Ep. 5 – Racial Slavery through Cycles of History: A Conversation with Dr. Daina Ramey Berry

[0:00:07 Peniel] welcome to race and democracy of podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship.

[0:00:21 Peniel] Today, on race and democracy, we discuss one of the most important and controversial issues that still haunts the American imagination. And that is racial slavery. With one of the premier historians on that topic in the United States, our guest today is Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, who’s one of my esteemed colleagues in the history department here. University of Texas, Austin. And she is the Oliver H. Radke Regions Professor of History and African and African Die Sports studies and really one of the foremost experts on slavery and gender in the United States. Dina Ah, we’re here today to talk about your award winning book, The price for their pound of flesh. Ah, the value of the enslave from the womb to the tomb. Really An extraordinary book, an extraordinarily important book. Um, what made you interested in this topic?

[0:01:18 Daina] So I was actually researching how enslaved people were treated as commodities as part of my first book, Swing The sickle for the harvest is ripe, and Chapter six, which was the final chapter, looked at how and Slate people were valued and it had. I had monetary values for about 8 to 12 different plantations in one community, and I was analysing that in that last chapter and the editors of the Siri’s and of that particular book felt like that. That section was just very different, and it didn’t really fit with the social history that I had written about about the labor and the and the families in the previous chapters. And they said, You know what? You consider that for another book project? So I was basically given my second book project during my first book project. That’s great, Um, and so I just did more research. After that, I thought, I want to know more about the value of the body. And as I was doing that research, I was collecting data, and I was putting it into an Excel spreadsheet, just the name, the age, the sex, the price and any other characteristics I had of enslaved people. And, um, a couple of the things happen along the way. That sort of shape the project and took me in different directions. That was probably maybe two or three turning points. Um, the first was when I did a talk at Duke University and Stanley Anchorman was in the audience economic historian, And, um, I actually was doing a talk. It was a political economy society sort of conference conversation conference, and I was doing They wanted to do the value of enslaved bodies. But I actually was interested in how and slay people took their own lives and committed suicide the night before or the day before sale. And so I was looking at how they looked at life and death and how they tried to circumvent the price that was put on their bodies. And afterwards he approached me and said that he felt like, um, I was writing a book that he and and Robert Fogel did not right and that he had some data for me

[0:03:14 Peniel] and for our our listeners. That is the co-author of a really very, very important book called Time on the Cross. Yes, which I think tried to do what you do successfully, um, decades later. But in the 1970’s?

[0:03:29 Daina] Yes, exactly. It was very controversial book for that very reason that they sort of, um, they looked at how many times a person was whipped in the day and how how planters could be make profits off of enslaved people’s bodies. But what was missing was the insulate people’s voices in their stories and exactly yeah, so that’s that’s I was happy that he wanted to share their data, And he did. I ended up going to Rochester. Um, and he key donated, like, seven boxes of data that sort of really got me started to look through how they, um, came up with their ideas about slave prices because they had a dissection in their book. That was really based on U B. Phillips, who published in 1918 American Negro Slavery. So this conversation about how enslaved people are valued monetarily has been going on since slavery Scholarship was first produced.

[0:04:21 Peniel] Absolutely, and it connects to reparations. I’m interested in the data, um, for for for part of this conversation, because when I read your book, you humanize that data. But at the same time, the data is really, really important because it places this story into a wider history of capitalism and sort of economic development of both this country in the world. So I’m interested in hearing about the data.

[0:04:46 Daina] So the data was had a interesting relationship with it because I could have kept going because I was I went through probably about 12 to 15 different archives. Maybe I’m sorry about 20 some archives, 20 plus archives throughout the North and the South looking for evidence in any type of record. It didn’t matter whether it was a letter, a diary, a bill of sale. Ah, insurance claim anywhere where they had the value of an enslaved persons body, their name and their age. And that’s what I started doing. So is collecting this and one of things you mentioned that the whole conversation about reparations and people always ask me like, Do you have a platform for reparations? And I actually was thinking about that. What? I was writing the book thinking, What would I say? Because I know that the material that I have here is useful material. I never could come up with a platform like I would love to be able to design one like a 10 point plan kind of thing of what we can do. I have ideas, but I don’t. I didn’t like I had had something that was crafted and formulated in a way that I could add as an epilogue or add as, ah, appendix to the book. But I do know that the material that I have the companies that I name, the families that identify the universities and other places that profited and benefited from slavery are useful for those that are working on these types of reparation plans.

