In 1800 Thomas Jefferson won the presidential election with Electoral College votes derived from the three- fths representation of slaves -- slaves who could not vote but were still partially counted as citizens. Moving beyond the recent revisionist debate over Jefferson"s own slaves and his relationship with Sally Hemings, Garry Wills instead probes the heart of Jefferson"s presidency and political life, revealing how the might of the slave states remained a concern behind his most important policies and decisions. Jefferson"s foil was Thomas Pickering, who along with the Federalists fought the president and the institutions that supported him. In an eye-opening, ingeniously argued expose, Wills restores Pickering and his allies" dramatic struggle to our understanding of Jefferson, the creation of the new nation, and the evolution of our representative democracy.
"With lively prose and sensitivity to context, this book offers a sweeping, authoritative history of the Obama presidency, focusing particularly on its impact and meaning vis-áa-vis African Americans. This interpretative account captures the America that made Obama's White House years possible, while at the same time rendering the America that resolutely resisted the idea of a Black chief executive, thus making conceivable the ascent of his most unlikely of successors"--
Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president” as well as “the first who rose above the prejudice of his times and country.” This narrative history of Lincoln’s personal interchange with Black people over the course his career reveals a side of the sixteenth president that, until now, has not been fully explored or understood. In a little-noted eulogy delivered shortly after Lincoln's assassination, Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president," the "first to show any respect for their rights as men.” To justify that description, Douglass pointed not just to Lincoln's official acts and utterances, like the Emancipation Proclamation or the Second Inaugural Address, but also to the president’s own personal experiences with Black people. Referring to one of his White House visits, Douglass said: "In daring to invite a Negro to an audience at the White House, Mr. Lincoln was saying to the country: I am President of the black people as well as the white, and I mean to respect their rights and feelings as men and as citizens.” But Lincoln’s description as “emphatically the black man’s president” rests on more than his relationship with Douglass or on his official words and deeds. Lincoln interacted with many other African Americans during his presidency His unfailing cordiality to them, his willingness to meet with them in the White House, to honor their requests, to invite them to consult on public policy, to treat them with respect whether they were kitchen servants or leaders of the Black community, to invite them to attend receptions, to sing and pray with them in their neighborhoods—all those manifestations of an egalitarian spirit fully justified the tributes paid to him by Frederick Douglass and other African Americans like Sojourner Truth, who said: "I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln.” Historian David S. Reynolds observed recently that only by examining Lincoln’s “personal interchange with Black people do we see the complete falsity of the charges of innate racism that some have leveled against him over the years.”
The Black History of the White House presents the untold history, racial politics, and shifting significance of the White House as experienced by African Americans, from the generations of enslaved people who helped to build it or were forced to work there to its first black First Family, the Obamas. Clarence Lusane juxtaposes significant events in White House history with the ongoing struggle for democratic, civil, and human rights by black Americans and demonstrates that only during crises have presidents used their authority to advance racial justice. He describes how in 1901 the building was officially named the “White House” amidst a furious backlash against President Roosevelt for inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner, and how that same year that saw the consolidation of white power with the departure of the last black Congressmember elected after the Civil War. Lusane explores how, from its construction in 1792 to its becoming the home of the first black president, the White House has been a prism through which to view the progress and struggles of black Americans seeking full citizenship and justice. “Clarence Lusane is one of America’s most thoughtful and critical thinkers on issues of race, class and power.”—Manning Marable "Barack Obama may be the first black president in the White House, but he's far from the first black person to work in it. In this fascinating history of all the enslaved people, workers and entertainers who spent time in the president's official residence over the years, Clarence Lusane restores the White House to its true colors."—Barbara Ehrenreich "Reading The Black History of the White House shows us how much we DON'T know about our history, politics, and culture. In a very accessible and polished style, Clarence Lusane takes us inside the key national events of the American past and present. He reveals new dimensions of the black presence in the US from revolutionary days to the Obama campaign. Yes, 'black hands built the White House'—enslaved black hands—but they also built this country's economy, political system, and culture, in ways Lusane shows us in great detail. A particularly important feature of this book its personal storytelling: we see black political history through the experiences and insights of little-known participants in great American events. The detailed lives of Washington's slaves seeking freedom, or the complexities of Duke Ellington's relationships with the Truman and Eisenhower White House, show us American racism, and also black America's fierce hunger for freedom, in brand new and very exciting ways. This book would be a great addition to many courses in history, sociology, or ethnic studies courses. Highly recommended!"—Howard Winant "The White House was built with slave labor and at least six US presidents owned slaves during their time in office. With these facts, Clarence Lusane, a political science professor at American University, opens The Black History of the White House(City Lights), a fascinating story of race relations that plays out both on the domestic front and the international stage. As Lusane writes, 'The Lincoln White House resolved the issue of slavery, but not that of racism.' Along with the political calculations surrounding who gets invited to the White House are matters of musical tastes and opinionated first ladies, ingredients that make for good storytelling."—Boston Globe Dr. Clarence Lusane has published in The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Baltimore Sun, Oakland Tribune, Black Scholar, and Race and Class. He often appears on PBS, BET, C-SPAN, and other national media.
