Homelands and Waterways: The American Journey of the Bond Family, 1846-1926 - Hardcover
Homelands and Waterways is a monumental history that traces the rise of a resolute African American family (the author's own) from privation to the middle class. In so doing, it explodes the stereotypes that have shaped and distorted our thinking about African Americans--both as slaves and in freedom. Adele Logan Alexander's account is the result of extensive interviews and exhaustive research in government, church, and academic archives, as well as in private papers and photographic collections.
The story follows three generations of the Bond family from Victorian England to antebellum Virginia plantations, from Herman Melville's New Bedford and suburban Boston to the Jim Crow South and the nation's capital, from black college campuses to Harvard University, from naval skirmishes during the Civil and Spanish-American Wars to the Argonne Forest's World War I battlefields to scenes of the country's urban race riots. In addition to family members, notable figures such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti traverse these pages as well. Alexander guides the reader through eighty crucial years in American history, as the Bonds both willfully and unwittingly interacted with major political, technological, and cultural issues of their time, while established beliefs about race, class, and gender both limited and inspirited their lives.
This compelling narrative and analysis of the Bonds' journeys through disparate adversities to an uneasy realization of the American dream is an achievement of both rich personal specificity and epic historical scope.
The story follows three generations of the Bond family from Victorian England to antebellum Virginia plantations, from Herman Melville's New Bedford and suburban Boston to the Jim Crow South and the nation's capital, from black college campuses to Harvard University, from naval skirmishes during the Civil and Spanish-American Wars to the Argonne Forest's World War I battlefields to scenes of the country's urban race riots. In addition to family members, notable figures such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti traverse these pages as well. Alexander guides the reader through eighty crucial years in American history, as the Bonds both willfully and unwittingly interacted with major political, technological, and cultural issues of their time, while established beliefs about race, class, and gender both limited and inspirited their lives.
This compelling narrative and analysis of the Bonds' journeys through disparate adversities to an uneasy realization of the American dream is an achievement of both rich personal specificity and epic historical scope.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
John Robert Bond, son of a white Englishwoman and a black laborer on the Liverpool waterfront, became a sailor in the American Union Navy and married Emma Thomas, a Virginia woman born into slavery, in 1865. Chronicling their lives and those of their children and grandchildren, the author (their great-granddaughter Adele Logan Alexander) presents a dramatic family saga intertwined with a sweeping account of the black experience in America from 1846, the year of John's birth, to 1926, when Emma died at age 80. Most of the Bonds were talented, determined, and successful beyond the norm--John and Emma's progeny included a prosperous businessman and a Radcliffe graduate who was a close friend of W.E.B. Du Bois--but Alexander firmly links their story to the struggles and suffering of all African Americans, delineating with blistering matter-of-factness the galling restrictions they faced every day in every generation. Alexander, a professor of history at George Washington University, provides a bracingly unsentimental perspective on events as big as the Civil War and as seemingly small as the installation of a new sewer system in Dedham, Massachusetts. She writes American history with a refreshing difference, reminding us of the richness that oft-maligned "multiculturalism" brings to our intellectual life. --Wendy Smith
From the Publisher:
Q. You call this an American family journey. Did use a lot of your own family's letters and records to write this story? Where did you find all of your information and how did you do your research?
A. Like mine, all families keep some records. It's more a matter of what sort, how many, and how to ferret them out and use them. When I started, I had a few letters, a lot of photographs, and many scraps of oral history. But that was just a beginning. To confirm the validity of the oral history and to fill in some very large gaps, I had to do extensive research in a number of different places. The National Archives supplied census data and especially military records -- which are invaluable. Information of all sorts always lies buried in local and regional archives, libraries, museums, and historical societies. Institutional (especially school and church) records also can provide a great deal of significant material, but you need lots of patience and must be willing to track down many leads that may prove to be blind alleys. To get a sense of where my characters lived, I consulted dozens of century-old maps, and drove and walked along the same roads that they had. Only a couple of family members from my mother's generation are still alive, but I talked to as many people who had known the Bonds as I could. The hardest part, however, is putting it all together so that the story is readable, vivid, and makes good sense.
