Historian Gerald Horne, author of over thirty books, including the forthcoming The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean, talks to Chris Steele on students’ need for the histories of resistance
“What first enthralled me about historian Gerald Horne was reading his book Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920, where he tells the story of the boxer Jack Johnson, who was denied food in Mexico City by a US store owner thinking he could uphold Jim Crow laws. Jack left the store and returned later with three or four generals who revoked the store owner’s license, made him apologize and told him that Mexico was no ‘white man’s country.’
Chris Steele: What is one’s role in the classroom as an educator and framer of history?
Gerald Horne: With regards to the United States of America — since the United States of America is a nation that was built on slave labor, particularly of Africans — it’s mandatory to have that story embedded in the basic narrative and it’s mandatory for the teacher to frame the narrative of the construction of the United States of America through the lens of the African slave trade and the enslavement of Africans….”
Read the interview at Truthout
Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission
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