RECOLLECT

Hakim Adi is Professor of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester, and the most prominent and preeminent scholar of Blacks in the UK. He is the author of several titles, including Black British History, New Perspectives, West Africans in Britain/1900-1960, and the focus of this episode: the essential and illuminating academic survey, Pan-Africanism/A History. In this conversation, Adi discusses the roots of Pan-Africanism, sheds light on some of the unheralded figures in this history, and shares some of his efforts to bring more young scholars of color into the field. This is how we RECOLLECT.

Verena Krebs is the author of Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe. Published by Palgrave Macmillan, the book explores why Ethiopia’s Solomonic kings initiated long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It traces the history of more than a dozen delegations dispatched by this powerful Christian kingdom in the Horn of Africa. In this conversation, Krebs discusses her motivation for writing the book, how the book challenges longstanding assumptions about African agency, and shares her thoughts on the current political and humanitarian challenges facing Ethiopia today. This is how we recollect….

Natasha Henry is president of the Ontario Black History Society, and the author of several titles, including Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada, and Talking About Freedom: Celebrating Emancipation Day in Canada, among others. She is also the steward of a new research project entitled “One Too Many” - a dissertative effort focusing on the enslavement of African men, women, and children in Upper Canada between 1760 and 1834. In this conversation, Henry discusses the undertold history of slavery in Ontario, her contribution to the upcoming project, A Black People’s History of Canada, and her reasons for developing a Black Canadian digital archive to inform and empower the rest of the Pan-African family. This is how we RECOLLECT.

To connect with Natasha Henry, you can find her on Twitter @slaveryontario, or visit the project website at EnslavedAfricansinEarlyOntario.ca. To learn more about the Ontario Black History Society, please visit www.blackhistorysociety.ca. To purchase books, and support independent booksellers, please visit our collection at bookshop.org. To learn more about our other shows, including Sky is Black and the Pan-African Food Festival, please visit out website at www.recollect.media.

Graham Hodges is professor of History and Africana & Latin American Studies at Colgate University. He is the author of several titles, including Black New Jersey from Rutgers University Press, The Marion Thompson Wright Reader from Rutgers Press, Pretends to Be Free from Routledge Press, Slavery, Freedom, and Culture among Early American Workers by Routledge Press, Black Itinerants of the Gospel from Palgrave and Madison House, and David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City, published by University of North Carolina Press, among others. One of his most recent works, from Fordham University Press, is The Book of Negroes, which is an updated publication of The Black Loyalist Directory, which Hodges first brought forth in 1996. In this conversation, Hodges discusses The Book of Negroes, how it came to be, and how it is deeply connected to a global Black migration story that includes Nova Scotia, Great Britain, the Caribbean, and Sierra Leone.

Warren Milteer is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the author of North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715-1885 (LSU Press, 2020), and his most recent work, Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South (UNC Press, 2021). In this conversation, Milteer shares how this free community of color came to be, how they launched independent churches, schools, and businesses, and how they endured an ongoing battle against forced servitude, reenslavement, deportation, and white supremacy.

To connect with Warren Milteer

www.warrenmilteer.com

Twitter: @wemilteer

https://twitter.com/WEMilteer

To purchase Beyond Slavery Shadow:

University of North Carolina Press

uncpress.org

The RECOLLECT Bookshop

Bookshop.org/shop/recollect

LEARN MORE!

Off the Shelf: Author Talk with Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. A Facebook event.

https://www.facebook.com/events/374596030969753/

https://unc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AcErLcs1Tr6SU6iHXf6DUQ

RECOLLECT is a production of Recollect Media. To learn more about our other shows and events, including the first annual Pan-African Food Festival, please visit our website at www.recollect.media.

“History is not just his story, or her story, or my story - it’s our story. It is with us, it is alive, and it will survive as long as the truth shall live. Never forget, never ever forget...who we are.”

- B. Francis Clark

See Bruce's Beach returned to the Bruce family!

https://youtu.be/KvAmtVp1Uns

To learn more about Kavon Ward, please visit justiceforbrucesbeach.com and whereismyland.org. You can also visit her website at kavonward.com, or find her on Twitter @kavonwardpoet, or on Instagram @KavonWard1.