Q. Do you think that luck plays a role in the successful completion of a project such as this?
A. I am grateful for what I consider small miracles. Seemingly insignificant sources and conversations, for example, led me to the unpublished diaries of an African American sailor during the Civil War and a black medical officer in World War I. Both of those men had served in the military with members of my family. My daughter accidentally encountered a reference to a medical book written by the country's first black female physician, Rebecca Lee Crumpler, who just happened to be living next door to my family at the time she wrote that book. Then, while I was pondering the character of my aunt, Carrie Bond Day, I received a note from an elderly woman whom I had not known at all, but she had known Carrie very well, and had wonderful stories to tell about her in the 1920s. Those are examples of the small miracles that I needed. Nonetheless, any historian or genealogist needs to create his or her own "luck."
Q. Does Homelands and Waterways qualify as a genealogy?
A. Yes and no. In one sense, any generational family story can be considered and even called genealogy, but most genealogists do not consider it crucial to include as much overall history about the place (or places) and the times as I do in Homelands and Waterways. Therefore, I put this as much in the category of narrative social history as of genealogy.
Q. When and why did you start working on this book and how long did it take you to finish it?
A. Shortly after my mother's death I felt a strong need to write something in her memory. Originally, I thought it would be a short essay about her, and about what it meant to be an American, but the project quickly took on a life and shape of its own. I really started working on Homelands and Waterways in 1994, so from start to finish, it took about five years. Historians are a funny group. We don't think of that as a long time.
Q. You are an African-American academic. Did you write Homelands and Waterways for black Americans, or for other academics?
A. I certainly hope that both academics and African-Americans will want to read it, and will enjoy and learn from it, but in a broader sense, Homelands and Waterways is a quintessentially American story that anyone who is looking for a gripping, epic narrative about our national history should enjoy. Its focus on family, country, and patriotism should resonate across a broad spectrum of readers.
Q. Homelands and Waterways begins with the story of a black Englishman who immigrates to the United States. Other chapters deal with members of your family who attended schools such as Harvard and the University of Chicago, and became commissioned officers in the United States Army. Surely these are not typical African-American stories.
A. The experiences of a black immigrant have some things in common with those of other immigrants, and some things in common with the millions of black people who were brought to this country in chains. In addition to members of my family who went to schools such as Harvard, others had very limited educations. By telling their diverse stories I try to to two things. First, I hope to show how the experiences of people in one African-American family are not very dissimilar from those of any other hard working and upwardly mobile Americans. Second, however, I want my readers to understand that regardless of how much black people work as hard, are just as patriotic, do many of the same things, and manage to achieve some of the same successes as white people, this country has continued to think of them and treat them as second-class citizens -- in many ways, a breed apart.
Q. A number of chapters in Homelands and Waterways are concerned with wars and the military experience. Why is this so important?
A. My great-grandfather, John Robert Bond, came to this country to serve in the Civil War navy. He was wounded and almost died in that conflict. His second son, Bob Bond, followed his father's example and served in the navy at the time of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the century. His life, too, was drastically changed by that experience. In the third generation I write about, my uncle, Aaron Day, who was a captain from Texas with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I. Each of those men put his life on the line for his country, just as did millions of other Americans, both black and white. They fought for what they believed were the important, democratic principles of the United States. Patriotism remained a vital factor in their lives. Nonetheless, because they were black, their country continued to discriminate against them. That cruel irony is central to Homelands and Waterways.
Q. Many questions recently have been raised about the significance of class and especially of color in the African-American community. How does Homelands and Waterways deal with these issues?
