From the arrival of the White Lion and the Treasurer to the second that you are reading these words, these two congruent themes of survival and resistance describe the existence of being Black in what is now America. The goal was never to become American, but to live, and live freely. To become and remain whole human beings. “The history of the American Negro is this strife,” wrote Du Bois. “This longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and true self.”15 At the dawn of the battle for American independence, Black people in the colonies had a glimpse of
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