[0:06:02 Peniel] Absolutely. I want you to talk about that because you really do name names. I mean, one of the most exciting but heartbreaking parts of the book is when you talk about Children who were enslaved and the values placed on Children who were under 10 enslaved people who were 10 to 20 enslaved people who were under 40. But then over 40 and you really name sort of companies that that that gained economic, uh, resource is from the value of these black bodies. So in a lot of ways, when we think about a contemporary discussion of reparations, we often say, Well, we don’t know where would we? Who would we? One target. How would we extract Resource is from them. It’s sort of like the records are too fuzzy, but in the price for their found of flesh. You show that the records aren’t fuzzy. Clear,

[0:06:51 Daina] They’re not fuzzy. And I think if if we wanted to really go at this issue, the first thing we need to recognize is that reparations have been paid before, not just with the interment camps, not just with, um, I guess what I would say is slaveholders received reparations when they’re enslaved. People were had committed crimes or allegedly committed crimes, and they were hung by the state. The state refunded the value of the body of the deceased slave to then slavers. And so when we talk about reparations, always say you have to know that historical context because people get up in arms about the conversation, I think because of racial tensions and race issues in contemporary society. But I would say slaveholders in slavers received payment back for the death of their enslaved. So if we understand that, why are we so sensitive around these conversations? Because people always air saying who were going to write the check to? It’s not that simple. I’m saying we can name names, the records air there We have companies, organizations, municipalities that have benefited from the institution of slavery. There are very few companies in this country from the 19th century and early 20th century that did not benefit from the backs of Sleepy.

[0:08:05 Peniel] So we have both cities, and we have corporations who weaken name who have contemporary it. Orations, yes, who would be part of this conversation?

[0:08:14 Daina] Yes, and those same companies and corporations and cities do not want us to have these conversations. And I’ll say that because around early two thousands, there were the insurance claims. I don’t know if you heard about that. So California Insurance, Chicago Insurance claims where they actually had legislation that was passed. That said, You have to disclose if you had insurance policies related to enslave people. And so they had to put those records up on a website or in a database, right? Um, ironically, during the time I was teaching and I had a student that was working for one of the insurance companies, that on a summer job, and I said, Oh, this is great. This is perfect want when you come back from the summer, let me know. You know where where, like if I wanted to go do research where do I go? Where does a historian go to do these this research, since they have to disclose it and he said that they would not allow him to have access to any of those records. So some of these companies actually listened, and they they published the information. Some of them have it if you have, if you ask, but it’s buried. So there’s also sort of like social Justice issues around that they don’t want to be linked to that today. And some of these companies have changed names. So some of the companies, like the Southern Mutual Life Insurance, became Southern Mutual insurance. And that’s where the companies that I wrote about in the book and they started policies as early as 18 48 and that company is still around today in Athens, Georgia.

[0:09:28 Peniel] And can you tell our listeners how How did you extract value from a life insurance policy for an enslaved African? How did that work?

[0:09:36 Daina] So actually they started off with policies When people started insuring their and slate people. They were mostly doing it when they were being transported for sale. So let’s say a known and slaver had six enslave people that he was going to sell. He would then take out a policy, and sometimes it was fire insurance. Eso wasn’t necessarily. It wasn’t called slave life insurance. At that time, it might have been a boat in fire. That’s when we mostly see it. And they would add that you’d see on these these these alleged books that they’d have, like, you know, transporting six and slave people worth. And they have a value. But later, after the 18 forties into the 18 fifties that those insurance companies actually became, they grew and they realized that they could make some money off of slave policies. So, um, the one record that I use I had a pick 4000 figures from just this one company, and they they sort of experimented early on on whether or not there was gonna work for them to use to have these types of policies. Um, and when you think about it from the planters perspective or the owner, then slavers perspective, they’re saying, if mine slate person dies while I’m going to send them to the market to be sold, I want my money back. If but But if on enslaved person committed suicide or there was an explosion on a steamboat. They were those that was a null and void for the policy. So they had stipulations about that in there.

