Finding Joy in Early Black Writing

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: This is Black History Month here in the United States, and we look now at a new book, sharing stories of joy during the horrors of slavery. “Reading Pleasures” by Professor Tara Bynum explores that worked four black writers who found moments of happiness while enslaved. She joins me Michel Martin to discuss the humanity in each of their writings.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Professor Tara Bynum, thanks so much for joining us.

TARA BYNUM, AUTHOR, “READING PLEASURES”: Thanks for having me. It feels good to be here.

MARTIN: You know, for people who kind of follow what’s going on in the culture, you’ve been hearing a lot lately about kind of black joy, black boy joy, black mom joy. Your book takes a much sort of longer view of the 18th and 19th century writers. What make you think of that? What made you think of doing a book about how these writers back then expressed joy?

BYNUM: You know, it’s funny. This book is a long time in the making. And I could not have anticipated the kinds of cultural moment that it actually emerges in. But I think when I get started, kind of asking these sorts of questions about 18th century writers in graduate — it’s in graduate school that I’m thinking about this, some 20 years ago at this point. And I think that what gets me there to thinking about kinds of joy and pleasure is actually reading the work itself and realizing that it is present, not in a hidden way, not in a reading against the grain kind of way, but very explicitly. And I think the other thing that happens too is that in reading other scholars at the time talk about kinds of black culture and black — African American literature in particular, it dawned on me that I didn’t necessarily recognize the black people that they were talking about. I didn’t see the kinds of experiences that I had heard from my own kind of elders, if you will, and I guess I just got to wondering like why this wasn’t a feature of black experience that was written about in academic settings.

MARTIN: But you are also telling us that some of it was like the kinds of conversations you were having with your students. I was really fascinated by that. Will you talk a little bit about that, like some of the things that your students said to you that sparked your thinking in this area?

BYNUM: The interesting conversations that I’ve had with students over the years, most consistently, what is striking whenever I ask them what African American literature is, oftentimes, the expectation is that it will be stories of slavery and suffering over and over and over again in perpetuity. And I think that it seemed, at some point, kind of a strange presumption to me, if only because like it didn’t necessarily kind of meet the reality of the everyday sorts of black lives that I encounter, suffering is not a defining feature of the many black people that I know and I — you know, this might be a bit anachronistic. but upon realizing that in thinking about that while talking to my students, you know, I guess I began to realize that much more how important it was to think about and actually read for the joy that is present in these narrative accounts, in Phillis Wheatley’s letters, in David Walker’s “Appeal” even. Like the joy isn’t hard to find. And I guess I wanted to come up against my students’ expectations for, yes, tragedy.

MARTIN: I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, that there are certain films, for example, that you get the sense that people think they are supposed to like, but they don’t really want to watch because they know it’s going to be painful and that just — and I just kind of wonder if that’s kind of been sort of baked into our understanding of that period and our cultural expressions of that period without even actually admitting it to ourselves.

BYNUM: You know, I’m a black woman. I, you know, come from a family of black people. I think if the story is one that is just suffering, I don’t quite understand how I am here talking to you in 2023. You know, I think that there have to be something else at work. You know, I think back to my grandparents’ love letters that they wrote as teenagers, you know, and I think that that’s a game that we can play and that every generation moving back, like, if it’s not love letters, it’s some sort of just, you know, youthful belief in, in some kind of possibility that ends up kind of getting me here today. And I think that that thinking of — thinking that thought is one that had me, I guess, really committed to this search for joy, because I wanted to know how I got here.

MARTIN: And one of the points that you make in this book is that you say that people worry that if black people acknowledge joy within painful experiences, it somehow insinuates that the person enjoyed their oppressive conditions. I’m thinking about works like “Corgi and Bess,” which obviously was — were not written by black people, but that, you know, on the one hand, it’s offered great opportunities for black singers to express their arts. On the other, now looking at it, it’s annoying, you know, to a lot of people. We’re like, oh, look at them, you know, living in these terrible conditions with all the singing and dancing. How do you think you came to that insight that it’s almost like you don’t want to admit that there were these joyous moments, because, somehow it lets the oppression off the hook?

