In the Company of Black Men : The African Influence on African American Culture in New York City

by Wilder, Craig Steven

• ISBN13: 9780814793688
• ISBN10: 0814793681
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-11-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

Wilder explores cultural expression with and through African societies in New York City. . . . He follows them from their origin, through their heyday, to their decline as capitalist culture overwhelmed the voluntary tradition.--Book NewsIn the historiography on blacks in the colonial and antebellum periods, Craig Steven Wilder's In the Company of Black Men stands out as one of the finest works of scholarship in the last decade.--Journal of American Ethnic HistoryFrom the subaltern assemblies of the enslaved in colonial New York City to the benevolent New York African Society of the early national era to the formation of the African Blood Brotherhood in twentieth century Harlem, voluntary associations have been a fixture of African-American communities.In the Company of Black Men examines New York City over three centuries to show that enslaved Africans provided the institutional foundation upon which African-American religious, political, and social culture could flourish. Arguing that the universality of the voluntary tradition in African-American communities has its basis in collectivism--a behavioral and rhetorical tendency to privilege the group over the individual--it explores the institutions that arose as enslaved Africans exploited the potential for group action and mass resistance.Craig Steven Wilder's research is particularly exciting in its assertion that Africans entered the Americas equipped with intellectual traditions and sociological models that facilitated a communitarian response to oppression. Presenting a dramatic shift from previous work which has viewed African-American male associations as derivative and imitative of white male counterparts, In the Company of Black Men provides a ground-breaking template for investigating antebellum black institutions.

Author Biography

Craig Steven Wilder is Associate Professor of History and Chair of African American Studies at Williams College

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
``Some Little Tribute'': An Introduction	1	(8)
I African Voluntary Associations and The Rise of Black Spiritual Culture
A Taunt from the Oppressed: The West African Institutional Legacy in New York City, 1644-1783	9	(27)
Raising Mother Zion: The Fusion of African and British Institutions in New York, 1784-1822	36	(18)
The Liberating Power of the Cross: The NYAS and the African Encounter with the Protestant Ethic, 1774-1796	54	(19)
``The Aristocracy of Character'': African Societies and the Moral Consequence of Nationalism, 1784-1845	73	(28)
II African Voluntary Associations and the Making of the Public Sphere
``The Inmates of My Sanctum Sanctorum'': African Voluntary Associations and the Public Sphere, 1808-1845	101	(19)
In the Company of Black Men: Manhood and Obligation in the African Confraternity, 1808-1857	120	(22)
``A Single Voice'': African Societies, the Press and the Public Sphere, 1827-1861	142	(12)
When Black Men Spoke of Freedom: Voluntary Associations and Nationalist Culture, 1809-1865	154	(27)
III The Transformation of African American Voluntarism
``The Gaudy Carnival'': The African Declension in the NYASMR, 1863-1945	181	(17)
``Shall It Be a Woman?'': The Transformation of Black Men's Voluntarism, 1865-1960	198	(21)
Notes	219	(66)
Bibliography	285	(26)
Index	311	(22)
About the Author	333