tv [untitled] March 17, 2012 12:30pm-1:00pm EDT
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leadership on the continent also began to be subverted. along the western central african coast where the portuguese control the slave trade, for instance, a new group people were created as middle men. these africans stood between the two. but the exercise is significant amount of influence if not real power in the organization and management of the slave trade enterprise. and through the manipulation and use of the kpod advertise they brought to the exchange for slaves, their positions of power within african societies were elevated. their presence in turn changed the political dynamics of african societies as well as the relationship that's existed between the traditional rulers and their societies. let me conclude this section by saying that several points need to be made that indicate the ways in which the slave trade as an economic, political and cultural phenomenon was involved in making of the modern world.
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first, the slave trade was central to the development of europe and the americas. second, it was central to the underdevelopment of africa. and finally, it was through the slave trade and related economic activities that five continents, europe, africa, north, central and south america which colombian voyages were isolated from one another were knitted into a system of mutual independency in which europe emerged as dependent on africa and the americas as europeans like to say that slaves were dependent upon their masters. this system has continued down through the present day. they remain dependent and economic relations to europe and your america.
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this is the nature of the modern world in which we live. and even the cursory reading of the evidence establishes its origins in the transatlantic slave trade. now i just like to make two or three points about the book and then i'm going to be sitting with my colleagues to have some conversation with them. the book is basically divided into two sections. first deals with the slave trade and slavery as a system. the second half looks at more indepth way at the ways in which people of african dissent re-created themselves, transformed themselves into new people through an exploration of issues of language, literature, of music, of art, of their religion and various forms of cultural expression. the book has some 200 images drawn from our exhibition which had a total of about 300, 400
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objects in it but selected by the folks at "national geographic." essays have been prepared by six individuals to highlight and promote new levels of understanding of some of the central themes that are raised here. and one of the essays is, of course, by john franklin which traces the old evolution of the emancipation proclamation as a part of our triumph over slavery. gayrod willmore has written an essay on religion. and henry gates from harvard has written on language and literature and specifically on the slave narratives as the foundation of african-american literary tradition. these three essays are included.
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they have written on the subject of sole and impact on african-american and american music. again, tracing its roots back to africa and to slavery. those essays are presented in the -- as commentaries on the chapter that's are here, the nine chapters that make up "jubilee." and we -- i would like to think that this book will make several contributions to you as readers and to the general public. the first is that it does offer this radically new, we think, perspective on the history and the lessons that we can learn from it. looking at blacks and recognizing blacks as human beings and asking the question,
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what do human beings do in the context and context of oppression and exploitation? they don't simply roll over and become victims. they try to figure out some way of getting themselves out of that situation of oppression, exploitation and domination. and so we look at blacks as actors and creative makers of their own history and culture than simply victims of other people's culture. the book presents what we consider to be an inspiring story of the triumph of enslaved africans over slavery and their impression as they rekree aed themselves and created their own cultures and their own societies and argues that the foundation of virtually everything that african-american people are today culturally, socially, politically to some extent, certainly genetically is a product of the struggles and achievements of peoples of african dissent and enslaved africans during enslavement. the book argue that's it is,
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nakt, a revealing chronicle of slavery and the slave trade and the effects it had on the making of the modern world which i just recounted for you. and i would like to think that book is a source of empowerment for african-americans and a message of hope for all oppressed and exploited people, including ourselves. all of us can learn something about how human beings are able to deal and cope with oppressive and exploitive conditions by reading this book. we believe also that the book makes it very clear that human development is indeed possible under the most oppressive and dire of circumstances. and the message of hope that comes from that is that if enslaved africans could triumph over slavery, so can exploited and oppressed people triumph over their victimization in this
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the 21st century. i thank you for listening to these words. i'm going to go ahead and sit with my colleagues. >> thank you very much. one of the sections of the book deals with what we call the roots to freedom. and, again, one of the important things to remember is that throughout the history of slavery, wherever it was, however much the european powers wanted to create the imprigs that it was a stable institution, it was always a very unstable institution. black folk were constantly running away. people would pack up.
