Bonnie Greer

Intriguing Sampling of Little Known Histories
Review of the Audible Original audiobook (December 2019)

This was an interesting documentary audiobook which focused on one or two little known historical artifacts, events, kingdoms or persons in black history in each of the 8 episodes. The author is a novelist/playwright who was discovering many of these stories themselves. Occasionally other interviewers participate with historical experts. Many of the subjects were completely new to me and surprisingly there was even fairly recent 20th century persons who have had little recognition in the past.

I didn’t go back to re-listen, but I looked up links for many of the main topics after the fact (i.e. I may have missed a few). These were (in rough chronological order): Cheddar Man (ca. 7100 BC), Britian’s oldest complete human skeleton, whose nuclear DNA indicates that he had dark or black skin; Kingdom of Kush (ca. 1070 BC to 350 AD), Ethiopian kingdom that fought off the legions of Emperor Augustus; Bronze Head from Ife (probably 13th to 14th century AD), a Nigerian/Yoruba kingdom artifact whose craftmanship challenges preconceived notions of the sophistication of African art of the period; John Blanke (1501 - 1511), a trumpeter at the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII in Tudor England; Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703 - 1759), a philosopher during the era of the German Enlightenment; Graman Quassi (1692 - 1787) botanist from Suriname; the New York Slave Revolt of 1712; Sarah Baartmann (1789-1815), a South African woman who was demeaningly put on display in France, and whose remains were not repatriated from a French Museum until Nelson Mandela requested them; Pauli Murray (1910-1985) activist, jurist & priest, who worked for black and lgbtq rights well before many other better known proponents, for example was jailed for refusing to sit at the back of a bus 15 years before the famous incident with Rosa Parks. It is possible that her being transgender has led to her not being as well known as others.

In Search of Black History was originally released in December 2019 and was one of 11 free Audible Original audiobooks for members in June 2020. It was a late addition to the initial 10 selections announced on June 5, 2020. It is available to everyone for a standard price.… (mer)