[0:10:55 Peniel] Can you Can you tell us what was the actual value that you find, especially on the eve of the Civil War and really, for enslaved women, Children, men, um, and and based on their ages can. And how did that value translate to, you know, 2018? Like what? So what was the value?

[0:11:13 Daina] So the the value that device that I showed in the book at the beginning of each chapter, I gave, like, averages of each for each age range, like, sort of, you know, 10 to 20 or what have you? And so I just and I chose the lowest value. Um, but the values could go as high as $300,000 today for one person, um, or as low as 7 to $10,000 depending on what inflation calculation you’re using. I actually used low figure so people didn’t wouldn’t accuse me of like of sort of inflating up for shock value. It’s OK. I’m going to choose the lowest numbers. So the lowest numbers that depending on where you are, age group you’re in. Um, I would say anywhere from $7 to $30,000

[0:11:52 Peniel] Wow. Per enslaved in

[0:11:55 Daina] Africa. Per individual

[0:11:56 Peniel] Per individual.

[0:11:56 Diana] Yes.

[0:11:57 Peniel] Wow. So that means that a planter who owned, um, 250 enslaved Africans,

[0:12:05 Daina] extremely wealthy

[0:12:06 Peniel] extremely wealthy,

[0:12:07 Daina] and sometimes they owned, um, more. They had more value and wealth in the bodies of black people than they did the land that they were living on

[0:12:16 Peniel] Wow. Wow

[0:12:17 Daina] that’s that’s something that I don’t think we really wrestle with today. Enough.

[0:12:21 Peniel] I wanna ask a lot of questions, but the 1st 1 I’m gonna ask is, when you think about the price for their pound of flesh, Um, how does this speak to contemporary issues? Because when I was reading your book and your book just came out last year 2017 2017 it’s really I read it against the context of black lives matter. I read it also against the context of memorials for black people who were lynched. And we’re thinking about Bryan Stevenson’s memorial, the Lynching memorial in Birmingham or Montgomery, Alabama, and all these racial conflagrations. They’re happening in Ferguson and Baltimore. So how do you think, um, this study and this kind of work really speaks to the current moment?

[0:13:08 Daina] It did for me. And, you know, when we think about teaching our students, you know, we talk about historiography, and part of historiography is understanding the moment that influences what kinds of questions people are asking when they write the books that they write. And so this is the backdrop. Would you just describe the black lives matter, movement, the police killing of black people, unarmed black folks? That is the backdrop of when this book was being written. And it was very distracting because, um, I was finding quotes from enslave people and stories from them saying, like in the aftermath of slavery, how it doesn’t my body doesn’t matter anymore. My life doesn’t matter anymore, because I could no longer work for them for free. So there, you know, in the reconstruction period, where for millions lay people were trying to negotiate labor contracts, you know, they were barely getting paid anything to go. You know that that’s how the whole system of debt, peonage and and sharecropping involved They were still working for some of the same people that they had been enslaved by during slavery. And so

[0:14:08 Peniel] But they had less value.

[0:14:08 Diana] Absolutely.

[0:14:09 Peniel] And why did they have less value?

[0:14:11 Daina] Because they had to be paid for the labor.

[0:14:14 Peniel] So as free labor, they actually had less value. But as slave labor, they had extraordinary value. But that value didn’t come

[0:14:21 Daina] back to them. No, it never did. It still hasn’t. And that’s what I would say when you look at the black lives matter and the moment the historical moment which we have not named, and I don’t know what we’ll call it. Um, but we will call this moment something absolutely will. And and, um, when we look back at this moment, you cannot, um you have to look at the connection to slavery from my perspective. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a slavery scholar, but there is a devaluation that is occurring today to black bodies, and I think that devaluation comes from having to pay for the labour. Whereas during this enslavement it was unpaid labour and their bodies were valued and enslave. People recognize that, and formerly enslaved people recognize that in the post slavery here. And I think that is a really important moment, what we’re seeing now. I would argue that in the contemporary moment that those that are incarcerated are experiencing forms of enslavement, modern forms of enslavement and the way that their bodies were being treated in incarcerated spaces. The way that I think, I think that there’s a parallel they’ll their toe what happened during slavery.