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and the running away, we tended to focus at what occurred during the period of the 1830s to the underground railroad. the vast majority of the run aways as documents by john franklin's book never really left the south. but the numbers of them that ran away on an annual basis ranged from anywhere from 25 to 30,000 to 50,000 a year. people would just get up and split. what they were doing was they find something that was problematic to what was being done with their families or whatever and they would end up leaving the plantation until such time as they could establish a basis for renegotiating their relationship with the plantation.
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and that might mean by way of example they've been working for hire and not getting any money. so they say i'll come back but you have to split whatever wages i earn 50/50 with me and they use that to buy their own freedom or that of their family. a variety of the straight joy are carried out in that context. within this whole process, if you will, gaining freedom during the period of slavery, one of the other methods used was to enroll or enlist in the military. gayle buckley, could you speak briefly about the diverse ways in which enslaved africans actually ended up being armed and brought into the military during the period of slavery? >> yes, i would love to talk about that. i also would like to mention --
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could i echo a few things you said? >> certainly. >> in 1929 it was written that say black people in america have no reason to be ashamed of being slaves. the people who should be ashamed are the people that kept them in slavery. so there was a certainly a worldwide notice paid to slavery and the facts that we had no reason to be ashamed. as howard pointed out, blacks have been on the continent of america since the 15th century and a large part of that continent. in 1800, for example, blacks were 0% 20 piers of th% of the . one in seven members of george washington's army was black. this is history we should know. this is part of what as howard
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said makes us the most -- among the most american if not the most american of americans. for example, in world war i, going very far forward, but in world war i, blacks were chosen to guard the specific points of national interest in washington because they were the only ethnic group that government felt they could trust. who knows could be a german american with the white face? so they picked black troops to guard the reservoirs, armories, all the specific points of national defense. >> homeland security. >> homeland security. we might get jobs after all. >> and to die gres, to come back from world war i, in 1860, one
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in seven americans was in slavery. that shows what you a large population of the american people we were. in the north they were armed early. early as colonial wars against the indians. there is a poem by -- oh, the massachusetts poet, maybe one of you know a woman about an indian war, a famous black woman. i'm having a senior moment. but she wrote this wonderful poem about -- lucy -- yes! the deerfield massacre. she wrote about the deerfield massacre with indian warfare. in the south, it was less often
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that blacks actually were armed to fight indians. when they were, it was such -- it was such a big event that they were often freed. as a matter of fact, in the north, by the time of the revolution, many of the one in seven blacks in washington's army had been indian war veterans. one of my favorite veterans whose descendents i met was a free cambridge, massachusetts cooper in the revolution. he had been a vet of the french and indian wars. and he was at bunker hill. he was at bunker hill. he played -- there's nothing that makes the british run. he was a drummer soldier. many, many -- many blacks went
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to the revolution for varied reasons. they went for two levels of freedom. freedom for this new country which at that point looked as if it might be a country that was not going to be in slavery. there was a great feeling that maybe this country was going to begin as a free country. and manufacture the founding fathers were indeed anti-slavery. even jefferson who, of course, is an expert on but even jefferson, one of his earliest petitions to the motions to the virginia assembly was some measure of emancipation. washington talked about emancipation. washington even joined with a promise to join lafayette in the emancipation gesture. lafayette never would have come to the aid of america if he had known that he was going to raise his sword for a slave country.