BYNUM: Right. I think that what became important to me was, I guess, understanding the kinds of both end experience of being human. And I think in so many circumstances there is the reality of ones — the systemic oppression, in whatever form it takes, that might be all around. But then, there are this kind of every day sort of experiences, interpersonal experiences, that ultimately come to define a life. You know, I think — when I think about Phillis Wheatley and Obour Tanner, you know, is there a way for them to just be two friends talking to one another? And might they have concerns other than their enslavement? And I think that I get to that question thinking too about my own experience. If I’m talking to a friend that’s another black woman, are we talking about racism all the time? Are we talking about sexism all the time? Is that kind of the defining principle of our friendship, or might we be, you know, talking about that latest foolishness on Twitter or some other social media platform? Are we talking about life in general and the days burdens? Or are we just kind of gossiping? And if we are, what would it then be like for a researcher 300 years from now to talk about my life as if it was limited to my kind of black and woman intersectional identities and the very certainty of racism? Like, yes, we can have that conversation, no doubt about it. And also, there’s a lot more going on in my life than that particular conversation.

MARTIN: So, help us discover some of those reading pleasures that you see.

BYNUM: Yes. So, I think about the faith, the Christian faith that John Marrant and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw have, it’s very apparent in their narratives. Their narratives are meant to demonstrate their commitment to their own Christian faith. Then, you know, there are definitely conversations that have been had about whether or not Christianity was impose upon black people. But I guess I wanted to think about like, what is it actually mean to believe that you are saved by a God who can do more than men can? You know, and I think that thinking in that way there was a pleasure and a possibility that opened up. Thinking too about David Walker’s “Appeal,” which is known for its anger. But what if that anger is not an end to itself but an anger that is supposed to mobilize the certainty of the joy that black people would experience once they actually took ownership of this country? Thinking too about Phillis Wheatley and Obour Tanner, you’ve got these two black women who are friends during the Revolutionary War, and they figured out how to keep talking to one another even when they are refugees from their respective homes. Now, they keep sending letters. And Obour Tanner keeps those letters for another 50 or 60 years.

MARTIN: I want to hear more about Phillis Wheatley because Phillis Wheatley is — of the writers that you focused on. She might be the one that most people know. She is understood to be the first black poet to publish in the states and did so while still in a state of enslavement. Tell us a little bit about Phillis Wheatley and tell us a little bit what might make these letters so special.

BYNUM: So, Phillis Wheatley is, as you have said, kind of the first black person to publish a volume of poetry. She publishes the collection of poems in London because she is not able to secure a publisher in the colonies. And she is most known for poems like “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” to the “Earl of Dartmouth.” So, Phillis Wheatley is Boston based. Obour Tanner is based in Newport, Rhode Island, which is not too far. And they correspond for a number of years. The extent of correspondence is from 1772 to 1779. And they talk about all kinds of things. They talk about God. They talk about the death of Susanna Wheatley, who is the enslaver or mistress too Phillis Wheatley. They talk about the sale of Wheatley’s books. Obour Tanner helps Phillis Wheatley to sell her books in and around Newport. So, I think it is a fascinating entry into this friendship between two enslaved at times black women. And Obour Tanner is the reason that we have Phillis Wheatley’s letters. She keeps the letters and ends up giving them to her pastor’s wife, Katherine Edes Beecher in the early 1830s, just before she dies and in a meandering way. Most of the letters end up at the Massachusetts Historical Society. But I think that there’s an interesting story in there about Obour Tanner choosing to keep her friend’s letters and ensuring that they still exist for people to see today.

MARTIN: It just — it kind of explodes this idea that — well, frankly, that there were so few literate black people back in the day and that they didn’t have the agency to connect with each other. And you’re basically telling us, yes, they did. The title of your book is “Reading Pleasures.” Is there one of the letter that you could identify that just cause you particular delight?

