American dark age : racial feudalism and the rise of Black liberalism / Keidrick Roy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roy, Keidrick, 1987- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Feudalism.

Social stratification--United States--History.

Social stratification.

Racism--United States--History.

Racism.

African American abolitionists.

African Americans--Social conditions--To 1964.

African Americans.

Antislavery movements--United States.

Antislavery movements.

African Americans--Civil rights--History.

Liberalism--United States.

Liberalism.

Equality--United States.

Equality.

Progress.

Physical Description:

xx, 349 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University, [2024]

Summary:

"American Dark Age contends that life in early and antebellum America for Black people resembles what Keidrick Roy calls 'racial feudalism,' a race-based system of social stratification in the U.S. that operates as an extension of medieval ideas and customs. Accordingly, this project does not read Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence against the backdrop of the European and American Enlightenment traditions, as virtually all modern scholars have done. Instead, it seeks to understand Jefferson as a product of the same feudal frameworks he claimed to supersede. Jefferson's attachment to feudalism is most evident in his approbation of two new aristocracies during the Age of Enlightenment: (1) the aristocracy of the mind, which he calls a 'natural aristocracy,' and (2) the aristocracy of the skin, what abolitionist Frederick Douglass later dubs, with emphasis, 'skin-aristocracy.' After tracing the lineaments of racial feudalism, Roy shows how four African Americans-James McCune Smith, William Wells Brown, Francis Harper, and Harriet Jacobs-present distinctive but interconnected visions for overcoming its effects in the mid-nineteenth century by upending the antecedent feudal architecture of American liberalism, a broad tradition whose unifying strands otherwise emphasize individual liberties, egalitarianism, moral universalism, and meliorism (the belief in the possibility for social and political progress). Ultimately, Roy argues, McCune Smith, Wells Brown, Harper, and Jacobs maintained a spirit of cautious optimism against the retrogressive forces of plantation slavery in the South and what McCune Smith calls 'caste-slavery in the North.' Their quest to destroy racial feudalism and reformulate American liberalism established the conditions for initiating new ways of being "American.""-- Provided by publisher.

"How medieval-inspired racial feudalism reigned in early America and was challenged by Black liberal thinkers. Though the United States has been heralded as a beacon of democracy, many nineteenth-century Americans viewed their nation through the prism of the Old World. What they saw was a racially stratified country that reflected not the ideals of a modern republic but rather the remnants of feudalism. American Dark Age reveals how defenders of racial hierarchy embraced America's resemblance to medieval Europe and tells the stories of the abolitionists who exposed it as a glaring blemish on the national conscience. Against those seeking to maintain what Frederick Douglass called an 'aristocracy of the skin,' Keidrick Roy shows how a group of Black thinkers, including Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Hosea Easton, and Harriet Jacobs, challenged the medievalism in their midst-and transformed the nation's founding liberal tradition. He demonstrates how they drew on spiritual insight, Enlightenment thought, and a homegrown political philosophy that gave expression to their experiences at the bottom of the American social order. Roy sheds new light on how Black abolitionist writers and activists worked to eradicate the pernicious ideology of racial feudalism from American liberalism and renew the country's commitment to values such as individual liberty, social progress, and egalitarianism. American Dark Age reveals how the antebellum Black liberal tradition holds vital lessons for us today as hate groups continue to align themselves with fantasies of a medieval past and openly call for a return of all-powerful monarchs, aristocrats, and nobles who rule by virtue of their race"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue. Feudalism, American Style

Introduction

Part I. Racial Feudalism. What Was "Feudalism"?

Jeffersonian Confusions

Proslavery Elaborations

Black Critiques

Middle Passage. Cheating Social Death

Part II. Black Liberalism. What Was Black Liberalism?

"Almost Living in the Dark Ages" : The Literature of Black Liberalism

"The Philosophy of His Crimes" : Black Women's Interventions

"Why Am I Black?" : Frederick Douglas and Identity-Aware Liberalism

Epilogue. Up from Feudalism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-339) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Roy, Keidrick, 1987- American dark age

ISBN:

9780691252360

069125236X

OCLC:

1409396996