I
think I got my Eugene City Library card fairly early in my college career, but
I mainly remember using it during my senior year as I tried to find everything
written on the Buffalo Soldiers ever.
Most
of what I remember finding there was related to African American studies. There
was a book of humor that was well-written but fairly uncomfortable, some James
Baldwin, and one book with lots of material from former slaves, like letters,
interviews, and speeches. At one time I thought it might be one of John W.
Blassingame's collections, but now I think it might be from Herbert Gutman. (My
favorite things about Goodreads is easily being able to track what I have read
and when.)
Anyway,
I was flipping through it and found some letters from former slaves. One was
familiar because it was in the manual from Professor Taylor.
Dr.
Quintard Taylor Jr was the professor who led my seminar, African Americans in
the American West, but before that I had taken two terms of The African American Experience
from him. I only took two terms because I had been working during fall term,
but I was very grateful when he loaned me the fall term manual.
The
class textbook was John Hope Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom, but Dr.
Taylor had also assembled a collection of supplemental materials. The familiar
letter was from the Winter term class, HIST 252. It was the one from Laura
Spicer's first husband, asking for some hair from the children, and pleading
with her to marry again. Slavery had separated them, and he had a new wife and
children by the time they were free.
That
letter had moved me, but in this book it was right next to another one that
made me smile. A former master had apparently written to his former slaves
asking them to return as employees, and while it was clear the actual answer
was "Hell No!", what Jourdan answered drove it home in a much better
way.
Laura's
letter was tragic, but Jourdan's was triumphant, and it felt good to me that
there could be triumphs.
I
really wanted Professor Taylor to see it, so I checked the book out, and he
took down the information, and I got the impression he was going to add it to
his booklet for future terms.
I
then returned the book and continued my studies, because that's what you do,
but I always remembered that letter and wanted to read it again. I would
occasionally do internet searches, generally searching on "Grundy has a
head for a preacher" because it was the sentence I could remember most
exactly.
I
never found it by searching, but one day there was a headline about a letter
that I knew had to be it, and it was. And people didn't believe it.
There
were so many comments doubting that any slave could really write that, and
whether it was just doubting the level of education or that slavery was really
that bad, it was all sickening.
Yes,
slaves did not get the best educations, and Jourdan did in fact dictate the
letter, not write it himself, but that doesn't mean that they can't have wit,
or sarcasm. And for everyone thinking it was made up, I knew it wasn't. I had
seen the letter and loved it years ago, and the book had been published and in
a library long before I found it.
Actually,
it is not impossible that I played a part. If Dr. Taylor did include the letter
with his lesson material, well, he's had a lot of students so that would lead
to more people seeing it. My classes with him were in 1992 and 1996, so there's
been some time.
I
guess that's my brag for the week, but there are two more points here. When I
started thinking that it might have been Blassingame, it was after reading The
Slave Community and starting to realize just how much raw data he amassed.
You can find gems while doing this, but a lot of is routine and tedious. It's
also necessary; the pattern that you notice in the records of three plantations
may be an anomaly, but when you go through hundreds of records (or thousands) you
get a clearer view.
There
are amazing letters like Jourdan's, and heart-wrenching ones, and also boring
ones, but over and over former slaves do communicate and testify and it is only
the ignorance of the posters on the one article that allowed them to doubt the
letter's veracity.
My
other point, and I can't properly attribute this, is that I had read something
a few months ago about how it is important for boys to read books with
different types of protagonists. They learn empathy in this way, especially at
certain ages, maybe around third grade.
I
do not doubt finding protagonists of color is an issue, but I know that boys
are actively discouraged from reading books where the girl is the main
character. Girls can read about boys, but boys won't read about girls - they
say the same thing about movies. Put it together and this gives us a world
where boys don't even fully recognize girls as people and there is a system
holding that in place. Consider more about what is out there for books and
movies and images, and how representation goes, and it's chilling.
I
mention it in this context because it goes back to the Libraries and Democracy
post, and especially the linked article on opportunities for literacy based on the economic status of the neighborhood. In a library you have many different books and in a well-staffed one you
have librarians helping guide children to appropriate books. You have story
time. Exposure to other viewpoints is available. There is so much good that can
be done. There is so much good that is desperately needed.
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