African Americans in American History, 1526-Present
This book is an augmented, comprehensive study of African Americans’ accomplishments since arriving with the Spanish in North America in 1526—nearly a century before the first Anglo-Saxons landed near Jamestown. The book documents their perseverance despite a saga of racism and white supremacy seldom taught in American schools at any level. Seventy-eight photographs, maps, charts, and tables make the study easy to read, at the same time providing documentation and sources for further reading. The book demonstrates that “white supremacy” rests on shaky ground due to the class of people England sent to the colonies, DNA, and genealogy.
Chapters cover white supremacy and racism, slavery, US Colored Troops’ major contribution to ending the Civil War, and the Confederacy’s abortive attempt to counter this massive addition to Northern armies by arming slaves and freedmen. Other topics are the devastation of the South, the evolution of Emancipation, Reconstruction, the Freedmen’s Bureau, “Redemption,” the “Lost Cause,” and Jim Crow. The study stresses blacks’ significant military contributions in the Revolutionary War, the Indian Wars, Spanish American War, and both world wars. A “Great Migration” of blacks from the South to the North and West occurred during both wars; the book covers the civil rights movement, the backlash that continues today, and a prognosis for the future.
The book addresses contemporary issues, including white supremacy, Confederate statuary, and the status of blacks compared to other groups in society. Note is taken of Professor James Whitman’s observation that Hitler adapted our Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws as a basis for the Holocaust, and of Richard Rothstein’s study of federal and local housing law which documents whites’ responsibility for creating inner-city ghettos.
The fifteen chapters are chronological but stand alone, making the 621-page study a compelling read. The text consists of 398 pages, supported by 83 pages of endnotes, 116 pages in five appendices, and 24 pages of bibliography, sorted by chapter.
Status: Not published; an easy-to-read book desperately needed to promote understanding in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Only two comparable studies exist, both extremely expensive history textbooks. I’m still looking for a publisher…
Contents
Preface
Graphics
Chapter One Race, White Supremacy and Racism: America’s “Original Sins?”
Chapter Two Slavery: America’s “Peculiar Institution”
Chapter Three United States Colored Troops
Chapter Four Black Soldiers in Gray and Butternut
Chapter Five The Devastation of the Confederacy
Chapter Six Emancipation and Reconstruction
Chapter Seven The Freedmen’s Bureau
Chapter Eight “Redemption” and “The Lost Cause”
Chapter Nine Buffalo Soldiers, 1866 – 1953
Chapter Ten Jim Crow: Race Laws, Segregation and Miscegenation
Chapter Eleven World War I and the Great Migration
Chapter Twelve World War II
Chapter Thirteen The Civil Rights Era (1954 – 1980): Redeeming the Soul of America
Chapter Fourteen Make America Hate Again
Chapter Fifteen Conclusions: Whither America?
Appendix One: UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
Appendix Two: Lynching Shadrack Thompson, 1932
Appendix Three Distinguished African Americans (plus a link to approximately 5,500 entries in Oxford’s African American National Biography)
Appendix Four Black General and Flag-Rank Officers
Appendix Five Police and Vigilante Shootings Involving Unarmed Black Youth
Great book that should be published any used to teach history. Easy read and full on concise information and stories. Highly recommend.
Good to hear from you, Rueben! What have you been up to? You can see that I have kept my nose to the grindstone.
Looking for a “traditional” publisher… not holding my breath!!
But this crap has to change!
Gene
Meaning the unending George Floyd/Breanna Taylor incidents.
Tom, you may call them as you see them, but that does not mean that your perception is perfect.
First, a major point that I attempted to make is that white privilege has NOTHING to do with economic success. It is about color as a prism categorizing people of color in society. Please tell me that you recognize this is a fact. Blacks and people of color have been stigmatized from the start. In fact, it was part of the torturous thought process that justified the enslavement of an entire race. After the ACW, former slaveowners were infuriated at the loss of their most valuable property. Some ex-slaves were murdered (read Carl Schurz’s report to President Johnson), and in general blacks’ lives were not valued. Eventually, the myth of the brutish black man emerged, a threat to all whites, and even the most ridiculous pretense “justified” lynching, even of innocent blacks.
Deny it all you want, but there is an inherent advantage to having light skin (most of us do not actually have “white” skin) over darker skin. It is not operative in every case and every time because some beholders are more enlightened than others. Conversely, being born into a caste with dark skin stigmatizes that child, giving them subliminal messages of being of lesser import.
Easy read and full on concise information and stories. Highly recommend.
Tell your buddies, please!
Gene
Great news!! Not one but two “traditional” publishers have offered a contract on my latest, “Forbidden, Forgotten, Formidable: Blacks in America’s Military! I’m going with Rowman Littlefield; the book should be out in about a year.
Even better, I’ve found an agent for the other two books I’ve written and need a publisher.