• DOI:10.2307/2717569
• Corpus ID: 149836969

Coming of Age: The Transformation of Afro-American Historiography

@article{Harris1982ComingOA,
  title={Coming of Age: The Transformation of Afro-American Historiography},
  author={Robert Lee Harris},
  journal={The Journal of Negro History},
  year={1982},
  volume={67},
  pages={107 - 121}
}

• R. Harris
• Published 1 July 1982
• History
• The Journal of Negro History

As a field of inquiry with its own conceptual and methodological concerns, AfroAmerican historiography came of age during the past two decades. Prior to the 1960s, the writing of Afro-American History was dominated by an effort to achieve the notice and respect of White America. It was bound in Jay Saunders Redding's words to " .. the angle of vision, the perceptions, the insights, and the interpretationsonce all too frequently questionable of white historians and chroniclers."' White historians generally ignored black people in their treatment of American History. When they did consider them, the work was usually impaired by white supremacy.2 Black historians, therefore, wrote Afro-American History primarily to correct the errors, omissions, and distortions that had been generated about black people.3 Because of the drive to make the Black experience an integral part of the American saga, Afro-American historiography did not have a framework or approach of its own. Three major developments converged during the 1960s to intensify interest in the Afro-American past and to change dramatically the writing of Afro-American History. The civil rights struggle, urban uprisings, and the Black consciousness movement forced a reassessment of the Black experience in America. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders reported in 1968 that "most Americans know little of the origins of the racial schism separating our white and Negro Citizens."4 There had been previous studies of the race problem in America, most notably the Myrdal Report during the Second World War when the Afro-American plight became more national in scope for the first time due to massive migration from the South.5 But these earlier studies did not stimulate the type of response that appeared during the late 1960s. In many respects, the media, which had become such an important element in shaping American popular culture, triggered interest in the Afro-American past. Americans were anxious to know why black people, apparently passive before, were now demanding equality. The Columbia Broadcasting System televised an excellent seven-part series "Of Black America" with its first segment "Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed." Public Television stations aired a thirty-part lecture series, designed by Edgar A. Toppin "Americans From Africa: A History."6 John Hope Franklin developed four weekly installments for Life Magazine, "Search for a Black Past." In his introduction to the essays, Roger Butterfield wrote that "...when