board, automatic doors for elevators, the carbon filament in light bulbs, call waiting and caller ID, dry cleaning process, the mailbox, refrigerated machines for transport for trains and trucks, and even the ubiquitous potato chip were all inventions by African American men and women.
Their stories of "how" they survived are critical networks of history telling and surviving the odds in the life of slavery and racism they faced. Telling their stories is how we learn, as a nation, of the paths we all have traveled, hoping to find inspiration to go further with more understanding and compassion.
But imagine a library banishing all the books about African Americans. A vision like that tells Black folks that their stories and their history are not worth the 80 days one of their ancestors survived in absolute misery - cramped in the bowels of a ship, chained to others like you, with death and illness, all around you. For America to say that Black history is unimportant means one leaves out huge chunks of American history that can inform, inspire, and help one understand how this country came to be in truth. America must uphold its Constitutional phrase, "All men are created equal."
Sharing only one theme of American history stunts the growth of this country. I never want to go to a library and see this scene where there are no books about African Americans or any other marginalized group. Denial of our history, stories, and experiences sets Black and Brown children up for depression and lack of inspiration. Children of white America can learn how to seamlessly weave attitudes and practices towards others of different skin colors and lifestyles into American life.
In social media in 2020, a popular theme went around about what if all Black people left the U.S..and took all of their inventions, styles, foods, music, and creativity and left the country, including all of the creative rights and instructions left by so many Black creatives for decades. One white person, shocked, said, "All the recipes for fried chicken, my refrigerator, my security system, pancake syrup, and corn muffins are all gone. Sports stuff, too? Jazz and Rock and roll?" Black folks piped in, "Yep!" The white woman responded, "Oh, hell no! Wherever y'all are goin', I want to come too!"
Several Black folks piped up when she mentioned the security system and refrigeration invention, "Okay, she can come to the Barbecue and get a plate!" Ahhh...inclusion can certainly build empathy! We need more of that today!
*PEN America keeps a running track on banned books in the U.S. as well as the American Library Association. Smithsonian : The Last Known Slave is Found, Statistica: Black and Slave Population in the United States 1780 - 1880. PBS: How Many Slaves Landed in the U.S.? : The African Americans, Dr Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s book, "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, UC San Diego Library: Black Inventors List, Slave Narratives from Library of Congress, "Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston, "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Christine “Liz” LaRue is a clay artist and illustrationist. She is known for her intricately textured figurative sculptures and emotionally illustrative drawings. Chicago-born, though also raised in Utah and Idaho, Ms. LaRue is of Creole/Cuban descent. Her art has been influenced by her Afro-Latino heritage. Ms. LaRue’s interests have been in pre-Columbian art of the Olmec, Maya of Mexico, Nazca, and Moche face pots of Peru. This also includes the bronze sculptures of the Ife of Nigeria and Tā Moko tattoo art of the Maōri.
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