#USIH2021 In Dialogue: The Politics of Black Freedom

MCNEIL: Thank you so much again, Dr. Carter Jackson, for agreeing to our interview for the S-USIH’s blog! As you know, but many of our readers might not, we have been in constant conversation about Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence for two years! In particular, in 2019, I interviewed you about Force and Freedom on New Books in African American Studies! Then, and even more today, Force and Freedom stands as an incredibly important text that informs its readers about Black activist’s use of violence in our long freedom struggle. To kick off our discussion, let us go back, way back, in your personal biography. At what moment in your intellectual journey did you realize that Black abolitionist’s politics of violence would be your eventual first book topic?

CARTER JACKSON: I think I had vague ideas when I was in undergrad at Howard University. I wrote a paper on John Brown and on Frederick Douglass. I knew I wanted to pursue the abolitionists and work in the 19^thcentury. But that was it. When I attended grad school at Columbia, my advisor, Eric Foner, really encouraged me to look at violence and its divergences among black and white leadership. It took a while for the book to develop into what it is, but my initial thoughts seemed rational to both me and the black abolitionists I studied: If slavery was conceived in violence and sustained by violence, perhaps it could only be overthrown with violence.

MCNEIL: In Force and Freedom readers get a crash course in Black abolitionist history. Because historians, museums, and cultural institutions more broadly, foregrounded white abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, and Wendell Phillips, the public received a narrow history of abolitionism. Who is the most important Black abolitionist in Force and Freedom you believe the public should know more about and why?

CARTER JACKSON: Wow, there are so many. I really do love Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, but for me they have dominated the imagery of black abolitionists so much that we tend to ONLY think of them. Through my research I found new favorites, like Mary Ann Shadd Cary who becomes the first black woman to start her own newspaper and later recruited black men to fight in the Civil War or Lewis Hayden and Harriet Hayden who ran Boston’s Black abolitionist networks and protected runaways with their lives. I also admire William and Eliza Parker for their courage during the Christiana Resistance. I could easily name fifty fearless Black leaders whose contributions made a significant impact to bringing about the abolition of slavery and equally important, pushed for civil rights and human rights.

MCNEIL: Force and Freedom goes a long way to showing the myriad ways in which Black abolitionist women resisted slavery and defended communities from attack. Why do you think there has been such a historiographic silence about Black abolitionist women’s activism and their examples of revolutionary violence?

CARTER JACKSON: I think too much of the conversation has tethered violence to masculinity. When we talk about crowds, gatherings, or mob attacks, we assume the mob is male or the collective is made up of men. Women are rendered invisible. I believe Black women had some of the greatest grievances during slavery. Frederick Douglass said it best, “when the true history of the anti-slavery cause shall be written, women will occupy a large space in its pages; for the cause of the slavery has been peculiarly woman’s cause.” I believe he meant Black women. Black women employed force and violence against their slaveholders, slave catchers, and anyone who kept them from freedom. Harriet Tubman was not the only Black woman that packed a pistol. And this is not just part of an American narrative, but I think of Queen Nanny in Jamaica, Queen Njinga in Angola or Solitude in Guadeloupe.

MCNEIL: As Black scholars, we often hope that our work can help serve the people and communities that made us possible. In Force and Freedom you discuss the collision between moral suasion and revolutionary violence in Black abolitionist politics and abolitionism more broadly in the United States. If a movement worker is reading our discussion, what would you want them to know most about the history of Black politics of violence in relation to present discussions about what drives radical change?

CARTER JACKSON: I want my people to understand that we have always resisted oppression. We were not just abolitionists. We were the first abolitionists. We have always used force and violence to win our freedoms. I think its ok, in fact, necessary, to have honest conversations about the role of force and violence in our movements. At the heart of these conversations is not anarchy or vengeance, but liberation and the God-given right to protect and preserve one’s humanity.

MCNEIL: As you know, I am incredibly interested in how my favorite scholars develop their own pedagogical perspectives. How do you approach discussing the history of anti-Black violence in your classroom? Can you discuss any significant challenges you face while teaching this history?

CARTER JACKSON: Great question! I think my students are inundated with the violent deaths of so many Black people. I’m never very interested in telling the stories of lynchings, mob attacks, or state violence. I think my students appreciate the stories about response. How do Black people respond to their oppression? For example, instead of talking about Tulsa as a place of violence, I talk about the thriving community that existed first. Then I talk about how Black veterans and community members attempted to fight back even when they failed. I am not interested in the pornographic ways violence against black bodies is meted out. I think this is why readers appreciate Force and Freedom, because it’s not the story of black folks being snatched and stolen. It’s the story of shooting down slave catchers. Were Black people constantly harmed during the 19^th century, absolutely, but is that the only story? Absolutely not.

MCNEIL: Speaking of teaching, do you have a favorite event or moment in Force and Freedom that you enjoy discussing the most?

CARTER JACKSON: Every chapter has something that gets me hype! But I love telling the story of Amelia Robinson, a Black woman in her 50s who penned an op-ed discussing her outrage over the canning of Charles Sumner. In response to Preston Brooks’ attack, she calls him cowardly—to beat a man unarmed and down. She referred to Brooks as a “cringing puppy” whom she would gladly challenge to meet her any place with “pistols, rifles, or cowhides.” But here’s the kicker! Robinson concludes her op-ed by saying, “Now, then, Mr. Brooks…Let us see some off your boasted courage! You are afraid to meet a man! Dare you meet a woman?” Boom. It’s the perfect mic-drop moment of the 19^th century! Ha!

MCNEIL: WELL ALRIGHTY THEN DR. CARTER JACKSON! Thank you so much for such an incredibly generative conversation. Lord knows I do not want it to end, but, to finish out our discussion, what excites you most about the work you do as a historian, thinker, teacher, and cultural worker?

CARTER JACKSON: What excites me most about what I do is the possibility of it all. The past is so useful. We can look at the past as a guide for what is possible. Many people believed slavery would never end in America, but it did. No one ever thought America would have a Black president, but we did.  My imagination and hopes for the future are shaped by the activism, resistance, and perseverance of my ancestors.