The History Book Club discussion

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 9 - Created Equal

Jefferson's Declaration of Independence compared Britain's treatment of White colonists to slavery. The US Constitution treated enslaved Black people as 3/5ths of a person. Founding documents treated Blacks as both human and subhuman as needed when either argument supported the economic interests of the Founders. Jefferson had 6 biracial children with enslaved Sally Hemmings from when she was as young as 16 years old, all while writing publicly about the evils of interracial relationships.

Chapter 10 - Uplift Suasion

Uplift suasion is "the idea that White people could be persuaded away from their racist ideas if they saw Black people improving their behavior. It places the burden of resolving racism on the victims of it, rather than the perpetrators. The invention of the cotton gin, patented in 1794, created a cotton boom and an increased demand for slave labor until the Civil War. The Louisiana Purchase helped expand slavery into western states.

Chapter 9 - Created Equal


Portrait of Thomas Jefferson while in London in 1786, close to the time he began his affair with Sally Hemings (Google Art Project, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Were the actions of the Founders motivated more by principles of liberty or by their economic interests?

2. Who has been more valued in the history books you have read, Founders who enslaved people or antiracists who criticized them? Did your history education cover Count Constantine Volney and Elbridge Gerry?

3. Given the contradictions in Jefferson's writings and actions, do you think he was at all sympathetic to the abolitionist cause, or was he just trying to seem neutral, compassionate, or politically correct?

Chapter 10 - Uplift Suasion


Eli Whitney cotton gin from 1860-1920 (New York Public Library, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. What are some examples of uplift suasion still seen in society today?

2. What are strategies we could use to counter this type of racism?

3. Had the cotton gin not been invented and cotton production not skyrocketed, would the institution of slavery have followed a different path in the 19th century?

This is this week’s assignment:

Week Six: September 28 - October 4 (pages 135-160)

Chapter 11 - Big Bottoms (page 135)

Chapter 12 - Colonization (page 143)

It's a free read, so join in, no matter what chapter you are on!

Excellent Douglass.

This is this week’s assignment:

Week Seven: November 16 – November 22 (pages 161-190)

Chapter 13 – Gradual Equality (page 161)

Chapter 14 – Imbruted or Civilized (page 177)

It's a free read, so feel free to discuss anything in the book up to page 190.

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 13 – Gradual Equality

The abolitionist movement lost momentum after the founding. The young William Lloyd Garrison, freed from indentured servitude, was influenced by Quaker abolitionists. He stood up for liberation above colonization, as racism in both northern and southern states perpetuated ideas of Black inferiority that hindered efforts toward equality.

Chapter 14 – Imbruted or Civilized

As the abolitionist movement regained momentum going into the mid-1800s, “antiracists had to contend against both powerful antislavery assimilationists and the even more powerful proslavery segregations” like John C. Calhoun and Calvin Colton. Most scholars promoted racist and White supremacist ideas, but there were a few promoting antislavery and antiracist ideas.

Chapter 13 – Gradual Equality


1933 name plate from Genius of Universal Emancipation, for which Garrison wrote editorials around that time (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Segregationist and assimilationist racism were popular views in the early 1800s among Whites who recognized slavery as wrong but could not see non-Whites as equals. What led Garrison to be a more radical abolitionist?

2. Have you seen modern examples of what Kendi calls Walker’s “historical racism?”

3. How can we challenge segregationist or assimilationist ideas? What are some strategies we can use to promote antiracist ideas instead?

Thank you Douglass for the wonderful posts.

I have recently seen a few modern examples of historical racism like that which Kendi describes in chapter 13. Some of it has always been present in American society, like in our extremely Euro-centric approach to teaching history and other cultural subjects in school. But in recent years, there has seemed to be a resurgence of deliberate expressions of historical racism.

One example has been Ben Shapiro, whose recent book is not so subtly titled The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great. Shapiro is featured in Adam Neely's recent documentary, , where he is shown in an interview saying,

In my view and the view of my music theorist father, who went to music school, there are three elements to music. There is harmony, there is melody, and there is rhythm. And rap only fulfills one of these, the rhythm section, and so its not actually a form of music. It's a form of rhythmic speaking.

Shapiro leaves out the essential musical elements of timbre and expression, and he ignores that melody and harmony do play roles in rap music. But Shapiro isn't trying to engage in a real discussion about music, he is trying to criticize Black culture as inferior to more purely European traditions. Neely points out how Shapiro's statement echos criticisms that White musicians made against jazz music 100 years ago.

