Bennett, L. (1993). Before the Mayflower: A History of Black
America. (6th ed.). Penguin Books.
OVERVIEW
This book serves more than one purpose. First, this book is fascinating for
those who enjoy history and are interested in a different perspective of
black history than most likely taught in elementary and secondary schools.
Secondly, it teaches the danger of ignorance in this history. Bennett’s work
forces readers to consider one’s own position in the history of America’s
racial tension. Finally, this book provides readers the knowledge necessary
to speak with historical clarity when addressing another brother’s or sister’s
ignorance.
Bennett begins with a sharp study of the African past and dispels several
stereotypes which remain embedded in many Americans’ minds:
European penetration and the slave trade debased much that was
vital in African culture. The popular myth depicts the conquering
European carrying the blessing of civilization back to ‘naked’ savages
who sat under trees, filed their teeth and waited for fruit to drop into
their hands. The truth is less flattering to the European ego. On the
West coast of Africa, from whence came most of the ancestors of
American blacks, there were complex institutions ranging from
extended family groupings to village states and territorial empires.
Most of these units had all of the appurtenances of the modern
state—armies, courts, and internal revenue departments. (p. 22)
The second chapter opens with an excellent quote from W.E.B. Du Bois:
Your country? How came it yours? Before the pilgrims landed we
were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them
with yours: a gift of story and song—soft, stirring melody in an illharmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to
beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of
this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak
hands could have done; the third, a gift of the Spirit. (p. 28)
How these three gifts came to America is a part of history which, when one
takes the time to truly listen to and understand the conversations and
occurrences of one of history’s cruelest periods, leaves painful questions
about the slave trade:
The slave trade was people living, lying, stealing, murdering, dying.
The slave trade was a black man who stepped out of his house for a
breath of fresh air and ended up, ten months later, in Georgia with
bruises on his back and a brand on his chest.
The slave trade was a black mother suffocating her newborn baby
because she didn’t want him to grow up a slave.
The slave trade was a ‘kind’ captain forcing his suicide-minded
passengers to eat by breaking their teeth, though, as he said, he was
"naturally compassionate."
The slave trade was a bishop sitting on an ivory chair on a wharf in
the Congo and extending his fat hand in wholesale baptism of slaves
who were rowed beneath him, going in chains to the slave ships.
The slave trade was a greedy king raiding his own villages to get
slaves to buy brandy.
The slave trade was a pious captain holding prayer services twice a
day on his slave ship and writing later the famous hymn, ‘How Sweet
the Name of Jesus Sounds’ (p. 29).
The black man’s sweat and tears in the years of slavery produced for many
white folks the first great American fortunes. In many ways, the physical
and spiritual strength of the black man ensured the survival and prosperity
of America. According to Bennett, "Much of the economic life of New
England revolved around the slave trade and depended on it as did most of
her other industries."
Bennett continues in subsequent chapters with the founding of black
America and the many contributions of black Americans: life in the slave
community behind the cotton curtain, which was characterized by a deep
and rich spiritual experience and the rising up of those in bondage—
"Rather die free men than live to be slaves," said Henry Highland Garnett.
Plantation owners were keenly aware of the danger of enslaving a human
being:
He knew from bitter experience that the slaves were dangerous
humans because they were wronged humans. Slaves smiled, yes. But
they also cut throats, burned down houses and conceived plots to kill
every white person within reach. This happened so often that many
whites weakened under the strain. Some died of heart failure. Some
went insane. (p. 115)
Many did lose heart with the help of men like Gabriel Prosser, Denmark
Vessey, and Nat Turner. These men were significant because they rebelled.
The white man had swallowed an evil lie, and these men were determined
to upset his stomach.
The author leads readers through the abolitionist movement, highlighting
great men like Frederick Douglass and great women like Sojourner Truth
and Harriet Tubman. Readers wade through the muck of the Civil War and
the post-war period of black power in the South. There were some shining
stars, like Thaddeus Stevens during the period of Reconstruction. Stevens
saw what only the wisest saw: that freedom was not free without an
economic foundation. "Forty acres and a mule" was the cry. There was, at
the same time, extreme darkness within the South: the Ku Klux Klan and
lynching. White supremacy and the life and times of Jim Crow also
prevailed. Bennett notes, "The cornerstones of the great wall of separation
were two taboos: interracial dating and intermarriage" (p. 256). He adds,
"The laws and decrees of this system were designed to isolate,
subordinate, degrade—push down" (p. 257). Whites suffered from fear and
greed, the necessary tools for building this evil edifice.
Bennett provides helpful glimpses of the views of Booker T. Washington,
W.E.B. Du Bois, and William Monroe Trotter. Lynching continued.
Unquestionably, one of the most barbaric acts ever committed in a civilized
country was the lynching of Mary Turner, a pregnant woman...After using a
pocket-knife to perform a crude Cesarean, " ‘Out tumbled the prematurely
born child,’ wrote Walter White. ‘Two feeble cries it gave—and received for
the answer the heel of a stalwart man, as life was ground out of the tiny
form’ " (p. 352). The documented evils will shock any reader.
The author concludes with an in-depth look at the great leader, Martin
Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement of the 1960s; the ensuing
riots and the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan years; and, finally, the Clinton
election.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
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What do you know about the great Sudan Empires of Africa? If
little...Why?
Where were the first slaves sold in America?
Were plantation owners in the South predominantly kind or cruel?
Name some slave-holding presidents.
How strong was Lincoln on the issue of slavery?
Was it right for Nat Turner to rebel? To kill?
Was the white Southerner’s biblical defense for slavery stronger than
Northerners’ biblical refutation of it?
Why is the black man angry? Has the black man been crushed and
then penalized for not being able to stand up under the weight, as
Malcolm X once said?
How damaging can ignorance be?
Is it important to understand black history? What is the value of it
today?
Are you ignorant of black history? If yes, why? What are you willing
to do about it?
Chris Southard cCYS