Honoring Black History Month: A Collection of 5 Essential Reads & Podcasts To Get Started

To mark the kick off of Black History Month here in the US, I have compiled a brief list of 5 books and podcasts I found extremely helpful in deepening my understanding and knowledge.

Since moving the US almost a decade ago I’ve taken it upon myself to educate myself on many different aspects of American history. To mark the kick off of Black History Month here in the US, I wanted to share some of the books and podcasts I’ve found particularly useful in deepening my knowledge and understanding.

History of course is rarely straight forward and can be messy. Some of the books, for instance, shed light on the intentions of figures like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War in promoting the Emancipation Declaration.

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A Promised Land by Barack Obama

Probably many booklists list the memoirs of America’s first black president, or at least they should, so I won’t go into a lengthy summary. Personally, what really stood out to me when reading it wasn’t just the insane amount of issues thrown Obama’s way in his first few years in office - the global financial crisis, domestic automobile industry in crisis, stalled climate negotiations, more financial trouble with the Greek Crisis of 2009, one of the biggest oil spills to occur in the Gulf of Mexico, the Arab Spring - but it was also his ability to at all times retain a calm, cool focus, deal with the crisis at hand while also not missing an opportunity to move his own agenda forward, however painstakingly each step took. So the bailing out of the automobile industry emerges into an opportunity to seek strict new efficiency standards, while the Congressional lameduck session following his party’s pummeling in the 2010 midterm elections gave him a key opening to finally secure the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” And the Arab Spring accelerates the brief he had previously given Samantha Power, namely making human rights and democracy a key pillar in US foreign policy however - as Obama himself acknowledges - imperfectly executed that approach might be.

The moments which really stayed with me after finishing the book though were the personal moments Obama elaborates on. The parts hidden to most, away from the camera. There is the moment Obama takes a break from the campaign trail to visit his dying grandmother just as he’s on the cusp of victory (you can read an excerpt of this section here). The moment he is sat on a couch next to his mother in law watching the networks call the 2008 election for him, and both feeling overwhelmed by the moment. And, finally, there is the moment when he comes face to face with Donald Trump to deliver his infamous rebuke of the so-called birther conspiracy theory at the 2011 White House Press Correspondents Dinner, while at that very moment - beneath the surface - dealing with the stresses of a Navy Seal operation that would ultimately result in the death of Osama bin Laden less than 24 hours later. 

Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

Despite its length, I raced through this book in no time and highly recommend it to all those wanting a more comprehensive history of the racial hatred and injustice that has defined America for 400 years. At the heart of the book is the thesis that discriminatory practices - from slavery to mass incarceration - are not born per se from racist ideas, but rather the reverse. That is, racist ideas are themselves developed to justify established discriminatory practices in a bid to consolidate power and preserve long standing inequities. According to Kendi, racist ideas go back to the 15th century when the Portuguese justified slavery based on a biblically enshrined racial hierarchy. Told through the perspective of five so-called tour guides - historical figures from five different eras of American history - the book outlines the ensuing history of three distinct categories of racial ideas as they each vie for attention in American political thought: assimilationism, segregationalism, and anti-racism. 

The book challenges the popular conception of American history as following a neat linear line of progress. Rather than ever being fully discarded, as racist ideas became outdated and no longer socially acceptable, new ideas sprang forth in their place, each based on a new theory but still all too often at their core either assimilationist or segregationist; and in either case, still racist. In this vein, the book argues, many of the early anti-slavery abolitionists were in fact still racist to some degree, either believing freed slaves could become like the White Man or that they should be allowed to form their own segregated colonies. Even the idea that parts of society had become post-racial, where racial hatred had supposedly been transcended, was in part, according to Kendi, aimed at preserving the status quo, namely the socioeconomically segregated communities that still exist across much of America today.

Whether you are newly arrived to America or have lived here all your life, this is a book well worth reading. It will challenge your own preconceived notions of what constitutes racist and anti-racist behavior. In the end. It’s only through such self awareness and reflection that we’ll eventually overcome the worst forms of racial discrimination and injustice.

1865 by Wondery

So this is technically a podcast rather than a book but in reality, it feels more like a well produced radio drama and is well worth a listen if you want to understand the immediate impact of Abraham Lincoln’s death in 1865. With a stellar cast, the podcast literally begins the very night Lincoln was shot at Ford Theatre by James Wilkes Booth and follows the ensuing feud between Lincoln’s close ally, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and his successor as President, Andrew Johnson, as they debate the future of the nation. Underscoring the nonlinear nature of progress in American race relations, it does not take long before Johnson, sympathetic to southern interests, tries to roll back Lincoln’s work, including his pledge to provide forty acres and a mule to freed people, in spite of staunch opposition from Stanton. The tone of the series and much of its plot echoes with our own times with allegations of fraud, impeachment trials, high profile attempts to fire officials, and no shortage of conspiracy theories. But above all else, as Stanton increasingly resorts to any measure necessary to stop Johnson and the nation teeters once more on the brink of civil war, the series’ central question is how far are you willing to go, how much of yourself are you willing to lose, to pursue a moral outcome; at what point does the end no longer justify the means?

