When Benjamin Quarles wrote The Negro in the American Revolution in 1961, the United States was deep in the Cold War and a strongly conservative impulse governed the big narratives of its early history. A ‘consensus’ story of the American Revolution dominated the conversation among historians, who argued that – contra to the Soviet Union, America’s Cold War nemesis – freedom had always defined the U.S. national project, including its revolutionary origins. Rarely were Black lives included in that storytelling line, except as a faceless chorus of dutifully serving slaves, who collectively awaited the freedom-plan of America’s founding fathers to come along and emancipate them. As a Black scholar teaching in HBCUs, Quarles had a very different story to tell – a counter-story – that subtly but powerfully questioned the smug consensus story told by white Cold War historians. Instead, he fronted the lives of Black people who embraced their own revolutionary cause to fight for their own freedom and thereby gave the Revolution its most radical freedom commitment.
Our History
You’ve heard the one about how the Past, Present, and Future walk into a bar? It was tense (pause for mandatory eye-roll). Well, speaking of tense, things are a little frosty these days in the U.S. culture wars over history. It’s getting so you can’t tell your friends from your frenemies. The profit-maximizers over at the College Board announced a new AP African American History course, so good, right? Sure, but what took so long? AHA president James Sweet got into hot water over some goofy comments on presentism, African American history, and the Supreme Court, and then apologized. So, uh, good? We hear that President Joe Biden calls on a historian when he needs perspective. That’s gotta be good, right? Wait, ithe historian he listens to is Jon Meacham? Well let’s just say it’s all pretty confusing, but not to worry. Think of us here at HAG as your history relationship therapists. In this episode we’ve brought in Past and Present to work through their communication issues, break some really bad habits, and establish some healthy norms going forward (you hear that Future?).
Benjamin Quarles
Click to hear The Present is Always in the Past
Sources Referenced and Items of Interest
Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (1961)
Contemporary review of Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution
Gary Nash, Introduction, Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (50th anniversary edition)
James H. Sweet, “Is History History?: Identity Politics and Teleologies of the Present” (2022)
Michael Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa (2018)
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“In its work of restoring history’s lost boundaries, the black history of today is establishing new contacts and finding a new soul.”
Benjamin Quarles
History Against the Grain 