Once, while riding in the back of an old, canary-yellow station wagon, I interrupted my grandmother’s favorite song to explain why voting was so exhausting.īefore the days of “ballot harvesting” and election-fraud conspiracy theories, my sisters and I would have to walk door to door with my grandmother as she hunted down anyone who recently relocated to the neighborhood, just turned 18 or otherwise hadn’t registered to vote. They will never let us vote but we will not stop voting.
This history is Black AF.OPINION: We must resign ourselves that we will always have to fight. For too long, we have refused to acknowledge that American history is white history. From the African Americans who arrived before 1619 to the unenslavable bandit who inspired America's first police force, this long overdue corrective provides a revealing look into our past that is as urgent as it is necessary. With incisive wit, Harriot speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power, subverting conventional historical narratives with little-known stories about the experiences of Black Americans. Combining unapologetically provocative storytelling with meticulous research based on primary sources as well as the work of pioneering Black historians, scholars, and journalists, Harriot removes the white sugarcoating from the American story, placing Black people squarely at the center. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights-after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals.
It is George Washington's cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln's log cabin. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.Īmerica's backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory.
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