“I’ve known rivers as ancient as the world and
older than the flow of human blood in human veins.”
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” l. 1 (1921)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
“Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Speech, Nashville Tennessee, 27 December 1962
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, readings/research, united states history
“American astronomer, compiler of almanacs, and inventor. He was born a free black in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, and owned a farm near Baltimore. He taught himself astronomy and mathematics and began astronomical calculations in 1773. He accurately predicted a solar eclipse in 1789. In 1790 he was appointed to the commission that surveyed the site for Washington, D.C. From 1791 to 1802 he published annual almanacs; he sent an early copy to Thomas Jefferson to counter a contention that blacks were intellectually inferior. He also wrote essays denouncing slavery and war.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, numeracy, readings/research, science literacy, united states history
“A two-part essay by American writer James Baldwin. Variously employing biblical allusions, the rhapsodic rhetorical style of the black pulpit, as well as his own personal ‘witness’ Baldwin admonishes America to ‘end the racial nightmare.’ The first essay, ‘My Dungeon Shook,’ is a letter to his nephew James, on the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In ‘Down at the Cross,’ Baldwin describes growing up in Harlem, his experiences with the Nation of Islam, and offers a warning and a plea for white and black American to work together.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Around the age of 5, 6, or 7…. It comes off as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing Indians and, although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.”
James Baldwin, Speech at Cambridge Union, Cambridge, England, 17 February 1965
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
“I am an invisible man…. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man prologue (1952)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, fiction/literature, united states history
American novelist and poet. Reed’s writing reflects his belief that the black American writer should function as a kind of conjurer of what Reed calls ‘neo-hoodoo,’ an attempt to pry the distinct qualities of Afro-American culture loose from Euro-American culture. In a language composed of black dialects, standard English, and hip jargon, he writes angry satires on an American society corrupted by racism and uncontrolled technology. Among his novels are The Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967), Mumbo Jumbo (1972), Flight to Canada (1976), The Terrible Twos (1982), and Japanese by Spring (1993). His verse collections include Conjure (1972) and Secretary to the Spirits (1975). Other works include Shrovetide in Old New Orleans (1978), occasional writings; Hell Hath No Fury (1980), a play; The Terrible Threes (1990), a collection of short stories; and Airing Dirty Laundry (1993), containing memoirs.
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
[Addendum: Ishmael Reed entered my cultural cosmology when I heard the the percussionist and producer Kip Hanrahan’s projects to set Mr. Reed’s poetry to music, the first of which, Conjure (named for one of Mr. Reed’s books of verse) appeared in 1983. I continue to listen to that record regularly, now 35 years later. Two more records from Conjure have appeared, Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon (1988) and a two-disc set, Bad Mouth, released in 2006.]
Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, fiction/literature, music, poetry, readings/research
“I know why the caged bird sings!”
“Sympathy” 1. 21 (1899)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, poetry, united states history
“We will see that the true miracle was not the birth of the Constitution, but its life, a life nurtured through two turbulent centuries of our own making, and a life embodying much good fortune that was not. Thus, in this bicentennial year, we may not all participate in the festivities with flag-waving fervor. Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled.”
Thurgood Marshall, Speech, Maui, Hawaii, 6 May 1987
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, readings/research, united states history
“Classic ‘novel’ of Jean Toomer (1894-1967). Cane was immediately hailed as one of the foremost pieces of the Harlem Renaissance of the twenties. A collection of poems, sketches, stories, and a novella (‘Kabnis’) built around dialogue, the book was inspired by Toomer’s visit to rural Georgia to teach. There he ‘heard the folk-songs come from the lips of Negro peasants’ and ‘saw the rich dusk beauty of the poor black South.’ The title refers to one of the book’s foci, the cane fields. Cane is divided into three parts: it begins in the cane fields, moves to the harsh streets of the North, and then back to the South. The black South is seen as a link to Africa and as a sensuous, soulful place of hardship, for example dealing with such themes as miscegenation, lynching, and the efficacy of the old Negro spirituals. The second section takes place mainly in Washington, D.C., Toomer’s birthplace, where blacks are estranged from their spiritual home. Though on the surface a potpourri, Cane as whole achieves a tonal and thematic unity through its recurring images and symbols, which suggest the beauty, vitality, and pain that Toomer saw in the agrarian South, a way of life he felt was passing and for which Cane is his lament.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
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