Anti-Racism in U.S. History: The First Two Hundred Years

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This work examines the existence of anti-racism in the first 200 years of US history. Herbert Aptheker challenges the view that racism was universally accepted by whites. His book debunks the myth the white people never cared about the plight of African-Americans until just before the outbreak of the Civil War. Covering the period from the 1600s through the 1860s, Aptheker begins with a short introduction and a questioning of racism's pervasiveness, taking examples of anti-racism from the literature. He then devotes sections to sexual relations, racism and anti-racism, to joint struggles to reject racism, and to a discussion of Gregoire, Banneker and Jeffersonianism. Next he considers "inferiority" as viewed by poets, preachers and teachers and by entrepreneuers, seamen and cowboys. After a consideration of the Quakers, he turns his attention to the American and French revolutions and racism and to the Republic's early years and racism. Aptheker then devotes several sections to Abolitionism and concludes the work with the "the Crisis Decade", the Civil War, emancipation and anti-racism. This book by a well-known scholar in the field should be of interest to all concerned with US history and African American history.

Reviews

Aptheker's usual care and exhaustive knowledge of primary and secondary sources are evident and impressive.-The Historian
Historians, Aptheker argues, have frequently noted but rarely developed the point that throughout the two centuries of North American racial slavery, substantial numbers of whites rejected racist rationales for the "peculiar institution" and displayed a remarkable degree of interracial egalitarianism. Marshaling a large quantity of documentary evidence, Aptheker seeks to draw attention to the pervasiveness of what he calls "anti-racism" in Euro-American culture. The definition of racism in use here is a narrow one--what historians usually describe as "ideological" racism: systematic, pseudoscientific theories of inherent racial inferiority. Consequently, it is easy to concede Aptheker's point yet to wonder that so many white Americans lived comfortably with "societal" racism: de facto black inferiority based on established status relationships. It seems to have been the latter, after all, that had the greatest impact on the actual life opportunities for African Americans in American society. All levels.-Choice
Now Aptheker offers another readjustment of our intellectual and moral sights. This present volume on the first two hundred years of "anti-racism" in the United States ends with the American Civil War, but another volume is promised, which will take the story into the early twentieth century. This book presents a great deal of evidence that shows racism met considerable opposition in this country for many years.-American Historical Review
The preeminent Marxist historian of the African American experience has produced another major work that will provoke debate and stimulate reevaluation; this time of the character and extent of anti-racism in the nation's history. Herbert Aptheker has written an important and wise book which resonates with impressive scholarship and an impassioned affirmation that racism can be fought and eradicated, that black and white unity can be battled for and won.-Science & Society
This book breaks fresh ground in comprehensively and systematically exploring a theme that has hitherto been ignored or received fragmentary attention.-Journal of American History
This book is especially valuable for the large number of instances where whites sided with blacks, sometimes including outright revolts. Herbert Aptheker has himself rendered us all a great service by restoring the record of racial solidarity, justice, understanding and a common culture in America. This is a record that should be known and taught in all our schools and colleges throughout the country.-People's Culture
"Aptheker's usual care and exhaustive knowledge of primary and secondary sources are evident and impressive."-The Historian
"Now Aptheker offers another readjustment of our intellectual and moral sights. This present volume on the first two hundred years of "anti-racism" in the United States ends with the American Civil War, but another volume is promised, which will take the story into the early twentieth century. This book presents a great deal of evidence that shows racism met considerable opposition in this country for many years."-American Historical Review
"The preeminent Marxist historian of the African American experience has produced another major work that will provoke debate and stimulate reevaluation; this time of the character and extent of anti-racism in the nation's history. Herbert Aptheker has written an important and wise book which resonates with impressive scholarship and an impassioned affirmation that racism can be fought and eradicated, that black and white unity can be battled for and won."-Science & Society
"This book breaks fresh ground in comprehensively and systematically exploring a theme that has hitherto been ignored or received fragmentary attention."-Journal of American History
"This book is especially valuable for the large number of instances where whites sided with blacks, sometimes including outright revolts. Herbert Aptheker has himself rendered us all a great service by restoring the record of racial solidarity, justice, understanding and a common culture in America. This is a record that should be known and taught in all our schools and colleges throughout the country."-People's Culture
"Historians, Aptheker argues, have frequently noted but rarely developed the point that throughout the two centuries of North American racial slavery, substantial numbers of whites rejected racist rationales for the "peculiar institution" and displayed a remarkable degree of interracial egalitarianism. Marshaling a large quantity of documentary evidence, Aptheker seeks to draw attention to the pervasiveness of what he calls "anti-racism" in Euro-American culture. The definition of racism in use here is a narrow one--what historians usually describe as "ideological" racism: systematic, pseudoscientific theories of inherent racial inferiority. Consequently, it is easy to concede Aptheker's point yet to wonder that so many white Americans lived comfortably with "societal" racism: de facto black inferiority based on established status relationships. It seems to have been the latter, after all, that had the greatest impact on the actual life opportunities for African Americans in American society. All levels."-Choice

Author Bio

HERBERT APTHEKER has taught at many leading institutions, including Bryn Mawr College and Yale University. He has just retired from his post at the University of California (Berkeley). The author of over eighty volumes, his best known works include American Negro Slave Revolts (1943), A Documentary History of Negro People (4 vols., to 1945), Abolitionism (1989), and Literary Legacy of Du Bois (1989). He is the editor of the Du Bois Correspondence (3 vols.), Du Bois' Complete Published Writings (37 vols.), and four volumes of his previously unpublished writings.