Throughout the Civil War, newspaper headlines and stories repeatedly asked some variation of the question posed by the New York Times in 1862, "What shall we do with the negro?" The future status of African Americans was a pressing issue for those in both the North and in the South. Consulting a broad range of contemporary newspapers, magazines, books, army records, government documents, publications of citizens’ organizations, letters, diaries, and other sources, Paul D. Escott examines the attitudes and actions of Northerners and Southerners regarding the future of African Americans after the end of slavery. "What Shall We Do with the Negro?" demonstrates how historians together with our larger national popular culture have wrenched the history of this period from its context in order to portray key figures as heroes or exemplars of national virtue. Escott gives especial critical attention to Abraham Lincoln. Since the civil rights movement, many popular books have treated Lincoln as an icon, a mythical leader with thoroughly modern views on all aspects of race. But, focusing on Lincoln’s policies rather than attempting to divine Lincoln’s intentions from his often ambiguous or cryptic statements, Escott reveals a president who placed a higher priority on reunion than on emancipation, who showed an enduring respect for states’ rights, who assumed that the social status of African Americans would change very slowly in freedom, and who offered major incentives to white Southerners at the expense of the interests of blacks.Escott’s approach reveals the depth of slavery’s influence on society and the pervasiveness of assumptions of white supremacy. "What Shall We Do with the Negro?" serves as a corrective in offering a more realistic, more nuanced, and less celebratory approach to understanding this crucial period in American history.
“This book is an effort to shed light on the truth. . . . To the extent that our leaders embody aspects of who we are as a people, studying how each president has participated in our nation’s complicated and often shameful treatment of Black people is as good a place as any to start.” — Margaret Kimberley from the Preface "Margaret Kimberley gives us an intellectual gem of prophetic fire about all the U.S. presidents and their deep roots in the vicious legacy of white supremacy and predatory capitalism. Such truths seem more than most Americans can bear, though we ignore her words at our own peril!" — Cornel West, author of Race Matters PREJUDENTIAL is a concise, authoritative exploration of America’s relationship with race and Black Americans through the lens of the presidents who have been elected to represent all of its people. Throughout the history of the United States, numerous presidents have left their legacies as slaveholders, bigots, and inciters of racial violence, but were the ones generally regarded as more sympathetic to the plight and interests of Black Americans—such as Lincoln, FDR, and Clinton—really much better? And what of all the presidents whose relationship with Black America is not even considered in the pages of most history books? Over the course of 45 chapters—one for each president—Margaret Kimberley enlightens and informs readers about the attitudes and actions of the highest elected official in the country. By casting sunlight on an aspect of American history that is largely overlooked, Prejudential aims to increase awareness in a manner that will facilitate discussion and understanding.
Published to accompany an exhibition of the same title held at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 10 July - 28 September 2003, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 17 April - 4 July 2004 and the Barbican Art Galleries, London, 9 September - 24 October 2004.
"A book that must be read by all Americans who desire a more critical understanding of the historical contributions that Africans made beyond the borders of the United States. It dramatically captures a history that has long been neglected by historians of the Mexican Revolution of 1810. . . . An important contribution that links the common histories of African and Latino Americans."--Carlos Muñoz, Jr., University of California, Berkeley Elected the first black Indian president of Mexico in 1829, Vicente Guerrero has been called the country's Washington and Lincoln. This revisionist biography of one of Mexico's most important historical figures--the person who issued the decree abolishing slavery--traces the impact of race and ethnicity on Mexico's national identity. An activist from boyhood and a mule driver by trade, Guerrero led a coalition of blacks and indigenous peoples during the difficult last years of Mexico's war for independence from Spain, 1810-21. In office, he taxed the rich, protected small businesses, tried to abolish the death penalty, and championed the village council movement in which peasants elected representatives without qualifications of race, property ownership, or literacy; he enjoyed signing his correspondence "Citizen Guerrero." In 1831 he was kidnapped and killed by his political opponents. This book also tells the story of seven generations of Guerrero's activist descendants, including his grandson Vicente Riva Palacio, the historian whose well-known writings elaborate on the ideals of a multiracial and democratic nation. Still in print today, his novels, essays, and five-volume national history are used here to help explain the factors that made the region of "El Sur" a center for political radicals from 1810 up to the revolution of 1910. For all readers interested in issues of diversity, this book will illuminate the evolving and distinct interactions of Indians, whites, and the descendants of the 250,000 Africans and 100,000 Asians brought to colonial Mexico. Theodore G. Vincent, a retired history instructor from the University of California, Berkeley, is a former newspaper columnist for the Los Angeles Herald Dispatch. He is the author of four books, most recently Keep Cool: The Black Activists Who Built the Jazz Age, and has published many articles on Afro-Mexico.
