James T. Campbell

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James T. Campbell is an American historian. He is a professor of history at Stanford University.

Contents

Career

Campbell graduated from Yale University, in 1980 with a B.A and 1983 with an M.A., and from Stanford University, with a Ph.D. in 1989. [1] He teaches at Stanford University, [2] and formerly taught at Northwestern University and Brown University. [3] Campbell collaborated with Susan Smulyan of Brown, and Ernie Limbo of Tougaloo College in creating the "Freedom Now!" website. [4]

Reception of his work

In a review for The New York Times, his 2006 work "Middle Passages" is described by Raymond Arsenault as an "episodic book of interlocking stories" that explores the complex and often bittersweet experiences of African Americans who journeyed to Africa over two centuries. The reviewer praises Campbell's engaging narrative and his ability to illuminate the complexities of national identity and race through the stories of a diverse cast of characters. The review highlights Campbell's balanced approach, noting that he avoids romanticizing Africa or its visitors and instead presents a nuanced portrait of the continent and its relationship with African Americans throughout history. Arsenault also focuses on Campbell's description of Langston Hughes stating that "As Campbell later shows in an informative chapter on Africa and the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes managed to recover from his initial disappointment [at being perceived as white by the Africans he encountered], adopting a more realistic appreciation of the limitations of both his 'African' identity and African virtue." [5]

Views

In a 2020 interview after the 2020 killing of George Floyd and ensuing unrest, Campbell, who is white, voiced his belief that periods of increased attention to racial injustice, like in 2020 have historically been followed by white backlash driven by a sense of grievance and fear of losing power. Campbell further emphasized what he sees as the role of narratives in shaping these reactions, citing the rewriting of Civil War history to portray regular white Southerners as victims and downplay the central role of slavery. He also points out the enduring appeal of states' rights arguments, and highlighted how historically both sides of the slavery debate used states' rights arguments to their advantage, demonstrating the opportunistic and situational nature of these arguments . [6]

Awards

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the United States</span>

The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas. From 1526, during the early colonial period, it was practiced in what became Britain's colonies, including the Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. Under the law, an enslaved person was treated as property that could be bought, sold, or given away. Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until abolition in 1865, and issues concerning slavery seeped into every aspect of national politics, economics, and social custom. In the decades after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, many of slavery's economic and social functions were continued through segregation, sharecropping, and convict leasing.

David Walker was an American abolitionist, writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother was free; therefore, he was free as well. In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge, he published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, a call for black unity and a fight against slavery.

The Three-fifths Compromise was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the inclusion of slaves in a state's total population. This count would determine: the number of seats in the House of Representatives; the number of electoral votes each state would be allocated; and how much money the states would pay in taxes. Slave holding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights. A compromise was struck to resolve this impasse. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives, effectively giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states. It also gave slaveholders similarly enlarged powers in Southern legislatures; this was an issue in the secession of West Virginia from Virginia in 1863. Free blacks and indentured servants were not subject to the compromise, and each was counted as one full person for representation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American history</span>

African-American history started with the arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Former Spanish slaves who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The European colonization of the Americas, and the resulting Atlantic slave trade, led to a large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic; of the roughly 10–12 million Africans who were sold by the Barbary slave trade, either to European slavery or to servitude in the Americas, approximately 388,000 landed in North America. After arriving in various European colonies in North America, the enslaved Africans were sold to white colonists, primarily to work on cash crop plantations. A group of enslaved Africans arrived in the English Virginia Colony in 1619, marking the beginning of slavery in the colonial history of the United States; by 1776, roughly 20% of the British North American population was of African descent, both free and enslaved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottobah Cugoano</span> British abolitionist and activist (1757–1791)

Ottobah Cugoano, also known as John Stuart, was a British abolitionist and activist who was born in West Africa. Born into a Fante family in Ajumako, he was sold into slavery at the age of thirteen and shipped to Grenada in the West Indies. In 1772, he was purchased by a merchant who took him to England, where Cugoano learned to read and write, and was emancipated. Eventually, he started working for the artists Richard and Maria Cosway, becoming acquainted with several promiment British political and cultural figures as a result. He joined the Sons of Africa, a group of Black abolitionists in Britain, and died at some point after 1791.