[0:15:23 Peniel] And I want you to discuss that more because I think we often think about mass incarceration as, um now, in the parlance of Michelle Alexander, the new Jim Crow. But we don’t necessarily think about it in the politics of enslavement, right on the way in which mass incarceration actually provides arguably more value for black bodies that are incarcerated and poor than those who are not incarcerated and who are also poor.

[0:15:51 Daina] Exactly. Well, I think what we’re missing today is that, um, incarcerated people are being put toe work. They’re working on formally and slave plantations. You know, if you know about the Louisiana Penitentiary, some of them had sure. Yeah, And gold ahead of sugar plantation on, you know, on the spot today, they’re making stuff like clothing. It’s not just license plates like in the eighties and the nineties, but they’re making products and not really being paid much. So it’s a similar form of labor that’s happening behind bars, and we can’t even from from those of us that are on this side of the of the of the prison week. There’s like there’s a lack of communication in terms of like justice for those that are behind bars. Like So, for instance, if we knew more about the conditions inside, and I think we’d see some parallels to slavery on a lot of people that do work on contemporary forms of mass incarceration don’t like making that like that comparison. But I think we need to think about some of those a little bit more because this is thes air thes air bodies that have been devalued, that air confined to a space that they have to work on a schedule. They have to be there, put on a schedule that they have no control over their their let in and out of certain spaces within that community, right? Um and it’s it’s very much a system of control similar to slave, and I’m not, I’m not equating incarceration to slave it, but I’m saying we need to look at some of the parallels that are there.

[0:17:13 Peniel] That leads me to my next question, Daina, really about slavery. Um, in general, because you’re one of the nation’s leading historians of slavery. What can slavery, um, teach us? Because one of the things we’re seeing, even in the state of Texas, where we both teach at University of Texas at Austin but really to Texas public schools, um, slavery is often a very controversial subject. Even in 2018 we think about 1977 roots over 100 million Americans watched in January of 1977. There was a sequel, Roots to Recently there’s been a A remake of Roots and 12 Years a Slave won an Oscar in 2013 but that that remains the exception. And really, slavery is not taught. Black students aren’t taught about slavery. White students aren’t taught about slavery, Latinos, other people of color. So one I’d like to ask you, Why should we really reimagine how we think about slavery in U. S schools? And how would that reverberate to this contemporary moment.

[0:18:15 Daina] Well, one, I think it needs to be taught. And we need instant K through 12. This is the This is where I am now in terms of my external like researching and products that I’m committed to, and that is really tackling the K through 12 education of slavery. Slavery as an institution was a large part of American history. It may not be a part that we’re proud of as a country. It may be a part of our history and our past that people are embarrassed or angry or ashamed of, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it. Um, it shaped who we are today. It, um, without the institution, we wouldn’t be the quote unquote world power that we are today.

[0:18:51 Peniel] And how so? I want listeners to just the capsule.

[0:18:54 Daina] I mean, first of all, you had free labor for almost for her, you know, 302 146 years if you’re starting at 16. 19. Free labor. Who? You know, African American and slave people built buildings they built. They cleared land, they made cities they helped. There were the lifeblood of the financial, um, financial institutions of this country, and that’s not been recognized. So people think, Oh, enslaved people just worked in the fields that there were

[0:19:21 Peniel] sharecroppers. They were they were there, feel hands. They picked cotton.

[0:19:24 Daina] No, they did much more than that.

[0:19:25 Peniel] They built the White House.

