"he made the sun rise"

The 1959 motion picture, Black Orpheus, will offer an opportunity for students taking this course to explore the political and social meanings of "blackness" in and outside the United States. Here is a clip featuring the final scene from the movie, which is set in the city of Rio de Janeiro during the festive Carnaval celebration. It retells a story about the Greek musician and prophet Orpheus and his wife, Eurydice.

different meanings of "blackness"

Copies of the posters to be used in
an  upcoming art exhibition.

While working on their weekly readings concerning African American life in cities, the students in this course knew they would soon be analyzing posters for an upcoming art exhibition. The posters tell a story about the shared struggles of Afro Brazilians and African Americans. The exhibition along with a Brown Bag discussion and lecture by Brazilian researchers Amilcar Periera will be held at the University of Alabama on April 23. University of Alabama Assistant History Professor Teresa Cribelli is the lead organizer. One of her classes is also analyzing a select group of posters. Together, both classes will produce two separate curatorial statements, reflecting impressions of posters. University of Alabama Assistant Professor of Art History Lucy Curzon has provided insight on getting the students to see how art images can "speak." As the photo here demonstrates, the themes that "spoke" to the students enrolled in "African Americans in the City" this semester are resistance, education, community, black consciousness and oppression. Next week, as they continue working on this project, the class will use Ula Taylor's study on Jamaican-born Amy Jacques Garvey, wife of Pan Africanist Marcus Garvey, and Aline Helg's exploration of Afro-Colombians, to explore how "blackness" has different meanings in and outside the United States. How those different meanings still permit people of African descent to share particular experiences and impressions will drive this lesson.

"forms of dislocation"

Yael Sternhell's study of Southern movement during the Civil War.

I get it. I know that you can only take comparisons so far. So, for this week’s in-class written reflection, I had mixed feelings about asking the students to think about Hurricane Katrina and the idea of movement in the years leading to and during the Civil War as described by Yael Sternhell in an academic study, and Dolen Perkins-Valdez in her best-selling novel, Wench. After all, the 2005 hurricane was a natural disaster though one involving human decisions on multiple levels. But human decisions also factor into man-made disasters like wars.  I went ahead with the in-class assignment with the hope of pushing the students' critique of African American life in a particular time and across time. I asked them to juxtapose the Sternhell and Perkins-Valdez readings against an excerpt from the Spike Lee HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke." These three works -  one of them historical fiction, describe, however differently, dislocation and racial conflict. For example, in Wench, the students read about the experiences of four enslaved women, all mistresses to white Southern men. The women traveled unaccompanied by their masters to an Ohio city and learned what it was like to order a meal in a tavern and go shopping to purchase anything they wanted for the first time. In literally moving not just from the South, but from their white masters’ presence, there was a psychological opening in how they perceived their oppression. Still, Lizzie, one of the women, could not bear the idea of escaping to “freedom,” something the others successfully contemplated. Demonstrating how the ability of bondswomen to move was different from bondsmen, she worried about her children who were still in slave territory. She also believed her master truly cared for her. Other tensions stemming from the idea of leaving were presented in the assigned Sternhell chapter. In it, the students read about how the Civil War disrupted the social order in the South, causing many to flee regardless of race or gender. Some rural slaves, suddenly free to move, fled to cities like Richmond. Sternhell pondered how emancipation, or the idea of freedom, could be considered against “other forms of dislocation” and “with other problems of social control in a theatre of war.” I wondered if the racially charged dislocation of many during Katrina, a storm that took place nearly 150 years after the Civil War, and one involving heated exchanges between local and national public leaders as well as blacks and whites alike could be mapped onto Sternhell’s (and Perkins-Valdez') work. I told the students if they were not persuaded that it could, it was totally okay. I was impressed by the range of positions  they took. Roosevelt wrote, “I don’t see [the connection]. Katrina affected only the people in New Orleans; the Civil War [involved people from the entire South].” Shanece saw a connection, writing, the [woman] in Wench was unable to escape because [she] did not know how [she] would survive... This is [sort of] similar to the Hurricane Katrina disaster [in that] lots of citizens [had similar concerns. They] did not have the finances or means of transportation to relocate.” Alexis observed a connection, observing how during the Civil War, Southern whites and blacks migrated toward [military sites] “for protection and safety] though some Katrina victims stayed for “[economic] reasons; [others simply] did not want to abandon their homes.” Taking a similar position, Christin saw a connection between one’s ability to physically move in New Orleans during Katrina and in the South during the Civil War. As she writes,  in both instances “race determined how successful the move could be and if it [was going] to be permanent.” To this point Tiffany, who also saw a connection, wrote, “Your wealth and status determin[ed] your ability to make decisions.”  Lauria also saw a connection between the two events though rightly with caution, writing, “I think it was by coincidence that the areas that were hit the hardest [during Katrina] were areas with a large African American [population].” She noted how some people did not have the means to rebuild their homes and like many living in the bellum and postbellum periods, discovered it was “easier to start new lives elsewhere.” Aaron saw a connection between the two events, observing the ways in which Katrina “completely dismantled the social order of New Orleans” because everyone “shared in the hardship.” But he acknowledged that in both instances, “it was much easier for whites to move.” I challenged the students to remember how they responded to this prompt and earlier in-class writing prompts as we continue learning about how certain bodies become associated with city life after the Civil War.

