Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950

Rating:
Summary: Reshaping the memory
Review: As every American learns in elementary school, after having been rescued from slavery by the Union Army during the Civil War, Black people waited nearly a decade before starting to fight for their civil rights under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr.

This book of 16 outstanding essays goes a long way towards correcting this horrendous error in our national "remembering," demonstrating that Blacks began their struggle for freedom and human dignity the moment the first slaves arrived here in bondage.

Some authors deal specifically with the process of creating (and sanitizing) collective memory, our experience of the past (memory) vs how we organize it (history.) For example, the mere title of Peter Wood's "Slave Labor Camps in Early America" puts a new spin on our romanticised image of the genteel Plantation. Scott Sandage's "A Marble House Divided" explores the political life of the Lincoln Memorial as a "memory site." Other essays focus a critical lens on specific episodes, such as the rise of Black radicalism in the South immediately following the Civil War, the voter registration movement in Florida 1919-1920, or intellectual pan-African feminism embodied by the first and second wives of Marcus Garvey.

A thought provoking and much needed collection.