Black Lives: Essays in African American Biography (review)

In his Foreword to Black Lives: Essays in African American Biography, Julius E. Thompson states that the volume "offers insights into three focal areas of the black experience." The fifteen essays in this eclectic volume are gathered under the headings "Intellectual Biography," "Cultural Biography," and "Oral History and Biography as Teaching Tools." While the essays differ in scope, content, and context, each makes a unique contribution to the understanding of African American life and history by focusing on less well-known or understood African American lives, by examining aspects of the many-faceted black community, by analyzing literary and gender aspects of black life, or by exploring aspects of Pan-African or Afrocentric scholarship.

James L. Conyers, Jr., begins the first section, "Intellectual Biography," with an essay that examines Maulana Karenga's life and contribution to Africana philosophy. Karenga created the African American cultural holiday known as Kwanzaa, or "the first fruits of the harvest." He then articulated the theory of Kawaida, using culture to analyze African American life by focusing on images and interests of African peoples, offering alternatives for critical analyses, and encouraging the development of a national consciousness. Karenga re-evaluated African American life and history by systematically elevating Africana culture, mythos, and history while emphasizing the "rescue and reconstruction of Egypt" and its application to African American life.

The intellectual and artistic contributions of Vinnette Carroll, the first African American woman to direct on Broadway, are the subject of the second essay, by Calvin A. McClinton. In her desire to portray African Americans with dignity, Carroll wrote and directed her own plays, using both interdisciplinary and synthesizing approaches in directing and producing song- and folk-plays within the African American theatrical tradition. Perhaps her most unique contribution is a non-linear approach that uses music, dance, mime, and text. In addition to hiring and directing all-black casts, Carroll launched a number of acting careers, including those of Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, and Harold Scott.

The reader will have some difficulty understanding why Earnest Norton Bracey's essay on General Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr., is included in the "Intellectual Biography" section of Black Lives. James, who is described as "bigger than life itself," and as a person who had the ability to speak "to anyone, anytime, and anywhere," was the first African American to achieve the rank of four-star general in the U.S. Air Force. He is certainly controversial, working indefatigably to integrate the armed forces while vigorously advocating the American way of life. Wearing a black panther, his personal insignia, on his helmet throughout the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, he not only supported those wars but also urged the use of American military force in regional conflicts throughout the world. Though his patriotism and unwavering support of the United States government were controversial, his unswerving devotion to duty, and his energy and drive, leave a legacy that should not be forgotten by any American.

In the fourth essay, Mitchell Kachun returns to a more intellectual approach, addressing the "construction of historical memory through commemorative activity." In the post-Civil War decades, African American leaders, in an effort to preserve their history, dedicated themselves to constructing a public history of Richard Allen. An assertive and demanding personality, Allen led the movement for an independent, black-dominated, African-American church, and served as the first bishop of the resulting African Methodist Episcopal church long before the Civil War. Allen also led the movement for the A.M.E. Book Concern and Publication Department, whose primary goals were to publish church proceedings and to raise the educational level of the African American community. Although Allen has never been fully accepted by mainstream historians as a national hero, students of African American history instantly recognize him. The construction of the memory and life of Allen has its own history.

The...