Shapiro makes the same kind of arguments as the violent alt-right group, the Proud Boys, who "Western chauvinists." He just speaks better English and wears a sport coat to try to give the White supremacist message more credibility. These people admit that they feel threatened by multiculturalism. They fear that the existence of other cultural ideas in the same society as them will diminish the power of what Shapiro calls their "Judeo-Christian values" and force them to change culturally too.

Sources: Adam Neely and Southern Poverty Law Center.

by Ben Shapiro

Interesting post.

Chapter 14 – Imbruted or Civilized


William Lloyd Garrison, portrait from 1870 (Library of Congress, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. How much do you think it hurt the abolitionist cause that so many of its advocates accepted ideas of inferiority?

2. Do you think these abolitionists genuinely believed in inferiority, or were they possibly using it as a compromise to make emancipation more palatable to their audience?

3. Have you encountered segregationist or assimilationist racism? Did you recognize it at the time or realize it after it was too late to respond?

William Lloyd Garrison's critique of the American Colonization Society, Thoughts On African Colonization, discussed by Kendi in chapter 13, can be viewed in full at and probably elsewhere on the web as well since it is public domain. It definitely looks interesting and has been added to my tbr list!

by William Lloyd Garrison

Thank you so much Douglass for the add.

This Week’s Assignment:

Week Eight: November 23 – November 29 (pages 191-213)

Chapter 15 – Soul (page 191)

Chapter 16 – The Impending Crisis (page 202)

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 15 – Soul

There was much overlap between the women’s rights movement and abolitionist movement, helped along by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Polygenesis continued to be promoted in major publications and in the popular Types of Mankind by Josiah C. Nott and George Gliddon, but writers like Herman Melville and Frederick Douglass pointed out its contradictions. Although divisions developed within the abolitionist movement, including between Douglass and Garrison.

Chapter 16 – The Impending Crisis

The Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 repealed the Missouri Compromise. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, five Supreme Court justices implied that Black people were inferior and had no rights under the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas discussed slavery and race in seven well attended and widely read debates. The antislavery cause was much more popular than the antiracist cause.

Chapter 15 – Soul


Harriet Beecher Stowe, portrait by Francis Holl (ca. 1855) (National Portrait Gallery, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Have you read works by Harriet Beecher Stowe or Herman Melville? Did this chapter add to your perspective on these authors and their works?

2. Why have women been so important to the movement for racial equality throughout history?

3. Movements are often held back by differences that divide them, such as that between Douglass and Garrison. Are such arguments ever worthy of holding back progress toward goals as important as abolition and racial equality?

Some great questions Douglass.

Thanks! These are some great chapters here with much to consider.

Last year, I read David Blight's new biography of Frederick Douglass, which focuses a lot on what the movements for abolition and racial equality did during the time period of these chapters. Douglass and other activists at this time were engaging in acts of civil disobedience similar to those used in the civil rights movement a century later, like sitting in train cars with the White passengers instead of in the luggage car, and having to be physically removed from the train.

While racist ideas were still very strong at this time, as Kendi details, many activists believed strongly in real equality, and they wrote about it, traveled the country speaking about it, and they engaged in physical activism as well.

So many of the conversations and experiences they had in the 1800s still hit close to home today. I am going to go into another example later this week with chapter 16 and the Dred Scott case.

by David W. Blight (no photo)

Frederick Douglass

Chapter 16 – The Impending Crisis


Stephen A. Douglas portrait from Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Marion Mills Miller, 1907 (public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. How is it possible that so many Americans could oppose slavery but be so discriminatory toward Black people?

2. What might be the modern equivalent of this contradiction of being both antislavery and anti-Black?

3. Do debates like Lincoln and Douglas’s elevate enlightened thinking, or do they just advance individuals’ political careers?

Yes very good.

