Rooted In the Earth
Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
With a basis in environmental history, this groundbreaking study challenges the idea that a meaningful attachment to nature and the outdoors is contrary to the black experience. The discussion shows that contemporary African American culture is usually seen as an urban culture, one that arose out of the Great Migration and has contributed to international trends in fashion, music, and the arts ever since. But because of this urban focus, many African Americans are not at peace with their rich but tangled agrarian legacy. On one hand, the book shows, nature and violence are connected in black memory, especially in disturbing images such as slave ships on the ocean, exhaustion in the fields, dogs in the woods, and dead bodies hanging from trees. In contrast, though, there is also a competing tradition of African American stewardship of the land that should be better known. Emphasizing the tradition of black environmentalism and using storytelling techniques to dramatize the work of black naturalists, this account corrects the record and urges interested urban dwellers to get back to the land.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As thousands of African-Americans in the Gulf deal with the effects of the oil disaster, Glave documents the bond with nature that has long been part of the black experience. Drawing on Africa and African art, literature, history, and theology, Glave adds texture to her story. Chapters begins with fictional vignettes reflecting the author's own journey through her material, a "quilt work designed from this detective's loving labor to reveal the thoughts of farmers, artists and novelists dotted throughout the South." Passages from Zora Neale Hurston, Frederick Douglass and others gives voice to the community; for Douglass, the ocean signified freedom, despite the many Africans who crossed these waters in conditions unfit for animals. And Anna Comstock, an instructor at Cornell, opened a Nature Study School in 1897 and published her Handbook of Nature Study in 1911, which inspired teachers in the field. Today, Glave points out that First Lady Michelle Obama cultivates a vegetable garden on the grounds of the White House, bringing the stewardship full circle.
