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The Path to Freedom: Black Families in New Jersey
T?he struggle for black freedom and equality is a legacy that belongs to all Americans. In the twentieth century, this story of triumph over injustice inspired the spread of democracy around the world. From the villages of Eastern Europe to the cities of Asia and Africa, people have found new strength, hope and courage in the ways African Americans defeated Jim Crow segregation in the United States. Liberty and equality required the sacrifices of many African Americans who lived and made a difference in New Jersey, including the Russell, Ham and Brown families whom Walter Greason documents in this book. This contemporary narrative of community uplift offers a fresh appreciation of just how long the path to justice is.
128 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 2010
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October 16, 2019
A short introduction to what it was like to be black in the late 19th and early 20th century United States, loosely told through family photographs of the people who lived during the period.
When racial slavery and subordination became a part of human civilization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it created a barrier to human advancement that had antecedents only in the treatment of religious minorities and women. For a people degraded as chattel property to escape that status and achieve a substantial degree of social and political equality within a century’s time spoke to the simultaneous greatness of the liberal idea of human freedom and of the dogged persistence among people of African descent in western society. The study of African American history offers the lessons of freedom, dignity, integrity and authority to every student who considers it. In a world where terrorism looms wherever resentment festers and fascism lurks in anticipation of restricting freedoms in exchange for safety, the story of black families in New Jersey presents an alternative narrative to violent resistance and expansive domination.
In the nineteenth century, traveling fairs frequently offered “negro days,” when they would be open to African Americans exclusively. This tradition continued through the first half of the twentieth century. For white families, the slightest contact with African Americans in a context that did not reinforce a sense of racial superiority constituted a threat to the national social order.
In 1900, most people in Europe and the United States considered African American history an oxymoron. The idea of Africa embodied the absence of progress or civilization. Thus, there was no history there or among anyone descended from that region. Religious and scientific arguments ranging from the Curse of Ham to craniology reinforced the social perceptions of black inferiority.
When racial slavery and subordination became a part of human civilization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it created a barrier to human advancement that had antecedents only in the treatment of religious minorities and women. For a people degraded as chattel property to escape that status and achieve a substantial degree of social and political equality within a century’s time spoke to the simultaneous greatness of the liberal idea of human freedom and of the dogged persistence among people of African descent in western society. The study of African American history offers the lessons of freedom, dignity, integrity and authority to every student who considers it. In a world where terrorism looms wherever resentment festers and fascism lurks in anticipation of restricting freedoms in exchange for safety, the story of black families in New Jersey presents an alternative narrative to violent resistance and expansive domination.
In the nineteenth century, traveling fairs frequently offered “negro days,” when they would be open to African Americans exclusively. This tradition continued through the first half of the twentieth century. For white families, the slightest contact with African Americans in a context that did not reinforce a sense of racial superiority constituted a threat to the national social order.
In 1900, most people in Europe and the United States considered African American history an oxymoron. The idea of Africa embodied the absence of progress or civilization. Thus, there was no history there or among anyone descended from that region. Religious and scientific arguments ranging from the Curse of Ham to craniology reinforced the social perceptions of black inferiority.
Displaying 1 of 1 review