Currently reading Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor by Kim Kelly from Atria/One Signal (April 2022). The parallels between the institutionalized enslavement of Black people and the exploitation of the Labor class are obvious.
Symbols of Freedom: Slavery and Resistance Before the Civil War by Matthew J. Clavin
non-fiction sociopolitical history
NYU Press, June 2023
From the introduction:
Interrogating the impact of national language and symbols comes with some risk...
The aversion to nationalism derives largely from its relationship with racism... According to historian Anthony Marx, efforts to codify racism that intended to unite White people unintentionally brought Black people together. They moreover emboldened them to challenge their oppressors.
Enslaver versus Abolitionist--this text and the United States grapple with the context of these oppositional forces that embody the fundamental contradictions of "the land of the free and the home of the brave."
By itself, the intense study of the July 5th, 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass is reason enough to read this book. The many images from pamphlets and other historical documents, plus the introduction, seven chapters across two parts: Contesting and Fighting, and a "Fighting for Old Glory" epilogue, acknowledgments, notes, index, and previous non-fiction titles mentioned in about the author are each worthy of a close reading and rigorous contemplation.
The experiences of lesser celebrated but very accomplished New York State Underground Railroad conductor Jermain Wesley Loguen, self-liberated Israel Campbell, Elizabeth Blakesly, and others are offered as examples of the ways in which the language and symbols of freedom are interpreted as influenced by time, place, person, circumstances, and intention.
Complementary reading with I Can't Wait to Call You My Wife... by Rita Roberts and The Grimkes by Kerri Greenidge.
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