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so in the early 18 -- in the 18th century, by the end of the 18th century, there was a large -- there was a strong feeling of anti-slavery both in europe and in america. since they left all the jamaican slaves, they liberated the slaves in england. it raised hopes. canada freed slavery and slaves at the same time. so there was all this feeling in the post -- in the immediate post revolution that this was going to be a free country. so blacks went to fight in the revolution to be free from england, to be free from kings, and to have what they believe was going to be a free country for themselves. and if they were free and they were fighting as was my friend alou, i like to call him my friend, he believed he was going
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to help free his southern brethren. many slaves in america in the revolution fought on the promise -- fought as substitutes for the masters on the promise of freedom. this was not always granted. sadly. sometimes it was. but more often it wasn't. by the time of the civil war when one in seven americans was enslaved, free blacks were not wanted in the revolution. man pow irneeds demanded that black troops serve finally after second bull run, lincoln said first he wanted 50,000 blacks to do everything but carry arms, finally with the emancipation proclamation. they were allowed to carry arms even though they had been
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fighting unofficially in new orleans, in florida, for example, the first free south carolina regiment of freed slaves single-handedly captured jacksonville, florida. also, they fought in kansas. they fought free slaves came to kansas and free and also run away slaves came to kansas to fight indians, confederate indians in those battles in the west. so there was this whole feeling. there had always been a tradition in the 18th and 19th centuries that blacks could fight and were great fighters as black historians had written about. by the time you get to the first half of the 20th century, blacks were no longer fighting for their freedom or for citizenship which made them fight in the early 18th and 19th centuries.
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they were fighting to refute white lies about black men as soldiers. and they proved themselves in the two most racist wars in american history were world war i and world war ii, not 18th and 19th century wars, the most racist wars in american history. woodrow wilson is the most racist president in american history. he resegregated washington, d.c., and the federal government which had both been desegregated in the civil war. the way blacks were treated in world war i and world war ii was horrifying. i mean my own mother in world war i was kicked out of the uso because she refused to sing at a army camp in arkansas where german prisoners of war were placed in front of black gis for the show. so there's always been both the tradition of being a soldier, the tradition of people first denigrating black military, not in the 18th century by any means
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and not during the time of the indian wars by any means. each generation of blacks who went to had to refute an earlier generation insists that they couldn't wor where the most highly decorated american troops in the war were the harlem hell fighters, 369th regimen from this community who won more decorations than any other americans in that war and served longer. and they fought in french uniforms under the french flag with french weapons because woodrow wilson did not want them to bear arms for america. in world war ii, the same story. president roosevelt was not the racist that woodrow wilson was but he had to juggle the southern wing. his wife was useful because he couldn't control her in being a friend to the black servicemen and women.
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but once again, the first black combat troops in world war ii, the first black pilots, the first black broke records. and the 1943 camp lejeune shooting record was broken by the first black marine. that was kept a secret. the first black marine saw more combat on iwo jima. the first black pilot, the 332nd escort -- tuskegee airmen flew more than any pilot in world war ii and also were the only combat unit, the only escort pilot never to lose a bomber. this is an extraordinary record.
