Scrapbooking Black History in the Black Book

For over a century, Black history has been most consistently and lovingly archived in the hands of Black people – family Bibles that stretch back to slavery, record collections that span eras, quilts made for babies long since grown to adulthood, and family photo albums that remind the next generation that we lived, we loved, and we built something beautiful still. This tendency to remember in this way has been borne out of a deep understanding that if no one else will document our humanity, we must. In this talk, Dr. Nicole M. Jackson discusses Toni Morrison’s The Black Book as an intimate archive of her people and herself, part of large- and small-scale community efforts to illuminate a history that is dark and beautiful all at once.

Dr. Jackson is an historian of the modern African Diaspora, Black social movements, and community activism, with a current focus on contemporary Black Britain. She is interested in everyday work of Black people to expand the boundaries of social and political citizenship. She is also interested in the intersection between historical reality and representation in popular culture. Beginning in September 2017, Dr. Jackson became a regular contributor to Black Perspectives, the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society.