cover image Freedom's Odyssey: African American History Essays from Phylon

Freedom's Odyssey: African American History Essays from Phylon

. Clark Atlanta University Press, $24.95 (511pp) ISBN 978-0-9668555-1-7

The inaugural title from Clark Atlanta University Press offers scholarly essays on topics in African-American history that were originally published in Phylon: A Review of Race and Culture, founded in 1940 by W.E.B. Dubois. Organized chronologically and thematically, the selections focus on resistance to slavery, economic and political advancement after the Civil War, migration, the establishment of black townships in the West, the black press, racial integration of the military and major league baseball, and ""origins of Diaspora consciousness"" among African-Americans. At their best, the essays complement each other in fascinating ways. In ""Abolition and Colonization,"" Bruce Rosen contrasts Southern slave-owners' support for the American Colonization Society (which espoused the removal of free blacks from the U.S., but did not seek to dismantle slavery) with the ""intense opposition"" of free blacks to its aims. Meanwhile, in ""The Negro Emigration Movement,"" Howard Bell points up the contemporaneous efforts of blacks to establish a political entity with a black majority outside of the U.S. Although the editors say the text is suitable for graduate and undergraduate courses, most essays employ an academic vocabulary that is likely to challenge general readers. Since four of the 29 essays were written before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, which radically altered many historians' view of the role of African-Americans in the U.S., and only nine were written during the 1980s (and none since), overall the collection feels dated. (July)