Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom

Black Culture and Black Consciousness is a hugely ambitious--and hugely successful--exploration of the folk beliefs, rituals, religion, music, tales, and humor of black Americans both before and after the Civil War (the "to Freedom" part of the subtitle is a bit misleading, as the book reaches more than halfway into the 20th century). The study is beautifully organized, never losing focus or direction despite the myriad, multifaceted subjects it treats in depth. And while the insights Levine draws could have easily, given the enormity of the task before him, been or grown superficial, or simply reiterated other scholars' incomplete or erroneous inferences, they are nothing but scrupulously nuanced, sensitive, and often, truly revelatory. Bold yet carefully circumscribed, they invariably have the ring of truth. Take folk heroes, for example. White folk heroes like Jesse James and Pretty Boy Floyd, Levine notes a colleague as saying, are essentially reactionary, preying on new, disruptive institutions like railroads and banks. Levine, having shown that such "social bandits" were generally absent from black folk thought, while nihilistic "bad men" like Stagolee and Railroad Bill were immensely popular, concludes that this was because black people had no "good old days" to be nostalgic for. Clearly, I've failed to even begin to do justice to Levine's intellect and accomplishments. But suffice it to say, Black Culture and Black Consciousness is massively erudite, superbly written, and a fabulous resource for anyone interested in the continuum of ante- and postbellum African-American thought, as reflected in religious and secular song, story, and other folk conveyances.

First published back in 1977, this book stands as a classic of both the use of oral history and of African American history. Levine intensely studied songs, stories and folklore of black Americans from the time of slavery down to the mid-20th century. From this material, he constructed an impressively rich, subtle and nuanced portrait of a very complex culture. This book is essential to the understanding of black history and black culture. In Levine's telling, African American culture emerges as a culture of music and of the spoken word. In West Africa, at the time that the slaves were taken, there was no written language. Instead, there was a great deal of music and story telling. In Levine's view, these traits continued throughout slavery and into freedom. The slaves constructed a very complex counter-world, built around song, story and religion. Levine explores each of these aspects of African American culture in great detail. He does not fall into the politically correct trap of presenting blacks as the eternal victim. Rather, he describes them in rich detail. He describes the trickster tales of black American culture. He describes how African Americans embraced, yet transformed Christiaity. He describes the generational changes in black music, from slave spirituals to the early 20th century blues and jazz. While African American history, of course, was shaped by slavey and racism, the cultural response to this oppression was not to become stainless suffering saints -- as political correctness would so often have it -- but rather to develop a wide variety of survival mechanisms and compensations. Some of these compensations, such as spirituals and blues, added a great deal to culture. Others of them, such as the long engrained habit of never being candid with white people, are understandable but considerably less attractive. This is not just black history. American history as a whole cannot be properly understood without understanding this history. Black history is a deep, rich vein of counter-history, which is part of the larger story and which adds a great deal to it.

In his impressive study of the African-American experience in America, "Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom," author Lawrence Levine assembles a vast collection of songs, jokes, medicine, tales, music, and humor to argue against the once widely held notion that slavery reduced blacks to a state of hopeless degradation, completely dissipated their African heritage, and left them largely dependent on white cultural norms. According to Levine, not only did blacks possess a culture and consciousness independent of the dominant white society, but this culture was extraordinarily complex and capable of constantly changing to fit the latest challenges confronting both white and black society. The author claims that up to the time of emancipation, slaves' oral communications created a "sacred" world that transcended bondage and went beyond the control of their white overlords. African influences consisting of "call and response" song and the reversal of the social hierarchy through stories remained important in all aspects of black life in the antebellum South, eventually informing spirituals, folk medicine, and story creation. When blacks told tales about the animal world, or sang songs with a spiritual focus, doing so created a sense of inclusive community while constructing a cosmology that gave blacks an important place in the unity of the physical world. This sacred world gave way to increasing secularization after emancipation when blacks assimilated some white influences during the move from the plantation to larger society. Since white society still limited the roles of blacks in society, the result of freedom was a cultural dualism, or the "double consciousness" articulated by W.E.B. DuBois, which Levine best expresses when he studies how blacks spoke the English language. When dealing with whites, blacks tended to communicate using proper English language forms. Among their own people they spoke using distinctive black constructions. Rather than seeing this as devious or ignorant, as many whites did during that time, the author sees this as a way blacks maintained their own identity during the heady days of freedom when white culture threatened to overwhelm their traditions. Blacks did adopt some white cultural ideas, which Levine rigorously outlines through the study of such diverse fields as hero stories and blues music, but they never accepted them at the expense of their own traditions. The blues particularly presented a significant challenge for the black community because this form of expression closely mirrored many aspects of white music: individual singing versus group singing and the creation of songs based on an individual's experiences and problems. The author argues that while blues did employ some white musical elements, the problems often articulated in the songs dealt with concerns affecting the entire black population. Moreover, blues music helped spread a sense of community