BYNUM: Absolutely. It is the February 14, 1776 letter between Phillis Wheatley and Obour Tanner. And Phillis Wheatley writes this letter just months before the colonies will declare their independence. She is a refugee from Boston, living in Providence, Rhode Island. Obour Tanner is still living in Newport, which is kind of been terrorized by the British. And it’s a letter that kind of reveals the extent to which their lives have been upended by the war. And Phillis Wheatley talks like about passing evening with Mr. Quamina (ph) and seeing Mr. Zinggo (ph). And these two names are names of black men who are part of Obour Tanner’s Newport community. I mean, Providence Newspapers is reporting casualties and battles and whatnot left and right. And the Newport Harbor British ships in it as well. And yet, there is this moment where Wheatley seems to enjoy an evening enough to tell her friend about it, and it’s going to be Mr. Zinggo (ph) that takes the letter to Obour Tanner. So, it’s — yes, I think it is one of my favorites, precisely for all the things that we’ve been discussing here. Like there’s some serious issues. There’s war. There’s the reality of slavery. And also, time to write a friend, time to hang out with two acquaintances, you know, that all happens as well. And there is something delightful about thinking about kind of two black women corresponding during the Revolutionary War, because it’s not often the case that we think of black women during the Revolutionary War. We think of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, obviously. And if you’re feeling (INAUDIBLE), James Madison. But Phillis Wheatley and Obour Tanner, you know, that — those aren’t necessarily the two names that are top of mind and yet, those two black women were figuring out how to navigate life.

MARTIN: You mention Newport, Rhode Island. Would you talk a little bit more about how the city evolved as an intellectual space and what role it played in the publication of these offers?

BYNUM: So, Newport, Rhode Island is a very compelling 18th century port town. It is the hub of colonial American slave trading and it is almost home to a very vibrant black community that Obour Tanner is a part of, that Phillis Wheatley is acquainted with as well. And the thing that makes, I will say, Newport, Rhode Island interesting to me as a scholar in present day, thinking back to the 18th century, is that it has a black community that is literate and keeps records. So, there is the meeting minutes of the Free African Union Society, there are letters too that they have, there’s Caesar Lyndon, who is my favorite. He keeps this account book. And a lot of this is largely still is staying at the Rhode Island Historical Society and the Newport Historical Society. So, I think there’s a whole kind of conversation that we can have about how this black community during — just before, during, and immediately after the Revolutionary War that is able to create a community and a community that is deeply invested in itself and reporting itself and taking care of itself.

MARTIN: The other thing about your book is that you talk about the interiority of these writers, of these folks, just like what — it’s about what they were thinking about when they weren’t being watched. Will you say a little more about that and why you think that is so important?

BYNUM: I think is so important, because another way to kind of think about this project is, like I just want to think about black people as human. And I think somehow it happens that when we go back in time, like suddenly three-dimensional people become very two-dimensional. And they serve our particular need for resistance, complacency, and whatever our agendas are calling for in the moment. And I think getting that interiority, which is still represented, even if it looks different than how we might imagine it, like it is still present in their writing and even in their choices to write something down and to make note of something. And in that way, it felt important to me to speak to this 18th century interiority so that, you know, my imagined reader, my imagined audience could remember to think about the complexity of black living.

MARTIN: Looping back to the beginning of our conversation, some of the students you are teaching were resisting this work because they thought it was all going to be depressing and sad. And one of the things you want to do was sort of point out the ways in which it is not. Is that primarily your black students or is that all of your students, if I may ask?

BYNUM: It is all of my students actually. And so, you know, I think it just has become that much more important to help students understand that there’s not actually something inherently tragic about one’s blackness. And, you know, this is, I guess where I agree with Ralph Ellison who said something very similar like, yes, to be black isn’t just about suffering. But, you know, sometimes to tell a compelling story means that there is going to be tragedy, there is going to be heartbreak. And yet, you know, I think that there’s always more to the story. And I guess that’s what I’m hoping students will get to and return to your early point, maybe that too is what I’m hoping that this larger discussion about African American studies and black studies like we maybe will get deeper into what makes these stories complicated if we so choose to see and read in this way.

MARTIN: Professor Tara Bynum, thanks so much for talking to us today.

BYNUM: Thanks for having me.