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138 The Michigan Historical Review and American officers eventually gave way to various forms of photography. As the technology evolved, who was visually represented also changed. Only officers in the early years of the fort had the means to commission a portrait, but by the end of the fort’s military service, photography allowed enlisted men to appear in Porter’s study. The imagery also shows the evolution of the soldiers’ uniforms, equipment, and weaponry, as well as the items they used in everyday life. Lastly, Porter lists some of the notable historical figures who spent time at the fort. These include Presley O’Bannon, who, as a Marine, participated in the campaign that put the “shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Corps Hymn; Edwin Sumner and Samuel Heintzelman, who served as corps commanders in the Union Army during the Civil War; and John Pemberton, who, as a major general in the Confederate Army, failed to hold the vital city of Vicksburg. Both general readers and military historians will find a lot to like in this book. Porter has compiled an excellent history of Fort Mackinac, providing both a physical and human account of the fort’s role in Michigan history. Steven J. Ramold Eastern Michigan University Rochelle Riley, ed. The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2018. Pp. 200. Notes. Cloth: $26.99. Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press assembled a diverse group of authors for an exploration of slavery’s legacy on the nation and its survivors’ descendants. The Burden contends that true reconciliation cannot happen without putting down the burden of slavery. This reckoning of America’s slave past involves tackling African Americans’ struggle to fully exist as citizens since emancipation. It also requires the re-education of American children who were taught an American historical narrative that ignores its slave past and sustains notions of black inferiority. The selections presented in this concise volume confront the past by offering personal testimony of the effects of slavery’s legacy on the contributors, and provide possible solutions for moving forward. Many selections demonstrate how the personal is political. A’Lelia Bundles connects her own paralysis reading about slavery and images of contented slaves as a student with the persistence of the simplistic Book Reviews 139 depictions of slavery among white journalists. These personal episodes fueled her efforts to correct whitewashed histories. Other selections argue that the legacy of African American resilience by women, transatlantic slave trade survivors, historians, and military veterans must be included in the reconciliation process. Aku Kadego, for instance, discusses how his father, Donald Vest, a Michigan State University gymnast, endured discrimination but nevertheless taught Kadego how to “beat ’em at their own game” (p. 46). Several essays explore institutions still reaping the legacy of slavery. In one of the strongest essays, Kevin Blackistone does not consider it a hyperbole to compare professional sports industries to plantations. Rather, he views it as a relationship of power, wealth, and labor that links athletes and enslaved persons in a comparable form of bondage. Leonard Pitts, Jr.’s provocative essay argues that the control of black bodies is a legacy undergirding the current issue of mass incarceration. He views the complicity of the “criminal injustice system” as intentional. Tamara Winfrey-Harris and Vann Newkirk corroborate Pitts’ assessment of the prison industrial complex and current policing practices affecting African Americans. The concluding essays offer solutions to diminish the burden on the nation and the totality of its people. Aisha Hinds implores readers to not allow the long history of black women’s survival to discourage hope or the pursuit of greatness. Since a whitewashed American history persists, Michael Simanga calls for the rewriting of historical narratives as a form of resistance, while Herb Boyd desires the continuation of the black press as an alternate space. Torrance Lantham demands a new type of education that uses the public schools and other learning venues within the new civil rights movement. Ultimately, The Burden reveals the real consequences of previous efforts to forget the nation’s slave past. Reconciliation can only occur, as these essays compellingly demonstrate, “if we do not want to...

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