Reclaiming the Black Past:The Use and Misuse of African American History in the 21st Century

In Reclaiming the Black Past, Pero Gaglo Dagbovie posits that approaches to African American history generated outside the academy have mattered as much, if not more than, the work of trained scholars. In straightforward and accessible prose, he argues that figures as diverse as comedians, filmmakers, youth activists, museum curators, and public officials are the key interpreters of the black historical record for popular audiences. In appealing to his colleagues in the field to return to the public through the practices of "living history," Dagbovie deftly manages a balance between cultural politics and intellectual thought. In the process, he has delivered an important work about the epic transformations of the last decade.

Pero Dagbovie’s Reclaiming the Black Past is an incisive exploration of the way Americans outside of the ivory tower have used and misused black history in the past quarter century. Ranging widely from the treatment of slavery in movies to President Obama’s handling of Black History Month, Dagbovie makes a strong case that historians must join public discussions about the black past that have heretofore been dominated by politicians, bloggers, movie producers, and comedians. Practicing what he preaches, Dagbovie brings a rigorous historical analysis to recent public debates about black history, in the process illuminating several much discussed but understudied subjects and enriching our knowledge of the 1990s and 2000s. As we leave the lush racial terrain of the Obama era and enter the barren scrubland of the Trump years, this book is an important resource for the journey ahead.

Historian Pero Dagbovie has written a much-needed study of the ways in which African American history is explored, understood, and told in the U.S. Reclaiming the Black Past offers an incredibly sophisticated, yet accessible, book on how everything from public museums, films, novels, and even comedians have shaped our collective perspectives on so much of African American history. This book functions as a remarkable and nuanced examination of popular perceptions of black history with a perfect balance of insider perspective and a sensitivity to how laypeople approach the subject.

With outstanding precision, Pero Dagbovie sorts through the muddled musings of the many people who profess to know black history and deconstructs the mixed messages emanating from the major cultural institutions claiming to chronicle the black past to reveal the ways black history has been (mis)represented, (mis)interpreted, and (mis)remembered. This is African American intellectual and contemporary history at its very best.

Praise for African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

Pero Gaglo Dagbovie's incisive and timely book compels a new generation to come to terms with African American history. Beautifully crafted, illuminating and passionate, African American History Reconsidered reminds us that politically engaged critical analysis has long been at the heart of the black historian's craft.

Praise for African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

A superb study: the first major treatise on African American historiography in the past two decades. Dagbovie's work fills a gap in historiography and contributes immensely to historical studies.

Praise for African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

A refreshing historiographical work.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

Dagbovie contributes benchmark research to US historiography. He provides an unprecedented analytical account of two central black history innovators.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

A vital study of black American intellectual life and black professional historians.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

As scholar-activists, Carter G. Woodson and Lorenzo J. Greene used their professional historical training not only to establish and further the subdiscipline of African American history, but also to help African Americans understand the importance and significance of their role in U.S. development. Dagbovie has done well to highlight their careers and contributions. Recommended.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

Dagbovie draws on the personal papers of these two seminal historians, along with materials from the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), to chronicle the growth of the modern black history movement. Recommended for all black history and historiography collections.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

Dagbovie's dual biography of two giants of the black history movement is an important work. The Early Black History Movement gives deeper insight on iconic figures of the early black history movement while simultaneously serving as a rebuke to disinterested black scholars in the present.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

A welcome reminder of a period when scholars strove to advance knowledge and social justice. Pero Dagbovie has recovered a vital chapter in that intellectual struggle, offering insight into the African American past and a reminder of roads not taken today.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

In addition to a careful assessment of the personalities and motivations of Woodson and Greene, Dagbovie’s work provides a solid foundation and model for future work on black historians.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

Well-written and original, this dual biography of Carter G. Woodson and one of his leading disciples in the Black History Movement, Lorenzo Greene, allows historian Pero Dagbovie to explore new paths and places touched by Woodson's expansive vision of the importance of history to the overall social, economic, political, and psychological well-being and advancement of people of African descent. This is a major contribution to an overlooked and under-theorized area of African American intellectual history.

Praise for The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007)

This book brilliantly illuminates the early black history movement through the lives and scholarship of two of its pioneers. Dagbovie expertly helps us to understand and to appreciate the nature of that 'movement' for truth and social justice.

Praise for African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

African American History Reconsidered will spark debate on the issues that contemporary historians must address to foster continuing advancement of the field. This book could define the contours of African American history for the foreseeable future.

Praise for African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

As is the case with nearly all comprehensive historiographies, the author must digest and then summarize for his readers a tremendous amount of scholarship, past and present. Dagbovie succeeds remarkably well in that endeavor. An especially important work for advanced graduate student of US and African American history. Recommended.

Praise for African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

This thoughtful, provocative book sparkles with insight into the development of African American history as a field of scholarly inquiry. It sets out an ambitious array of themes that sorely need reexamination forty years after the rise of African American history as a distinct area of scholarship. Pero Gaglo Dagbovie probes the definition and meaning of African American history; the rise of scholarship on black women; new and innovative ways to teach the subject; historiography, epistemology, andthe social construction of knowledge; and most controversial, the use of the concept of genocide to frame and understand the African American past.

Praise for African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010)

African American History Reconsidered calls upon scholars to reopen the important work of theorizing black history, historiography, and historical thought. This book is a welcome contribution toward that initiative, an imperative at this seemingly (a)historical moment.

Praise for What is African AmericanHistory? (Polity Press, 2015)

This slim volume poses an important and deceptively straightforward question: surely African American history is simply the history of the African American people? His summary offers an ideal introduction to the subject, one that should appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students across the globe. Ultimately, Dagbovie has fulfilled his publisher's brief of providing a practical introduction to a huge topic.

Praise for What is African American History? (Polity Press, 2015)

Dagbovie raises many fascinating questions about the development of African American history. Dagbovie has traced the roots and development from Negro history in the 19th century to Afro-American history to 21st-century African American history. Clearly, all interested in the future of this specialization and the profession generally should want to express an opinion. Highly recommended.