The Trump regime really doesn't want to acknowledge that there were ever enslaved people in America. He doesn't want to bring any attention to the people the Founding Fathers owned. When George Floyd was murdered, there was a sense that many Americans were ready to have the serious conversation about one of America's two original sins: slavery, and why slavery has so much to do with most of what's wrong in America to this day. But Donald Trump did everything in his power to bury the issue, blaming Black Lives Matter for the problems caused by white supremacy.
To that end, Trump and many red state politicians are doing whatever they can to remove books on America's sins from public view. They want them removed from classrooms and school libraries. And now, they have instructed the National Park Service to remove books on slavery from bookshelves in park visitor centers.
Better get your own while you can.
My suggestions here are not exhaustive. They are selected from among the books I have read.
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is indispensable. Edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, the book is divided into short sections, each on an aspect of present day American life, showing direct connections between slavery and the modern day. It occurs to me that we often think of 1620 as the beginning of America (although the Virginia colonies predate that). So strange to think that there were enslaved people in America before the arrival of the Mayflower.
The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader, edited by James W. Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta. The Confederates in the title are the original secessionists who started the Civil War. The Neo-Confederates are the latter day historical revisionists who invented "the lost cause." As all the included secession documents and related writings show, the reason for the southern states leaving the union was slavery. It was slavery and nothing but. The Neo-Confederates tried, and continue to try, to confuse the issue with arguments about "states' rights" and other things that the original Confederates did not have in mind when they seceded.
Barracoon, by Zora Neale Hurston. As of the year 1808, the importation of new slaves from Africa was illegal. But smuggling continued. One of the last Africans brought to America in secret was a man named Cudjo Lewis (African name Oluala Kossola). Zora Neale Hurston interviewed him between 1927 and 1931, and this book is the result.
The 272, by Rachel L. Swarns. In Maryland, the Jesuits enslaved many human beings. When Georgetown University was facing financial troubles and possible closure, the Jesuits decided to sell their slaves to owners in Arkansas. This is their story.
We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I originally thought that this book would be about the Obama years, but the title was taken by a quotation from a Black legislator in the Reconstruction South. Before the end of Reconstruction and the onset of terror attacks by the KKK, several Blacks were elected to public office, and did a very good job. This is another book that dispels American myths about race and history.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi. Kendi identifies two forms of anti-Black racism: "segregationist," which is summed up by "Blacks are inherently inferior, and no amount of civilizing will change that"; and "assimilationist," "Blacks can be lifted up by civilizing contact with white people." Racist ideas have long been promulgated by people who materially benefit from racism.
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith. This is a wonderful book, and you'll learn a lot. Smith visited several sites associated with slavery to find out how each site presents its history. The locations: Monticello; The Whitney Plantation; Angola Prison (Louisiana State Penitentiary); Blandford (Confederate) Cemetery in Petersburg, VA; Galveston Island, TX (where Juneteenth began); New York City (where there were many slaves in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Read the sad story of the origin of Central Park).
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, by Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass is a well-known figure who is more than well worth reading. He wrote more than these two titles, but these are all I have read.
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, by Ty Seidule. Seidule is a military man who was educated in a "segregation academy," a private school organized to shield white children from integrated schools. He also attended Washington and Lee University, where the Lee Chapel was more a shrine for worshipping Robert E. Lee than for worshipping God. When Seidule, who once idolized Lee, discovered that there were streets and buildings around West Point named for Lee and other Confederate generals, he began to wonder why generals who fought against the union were so celebrated. Thus began Seidule's education.
As I say, read these while you can.