1865: Season 2 (podcast)

This fantastic and binge-worthy historical audio drama is back, this time following the rise and fall of Ulysses S Grant as he struggles to fulfill Lincoln’s unfinished work and as president see through reconstruction following the disastrous presidency of Andrew Johnson. 

Prior to listening to this podcast, I was always a little flummoxed by Grant. After moving to New York City, I had paid a visit to the Grant memorial in Morningside Heights in Upper Manhattan. A huge, grand mausoleum in the style of Napoleon’s tomb in Paris, it makes other presidential resting places pale in comparison (including FDR, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt). And yet, modern historians rarely rank Grant amongst the greatest of American presidents. So what is his deal?

When it comes to lessons in presidential leadership, Grant is an interesting case study in that he was and is far more revered and famous for what he did prior to becoming president than for what he achieved in office. Indeed, the so-called “Hero of Appomattox”, who accepted the surrender of Robert E Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, doesn’t even cover his presidency in his own memoirs published shortly before his death. By the time you finish listening to this season of 1865 you won’t be left with any doubt as to why this was the case, and it likely had little to do with the alleged fact he never desired to become president. You’ll also have a better understanding of how the optimism of reconstruction gave way to reaction and the re-establishment of a new form of discminiation through the notorious Jim Crow reforms.

Elected with such promise, and with the aspirations of millions of freed Black Americans resting on his shoulders, Grant’s presidency **spoiler alert** would be characterized by disappointment, corruption, scandal, betrayal, poor judgment and ultimately reversal and tragedy. The eulogy to Grant, at the season’s end, sums up the sentiment after noting it's rare to find a military leader who proves a good statesman in peace as they were in war: “He was a man who never desired to become president. His aim was to restore union and eradicate slavery for good. Ultimately though his betrayal is nothing compared to at the end, the betrayal of the freedman ....”

Far from being remembered for delivering on Lincoln’s work, an embarrassed but resigned Grant is told by one of his former aides that he “abandoned” his post when he was needed most by the freedman and, as a result, “that is what you will be remembered for.” Indeed, the consequences of the Grant presidency’s failure to live up to its full expectations would be felt for generations.

Robert E Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule

Seidule, a former soldier and head of the West Point history department, states early on that his intended goal with this book is to make history more inclusive by making it more accurate and complete. And he intends to recover this more comprehensive story of the past through detailing his own personal journey of reckoning with the reality, not the myth, of who his boyhood hero, Robert E Lee, was and what he stood for.

Not having grown up in America, I never quite understood why there was even a debate around whether Lee should be celebrated or not. Afterall, wasn’t he was the leader of an insurrection in support of the preservation of slavery? The answer I thought should be pretty obvious to all. How wrong was I! If you were like me, and trying to understand why there would be so much heated reaction to, for example, the decision to remove Lee’s statue from the old Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, this book is for you.

Growing up in Alexandria and educated in the South, Seidule details his own “indoctrination” into the myths of Lee as being a seemingly decent leader, extraordinary military strategist (indeed, some have argued the greatest), and all around honorable man. Seidule then recounts how through a series of events in his own life he was able to ultimately deconstruct the myth of Lee until he could see his for what he realy was, namely, as Seidule concludes, as the leader of a slave republic who was a traitor to the country he swore an oath to protect.

Seidule’s personal journey is a powerful expression of honesty and vulnerability, revealing a side of history that others may not want to know even if - in the words of the Smithsonian Secretary, Lonnie Bunch - it's “what you need to know.” As Seidule concludes, “we can create a more just society by studying the past. If we want to know where to go we must know where we’ve been.”

Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President by Harold Holzer

The Cooper Union is a huge building just a few blocks across from our new office. As well as being for many decades a place of free education, it's also the place where Lincoln gave arguably one of his most important, if not most well known, speeches on February, 27, 1860. In Lincoln at Cooper Union, Holzer argues that had Lincoln’s speech at Cooper Union failed, he may not have been nominated for the Republican nomination, much less win the 1860 presidential election. History would have been much different with this of course and Lincoln would have been relegated to “the trash heap of obscurity.” He may even “have escaped history altogether.”

Lincoln at Cooper Union outlines what led Lincoln to give that speech on that fateful day, the initial reception to his “awkward, ungainly, tall” figure from the Midwest, and the resulting impact of his address which contained his memorable appeal to “have faith that right makes might.” Yet, common to what some might think today, Lincoln did not use the address to oppose slavery per se or to present himself as an ardent abolitionist. Ever the pragmatist, and a man of his time, as Holzer reminds us, Lincoln sought to style himself as more as the champion of free labor through preventing slavery from being extended into newer states. Indeed, the crux of Lincoln’s speech, involving much painstaking research, was to demonstrate convincingly that the founding fathers had intended for the Federal Government to be able to intervene on question of slavery and prevent its extension. Of course, the consequences of him successfully prosecuting that case, thereby propelling him to the White House, are well known, even if the contents of the speech was largely forgotten.