<i>Partus sequitur ventrem</i> Former legal doctrine of slavery by birth

Partus sequitur ventrem was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies in the Americas which defined the legal status of children born there; the doctrine mandated that children of slave mothers would inherit the legal status of their mothers. As such, children of enslaved women would be born into slavery. The legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem was derived from Roman civil law, specifically the portions concerning slavery and personal property (chattels), as well as the common law of personal property; analogous legislation existed in other civilizations including Medieval Egypt in Africa and Korea in Asia.

Steven Howard Hahn is Professor of History at New York University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Payne</span> Methodist bishop and educator (1811–1893)

Daniel Alexander Payne was an American bishop, educator, college administrator and author. A major shaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), Payne stressed education and preparation of ministers and introduced more order in the church, becoming its sixth bishop and serving for more than four decades (1852–1893) as well as becoming one of the founders of Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856. In 1863, the AME Church bought the college and chose Payne to lead it; he became the first African-American president of a college in the United States and served in that position until 1877.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Back-to-Africa movement</span> Political movement in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries

The back-to-Africa movement was a political movement in the 19th and 20th centuries advocating for a return of the descendants of African American slaves to the African continent. The movement originated from a widespread belief among some European Americans in the 18th and 19th century United States that African Americans would want to return to the continent of Africa. In general, the political movement was an overwhelming failure; very few former slaves wanted to move to Africa. The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance. As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the radical abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in New York (state)</span>

The trafficking of enslaved Africans to what became New York began as part of the Dutch slave trade. The Dutch West India Company trafficked eleven enslaved Africans to New Amsterdam in 1626, with the first slave auction held in New Amsterdam in 1655. With the second-highest proportion of any city in the colonies, more than 42% of New York City households enslaved African people by 1703, often as domestic servants and laborers. Others worked as artisans or in shipping and various trades in the city. Enslaved Africans were also used in farming on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, as well as the Mohawk Valley region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Journey of Reconciliation</span> 1947 anti-segregation nonviolent protest in the southern United States

The Journey of Reconciliation, also called "First Freedom Ride", was a form of nonviolent direct action to challenge state segregation laws on interstate buses in the Southern United States. Bayard Rustin and 18 other men and women were the early organizers of the two-week journey that began on April 9, 1947. The participants started their journey in Washington, D.C., traveled as far south as North Carolina, before returning to Washington, D.C.

White backlash, also known as white rage or whitelash, is related to the politics of white grievance, and is the negative response of some white people to the racial progress of other ethnic groups in rights and economic opportunities, as well as their growing cultural parity, political self-determination, or dominance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom Riders</span> American civil rights activists of the 1960s

Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treatment of slaves in the United States</span> Treatment endured by enslaved people in the US

The treatment of slaves in the United States often included sexual abuse and rape, the denial of education, and punishments like whippings. Families were often split up by the sale of one or more members, usually never to see or hear of each other again.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in Connecticut</span>

The exact date of the first African slaves in Connecticut is unknown, but the narrative of Venture Smith provides some information about the life of northern slavery in Connecticut. Another early confirmed account of slavery in the English colony came in 1638 when several native prisoners were taken during the Pequot War were exchanged in the West Indies for African slaves. Such exchanges become common in subsequent conflicts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abolitionism in the United States</span> Movement to end slavery in the United States

In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

African Americans are the second largest census "race" category in the state of Tennessee after whites, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free citizens with restricted rights up to the Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free African Union Society</span> First US African benevolent society

The Free African Union Society, founded in 1780 in Newport, Rhode Island, was America's first benevolent society for African Americans. Founders and early members included Prince Amy, Lincoln Elliot, Bristol Yamma, Zingo Stevens and Newport Gardner.

This bibliography of slavery in the United States is a guide to books documenting the history of slavery in the U.S., from its colonial origins in the 17th century through the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which officially abolished the practice in 1865. In addition, links are provided to related bibliographies and articles elsewhere in Wikipedia.

References

  1. "James Campbell | Department of History". history.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-01.
  2. "Stanford History Department". Archived from the original on 2012-01-23. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  3. "Africana Studies | Brown University".
  4. "Freedom Now! Contact".
  5. Arsenault, Raymond (2006-06-11). "A Sort of Homecoming". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-07-01.
  6. magazine, STANFORD (2020-09-22). "Historian James Campbell on White Backlash". stanfordmag.org. Retrieved 2024-07-01.
  7. "J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project winners". Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  8. Arsenault, Raymond (June 11, 2006). "A Sort of Homecoming". The New York Times .