| Popis: |
This chapter lays out a theory of African American collective trauma and cultural memory, arguing that the blues sensibility contains an instructive metaphor for understanding the full range of ways in which Black southerners gave expression to their memories of lynching and confronted those memories. Drawing upon the work of writers from Ralph Ellison to Jeffrey Ferguson but also the insights of blues musicians from B. B. King to Mississippi Fred McDowell, this chapter demonstrates how the blues sensibility avoids reducing Black memories of lynching to either resistance or submission and, instead, places these memories within a framework that resonates with the African American cultural tradition. As a way of being—a posture toward life—the blues equip Black people to face both life’s joys and sorrows, and they warn us against the perils of collective amnesia. |