To learn more about Bruce’s Beach, check out the following resources:

A Calif. Beach Was Seized From Black Owners In 1924. Now The Family Will Get It Back

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/30/1041837156/bruces-beach-manhattan-newsom-los-angeles

California Governor Gavin Newsom authorizes the return of Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce family:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/photos-bruces-beach-property-returned-to-family

Moving to Right Historical Wrong, Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Return Bruce’s Beach to Black Descendants

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/30/moving-to-right-historical-wrong-governor-newsom-signs-legislation-to-return-bruces-beach-to-black-descendants/

From LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn

https://hahn.lacounty.gov/bruces-beach-history

CONNECT WITH KAVON WARD:

Twitter

https://twitter.com/KavonWardPoet

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/kavonward1/

Where is my land?

https://whereismyland.org

Justice for Bruce’s Beach

https://justiceforbrucesbeach.com

RECOLLECT is a production of Recollect Media. To purchase books, and support independent booksellers, please visit our collection at bookshop.org/shop/RECOLLECT. To learn more about our other shows and events, including the first annual Pan-African Food Festival, please visit our website at www.recollect.media.

Timothy Walker is professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and the editor of Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad. Published by University of Massachusetts Press, Sailing to Freedom makes the case that a high percentage of successful slave escapes were achieved by using coastal seaways - not by fleeing on land! In this conversation, Walker pushes for a more accurate telling of our Underground Railroad story, shares how K-12 educators are responding to the scholarship, and reminds us that the two most famous self-emancipators, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, both used waterways in their quests for freedom.

Contributors to Sailing to Freedom include David Cecelski, Elysa Engelman, Kathryn Grover, Mirelle Luecke, Megan Jeffreys, Cheryl Janifer LaRoche, Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Michael Thompason, Len Travers, and Timothy Walker

To purchase Sailing to Freedom, and to support independent booksellers, please visit our collection at bookshop.org, or visit University of Massachusetts Press at umasspress.com.

To learn about African-American mariners, check out Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail by W. Jeffrey Bolster (Harvard University Press)

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076273

To learn more about fugitive slave newspaper ads, please visit Freedom on the Move at freedomonthemove.org

To learn about Robert Small’s incredible life and work, please read the following important article from the Smithsonian

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/terrorized-african-americans-champion-civil-war-hero-robert-smalls-180970031/

To learn about the town of New Bedford, Massachusetts, once known as the Fugitive’s Gibraltar, please visit the New Bedford Historical Society

https://nbhistoricalsociety.org

To learn about the life and legacy of Frederick Douglass, consider the following resources:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave written by Frederick Douglass

https://bookshop.org/books/narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass-an-american-slave-9781613822913/9781613822913

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History

https://bookshop.org/books/frederick-douglass-prophet-of-freedom-9781508265689/9781416590323

To learn about the life and legacy of Harriet Tubman, consider the following:

Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson

https://bookshop.org/books/bound-for-the-promised-land-harriet-tubman-portrait-of-an-american-hero/9780345456281

RECOLLECT is a production of RECOLLECT Media. To learn more about other RECOLLECT shows and events, please visit www.recollect.media.

Kevin Dawson is Associate Professor of History at the University of California at Merced, and the author of Undercurrents of Power/Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora. Published by Penn Press, it is the definitive study of traditional West African relationships with water, oceans, rivers, and lakes. As Dawson reveals, long before the dawn of transatlantic slavery, West Africans were excellent swimmers, divers, canoeists, and yes…surfers. Dawson is the winner of the prestigious Harriet Tubman prize, given by The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. This book is eye-opening, it is corrective, it is seminal, and I am certain you will enjoy this conversation…

To purchase Undercurrents of Power, and to support independent booksellers, please visit our collection at bookshop.org, or visit Penn Press here. To read more articles by Professor Kevin Dawson, please visit UC Merced here.  To learn more about contemporary Pan-African aquatic culture, check out these resources:

Black Girls Surf 

https://blackgirlssurf.org

The Universal Sailing Club 

https://universalsailingclub.org

Black Surfing Association

https://bsarockaway.nyc

National Association of Black Scuba Divers 

https://nabsdivers.org

Returning to the Motherland: NABS in Egypt 

Diving with a Purpose 

https://divingwithapurpose.org

The Slave Wrecks Project

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initiatives/slave-wrecks-project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2l_EugvRw8

TED Talk by Bermuda Ocean Explorers Founder, Weldon Wade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKBt8cS3nYo

To learn about pioneering African-American surfer, Nick Gabaldan, check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p4a69jGifw

To meet Lou Harris, CEO of the Black Surfing Association’s NYC Chapter, see this video directed by Simbarashe Cha:

https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/means-black-stoked-new-york/123752

To learn about South African free diver, Zandile Ndhlovu, check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDMJxDJRBTI

Soul Cap 

https://soulcap.com

RECOLLECT is a production of RECOLLECT Media. To learn more about other shows and events, including the first annual Pan-African Food Festival, please visit our website at www.recollect.media.