[0:19:26 Daina] They built the White House. They were skilled, highly skilled people, Um, and and they worked for universities. They worked, they worked a spot and they actually had to work in service for in fire departments, you know, they work for municipalities. There’s a number of spaces. There are very few spaces that in slate people did not influence during that time. And we have taught in a way that shames black people for not resisting enough to make it out of slavery. And, um, sort of covers up that, you know, I’ve had students say to me in class, not here at UT, but at other institutions, you know, 15 20 years ago say things like, Well, black people should be happy because they were taken out of Third World Africa and brought to America. And

[0:20:08 Peniel] I assume that’s the white student. Yes, okay. And so it’s It’s always been in this marker of shame for us. You know, the late Derek Bell talks about them faces at the bottom of well, Malcolm X talked about it. I’m Septima Clark, Ella Baker. So So black women and men historically have talked about it as a marker of shame until they find out the history, right? So when we think about our black students and I’m gonna talk about our white students, why should our black students know about slavery? Because some people say they shouldn’t know because it’s too hurtful.

[0:20:38 Daina] I think everybody should know about it. But I think, um, if people say it’s hurtful, they don’t know the full history. And I’ll say this because when I wrote this book the price for their pound of flesh, I actually fell in stories that gave me power and gave me hope. It made me proud, like it wasn’t. There’s nothing to be ashamed of it. It’s I don’t think it’s a shame on us in terms of African Americans. It’s a shame on our country that this lasted for so long and the people supported it. Um, but I think if you look at how how black people said you can you condense slave, my body. But you cannot take my soul, you know, And the strength that came out, the fact that one million people I’m sorry. Four million people survived slavery in 18 65. And the kind of the the torment, the psychological, the physical, the emotional, the mental, all the stuff that enslave people went through and still made it through That says that says something to me about a strong people. And to me, that’s like the sole value that I write about in the book that black people had a value of their souls and they came out of slavery. Yes. Tarnished, some of them dejected. Some of them bruise, some of them depressed. I get that. And I’m not saying that didn’t happen. But there was something inside of a number of them. A number of African Americans that allowed them to say, I’m going to keep living. I’m gonna I’m gonna and some of them look forward to another day. They kept thinking that justice would be served and they and they would say that they say, Oh, that there’s a place beyond here where justice will be served. But I’ve, I think, like for African American students to be proud that there’s an ancestry that made it through so that they could have the kind of education in the privileges that they haven’t today.

[0:22:10 Peniel] And what about our white students? Why should our white students and really are white listeners and white Americans So much so often? We hear the criticism that look, I had nothing to do with slavery. You know, I’m I’m a new immigrant myself or my parents had nothing to do. My grandparents, my great grandparent’s. We came here from Ireland or from Italy or from Germany or from Scandinavia. Why should white Ah students know this story as well?

[0:22:34 Daina] Because it’s one as a major part of American. You say the same reason why Black suit and should to be quite honest, it’s a part of American history. It helps us understand why race relations are the way we are. If we know that black people in this country have not been free as long as we were enslaved, then that’s it. That should you should sit with that for a minute and think, What does that mean? So we haven’t even had me to reach the halfway point right and so we have racial tension. And a lot of that comes from this. This notion that black people are less than because of the way we were treated because of not only after slavery within the Jim Crow legislation and and all the black codes and different things that have put us as African Americans at a disadvantage.

[0:23:14 Peniel] So the 100 year of racial segregation in the aftermath of slavery

[0:23:17 Daina] Absolutely I mean, I I just feel like and I tell my students, is all the time, regardless of what race they are of say, I stayed in my classes, you know, we have a long way to go, and people think I’m being negative about it. But I’m saying, you know, if you look at where we are and where we came from, yes, you could say that’s progress. But we still have tensions that we’re still seeing people being killed, you know, murdered in the street for no reason. With nothing, you know and say, Well, I felt like I was threatened. There’s something there that that connects back to, um, and ideology around blackness and a devaluation of black bodies that comes in the aftermath of slavery

[0:23:52 Peniel Now I want to get back to some of these stories that you talk about in the price for their pound of flesh. Um, and, you know, from the womb to the tomb. Talk about some of the enslave Children and their mothers. And, you know, you talk about four separations. You you talk about so much here, um, and how you also talk about sort of the intellectual ability, an emotional ability of enslaved people that even though they might not have been formally educated, you’re very intelligently. Absolutely. They loved their Children. They loved their spouse is even at times when they couldn’t be legally wed. Exactly. They believed in family on. And they believed in a different vision of American society that included them.

