To make our world anew : a history of African Americans / edited by Robin D.G. Kelley and Earl Lewis.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kelley, Robin D. G.

Lewis, Earl.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--History.

African Americans.

History.

Physical Description:

xviii, 670 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2000.

Summary:

To Make Our World Anew reconstructs U.S. history through the experiences and struggles of black Americans. Written by a stellar team of historians, this volume offers a panoramic view of black life, rich with first-person accounts that invite readers to view the past through the eyes of African Americans.

Beginning with the African background and the colonization of the Americas, To Make Our World Anew examines the transformation of slavery from a brutal form of indentured servitude to a full-blown system of racial domination; the critical role African Americans played in shaping and ultimately destroying American racial slavery; their unflagging efforts to define freedom, not only for themselves but for the entire nation; and the ways in which industrial and post-industrial transformations shaped black life, thought, culture, and resistance in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Yet this is not a story of victims, but a dramatic saga of a people who dared to fight back: a people who quite literally remade America several times over. In spite of their condition, African Americans were still human beings endowed with intellect, creativity, and vision. They came to North American shores from various ethnic groups and speaking many languages, but they forged a strong sense of community and created new identities from their ethnic past and racial present. The authors pay special attention to difference and diversity. By exploring the hidden social and cultural history of women and ordinary working people (free and slave), they paint a fully textured portrait of black communities that considers divisions by gender, class, color, and sexuality. And the authors extend their vision beyond the United States, examining the impact of key events such as the Haitian Revolution and the Spanish-American War. By acknowledging African Americans as part of a larger African diaspora, the book links the struggles of blacks in the United States to those of displaced Africans throughout the world.

With new insight and impeccable scholarship, To Make Our World Anew dramatically demonstrates how generations of Africa's descendants, in their ongoing quest for freedom, have transformed our world and made it a better place -- for everyone.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The First Passage: 1502-1619 / Colin A. Palmer 3

Chapter 2 Strange New Land: 1619-1776 / Peter H. Wood 53

Chapter 3 Revolutionary Citizens: 1776-1804 / Daniel C. Littlefield 103

Chapter 4 Let My People Go: 1804-1860 / Deborah Gray White 169

Chapter 5 Breaking the Chains: 1860-1880 / Noralee Frankel 227

Chapter 6 Though Justice Sleeps: 1880-1900 / Barbara Bair 281

Art Essay: What is Africa to Me? 302

Chapter 7 A Chance to Make Good: 1900-1929 / James R. Grossman 345.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Sheldon Hackney.

ISBN:

0195139453

OCLC:

43323687