Dred and Harriet Robinson Scott Memorial at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis, MO, 2008 photo by Chris Light (licensed CC, 2008)

On a trip to St. Louis to see the solar eclipse in 2017, my wife and I visited the Old Courthouse, where trials were held as Dred Scott attempted to secure his and his wife’s freedom. Part of the Gateway Arch National Park, it is a beautiful building to take in on the inside and out. But it is somber to stand in the quiet courtroom where the Scots lost their 1847 and 1850 cases, before a jury of 12 white men. On the wall are quotations like these:

“they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and...the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit” –Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Dred Scot v. Samford, 1857

“[Slaves] are in truth a species of property sui generis, to be held, disposed of, and regulated according to the laws of each particular state where slavery exists. In all slaveholding states color raises the presumption of slavery, and until the contrary is shown, a man or woman of color is deemed to be a slave.” –Justice William Scott, Missouri Supreme Court, Rennick v. Chloe, 1841

I stood in that courtroom, reading these words and watching families of all colors quietly walk though and read them. I of course was tempted to tell myself that these cases were 170 years ago. Isn’t it good how far we’ve come since then?

But it had been only 7 days since the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA, where hate groups chanted racist and antisemitic slurs, and a self-proclaimed white supremacist murdered a counterprotestor. So, instead, I felt overwhelmed with sadness. An hour or two later, we were in the park out in front of the courthouse, and about 100 Black Lives Matter protestors were there on a weekday afternoon, continuing the fight for equality that Dred Scott began on that block 170 years earlier.

If you ever get a chance to visit St. Louis, the Old Courthouse is right by the Gateway Arch, and I highly recommend visiting the courthouse and other historical sights and museums throughout the city.

Very interesting Douglass.

This Week’s Assignment:

Week Nine: November 30 – December 6 (pages 214-234)

Chapter 17 – History’s Emancipator (page 214)

Chapter 18 – Ready for Freedom? (page 223)

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 17 – History’s Emancipator

Northerners tended to prioritize economic interests and the preservation of the Union over the issue of slavery. In the first months of the Civil War, “Union soldiers enforced the Fugitive Slave Act with an iron fist,” and Congress and the President were deliberate about the war being about the preservation of the Union, not about slavery. For many in the Confederacy, including Conferederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, it was very much about slavery. The Union eventually embraced emancipation, but more as a weapon against the Confederacy than a principled action against oppression.

Chapter 18 – Ready for Freedom?

During the war, segregationists framed Black people as brutes with incapacity, while assimilationists framed them as brutes with capacity. Black leaders and White soldiers converged racist and sexist ideas into language that served their agendas. Racist ideas were revised to suit the interests of White soldiers and Republican leaders. The Black 54th Massachusetts fought bravely at Fort Wagner, earning attention and respect throughout the Union, but half of them died. The War Department’s American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission (AFIC) included both racist and antiracist ideas. Former slaves demonstrated that “all Black people needed was to be left alone, secure on their own lands and guaranteed their own rights.”

Chapter 17 – History’s Emancipator


Alexander Stephens, VP of the Confederate States, 1859 (Library of Congress, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Why did some Black people in the South support slavery and the Confederacy?

2. How much of a role did slavery have in the purpose of the Civil War? Was it greater for the Confederacy than for the Union?

3. The role of slavery in the Civil War has been a hot issue as communities around the country have debated what to do with controversial Confederate monuments. How has your perspective on this issue evolved?

Chapter 18 – Ready for Freedom?


The Storming of Fort Wagner, lithograph by Kurz and Allison, 1890 (Library of Congress, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Do White people still expect Black people to meet contradicting criteria to prove themselves equal?

2. Have you seen other examples of racist ideas being revised to meet the needs of discriminators?

3. Beyond Lincoln, have you seen other politicians “pay lip service to the cause of Black uplift, while supporting racist policies that ensured the downfall of Black people”? What has been your reaction to this? What should it be?

4. Sexism plays an integral role int he racism that we see in this chapter. Have you seen examples of the intersection of racism and saxism in other examples today or at other times in history?

This Week’s Assignment:

Week Ten: December 7 – December 14 (pages 235-262)

Chapter 19 – Reconstructing Slavery (page 235)

Chapter 20 – Reconstructing Blame (page 248)

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 19 – Reconstructing Slavery

The Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery (sort of). Southern Whites attacked Blacks, while President Johnson vetoed bills to protect their rights. Some vetoes were overturned by the Republican Congress. Racism, denial of racism, and a refusal to provide economic resources to recently freed people created an environment where Black people faced awful labor conditions, if they could find employment at all. To many racists, the mere presence of Black people was considered tyrannical. The 15th Amendment demonstrated that women––including White women––ranked even lower than Black men.