on being taken only to return

Dolen Perkins-Valdez' discussing her best-selling book, Wench.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez' best-selling novel, Wench, is the first literary work used in this course. The students will read an excerpt from this book in which four slave women enter Dayton, OH, for the first time unaccompanied by their white owners. This section was assigned along with a chapter in Yael Sternhell's study of how movement helps explain the ways in which the Civil War changes the course of U.S. history. Using both readings, we will also ponder what new things can be learned when we focus on the movements of nineteenth century Southerners including African American women in and away from the countryside.

taking a story full circle

Paris is the month of April in my 2013 calendar.
I love these drawings.

Sometimes delays are worth having. I finally have the reflection from Aaron, a student in this course,  who also reflected on the ways in which Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Kanye West’s Grammy Award-winning hit about Paris resonates against this week’s readings on antebellum life, and above all, race relations, in Cincinnati and Buffalo. Like me, Aaron was drawn to the lyric, “we ain’t even s’posed to be here,” which  metaphorically references the success both performers have had in spite of their membership in a historically oppressed group – African Americans. Aaron noted how the wealth that permits Carter and West to travel to Paris counters the movement of the French to the Cincinnati described in  Nikki Taylor’s study. The French, he said, traveled to the land that became the United States in part to build their wealth. Sometimes they relied on the forced labor of people of African descent. Press fast forward (with the hazards of reductive anachronisms fully before us). Though their success is partly enabled by the struggle of earlier African Americans, West and Carter can travel to Paris, already wealthy. Wrote Aaron, “It is as if Jay and Ye [take the story of people of African descent] full circle…They come from two of the most violent cities in the United States – Jay from the notoriously-impoverished Marcy Projects in Brooklyn (West from Chicago)…They end up in Paris, the city of glamour…Historically [speaking], they shouldn’t be able to “ball so hard” in this city.” Next week, we continue examining African American life in cities. Using Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Wench:A Novel and Yael Sternhell, Routes of War: The World of Movement in the Confederate South, we will investigate the idea of movement in the years surrounding and during the Civil War. PS Aaron, I just found your original paper. Sorry I misplaced it. I am not yet one of the "pros from Dover."

"time isn't ticking down for them"

The Throne's "Paris," a Jay-Z and Kanye West hit, won two Grammys this year.

Kelley's look at black working class resistance.