[0:24:34 Daina] Absolutely so. One of the things that I decided to do with the book with structure based on the life cycle, you know, of a person and I was did that way because I was trying to understand what moment doesn’t enslave per child. Um, adolescent understand that there are a piece of that. They are not only a human being, but also a piece of property like And how did parents teach them that. And so what you were just describing is like, Where is this moment? Like what age like When do they recognize this? This dual value system of their bodies? And oftentimes, because Frederick Douglass talks about this in his native, you know, a lot of them didn’t know they were enslaved until they reached a certain age. You know, they played around that. I was the white plane that was the the pet of the white Children. Why was the play made in their house? You know, and there was all this sort of equality, right? But there’s always a moment around age six or seven where there’s a separation. You know where you know, I think I talked about Jordan H Banks. When the young men in the book where he played with this playmate named Alexander, he called Alex. And, um, he said his father kept saying, You know, um, Jordan, who was enslaved father, kept saying, like, you know, you can’t let him beat you. You can’t let him hit you because his playmate Alex started hitting him. And so he said, if you allow him to, his father taught him this. If you allow him to keep beating you. He will never respect you. And so, um, Jordan kept track of how many whippings he owed Alex, and he returned them blow for blow. And so he he fought back. But it was It was in that moment when Alex went off to boarding school, and he went as he said, to scare crows in the fields. And he said the dreary days of my boyhood began in the fields. So, like before that moment before that period, he felt like a normal child. You know, um, and then when he saw there was a separation based on race and based on, you know, the fact that maybe someone like Alex could actually legally own him, you know, you have that. And people people talked about this with the net. Turner rebellion. Um, you know how that 31 18 31 in Virginia, where Nat Turner said don’t spare any lives? You know, a lot of people were upset about him and his comrades. Killing an eight month old baby right thing was around eight months old. Um, but they were saying that that even in the record books, you know, that baby might be their owner one day, and I’m not justifying that. But, you know, from their perspective, no lives could be spared at that time. Um, that’s an expression of soul value to fight back and say we’re trying to overthrow this system of slavery. So to go back to your question about life cycle and in the parents teaching their Children about them being commodities, they also taught them to hold their head up. But there was a part of them that knowing there was a piece inside their bodies that that nobody could touch and, you know, hold onto that. You know, I think about it’s like a grounding that they gave them. And they had that throughout their lives and throughout and and and even in looking forward to the afterlife because there was some that looked forward to that

[0:27:21 Peniel] And when you talk about the afterlife, um, I want us to talk about Ah, slave cadavers and slave cadavers is I think one of the most eye opening parts of the book was this trade in cadavers and how even deceased black bodies were exploited exactly in the 19th century. For decades. Yeah, I mean, this thing goes on for decades,

[0:27:44 Daina] goes into the 20 goes into

[0:27:45 Peniel] the 20th century. So I want you to talk about that.

[0:27:47 Daina] So, yeah, I actually first sort of stumbled on that when I was looking at at how I was focusing in on the valuation of bodies. And so, as I mentioned earlier, the valuation of people that were being hung or executed by the state they were. They were appraised right before they were hung. And I kept thinking, What is the point of that when that was so they could be reimbursed their slaves. That’s the reparations I was talking about, but that I have found that they were, But they talked about that when people were hardly We’re putting these shallow graves and there was a fight among the medical students for the bodies. And I thought, Wait, wait a minute. I’ve been doing this research. I’ve been citing the history of slavery for, you know, 15 20 years, what’s going on here? And, um, not a lot of people have written about Nat Turner being decapitated and medical students taking his skull and using it. And so what drove the research for me? I wanted to know what happens to the body because the body is now commodified after death and that I added three more years of research and all over medical libraries, medical colleges. I studied the anatomy records of some of the most major institutions here that trained, you know, generations of medical students.

