A Social History of the American Negro

by Benjamin Griffith Brawley

Immediately after the war legislation enacted in the South made severe provision with reference to vagrancy. Negroes were arrested on the slightest pretexts and their labor as that of convicts leased to landowners or other business men. When, a few years later, Negroes, dissatisfied with the returns from their labor on the farms, began a movement to the cities, there arose a tendency to make the vagrancy legislation still more harsh, so that at last a man could not stop work without technically committing a crime. Thus in all its hideousness developed the convict lease system. -from "The Negro in the New South" This 1921 volume offers a new examination of the history of black people in America in light of the new flowering of cultural interest-on the part of whites as well as blacks-in the post-World War I period. A highly readable and tremendously informative foundational overview of the grand and terrible story of Africans in the New World, this work . the role of the Negro in the Spanish exploration of America . the development of the slave trade . the difficult social positions of the Indian, the mulatto, and the free Negro . early slave insurrections . the Negro in the American Revolution . first steps toward abolition . Negroes in the West . the impact of Nat Turner and the Amistad case . Sojourner Truth and the influence of the women's suffrage movement . the Civil War and Emancipation . the problems of enfranchisement . Mob violence and election troubles at the turn of the 20th century . Negro migration around America . the place of the Negro in American life . and much more. African-American author and educator BENJAMIN GRIFFITH BRAWLEY (1882-1939) wrote extensively on black culture, including Women of Achievement (1919).

Genres: History, Nonfiction

456 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Benjamin Griffith Brawley was a prominent African-American author and educator. Several of his books were considered standard college texts, including The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States (1918) and New Survey of English Literature (1925).

Reviews

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

chon kesi dige hoseleye khoondane injoor ketab ro nadare,manam hichi dar barash nemigam;)

[Brian Shellum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential source for writing about Liberia.

[Jerrodm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to say that I enjoyed this book, although I did benefit from reading it. The title lets you know what you're in for: A Social History of the American Negro: Being a history of the negro problem in the United States, including a history and study of the republic of Liberia. The author, an African American, wrote this book in 1921, and its purpose is clearly to outline the importance of black people in the history of the United States, how the relations between white Americans and people of color evolved over time, from servitude to chattel slavery to emancipation & reconstruction, up through the early decades of the 20th century. His further purpose is to build the case for the equal treatment and provision of opportunities for blacks in society. Clearly we can all get behind that, but writing in 1921 there were certainly still plenty of people clinging to the idea that non-whites were somehow biologically inferior to others.

All this seems outdated now, almost quaint, were the subject matter not so sickening. What is still fresh in this book is his elaboration of the ongoing question, "the Negro problem" as he puts it. From p. 125: "And what was the Negro Problem? It was certainly not merely a question of slavery; in the last analysis this institution was hardly more than an incident...The question was rather what was to be the final place in the American body politic of the Negro population that was so rapidly increasing in the country...In this [American] life was it also possible for the children of Africa to have a permanent and an honorable place? With their special tradition and gifts, with their shortcomings, above all with their distinctive color, could they, too, become genuine American citizens?"

Now, his answer is an emphatic "Yes", but I just can't help but note the strong undercurrent of essentialism running through this book. You can see it in the quotation above--"their special tradition and gifts, with their shortcomings...", you can see it in the way he refers to black Americans in the collective singular third person--"the Negro does this", or the "the Negro believes that", or "the Negro reacted in such a way", as if there were one single representation of all black Americans, any more than there could be one way of characterizing the thoughts, feelings, strengths and weaknesses, beliefs or other singularities of any sufficiently large group of people.

Another problem I have with the book, particularly the pre-Civil War portion, is that it's really written as a social history of white America's efforts to deal with black Americans--African Americans show up very largely as the object, but rarely as the actor, in the early parts of this book. I suppose that may be expected, given that most of the material available on that time period would tend to discount the agency of people of color and focus on that of whites, but it is a little frustrating, and feels like the story of slavery as seen through white eyes (Note: I didn't look up the author until after finishing the book, and was surprised to find out that he was of African descent--the book reads very much as black = Other, even if the argument here is that the Other is worthy of respect and equal treatment.) It is worth noting that this balance starts to shift slightly after the Civil War, when more focus is placed on the agency of black people and their efforts to gain equality in American society; the other exception is the chapter on the founding and development of Liberia, in which of course free black Americans play a significant active role.

Finally, the last quarter or third of the book, dealing with the post-Emancipation south, is frankly rather hard to stomach. The author paints an incredibly compelling portrait of the suffering, debasement, discrimination and violence to which African Americans were subjected, but the descriptions of lynching, murders and random violence (of which there are many) are so graphic they made me a little sick to read. Suffice to say, they more than get the point across, and writing in 1921 when Klan activity was still rampant in parts of the US, it's not difficult to understand why the author felt it necessary to go into such detail.

In sum, the book was well worth the time, a surprisingly easy read for a history book nearing its 100th birthday, and covering an important, difficult topic. The perspective and tone of the book do jar more than occasionally, but if you can get past that, there's valuable insight to be gained here.

[Kati · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 1921 A Social History of the American Negro has been referenced in many of the recent studies of the history of race relations in American, so I was very excited to see that Dover had reprinted it. It is also available for free at Project Gutenberg, which is how I ultimately read it.

The book is very dense and isn't a light read. Also, of course, it is more than 90 years old, so if you were reading it for research you'd want to cross-check against more recent sources. But even the early parts are good for providing starting points for further research in portions of history you probably haven't been exposed to.

Where the book really shines starts with Chapter 11: Social Progress 1820-1860. The book is especially valuable for its accounts of events leading up to and continuing into what is now known as the Nadir of Race Relations. It arguably was lessening by the time this was published but continued for a few decades afterwards, and this is an excellent resource that captures information in that time that was not available through more mainstream sources.

In short, not something you'd read just for entertainment, but very interesting research on race relations, especially 1860-1920.