Posted on 10/17/2013 6:03:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
Can something as tragic and immoral as slavery become, if not less tragic, then noble, even righteous, in the telling? It can and it does in the capable hands of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose brilliant and compelling new six-part series for PBS called "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross" premieres Oct. 22 (check local listings).
Gates, whose previous series, "African American Lives," chronicled the heritage of some famous and notable African Americans, takes us on a new journey that begins 500 years ago. While some of the history is familiar, Gates re-tells it in a way that will sound new to many people, especially the young. What I admire most about Gates' approach in this series and the previous one is that he is not a polemicist. He doesn't dwell on blame so much as he conveys documented history, leaving it to viewers to draw their own conclusions.
What many will find shocking is that the first slave traders were Africans who, Gates says, based their prejudices on "ethnic differences" while using "brute power." In episode one, Gates takes us to Sierra Leone where "300,000 Africans were taken." It was only the beginning.
When Europeans entered the slave trade, they deprived their slaves of last names, making family roots difficult to trace, making self-identity all but impossible. Slaves were considered chattel, not people; a commodity, no more significant than a mule, a plow, a wagon or a sack of cottonseed. As such, nothing but the most basic of identifiers was necessary.
One woman in the series, "Priscilla," had a family tree, chiefly because her "master," John Ball, who owned several plantations in South Carolina, kept meticulous records. Priscilla was taken from Sierra Leone at age 10 and purchased by John Ball of Charleston. A descendant, Edward Ball, shows Gates those records. Gates interviews a descendant of Priscilla. It is a rarity, he notes, for African Americans today to trace their ancestry in an unbroken line back to Africa.
At least two character qualities come through in this series: determination and hope. African slaves and their descendants never lost their vision that freedom and opportunity were possible, if not for them, then for those who came after them. Lynchings in the South occurred almost daily. During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers were permitted to hunt and kill any runaway slave who joined the Union Army. Despite this, slaves never lost hope of a better future.
"Hope brought these people through," says Gates. "Love and family would be their brick and mortar."
What has happened to that courage and motivation?
This film series should be required viewing for every African American, especially students. For those who are trapped in cycles of poverty, out-of-wedlock births and absentee fathers, incarceration and violence, someone should ask them: Do you think your ancestors would be proud of you? Did they sacrifice in order for you to sell drugs and behave irresponsibly? Did they die in bondage so that you could squander the freedom you enjoy by becoming slaves to other things?
Just as the Great Wall of China was built with forced labor, so was much of America, including the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. "America probably would not have a culture if it weren't for black people," says one interviewee.
"The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross" will serve as an eye-opener for many of us. It should also send the message that despite any leftover discrimination from the past, African Americans face nothing today that approaches what their ancestors endured. If they overcame, then African Americans today can too.
Thanks, that looks like a good read.
The first slaves were brought to Jamestown not long after the settlement was established, but that would make it 400 years ago in the US. There might have been some earlier in South American or the Caribbean, but I’m not sure.
But large numbers weren’t in the US until years later because it was a couple more centuries before several of the slave states were even settled by white people.
“America probably would not have a culture if it weren’t for black people,” says one interviewee.”
It takes a pretty messed up mind to come up with a thought like that.
It is a good read (or view). Oddly, I first heard that more African slaves went to the Muslim world than to the West fifteen or more years ago from Henry Louis Gates when he was still at Duke. There was some PBS special about Africa and slavery, and practically the last words in the last segment were Gates and someone discussing the fact (first mention in that series) that more African slaves went to the Muslim world than to the West.
Gates final words were to the effect: "that needs to be investigated more thoroughly." Haven't heard if any more thorough investigation has taken place, at least with any involvement from Gates. Maybe there will be some more information in this new series...
They probably had some form of family name, or tribal name, and certainly some names for the places where their tribes lived.
There are still indigenous languages in Mexico that aren’t written. When I was doing ESL there were a few kids I was working with that didn’t speak Spanish. They had no background in written literature of any kind. No schooling and no background in Sentence composition etc.
Obviously, if there weren’t written records, or a family bible of some sort, the history is Oral. What I found fascinating in Obama’s pedigree, after two or so generations in Africa from his dad, the only information was the continuing last name of Obama. Nothing else.
The 500+ year old story of slavery goes to africans in africa who captured, sold and bought other blacks among themselves and muslims for a thousand years. They still do today.
Africa is and always has been a craphole, low end of the gene pool continent in which the various tribal factions warred among themselves. Millenia ago modern man walked out of africa and left the stupid behind.
They want to be africans, then deport them all back to the motherland and let them be real africans; for the hour or so before the real africans kill them for their money or sell them into slavery.
I can’t think of a decent country on that continent. Machete attacks, Muslim attacks on Christians, poverty, corruption. I looked at a map the other day to answer what I was pondering. Not one civil country I would want to live in or go visit.
I watched an episode or two of his tv thing on discovering your roots. What struck me about one episode when he was talking to some AA at a barbershop (i think) and they had done the dna test to see how much African vs how much White they had in them. The guys were celebrating the results with fist pumps when they were told how little “white” they had in them. I found that disturbing.
I won’t watch anything attached to this jerk.
This is the same guy who got a Boston cop into trouble when he was drunk & couldn’t open his own front door. When vigilant neighbors called cops, he got very nasty & aggressive with everyone who responded.
This ended up with the ‘Spite House Rose Garden BEER SUMMIT.
You are correct. Same A$$.
He did get a free beer.
Oh is he the one? I haven’t watched PPS in ages. I don’t even know what channel it is on
HLG, Jr. is on some commercial...I will NOT be buying that product.....no matter what.
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