[0:28:57 Peniel] Can you tell us some of those institute at the University of Pennsylvania?

[0:29:00 Daina] Um, the Dartmouth had medical institution, University of Vermont. Harvard, Um, John, not Johns Hopkins. Yes. Also, um, the Virginia Medical College of Georgia Medical College. And there they participated in and market in cadavers. And now I want to say this to the listeners that the bodies that were being traded were not all black, OK? And they were not all formerly enslaved. Those were the bodies that I was interested in because I just realized that in slavers were still making money off of the bodies after they were dead. And that was something that just blew me away. Um, so there were unclaimed bodies in this circulation, so there were also white bodies from prisons and alms houses, but there was also an illegal um, well, it wasn’t really illegal at the time because this is before the anatomy acts of the 18 eighties. Um, but they the medical professors, anatomy professors needed subjects for dissection. And so they would hire or enslave some of these schools, purchased enslaved men and then hired them to go then still bodies from cemeteries or wherever they can procure them. They didn’t ask questions, and they would bring these bodies back to the medical school

[0:30:16 Peniel] Were people ever killed to become?

[0:30:19 Daina] That happened. There was a big case in Europe in London in the 18 thirties that that would that happen where people were actually murdered just for dissection? We don’t have evidence of that, but there were people that were afraid of these blackmail grave robbers Chris Baker from Virginia and Grandison Harris from Georgia to of the figures that I wrote about, um, people were afraid of Chris Baker. If they saw him on the street, they would sort of run and hide. Um, African American families, you know that we’re free. Um, said to stay away from him, you know? You know, he might take you and cut you up. So there was that there was there was folklore around that that that lasted even in the in the aftermath of slavery as late as the 18 eighties.

[0:30:57 Peniel] Um, I want to jump. I’ve got just really just two more questions I want. I want to jump to the future in the sense of, um, this work has so much relevance for contemporary scholars, especially scholars of civil rights scholars and contemporary race relations. Mass incarceration. Um, how do you think? Really? Ah, a bigger interest and taking seriously slavery can help. Contemporary scholars called Scholars of Contemporaries, including urban history, just contemporary us and really world history.

[0:31:30 Daina] I think it shows that history is not necessarily linear, but there is a continuum, and I think that there’s aspects of of different historical moments that will the way we talk about the waste slavery scholars write about teach slavery might be useful to scholars of civil rights might be useful to scholars of urban America. We’re doing more work right now, actually, on slavery and urban spaces. Absolutely lots more work on that, and we’re understanding, like what does it mean that black people were butchers and they were working in, um, in black blacksmith shops? They were they were working in bakeries. You know, what does that mean? So So not only is slavery infiltrated into urban but the urban North as well, And that’s we’ve always known that. But not that’s not something that’s been known by the general population, right? The general general public. So it’s useful to see the influence of slavery and the carry overs and other other time periods. Now I have colleagues, um, slavery scholars that think we should just focus on slavery during slavery, focus on civil rights and civil rights, and that we shouldn’t make these big, sweeping jumps and arguments. But I’m saying if we look at cycles of history, you cannot separate everything, and we need to understand like it’s like it’s the It’s the foreground. It’s like you look at soil, it’s it’s the bottom layer of the soil that were come That’s on the top today, and you have to recognize that

[0:32:47 Peniel] No, absolutely. Is the foundational ideology, um, institution of our entire republic from Earth to now.

[0:32:55 Daina] Yeah, and if you think about liberation movements, you could look at contemporary liberation movements like the Black Lives matter movement. You can look at liberation movements from the sixties You can look at liberation movements from the twenties and thirties, and you could look at liberation movements from slavery. And oftentimes the rhetoric does not sound much

[0:33:12 Peniel] different. It doesn’t change in What’s it so interesting? And I know, um, just like you. I started graduate school in the 19 nineties, and there was an earlier generation who are about 20 years older than us, who started graduate school and they were doing studies of slavery at the high point of both the civil rights and black power mess, right? Yes, I’m thinking of John blasting game thinking of that.