Karen Cook Bell is Associate Professor of History at Boowey State University, with an expertise in slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and women’s history. She is the author of Claiming Freedom: Race, Kinship, and Land in Nineteenth-Century Georgia, and her most recent work, Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America. In this conversation, Bell sheds light on the undertold story of enslaved fugitive women, and the ways in which they risked everything to self-emancipate in the period before and after the Revolutionary War. Bell grounds her analysis around specific female fugitives, including “A Negro Wench Named Lucia” (Chapter One - 18th Century), “A Mulatto Women Named Margaret” (Chapter Two - Pre-Revolutionary Period), “A Well Dressed Woman Named Jenny” (Chapter Three - 1776-1781), and “A Negro Woman Called Bett” (Chapter 4 - Post-Revolutionary Period).

“I dedicate this book to all the nameless women whose stories have yet to be told. I’m hoping that with this book, the agency of Black women will be appreciated and recognized for what it was, and what it is — transformational. “ - Karen Cook Bell

Excerpt from an essay by Karen Cook Bell, via Black Perspectives (https://www.aaihs.org/black-perspectives/):

“During the American Revolution, one-third of fugitives were enslaved women.  Their desire for freedom did not originate with the American Revolution; however, the Revolution amplified their quest for freedom.  Enslaved women’s desire for freedom for themselves and their children propelled them to flee slavery during the Revolutionary War, a time when lack of oversight and opportunity from the presence of British troops created spaces for them to invoke the same philosophical arguments of liberty that white revolutionaries made in their own fierce struggle against oppression...The stories of Margaret, Jenny, and Bett reveal the precariousness of their lived experiences and their resolve for freedom.”

To learn more about fugitive slave newspaper ads, please visit Freedom on the Move at freedomonthemove.org

CONCEPTS/IDEAS/TERMS TO KNOW:

Petit Marronage | Grand Marronage

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775) | Phillipsburg Proclamation (1779)

The Book of Negroes

“Performing Fugitivity” | “Soul Value” (Daina Ramey Berry) http://www.beacon.org/The-Price-for-Their-Pound-of-Flesh-P1367.aspx

COURT CASES / LEGAL ISSUES TO KNOW:

Elizabeth Freeman Case (1781) | Fugitive Slave Law (1793)

PEOPLE TO KNOW:

Phillis Wheatley https://poets.org/poet/phillis-wheatley

Ona Judge & William Lee (Enslaved by George Washington) https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/ona-judge

To connect with Karen Cook Bell, find her on Twitter @kbphd08, or visit karencookbell.com. To purchase Running from Bondage, and to support independent booksellers, please visit our collection at bookshop.org, or visit Cambridge University Press at Cambridge.org. To learn more about our other shows and events, including the first annual Pan-African Food Fest, please visit www.recollect.media.

Peniel Joseph is the foremost scholar of the Black Power movement, and the founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of the award-winning Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour/A Narrative History of Black Power in America, along with the titles Dark Days, Bright Nights, Stokely: A Life, and his most recent work, The Sword and The Shield/The Revolutionary Lives of Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. In this conversation, Joseph shares the roots of his interest in Black Power, his thoughts on critical race theory, and his abiding admiration for his beloved Haiti, the first Black republic in the history of the world.

To purchase books by Peniel Joseph, please visit Bookshop.org

Test your knowledge!  Who are the speakers heard in the opening of this episode? (Answers below)

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To learn more about HAITIAN HISTORY AND THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION, consider these resources:

The Black Republic/African Americans and the Fate of Haiti by Donald R. Byrd

https://site.pennpress.org/aha-2021/9780812251708/the-black-republic/

“African Americans, Black Internationalism, and the Fate of Haiti” - A Black Perspectives Roundtable

https://www.aaihs.org/african-americans-black-internationalism-and-the-fate-of-haiti/

“We Owe Haiti a Debt We Can’t Repay” by Annette Gordon-Reed

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/opinion/haiti-us-history.html

To learn more about a few individuals mentioned in this episode, consider these resources:

LORRAINE HANSBERRY

Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry

http://www.beacon.org/Looking-for-Lorraine-P1532.aspx

“In Her Own Voice” by Imani Perry

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/07/01/lorraine-hansberry-in-her-own-voice/

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/lorraine-hansberry-sighted-eyesfeeling-heart-documentary/9846/

AMIRI BARAKA

“Amiri Baraka, Polarizing Poet and Playwright” - New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/arts/amiri-baraka-polarizing-poet-and-playwright-dies-at-79.html

Amiri Baraka, at the Poetry Foundation

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amiri-baraka#tab-poems

LARRY NEAL

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text8/blackartsmovement.pdf

JAMES CONE

https://www.aaihs.org/remembering-james-cone-kind-and-fierce-iconoclast/

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ:

Who are the speakers heard in the opening of the podcast?  In order: Bobby Seale, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Huey Newton, Kathleen Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Peniel Joseph.