Recent Reading: The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois

I would have to say my favorite book of 2021 is, hands down, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers' The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois. The book is long -- more than 800 pages, yet the idea of the book can be summarized in a couple of sentences. Here is how Michael Silverblatt summarized the book when listing it as his favorite of the year:

In this book, a young woman follows her family history into the recesses of slavery in America. The young woman is a historian, so we are following her into her stunning access to the documentation of her family's capture and beyond, to the present.

As I said, Jeffers novel is more than 800 pages long, yet it is also a page turner; the book reminds me of Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove – a book completely different in every way except for two things: 1) both are, at least for me, books are that make the reader lose track of time and 2) both are gripping stories, real page turners.

There are many things that stand out about this book:

The book is filled with well-crafted sentences. Jeffers’ experience publishing five books of poetry certainly informs her style of writing. Nearly every sentence is somehow both poetic yet not flashy -- the language never distracts from the narrative.

Jeffers grounds the story in African-American poetics, at least that is the way I see it. Alice Walker's Alice Walker's The Color Purple and the life and career of WEB DuBois as expected, come up frequently. Close readers will also notice other African American Writers in the novel. 

Related to this topic of African American writers, in an interview I heard with Jeffers on The Bookworm program on KCRW she noted that in her MFA program she was the only black woman studying poetry -- all the other students were white. Jeffers said that the other graduate students were well-read, but none of them were familiar with the names in African-American literature that she considered her most important touchstones or influences. I should also note that Jeffers father Lance Jeffers was also a poet novelist and college professor even though he was never as well-known as other writers associated with the blacks black Arts Movement like Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Maya Angelou and other important writers who came later like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, or August Wilson.

As I said, the language in the book is quite extraordinary. Let me share a couple of passages that I noticed while reading.

Here is a section that captures the desire among some African-Americans to be recognized for their hard work and achievements but, somehow fail to be noticed.:

On the other end, Dr. Oludara heaved a sigh

“Why are you making things harder than they have to be?"

"I'm not. It's just–”

“Ailey, let me ask you something. Do any of your classmates invite you to their study sessions?”

“No ma'am.”

“Are they even friendly to you?”

“I mean no not really.”

“Then why do you give a good goddamn about what they think. You can have nothing but white folks on your dissertation committee and your classmates still would have something to say. I'm sure they've passed around that you're there on quota. They love to accuse Black folks of taking their place even when it ain't but one of us and fifty of them, they don't even want us to have that one spot.”

I stayed quiet.

“You know how I know, Ailey? Because when Chuck Whitcomb that I were at Harvard years ago, that's what they said about us. And it didn't matter that we both worked like dogs to get our grades. We weren't ever going to be good enough for those bastards. If you want Chuck as your advisor, great. If not, choose somebody else or go to another university. It's up to you. But instead of you trying to please some white folks whose names you won't even remember a decade from now, how about making your own decisions?” (p. 647-8.)

I was not quite sure what to make of this section where some history graduate students discuss slave narratives that were collected by the WPA.

“Those particular white interviewers clearly are invested in downplaying the brutality of slavery and the trauma suffered by formerly enslaved African-Americans. They appear to be steering there black subjects to say how great they were treated by their former Masters, and I thought...” 

When Rebecca raised her hand, I expected doctor Whitcomb to ignore her. I wasn't finished, but he surprised me. 

“You have something to add, Rebecca?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. Maybe we should consider, just maybe, that the interviewers for these narratives weren't racially biased. Maybe these former slaves were telling the truth and their masters really had been kind of them. Maybe they had been happy.”

I raised my hand. “Can I rebut?”

“I don't know,” Doctor Whitcomb said. “Can you?”

I cut him a glance, and thought I saw a brief smile, but I couldn't be sure.

“If slavery was so great, why did the Civil War happen?” I asked. 

“Because the north was infringing on our southern states’ rights,” Rebecca said.

“Are you seriously going to bring up that Old Chestnut?” I laughed, and our professor tapped the table with his knuckles. Keep it professional here. Don't be derisive.

“Sorry,” I said. “But I would like to ask Rebecca, exactly who is this first person plural in ‘our States’ rights’? Is it white people? And are you referring to the fact that only whites were citizens in this country until the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 granted citizenship to African-Americans, or are you thinking of the 1924 Indian citizenship act, when Native Americans were granted citizenship? Which one, Rebecca?”

“Our southern identity is not about race,” she said. “It's about the fact that we lost the Civil War–"

"And again, you are using a plural first-person pronoun," I said. "What ‘we’ are you referring to? Because my black family didn't lose the war. We won it."

 "I would expect a Yankee to take that attitude, Ailey."

"My mother is from Georgia, and her entire family is, too. Further, ‘Yankee’ – I made air quotes "does not describe African-Americans. It is a term that is specific to whites from New England."

" How did this become a racial debate, Ailey?”

"Rebecca, how is the Civil War not about race?"

"Because the Civil War was about States’rights" 

“Yes, the right for Southern states to hold African Americans in slavery!" (pgs. 660-661).

The first time I read the passage I wondered if it was really possible for graduate students in American history to think this way. Upon further reflection, I am sure it is possible.

It is shortly after this classroom discussion I quoted that two of the characters, Dr. Oludara, the professor, and Ailey, the African American history graduate student and main character, have a conversation

"Ailey, I can understand why you didn't like me. This is one of the highest-ranked programs for early American history in the country, and there I was, giving an overview of basic information to grown folks in graduate school. But that's what you must do with certain individuals, Ailey. Slave history is inconsequential to them. They can recite the Mayflower Compact by heart but haven't even heard of partus squitur ventrum. You know who I mean by ‘certain individuals’, right? " (p. 670).

I would like to add a brief note about partus squitur ventrum because I was, I will admit, unfamiliar with the term before reading the novel. This material is taken from the wikipedia page on the topic. The concept was the underpinning for chattel slavery. 

Partus sequitur ventrem (Latin "That which is born follows the womb") was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies in the Americas which defined the legal status of children born there; the doctrine mandated that all children would inherit the legal status of their mothers. As such, children of enslaved women would be born into slavery.

The doctrine's most significant effect was placing into chattel slavery all children born to enslaved women. Partus sequitur ventrem soon spread from the colony of Virginia to all of the Thirteen Colonies. As a function of the political economy of chattel slavery in Colonial America, the legalism of partus sequitur ventrem exempted the biological father from relationship toward children he fathered with enslaved women, and gave all rights in the children to the slave owner. The denial of paternity to enslaved children secured the slaveholders' right to profit from exploiting the labour of children engendered, bred, and born into slavery.

Let me say a word or two in conclusion. In my opinion, at least. The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois is an extraordinary book. I read a lot of books this year, this is my favorite book of 2021.