The Songs for the Hunted Thing
Visualizing the Hidden Numbers for Black American History
“All our hunting-songs and descriptions deal with the glory of the chase as seen and felt by the hunters. No one has visualized the psychology of the quarry, the driven, hunted thing.”
- The Crisis, Editor W.E.B DuBois, 1917
For black history month I just want to say what has bothering my mind constantly about many depictions of black history that disturb me, and I find “wrong.” Black Americans talking of this history seem to repeat some bothering key ideas they treat like facts. I think it should be corrected, or at least seriously considered. That is because the narratives encompassing these facts were shaped and controlled by whites in power for the century and a half are the Civil War are based on a key underlying motive in America of maintaining the “Union,” or peace between the two main factions of whites at any costs, or at an often-known cost, that of black lives.
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There is a whole string of seriously wrong and not believable numbers presented as “facts,” as though history has only one side. Thus, I’m focusing mainly on the horrific massacres and murders. The white men usually organized. The one I’ve been reading different accounts of caught my attention was East Saint Louis, 1917. Like Tulsa 1921, what stands out is…
