Stories of Freedom in Black New York [Hardcover]

Shane White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 29, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0674008936 | ISBN-13: 978-0674008939

Stories of Freedom in Black New York recreates the experience of black New Yorkers as they moved from slavery to freedom. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, New York City's black community strove to realize what freedom meant, to find a new sense of itself, and, in the process, created a vibrant urban culture. Through exhaustive research, Shane White imaginatively recovers the raucous world of the street, the elegance of the city's African American balls, and the grubbiness of the Police Office. It allows us to observe the style of black men and women, to watch their public behavior, and to hear the cries of black hawkers, the strident music of black parades, and the sly stories of black conmen.

Taking center stage in this story is the African Company, a black theater troupe that exemplified the new spirit of experimentation that accompanied slavery's demise. For a few short years in the 1820s, a group of black New Yorkers, many of them ex-slaves, challenged pervasive prejudice and performed plays, including Shakespearean productions, before mixed race audiences. Their audacity provoked feelings of excitement and hope among blacks, but often of disgust by many whites for whom the theater's existence epitomized the horrors of emancipation.

Stories of Freedom in Black New York brilliantly intertwines black theater and urban life into a powerful interpretation of what the end of slavery meant for blacks, whites, and New York City itself. White's story of the emergence of free black culture offers a unique understanding of emancipation's impact on everyday life, and on the many forms freedom can take.

(20020901)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

New York abolition, which was formally granted in 1817 but not fully carried out until July, 4, 1827, complicated the social structure of the state and city during an awkward, staggered process. During this period a theater troupe called the African Company emerged. White, a professor of history at Australia's University of Sydney, reconstructs the vital life of this troupe in the New York of the 1820s, situating its struggles within the larger context of a sometimes exuberant yet uneasy time. Not only did the company perform Shakespeare's Richard III, one of the era's most popular dramas, as its first production, but the cast often rewrote dialogue and inserted elements from other sources. As played by former slave Charles Taft, the reworked lead role took on an added dimension, becoming a version of the trickster figure from African folklore. Many white critics and community figures were, not surprisingly, scandalized by the productions, and company members suffered harassment at the hands of local toughs and authorities alike. Taft was jailed for theft, and his successor James Hewlitt became the victim of changing audience tastes that doomed his career before he ended up imprisoned as a smalltime con artist. While the African Company's existence has previously been noted by scholars, it has generally been dismissed as a novelty or aberration. Drawing on extensive research, White emphasizes such achievements as the on-stage depiction of slavery, and vividly depicts powerful personalities like Taft and Hewlitt. He makes a persuasive case for the company's cultural importance, particularly as a forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance that was still a century away.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The early decades of the nineteenth century were turbulent as blacks and whites struggled with the end of slavery in New York. It was an era marked by race riots, forced segregation, and degrading depictions of black life, even as whites demonstrated a voyeuristic fascination with New York's black citizenry. Drawing on newspaper accounts, court records, and other documents, White recounts the black theater, balls, cotillions, and other social expressions that provoked virulent attacks and editorializing from whites uneasy with the new freedom blacks enjoyed. The author, a history professor, focuses on a black theater group, its leading actor, James Hewlett, and a Jewish newspaper editor, Mordecai Noah, as telling representatives of how blacks sought to express their freedom and whites sought to keep them in their place. Hewlett was prominent among performers trying to maintain their dignity in a range of dramatic productions, including Shakespeare, at a time when minstrel shows were coming into vogue. White captures the vibrancy and difficulties of the era when a distinct black culture began to emerge, and draws parallels to the current American cultural melange and contemporary racial attitudes. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (November 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674008936
• ISBN-13: 978-0674008939
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,578,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly interesting book--some very sad stories, August 25, 2004

By 

R. A Burt "Richard Burt" (Gainesville, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stories of Freedom in Black New York (Hardcover)

This is an extremely well-written and well-researched account of black New York in the nineteenth century, concentrating mostly on theater. Especially fascinating to me is the story of Shakespearean black actor James Hewlett and his [ublished responses to an English actor who had tuaght Hewlett Shakespeare and later mocked his performances on stage in England. The book got a rave review in the New Republic from Christine Stansell. I highly recommend this book.

6 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Impressive research marred by P.C. agenda, August 13, 2003

By 

krebsman (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Stories of Freedom in Black New York (Hardcover)

I bought this book because I have an interest in the artistic life of early America. A book about a black American actor in the 1830s sounded like my kind of book. I must give author White credit for the outstanding research he has done. The biographical data on the life of James Hewlett is very scanty. It must be difficult to write a book on a subject when the actual evidence is virtually nonexistent. Alas, White has filled in the gaps with a lot of assumptions and wishful thinking. He takes the tack that Hewlett was a great actor denied his place in the pantheon of American artists because of Americans' innate racism. Because white audiences laughed at Hewlett's mangling of Shakespeare, White labels them racists. (But would not I get laughs if I recited Shakespeare with a Brooklyn or a West Texas accent? Would not audiences laugh if I said in a dialect, "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of NEW York"? No doubt they would also laugh if I substituted the phrase "brass candlesticks" for the word "basilisks.") Later in the book, when comparing Hewlett with the far more successful black actor Ira Aldredge, he admits that Hewlett was barely literate and lacked the training that Aldredge had received. The impression I get from the actual evidence is that Hewlett's ambition exceeded his abilities. But White finds racism lurking everywhere and attributes all of Hewlett's misfortunes to it. Among the farfetched assertions is that one Jewish newspaperman, Mordecai Noah consciously created an offensive stereotype of blacks. I personally do not see how one man could CREATE a stereotype. White also characterizes New Yorkers' reaction to the uncivilized behavior of the newly freed slaves as racism, when it seems to me that it was only a natural reaction to bad manners, regardless of the color of the perpetrators. White makes outrageous statements throughout the book, using as supporting evidence still more unsubstantiated opinion and unsupported speculation. White apparently does not know the difference between active racism and an unconscious lack of political correctness. The book is also poorly edited and liberally peppered with sentence fragments. There ought to be a book on the artistic life of African Americans in the early years of the republic, but this book can only offer a frustrating glimpse into that world.