During his lecture a few weeks ago, Tony Horne gave impeccable insight into not only African American theatre, but also into the identity of African American life post slavery with his latest production, August Wilson’s ‘Gem of the Ocean’. The play is set in 1904 Pittsburgh, ‘just at the dawn of migration of African Americans from the north to south’, and tells a story of a young man seeking redemption for a grave mistake. The protagonist, Citizen, must journey back into his ancestral history to heal his soul, but in the process, he goes through a personal battle of self-definition.
What is so striking about the playwright is his emphasis on what Horne calls ‘the healing power of history’. He proposed that August Wilson used his plays to look at history by reexamining it, and likewise, he believed Wilson’s works are ‘calls to action’, provoking society (the audience) to reassess their perception of African American history. By reevaluating the ideas of said history, Horne deduces the audience would be pressured to re-inscribe their identity with it well..
The connection with Horne’s proposal and our own experience of African American history in class is significant in two ways. In class, we saw how America tends to define itself on our ‘victorious’ revolution during the 18th century and how it looks on at the documents that built the revolution as if trophies. However, we have also talked of the irony in America denying freedom to African Americans while at the same time fighting for freedom and independence from the British. In Horne’s perspective, essentially we have “re-inscribed” ourselves with that time period by looking at it from a different point of view. Thus, what was once thought one of America’s greatest triumphs may actually be seen as a time of utmost negligence and hypocrisy.
Another connection that we can attribute to Horne is our understanding of American history. He pronounced that African American history is “not nearly black history; it’s history for Americans.” In class, we also have been exposed to the notion that African American history is American history. By understanding how the African American race was so vital to the birth and growth of our country, it would be duplicitous to assume that African American history is independent from our own country’s. The issue now at hand is deciding how to transform modern education on America’s existence to include this new angle of insight. Furthermore, I believe it needs to be established at the earliest level of education as possible. The longer transformation takes, the longer this central and crucial American ingredient will go overlooked.
When Tony Horn was talking about the audience being encouraged to re-inscribe themselves, I was wondering how I would do that if I were an audience member. As students in an African-American history class, we have a prime opportunity to do this. I definitely understand why August Wilson would want to encourage people to reconsider African American history, and through plays he had a great visual outlet to initiate that. Citizen’s journey back into his ancestral history is what Wilson was encouraging his audience to do. Thinking about this and what Horn said in his lecture made me realize that there cannot be a separate white American history and a separate African-American history. The two groups have been so interconnected since Africans were brought to the Americas. White Americans were so dependent on African Americans as a labor force for over a century that it would be senseless to write a history without them. African Americans were indeed some of the first true Americans, unfortunately this citizenship was not fully recognized until the 14th Amendment. African-American history should be more integrated into history books; in a basic history book, there is usually a section about slavery from a white point of view and some information about Martin Luther King, Jr. for Civil Rights. In my opinion, this is not sufficient coverage for such a major part of our country’s history.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree that African American History plays hand in hand with American history. I think that history books within many schools across the United States gloss over the true history that our country has endured. The slim information that is touched upon within the American History courses throughout middle and high school ill-equip their students. These course allow students to perceive African American History as sitting in the back seat behind American History; where the fact of the matter is that the two are intertwined. Today's society is rooted in the racial struggles and obstacles that men and women endured as a whole. There is no true understanding of American History without understanding the black/white relationship and all that it encountered, resolved, and overcame.
ReplyDelete