Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America

By Sterling Stuckey

Book Overview

In this ground-breaking study, Sterling Stuckey, a leading cultural historian and authority on slavery, explains how different African peoples interacted on the plantations of the South to achieve a common culture. He argues that, at the time of emancipation, slaves still remained essentially African in culture, a conclusion with profound implications for theories of black liberation and for the future of race relations in America.
Drawing evidence from the anthropology and art history of Central and West African cultural traditions and exploring the folklore of the American slave, Stuckey reveals an intrinsic Pan-African impulse that contributed to the formation of the black ethos in slavery. He presents fascinating profiles of such nineteenth-century figures as David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, and Frederick Douglass, as well as detailed examinations into the lives and careers of W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson in this century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195056647
• ISBN13: 9780195056648
• Release Date: December 1988
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

not what i expected

i liked: (i) how newly arrived slaves from different parts of east africa forged a common identity. (ii) how folk tales (b'rer rabbit and his fiddle, eg) held a deeper meaning that masters could not begin to comprehend. (iii) how slaves blended native religions with christianity without becoming 'christian' - esp the myth of the lonely big 'vulture' - doomed to wander and see everything on earth, but cannot communicate with the living and knows not of any other vulture - a horrible but just fate for a traitor. i did not like: suggestions (i) that religious symbolism like rebirth by water and a farewell wake were unique to african religions when they are universal ,(ii) that ring dancing (ring shout) were also unique to africa, when likewise universal. I esp did not like: the author repeated the same theme to the point of boredom: (i) Why such a disjointed recollection of Paul Robeson's youth? He was truly unique. i expected a more critical appraisal of his accomplishments, not his travails . Wilson was president of President of Princeton Univ at the time so you would expect the town to be sleepily southern. (ii) did Dubois long to be a bolshevik? he would have found himself in a gulag with other intellectuals - ask any survivor of the red terror. (iii) little mention of Washington or Douglas - why? Before you can preach theoretical you first need to put the bread on the table so that your children can survive to become educated. It takes generations for a stigmatized people to rise from oppression. the first step may have to be nationalistic, but segregation in any form becomes self-destructive (cf rev Thurman and MLK).

Slave Culture

For my son in grad school and while a bit of a problem - all worked out well