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Re: Emancipation Proclamation
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From: Tonya Bolden <tonbolden_at_aol.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 17:57:40 -0400
Glad to know my thoughts are appreciated, Megan
You are so right: we must rely on our human-ness to make sense of history--stop and think and put ourselves in other peoples shoes and work with the documentation we do have: if hundreds of people made a dash for Fort Monroe after Butler's contraband decision, then there had to have been a grapevine.
Also ask the question was there only one?
As in, was there only one black woman who played the fool while serving Confederates who talked politics and war and then passed what she learned onto a white woman who was a Union spy? Similarly was there only one white Union spy in the South?
Was there only one black man with the intellect and grit of Frederick Douglass?
Sometimes if helps if we work backward. As mentioned, I don't have a lot of details but I know I come from people who were enslaved. Of course I do have details on my grandparents and parents coming up under Jim Crow. I believe what I've been able to accomplish--Princeton, Columbia, majoring in Russian, writing books--says more about my forebears than it does about me. I had to have inherited the kind of mind/makeup that can do well in school. Not a lot of visual artists in my family but there were a lot of very smart people--unschooled very smart people.
Sometimes things are hiding in plain sight: An example I often use with young people are Black Codes. I explain that some were white codes too. Example--and this is a loose paraphrase of a law--why would you need a law threatening to whip or fine or jail a white person who hangs out with or lives with a black person unless there were white people hanging out with/living with black people?
Yes, history is so textured/full of complexities.
We live in a wonderful time--at least when it comes to research. With all the digitization more of us can dig in and see/find/explore the complexity.
T
On Jun 26, 2014, at 11:10 AM, Megan Schliesman wrote:
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Received on Thu 26 Jun 2014 04:57:57 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 17:57:40 -0400
Glad to know my thoughts are appreciated, Megan
You are so right: we must rely on our human-ness to make sense of history--stop and think and put ourselves in other peoples shoes and work with the documentation we do have: if hundreds of people made a dash for Fort Monroe after Butler's contraband decision, then there had to have been a grapevine.
Also ask the question was there only one?
As in, was there only one black woman who played the fool while serving Confederates who talked politics and war and then passed what she learned onto a white woman who was a Union spy? Similarly was there only one white Union spy in the South?
Was there only one black man with the intellect and grit of Frederick Douglass?
Sometimes if helps if we work backward. As mentioned, I don't have a lot of details but I know I come from people who were enslaved. Of course I do have details on my grandparents and parents coming up under Jim Crow. I believe what I've been able to accomplish--Princeton, Columbia, majoring in Russian, writing books--says more about my forebears than it does about me. I had to have inherited the kind of mind/makeup that can do well in school. Not a lot of visual artists in my family but there were a lot of very smart people--unschooled very smart people.
Sometimes things are hiding in plain sight: An example I often use with young people are Black Codes. I explain that some were white codes too. Example--and this is a loose paraphrase of a law--why would you need a law threatening to whip or fine or jail a white person who hangs out with or lives with a black person unless there were white people hanging out with/living with black people?
Yes, history is so textured/full of complexities.
We live in a wonderful time--at least when it comes to research. With all the digitization more of us can dig in and see/find/explore the complexity.
T
On Jun 26, 2014, at 11:10 AM, Megan Schliesman wrote:
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Received on Thu 26 Jun 2014 04:57:57 PM CDT