[0:33:36 Daina] That’s my great grandfather like that, you know

[0:33:40 Peniel] So Brenda Stevens comes after. So what’s interesting now is that we have a new generation who’s gonna be as equally interested in slavery as they are the contemporary, because there’s so much work, your work and, um, Sadiya Hartman and Vince Brown. There’s just so many of these different historians publishing work that in our time connects to contemporary race relations,

[0:34:06 Daina] and I think that’s gonna be useful. Um, Brenda Stevenson always she was always doing work in slavery and then in contemporary, she did the book on um, life is life in black and white on slavery.

[0:34:16 Peniel] U C L. A. Yeah. Eminent historian.

[0:34:19 Daina] Yes, in my my dissertation advisor. Um, but then she also did the work on Latasha Harlan’s because in the 19 nineties, while I was in graduate school, the Rodney King riots happened. And so that was we saw things there that resonated with things that we had written and wrote read about during slavery. So I think it’s disc Aunt X, and we always say You have to contextualize history, its context. And it’s the historiography, which is the study of how we do history, how historians think about interpreted. And I think that when you think about contemporary moment, I’m anxious to see what the students of today are going to generate. I’m anxious to see their work as we age through the profession just to see. I’m hoping there’s not as much disconnect, um, and and that we’re really learning from the foundations of the work that’s come before us.

[0:35:06 Peniel] Context matters. My final question. Um, is there any hopeful lessons that we can glean from your most recent book? Ah, in your study of slavery in general about racial progress in the future.

[0:35:19 Daina] Well, that’s a good question. Um, I think one is that the records are healthy and intact. You know, oftentimes, when I was a graduate student in early career assistant professor, people would say, Are you sitting slavery? Don’t we know everything there is to know? I think we just keep opening up new avenues. Um, and I’ve said this recently, too, that the bones of slavery literally are coming to the surface there, rising to the surface. We’ve the construction. This was the construction. And Fort Bend. Um, the Fort Bend community in in Sugar Land, Texas is not too far from you outside of Houston. Those work, they think we’re combat least bodies. But 95 African American bodies were discovered recently recently, Like in February of 2018 actually, in bath Drop, Texas. Not too far away from where we are here now in Austin. Um, some bodies from old slave cemetery floated up when we had the floods. So we’re being forced to deal this history. And I would argue in a creepy way that, like those that were enslaved, that feel like they want their stories told, are rising to the surface.

[0:36:26 Peniel] Absolutely. In a way, the United States is a national cemetery over the graves of black bodies, Native American bodies, women, Children. Yes, and it’s really important, um, that we we we find out their stories and way,

[0:36:39 Daina] incorporate them in the history books K through 12 and college level. And so that’s why that’s what we need to do now is that the kids we’ve missed a whole generation or generations of grade school Children who have missed the history of slavery because it’s just been sort of sugar coated or or just barely touched, just sort of a quick little not to and then moving on to civil rights and happier stories of success and collaboration?

[0:37:03 Peniel] And how does that harm us? How does that harm?

[0:37:05 Daina] It harms us because there are. There are lessons from slavery that we still need to learn that we need to understand. And it harms us because people don’t understand why people are upset today. Why black folks by people of color by Native Americans. There’s a history behind land, right with native Americans as well. There’s so many things that if we don’t understand and know that context, we’re not gonna have any any space to understand it today.

[0:37:27 Peniel] So it impacts our civic life as well. Our politicians should know this. Our elected officials, yes, should know this people are part of P T A s and board of trustees. Texas to

[0:37:38 Daina] make the decisions on what goes in textbooks should know this history, and they should know it not because of what they were taught in school. They should not based on contemporary research from trained historians.

[0:37:49 Peniel] So the study of slavery is really part of the study of American history. But also, U s citizenship is well, absolutely, absolutely. Wow, This has been such an education. It’s great to talk to you. Thank you for having me. Daina Ramey Berry, who is an eminent professor of history and African American studies here at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you for joining us, and we’d love to have you back.

[0:38:16 Daina] Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

[0:38:18 Peniel] Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s P E N I E L J O S E P H and our website csrd.lbj.utexas.edu and the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you