Black Public History in Chicago

Ian Rocksborough-Smith's compelling monograph challenges the “tragic” narrative of the radical black Left in early Cold War America by examining the efforts of black public history activists. The significance of their collective activism, according to Rocksborough-Smith, “bridged the radical political cultures” of Great Depression– and World War II–era activists with those of the more familiar civil rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s (p. 3). Black Public History in Chicago specifically explores Chicago's understudied black public history activists, their connection with the radical black Left, and their efforts to connect with the “shifting terrains” of the burgeoning black movements (p. 5). By using public history activism, Rocksborough-Smith contends, the black radical continued to engage African American community politics and culture during the early Cold War period. Iconic figures who added to the legacy of public history activism receive proper accolades in Black Public History in Chicago—including the work of the historian Carter G. Woodson and his organization, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. While Rocksborough-Smith pays homage to other notable scholars of African American history, such as Herbert Aptheker and W. E. B. Du Bois, the central figure his book is the visual artist, writer, poet, and educator Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs. Affiliated with the black Left, Burroughs began corresponding with Madeline Stratton Morris, a pioneer in curriculum reforms during the early 1940s. Rocksborough-Smith explores this dynamic well—Woodson's concerns over “imposters” (left-leaning?) exemplify the emerging fears that developed during the Cold War (p. 30). However, Morris is more concerned about correcting the dearth of African American history within Chicago's school curriculums. Burroughs emerges as a leader in black public history in Chicago as she (along with her second husband, Charles Burroughs) spearhead the opening of the city's first African American museum in the 1940s—the DuSable Museum of African American History

African-American history · Art · Black Power · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · New Left · Political history · Political science · Politics · Public history · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Gender Studies · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society