Chapter 20 – Reconstructing Blame

The passage of the 15th Amendment became an excuse to ignore the continuing struggle of Black Americans for freedom and equality. In the racist perspective, they had the ability to vote now, so they had nothing to complain about. Never mind that the KKK and other Southern mobs were committing violence to suppress voting, land ownership, and any other exercises of rights that offended them.

Chapter 19 – Reconstructing Slavery


Sojourner Truth, ca. 1870 (National Portrait Gallery, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Did the 13th Amendment end slavery for real or in name only?

2. What role does land ownership play in rights and equality? How does this apply to Whites vs. Blacks vs. Native Americans, etc.?

3. Should we stop using the term “White trash”? What are some alternative labels we could use for this demographic?

4. Are there modern equivalents to the hypocrisy of Northern Whites forcing equality onto Southern states while excusing themselves from it?

5. Why do people so easily criticize bigotry against their own demographics while engaging in or tolerating bigotry toward other demographics?

Chapter 20 – Reconstructing Blame


Editorial cartoon by Thomas Nast published in Harper’s Magazine, October 1874 (public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Is equality under the law enough? Is the right to vote enough? What else do we need to do to protect people?

2. How do we address hypocrisies like government welfare being okay when it goes to farmers and corporations but not when it goes to poor people and people of color?

3. In Reconstruction and in some modern legislation, the government has used physical force to coerce White people––particularly in the South––into treating Black people as equals in matters of business and law. Is this ethical? Is it effective?

This Week’s Assignment:

Week Eleven: December 15 – December 21 (pages 263-294)

Chapter 21 – Renewing the South (page 263)

Chapter 22 – Southern Horrors (page 269)

Chapter 23 – Black Judases (page 280)

We enter Part IV of the book this week, the era of W. E. B. Du Bois.

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 21 – Renewing the South

The defeat of the Force Bill ended efforts to support the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, as literacy tests and poll taxes were introduced in the South to prevent Blacks––and some poor Whites––from voting.

Chapter 22 – Southern Horrors

Ida B. Wells published her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynching Law in All Its Phases. The Plessy v. Ferguson ruling determined that the Louisiana Separate Car Act––and other Jim Crow laws––did not violate the 13th and 14th Amendments.

Chapter 23 – Black Judases

The first published example of intersectional queer racism was introduced, incorrectly associating physiology with race and homosexuality and making psychological and social conclusions based on these assumptions. Inaccurate crime statistics were used to show Black people as criminals. Du Bois, Washington, and other Black activists struggled to counter racial stereotypes and sometimes “reinforced as much racism as [they] struck down.” They often moved back and forth between antiracism and assimilationist racism.

Chapter 21 – Renewing the South


W. E. B. Du Bois, portrait by Cornelius Marion Battey, 1918 (Library of Congress, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Do the 13th and 14th Amendments apply to businesses or only to government? Would banning discrimination in private businesses violate property rights?

2. Given what we have learned from Kendi, what would the consequences be if we allowed private discrimination and only protected classes in state matters?

3. As President Benjamin Harrison asked in his First Message to Congress in 1889, “When is [the Negro] in fact to have those civil rights which have so long been his in law?” When did we ever reach this point, or when will we ever reach this point?

Chapter 22 – Southern Horrors


Ida B. Wells, portrait by Mary Garrity, ca. 1893, restored by Adam Cuerden (Google Cultural Institute, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. How much racism in the present or throughout history is really just designed by rich Whites as a means to deflect resistance from poor Whites.

2. Do you think people genuinely believe that antiracism is hate, or is it nothing more than a talking point?

3. Is antiracism a moral battle or a legal battle?

4. Should physical violence be used to enforce racial equality?

5. Do you agree with Ida B. Wells that armed Black self-defense was a better anti-lynching strategy than pleas for help?

6. What was the Supreme Court thinking when they ruled on Plessy v. Ferguson. Was this conscious racism, fear of public opinion, legal technicality, or some matter or bizarre principle?

It's been shown through research that the US is the least racist country in the world. Just look around you - be alert - see what's going on. Not sure I even understand # 1. Why is the term 'antiracism' even being used? Really - asking about physical violence? What happened to John Lennon's theme? What happened to the messages that Christianity spreads.

Chapter 23 – Black Judases


Booker T. Washington, portrait by Harris & Ewing, 1905, digitally retouched (Library of Congress, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Is it as easy to spread myths about classes of people today as it was 150 years ago? What has made it easier or harder?

