Black Women Belong In History Books

Dr. Keisha N. Blain and the cover of her book.

This year we’ve seen a pandemic that has disproportionately affected Black communities, a summer of worldwide protests against racist police violence, and a presidential election cycle that ended in a white supremacist attack on the U.S. Capitol. While these traumatic reminders of 21st century racism trap us in a relentlessly contemporary news cycle, they have deep historical roots.

One historian has been at the forefront of connecting our political present to the American past. I interviewed Dr. Keisha N. Blain, an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States most recently known for Four Hundred Souls, a book on the “community history of African America” spanning 400 years after 1619 that she co-edited with Ibram X. Kendi. Via email, Blain told me about uncovering the Black past and transforming how people learn about it.

This interview has been edited for length.

As a historian and educator, what has your objective been in working to preserve, write about and tell African American history and the history of the modern African diaspora?

In so many instances, the histories that we tell center the ideas and perspectives of the dominant groups and in the process, we overlook—and even erase—the voices of Black people and other people of color. As a historian of the Black past, I spend a lot of time analyzing historical artifacts—traces of the past that emerge from an array of materials including memoirs and historical newspapers—in order to build rich narratives that center the voices and experiences of Black people. It is a difficult process but deeply rewarding especially when readers are inspired and enlightened in some meaningful way.

As a historian and as an educator, how do you think the teaching or understanding of Black history has evolved in the past decade, especially in response to social justice movements?

There is still a lot of room for progress. However, I do think our collective understanding of Black History has grown exponentially in the past decade. Consider, for example, how widespread the concept of intersectionality has become. While this is a term first coined in 1989 by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, it is deeply rooted in history. Crenshaw and other scholars such as the philosopher Kathryn Sophia Belle have done a remarkable job to draw connections to the earlier writings of Black women like Maria Stewart in the 1830s. Many Americans have a better understanding of how race intersects with gender, class, sexuality and other social categories—and thanks to brilliant writers such as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, many Americans now have a better sense of the crucial role that groups like the Combahee River Collective played in shaping intersectionality as a concept.

While there is still some resistance from various groups, I also think a deeper knowledge of Black history has helped people understand Black Lives Matter as a movement. Those who have had exposure to the writings of Barbara Ransby, for example, will see how the teachings of civil rights activist Ella Baker have informed BLM today. These are just a few brief examples to underscore how I think history is shaping current debates and ideas.

What’s still missing from the ways Black history is taught and celebrated in the U.S.?

I still think we need more scholarship on Black women. We have made significant strides, but the more I research and write about Black women, the more I see gaps in the narratives we tell.

Consider the Civil Rights-Black Power era, for example. When I teach courses on this subject, students still have a hard time sharing the names of more than three women who were vital to the movement. They know about Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Angela Davis. But when I ask them to share more names, I often encounter an awkward silence. That is a reminder that we have so much work to do as historians to not only center Black women’s history but also to ensure that the narratives we tell make it into middle school and high school textbooks.

How have you and other historians been able to fill in these gaps in the modern, white-washed understanding of Black history? Your work includes Set the World on Fire, the popular Charleston and Trump syllabi, and you edited Four Hundred Souls with Ibram X. Kendi — how have these works helped you fill in those gaps?

As a historian, it was important for me to play a role in expanding the public knowledge of the history to better contextualize these key developments in American society. In the case of Charleston, so many media accounts framed the massacre as an anomaly—rather than as a product of US history.

The Trump syllabus similarly resisted the common refrain that Trumpism was somehow new—the readings on the public syllabus revealed how much Trump’s rise was made possible by a long history of xenophobia, white supremacy, and white nationalism.

Set the World on Fire fills a major gap in the public’s understanding of American and global politics. By centering the ideas and activism of Black women—especially Black working-poor women—my book demonstrated how individuals with limited formal education and few material resources were still able to effectively shape national and global politics. My focus on working-poor Black women intellectuals and activists extends to my latest book, Until I Am Free, which highlights the political ideas of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. I show how her political philosophies are relevant today and in so doing, I hope readers will draw hope and inspiration from her story.

In addition to these solo-authored books, I have now co-edited 4 books. The latest one, Four Hundred Souls, is the most ambitious. It fills a myriad of gaps in this history by bringing together 90 brilliant Black writers to reflect on 400 years of African American history. By telling the history in this unique and creative structure, we capture the richness and complexity of Black history and we challenge the notion of a monolithic Black community.