Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: In his impressive study of the African-American experience in America, "Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom," author Lawrence Levine assembles a vast collection of songs, jokes, medicine, tales, music, and humor to argue against the once widely held notion that slavery reduced blacks to a state of hopeless degradation, completely dissipated their African heritage, and left them largely dependent on white cultural norms. According to Levine, not only did blacks possess a culture and consciousness independent of the dominant white society, but this culture was extraordinarily complex and capable of constantly changing to fit the latest challenges confronting both white and black society. The author claims that up to the time of emancipation, slaves' oral communications created a "sacred" world that transcended bondage and went beyond the control of their white overlords. African influences consisting of "call and response" song and the reversal of the social hierarchy through stories remained important in all aspects of black life in the antebellum South, eventually informing spirituals, folk medicine, and story creation. When blacks told tales about the animal world, or sang songs with a spiritual focus, doing so created a sense of inclusive community while constructing a cosmology that gave blacks an important place in the unity of the physical world.

This sacred world gave way to increasing secularization after emancipation when blacks assimilated some white influences during the move from the plantation to larger society. Since white society still limited the roles of blacks in society, the result of freedom was a cultural dualism, or the "double consciousness" articulated by W.E.B. DuBois, which Levine best expresses when he studies how blacks spoke the English language. When dealing with whites, blacks tended to communicate using proper English language forms. Among their own people they spoke using distinctive black constructions. Rather than seeing this as devious or ignorant, as many whites did during that time, the author sees this as a way blacks maintained their own identity during the heady days of freedom when white culture threatened to overwhelm their traditions. Blacks did adopt some white cultural ideas, which Levine rigorously outlines through the study of such diverse fields as hero stories and blues music, but they never accepted them at the expense of their own traditions. The blues particularly presented a significant challenge for the black community because this form of expression closely mirrored many aspects of white music: individual singing versus group singing and the creation of songs based on an individual's experiences and problems. The author argues that while blues did employ some white musical elements, the problems often articulated in the songs dealt with concerns affecting the entire black population. Moreover, blues music helped spread a sense of community through the wide distribution of recorded songs.

Particularly impressive in Levine's study, aside from the massive amount of material he collected and synthesized, is his study of the trickster tales. It is here, in the widely circulated black tales about Brer Rabbit and other denizens of the animal world, that African-American culture related a plethora of different meanings to changing times. "Black Culture and Black Consciousness" teases out multiple definitions from these ostensibly simple tales, showing how blacks imbued the stories with lessons about patience, the weak versus the strong, the value of listening, and the importance of marriage among many others. Most relevant is how these stories did not merely fall into a "hate the white man" mold, but reflected the broad concerns and hopes of an entire community. The trickster tales, in Levine's masterful hands, reveal that blacks often shared the same concerns about life that white people did. A superficial examination of the stories, as it seems many have made over the years, does not reveal the depth and breadth of the human experience contained within the tales. The author works wonders with these stories.

As difficult as it is to criticize a work that accomplishes such a masterful fusion of diverse sources, Levine does make a few omissions. He introduces, for example, the concept of black toasts without discussing the origins of this rhyming wordplay. Were there other forms of black oral traditions that the author failed to analyze? Unfortunately, black religious sermons receive little attention from this scholar. Religion played an enormous role in African-American oral tradition, as evidenced in the examinations of spirituals and gospel music in the book. Where did the pulpit fit into the development and maintenance of culture and consciousness? We know from the this book, along with Mia Bay's examination of ex-slave testimony, that black preachers existed and were important figures respected by black people as far back as the first conversions of African-Americans to Christianity. Black religious figures continued to exert considerable influence on their communities after emancipation. Even today, some black religious services easily conform to the modes of communication outlined in Levine's book, especially the African "call and response" patterns used in slave spiritual songs.

Moreover, black newspapers created after the freeing of the slaves also served to unite the black community and functioned as a center of cultural consciousness. "Chicago Defender," a black newspaper, spoke out against problems confronting black people in the early part of the twentieth century. The paper also played a vital role in encouraging southern blacks to migrate to the North around the time of World War I. Black periodicals like the "Chicago Defender," regrettably unexamined by this book, fits the author's definition of black ethnicity after emancipation: adopting a white idea and melding the concept with black cultural concerns.