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these are the kinds of things most people don't know. and this is why learning about our history is so incredibly crucial. thank you very much, g. just to add one of the things that surprised me as i was reading through the history is that in each of the wars, you ended up with blacks fighting on both sides. in the civil war, there were blacks who fought for the confederacy. >> very few, actually. >> relatively few. and -- and the revolutionary war, there were blacks that fought for the british. >> absolutely. >> and basically the question is who are they fighting for? what are they fighting for? and they're not fighting for the british or the confederacy, they're fighting for their own freedom and trying to figure out how they can get out of this
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mess. but i wanted to -- one of the areas that has great debate about the african-american family -- about the african-american community has been the nature of african-american family life. and specifically in slavery whenever it's talked about, it's always talking about the ways in which the slave system itself and planners specifically and the the way they broke up black families. the way they disrupted black family life. that was true, but the unasked question is where do how folk and how do black folk create any family life in the context of slavery? what was the nature of that family life? and how did that family life
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function as a resource for community development and community empowerment? and if you could say a few things about that. >> i could say a few things about that. well, there's -- it's a big topic. and it has been a topic of some debate, scholarly traditions come and go. there was at first an emphasis on the breakup of the black family, and then when other historians came along and said, no, that's too much focusing in on victimization. there were coping mechanisms that blacks developed in order to maintain a sense of family life. and that was certainly the case from the things that i've seen and what comes across very clearly, i think, in this book is we're looking at family in a sort of a traditional, modern, almost 1950s sense, mother, father, nuclear family with great assurances that everybody's going to remain
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together forever and ever certainly was not what blacks could expect in slavery because there was always the threat that family members might be separated and mothers from children, husbands from wives. there was no legal protection for black marriages. and it was -- there was sort of what people made themselves. but nevertheless people did make something. there were people who were husbands and wives, people who saw themselves as a family. and they maintained their ties even though the law did not protect them. one of the things that seems to have happened was the development of the sense of extended family. a sense of what you might call made up families. people took in the children whose parents were sold or when the families were separated. so family became something that was not just about blood. it was about sympathy and empathy, recognizing that people
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who were left alone needed someone and had to have a sense of community. so i think what is emerging right now. i mean scholarly traditions -- i try to avoid extremes. people always say, well, it was all this or it was all that. at one point as i said it was all about victimization and then it was all -- everything was -- everyone was living and loving and it was great. no, no, no, that's too far in the other direction saying there was just so much -- there was no instability. there was both. and people coped with it. and i think largely it was about looking at the circumstances that they were in and trying to find some sense of cohesion, sort of togetherness among people who were human beings, but who were being treated in in an inhumane way. and there's no way to look at those narratives. i don't know if people saw the documentary last night on hbo "unchained memories." you couldn't look at that without understanding these people had a deep sense of
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family. whatever people on the outside thought about them. there was no question that children loved their mothers, mothers loved their children, fathers, people had a sense of connection to one another. and one of the ways that i talk about in my essay and you can see from a lot of historical studies is that people maintain family ties by naming people, naming people, giving people the names of lost fathers, lost grandfathers. keeping people together in that fashion, knowing that those connections were there. and certainly after slavery, people went around, walked around trying to put together their families. fine people who had been lost to them and to have family reunions. i teach a class, american slavery and the law, one of the things i talk about is you can go to almost any airport and you'll see black people walking around with the t-shirts on with the family reunion. this family, that family.
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this notion of gathering up the family is something that's central to black culture even today and this is something a legacy of slavery. even if there was not sort of a nuclear family type presentation of family, there was another form of family that grew out of the circumstances that they were in. every bit as cohesive, every bit as deep and lasting and something that we still have with us today. so family was what these people made in the circumstances that they were in. >> and i think it's just so important -- i think it's so important, again, to put ourselves in the context of these enslaved african human beings. they were ordinary human beings just like you and me. what do you do -- what would you do when you put in a situation where people are constantly
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messing with you and your relatives? where the threat of being sold is held out to try to force you to carry out certain kinds of labor activity? how do you figure out how to cope? and the simple fact of the matter is people do figure out how to cope, everyone doesn't. but if you want a chart of trajectory of development within the group, then you have to see those instances where they do figure out how to cope and where that does become a cumulative kind of thing and the coping activities at the family level becomes a foundation for new kinds of coping activities as a community level say within the quarters and larger and larger areas. one of the things -- i guess i'll say this and we'll open the floor for questions. one of the major things that amazes me about the story when you start to look at it through this other lens is, i guess two
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things. one, these are no ordinary people. any ordinary people quite probably would've broken under the weight of the oppression and exploitation and degradation that they face. they figured out how to face all of that and still look within themselves and affirm the fact, a, that they were human in a context where people were telling them they were outside of the human family. they say no, no, i'm human. i'm human. and these are the ways in which i express my humanity. through my relationships with family and religion and all of the rest of that that's the first thing. the second is that we have had a very, very simplistic notion about what that experience was all about. and i would like to suggest that the transformation
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