The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925

297 Pages·2000·2.37 MB·English

by  Mia Bay

The White Image
in the Black Mind:
African-American Ideas about
White People, 1830–1925
MIA BAY
Oxford University Press
THE WHITE IMAGE IN THE BLACK MIND
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WHITE IMAGE
THE
BLACK MIND
IN THE
African-American Ideas about
White People, 1830–1925
Mia Bay
NewYork Oxford
Oxford University Press
2000
Oxford University Press
Oxford NewYork
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Copyright © 2000by Mia Elisabeth Bay
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198MadisonAvenue, New York, New York10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bay, Mia.
The white image in the black mind : African-American ideas about
white people, 1830–1925/ Mia Bay.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-19-510045-X; ISBN 0-19-513279-3 (pbk.)
1.United States—Race relations. 2.Afro-Americans—Attitudes—
History—19th century. 3.Afro-Americans—Attitudes—History
—20th century. 4.Afro-Americans—Intellectual life. 5.Race
awareness—United States—History—19th century. 6.Race
awareness—United States—History—20th century. 7.Whites—
United States. 8.Whites in literature. I. Title.
E185.61.B29 1999
305.8'00973—dc21 98-48935
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Acknowledgments
This book had been a long time coming and has incurred many debts along
the way. Friends and colleagues whose ideas and support have nourished this
project go all the way back to my undergraduate days at University of
Toronto, where Michael Wayne and John Ingham introduced me the study of
African-American history, and Barrie Hayne supervised me in a senior essay
that explored some of the themes covered in this book.
AtYale University, where this project began to take its final shape, I had the
good fortune to be advised by David Brion Davis, whose support and encour-
agement helped me complete both my dissertation and its reincarnation as this
book. Other Yale friends whose discussions and critical readings shaped this
work include Jean Christophe Agnew, Jonathan Cedarbaum, Debbie Elkin,
Jonathan Holloway, David Goldshalk, Stephanie Smallwood, Carol Sherriff,
Ann Standley, Beth Wenger, and above all, Barbara Savage—a tremendously
willing and generous reader from graduate school to the present day.
Since graduate school, more people than I could name here have aided
me in thinking through the ideas explored here. Most notable have been my
friends and colleagues at Rutgers, whose confidence in my work has often ex-
ceeded my own. In particular, I want to thank Bonnie Smith and the other
members of the fabulous gender group for their comments on several chap-
ters; Tom Slaughter, Paul Clemens, David Levering Lewis, and Rudy Bell for
careful readings of the entire manuscript; Jennie Brier, Justin Hart, and
Amina Pilgrim for superb research assistance; and Matt Matsuda, Carmen
Whalen and Carolyn Brown for always cheering me on. In addition, I have to
give special thanks to Beryl Satter. My best editor and a rock-steady friend,
Beryl helped me survive this book. Likewise, Deborah Gray White has been
a crucial friend, reader, and mentor throughout this project. In addition to
lots of help and advice, Deborah, along with her daughters Asha and Maya,
provided me with a warm and welcoming New Jersey home away from home
during some of the late night hysteria that went into this book.
New colleagues, but old friends, Jennifer Morgan and Herman Bennett
have been equally important to this work. In matters both intellectual and
day-to-day, they supported me through every step of the book writing process
while also hooking me up with other wonderful supportive friends, most es-
pecially Ms. Lisa Waller.
vi Acknowledgments
This book has also benefited from the generosity of a wide variety of schol-
ars and institutions elsewhere. Many thanks to David Roediger, who has been
instructive both in his own work and in his generous comments on mine. I am
grateful to George Fredrickson not only for his reading of my manuscript but
for tolerating my transposition of the title of his classic book, The Black Image
in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny,1817–1914.
My work owes an obvious debt to his. Other critics and readers of my work in-
clude Suzanne Lebsock, Thomas Trautman, Walter Johnson, Kathy Tanner,
Martin Summers, and the fellows at Harvard University’s Charles Warren
Center, where I held a postdoctoral fellow in 1994–1995. Particularly help-
ful there were Laura Kalman, Steve Nissenbaum, Steve Biel, and the center’s
wonderful administrator Susan Hunt.
In addition to the Warren Center fellowship, this work has also been facil-
itated by a grant from the Provost’s Office at Rutgers University and a
J. Franklin Jameson Fellowship from the American Historical Association and
the Library of Congress.
The research that went into this book could not have been completed with-
out the aid from a large number of librarians and archivists. I am particularly
indebted to the staffs of the manuscripts division of the Library of Congress
and Boston Public Library’s Rare Book Room, as well as the research librari-
ans at Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library, the Harvard University Li-
braries, Howard University’s Moorland-Springarn Research Center, and New
York Public Library’s Schomburg Center. Many thanks to Pamela Grieff of the
BostonAtheneuem for her efficiency in helping me acquire a number of the
pictures included in this book.
Friends and relatives have sustained and encouraged this projectthrough-
out.Among them are Laura Fuerstein, Kathryn O’Hara, Rose Stewart, Bill
Moses, Elisabeth Abrams, Laura Saltz, Jude Lovrin, the late, much-loved John
D’Amico, and my cousin Dauna Williams. Finally, let me thank my family,
especially my parents. My father, Christian Bay, did not live to see this pro-
ject completed. But his advice, encouragement, and love still sustained me
throughout.And my mother, Juanita Bay, remains a constant source of sup-
port and inspiration.
New York, New York M. B.
July1999
Contents
Introduction 3
i: white people in black ethnology
One
“Of One Blood God CreatedAll the Nations of Men”:
African-Americans Respond to the
Rise of Ideological Racism, 1789–1830 13
Two
The Redeemer Race and the Angry Saxon:
Race, Gender, and White People in
Antebellum Black Ethnology 38
Three
“What Shall We Do with the White People?”:
Whites in Postbellum Black Thought 75
ii: the racial thought of the slaves
Four
“Us Is Human Flesh”:
Race and Humanity in Black Folk Thought 117
Five
“Devils and Good People Walking de Road at de Same Time”:
White People in Black Folk Thought 150
viii Contents
iii: new negroes, new whites: black racial
thought in the twentieth century
Six
“ANew Negro for a New Century”:
Black Racial Ideology,1900–1925 187
Conclusion 219
Notes 231
Selected Bibliography 265
Index 280
THE WHITE IMAGE IN THE BLACK MIND