When I first heard Kanye West and Jay-Z’s Grammy Award-winning hit about the City of Lights, “Ni***s in Paris,” I loved the beat. I googled the lyrics and discovered it contained the usual profanity and misogyny. But I also saw the sentence, “We ain’t even s'posed to be here.” In saying this, West and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, two of the music industry’s most wealthy performers, were saying as African American men from Chicago and Brooklyn, they were not supposed to be in Paris.  Black men like them were not supposed to have had the success they had. The song made me made think deeply about race, but also about cities as a category of analysis and how that might work in a course. But how to get beyond the lyrics? I found some measure of relief when I learned more about the everyday hidden politics in the black working class during my  preliminary exam readings. Tying such a topic in with some aspects of hip hop music,  historian Robin Kelley urges us to develop “a nuanced understanding" of the "social relations among young people, in all of their diversity and complexity.” Well aware of the hazards of anachronistic discussions, the students in this course "in all of their diversity and complexity" indeed manifested a nuanced understanding of the West-Carter tune, a song hardly unknown to them. They even juxtaposed it against - of all things - this week's examination of race relations in antebellum Buffalo and Cincinnati, as told by James Oliver Horton and Hartmut Keil and Nikki Taylor respectively. These scholars  helped the students to discern the importance of being precise when discussing racial conflict  in the United States before the Civil War. For example, the students  learned it is not enough to simply say "whites oppressed blacks." "Which whites, when, where and why?" might be better ways to approach such a discussion. Among other things, they learned the degree to which German immigrants’ relations with African Americans, while far from perfect, seemed more peaceful during the antebellum period than black-Irish relations because the Germans often arrived in the States possessing many skills unlike the Irish who faced job competition with African Americans long  relegated to the lowest paying jobs. But how to tie this situation to  a rap song from the 21st century?  The students tackled that task with an in-class written reflection. Most reflected on how the social position of many antebellum blacks poses tensions with the wealth flaunted by West and Carter in modern-day Paris (and elsewhere). Wrote Kalynn, “We’ve looked at African Americans in [cities] ...oppressed by their social position. Ni***s in Paris” portrays the opposite of that struggle.” Chiming in, Tiffany noted how the African Americans in Taylor’s study believed Cincinnati had “more economic opportunity” and “social equality” than areas in the South that "were deeply entrenched in the institution of slavery…’Ye and Jay’s flow speaks to the potential for progress” beyond such a past. Lauria also discerned the progress African Americans like West and Carter have made since the antebellum era. She was drawn to their song's lyric, “Got a broke clock/Rollies that don’t tick tock,” saying it referred to these young men’s success and how “time isn’t ticking down for them.” However, not entirely convinced the struggle is over, Shariyah focused on the ways in which West and Carter “creatively” demonstrate the idea of resistance in African Americans. This is something she also observed in whites, especially the Irish. Said Shariyah, the Irish “were at one point classified…in the same category as blacks. [They even] lived in the same neighborhoods [until] they realized that the color of your skin meant “currency.” Roosevelt was attentive to the condition of whites, especially Germans in Buffalo including those who married African Americans.  He was reminded of such interracial relations when he recalled the "Paris"  lyric referencing “getting married” (Prince William ain't do it right if you ask me/Cause if I was him I would have married Kate & Ashley). Aaron, another student, had  yet another observation, which shall be shortly posted. You can blame his instructor for the delay. Cray.

on being from "the 305"

I saw a friend this past Sunday. I had not seen her in more than twenty years.  We are members of an organization we joined as undergraduates. In her characteristically loving and funny way, she announced how we were both from “the 305” (i.e. area code 305, which is to say, Miami, the city; not 205, Tuscaloosa, a place that is not entirely the country, but certainly not Miami). She took it one step further and said we were from the Baa Haas, a particular neighborhood in the county in which Miami sits. As I said in an earlier blog entry, to live in the Baa Haas (pronounced BAH-hahs) once upon a time was to live amid sand dunes and with an increasingly African American middle class population. It is the kind of population about which many, even African Americans, make assumptions, some warranted, some not. I wonder now if the assumptions have something to do with a fundamental human need to organize ourselves and others. In other words, we feel compelled to decide where we fit into the big scheme of things, but to do so, we must decide where others fit in.  I am sure there are theories out there on this. For now, the words from one Gullah young woman in the 1991 “Daughters of the Dust,” the motion picture used in class this week, suffice. “Who they out there,” she said, making clear the degree to which place defines people, but also how people define place.