2. How does one fight for racial equality without reinforcing any racist ideas? (This is not an easy question. It is one that Du Bois and other Black activists have struggled with themselves.)

3. Is it possible to acknowledge a colony’s lack of preparation for self-rule without being racist?

4. How can a colonizer transition a colony to self-rule without destabilizing it and without still exercising control over it? Has any empire dismantled itself effectively?

5. Have you encountered any “White Savior” stories? Did you notice it yourself, or did someone point it out to you? How did you react to it? Why was it problematic?

Barbara wrote: "It's been shown through research that the US is the least racist country in the world. Just look around you - be alert - see what's going on. Not sure I even understand # 1. Why is the term 'antira..."

The book is a "history of racist ideas in America." Antiracism is one of the 3 terms that Kendi uses throughout the book to classify ideas and policies from throughout American history (see message 18 of this thread for the 3 definitions).

The concept in question #1 has come up a few times in the book. Politicians and the wealthy class sometimes try to convince poor people that their economic woes are the fault of people of a particular race, national origin, or other demographic, whichever group is most convenient to blame. This distracts and deflects anger that might otherwise be directed toward their own profiteering.

Barbara wrote: "It's been shown through research that the US is the least racist country in the world. Just look around you - be alert - see what's going on. Not sure I even understand # 1. Why is the term 'antira..."

I am sorry but that research is wrong the USA is a racist country. I am from Colombia but my son and husband are from the the USA, I lived there many years, and sorry but you are Super racist!!!

Maria wrote: "I am sorry but that research is wrong the USA is a racist country..."

You are absolutely right that there is a lot of racism in the USA. I see it all the time in my personal experiences, in my government's policies, and in the events that are in the news every day. However, racism is a very nuanced concept, and labeling countries or people as racist leads to an overly simplistic and inaccurate understanding of how racism works.

One of the big points that Kendi emphasizes in his books and public appearances is that ideas and actions can be racist, but racism should not be looked at as an identity. Racism and antiracism are not in who we are but in what we do, and almost every human alive has probably said or done things in their life that are racist and other things that are antiracist.

In this week's chapters, Kendi shows some examples of W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington promoting racist ideas. Were Du Bois and Washington racist? Of course not. They envisioned a society with racial equity, but as products of their times, they were led to believe in some racist ideas, which they sometimes promoted in some of their writing and speeches out of ignorance, but certainly not out of any ill content.

A big lesson from this book is not to judge people as racist but to judge ideas, actions, and policies as racist. I would apply this to countries and institutions too. It's really easy to say the USA is racist, the President is racist, the Proud Boys are racist, etc. but it isn't quite accurate. The USA has racist policies (and some antiracist policies), every US president in history has enforced racist policies (and a few have promoted some antiracist policies), the Proud Boys promote some racist ideas (and have members who are people of color and members who believe in racial equality).

I used to see racism as something that the KKK and neo-Nazis did and that a few people I knew (who I referred to as racists) believed in. I never imagined it was something I was personally capable of contributing to. Then about 10 years ago I read the work of some Black educators who wanted to see their colleagues do a better job of not contributing to racism in schools. I realized that I and most of my colleagues––including Black teachers––were all doing some of these things.

When we make racism a label that we put on other people and institutions, we hide from ourselves the reality that it is a mistake that any of us could make. We make ourselves more vulnerable to make those mistakes ourselves, and then to deny that those actions are even racist so as to protect ourselves from being labeled as racist.

This Week’s Assignment:

Week Twelve: December 28 – January 3 (pages 295-322)

Chapter 24 – Great White Hopes (page 295)

Chapter 25 – The Birth of a Nation (page 308)

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 24 – Great White Hopes

Du Bois had an awakening from historical racism. Teddy Roosevelt spent much of his presidency apologizing for the one decent thing he did for racial equality. Woodrow Wilson was worse, even screening the white supremacist film The Birth of a Nation at the White House. The eugenics movement told Americans that racist ideas were backed by science.

Chapter 25 – The Birth of a Nation

Black people fled the Jim Crow South in the Great Migration but faced segregation in the North too. The eugenics movement made bizarre, baseless claims about race and inspired everything from the IQ test to Adolf Hitler. The Communist Party of the USA associated “racial oppression” with “economic bondage and oppression.” Du Bois and Garvey disagreed on the issue of Black integration versus Black separatism.