A. One of the things that I hope to do in Homelands and Waterways is to examine and unravel some class questions in the black community. Much of the literature we see portrays the African-American community as an undifferentiated monolith. We tend to be shown only pathological problems of the lower class, or, by contrast, the rare examples of heroes, or superstars -- be they Frederick Douglass (who appears in my book), Martin Luther King, Michael Jordan, or Oprah Winfrey. As in other segments of American society where we know that the vast majority is just "average," most black people are neither Jordans, Kings, nor Winfreys, nor are they criminals or welfare recipients. This book tries to present a more articulated picture of one African-American family, the people who surrounded them, and their struggles to achieve and maintain a certain amount of education, dignity, and property -- much as have so many other Americans.
As to the problematic question of color among African-Americans, I would be remiss to pretend that it does not exist. To some degree, a few people in this community have looked down on others because they are darker skinned. Nonetheless, I argue that those prejudices were and are minor. (Others disagree with this assessment.) More important, the reasons that skin color has any significance at all can be traced to the demeaning attitudes and demeaning laws about race that have permeated the United States. Those laws and attitudes were created, and for the most part have been perpetrated by white Americans. In one way or another, all "black" people, regardless of skin color have been disadvantaged by racism. The African-American "upper class" is largely characterized by its sense of race pride and responsibility, and not by class or color consciousness. To a great extent, it defines itself based on education, service to the community, manners, conservatism, and strong morality.
Q. What do you think and hope are the most important things that readers will come away with from Homelands and Waterways?
A. First and foremost, Homelands and Waterways is about the importance of family -- though "family" may be defined in many different ways. Nonetheless, however families are defined or may configure themselves, they remain the basic building blocks of society. Second, I hope that this book will help to break down stereotypes about African-Americans, and will help readers to understand that we have had many different and fascinating stories, and different experiences. The African-American community is hardly monolithic.
A. Like mine, all families keep some records. It's more a matter of what sort, how many, and how to ferret them out and use them. When I started, I had a few letters, a lot of photographs, and many scraps of oral history. But that was just a beginning. To confirm the validity of the oral history and to fill in some very large gaps, I had to do extensive research in a number of different places. The National Archives supplied census data and especially military records -- which are invaluable. Information of all sorts always lies buried in local and regional archives, libraries, museums, and historical societies. Institutional (especially school and church) records also can provide a great deal of significant material, but you need lots of patience and must be willing to track down many leads that may prove to be blind alleys. To get a sense of where my characters lived, I consulted dozens of century-old maps, and drove and walked along the same roads that they had. Only a couple of family members from my mother's generation are still alive, but I talked to as many people who had known the Bonds as I could. The hardest part, however, is putting it all together so that the story is readable, vivid, and makes good sense.
Q. Do you think that luck plays a role in the successful completion of a project such as this?
A. I am grateful for what I consider small miracles. Seemingly insignificant sources and conversations, for example, led me to the unpublished diaries of an African American sailor during the Civil War and a black medical officer in World War I. Both of those men had served in the military with members of my family. My daughter accidentally encountered a reference to a medical book written by the country's first black female physician, Rebecca Lee Crumpler, who just happened to be living next door to my family at the time she wrote that book. Then, while I was pondering the character of my aunt, Carrie Bond Day, I received a note from an elderly woman whom I had not known at all, but she had known Carrie very well, and had wonderful stories to tell about her in the 1920s. Those are examples of the small miracles that I needed. Nonetheless, any historian or genealogist needs to create his or her own "luck."
Q. Does Homelands and Waterways qualify as a genealogy?
A. Yes and no. In one sense, any generational family story can be considered and even called genealogy, but most genealogists do not consider it crucial to include as much overall history about the place (or places) and the times as I do in Homelands and Waterways. Therefore, I put this as much in the category of narrative social history as of genealogy.
Q. When and why did you start working on this book and how long did it take you to finish it?
A. Shortly after my mother's death I felt a strong need to write something in her memory. Originally, I thought it would be a short essay about her, and about what it meant to be an American, but the project quickly took on a life and shape of its own. I really started working on Homelands and Waterways in 1994, so from start to finish, it took about five years. Historians are a funny group. We don't think of that as a long time.
Q. You are an African-American academic. Did you write Homelands and Waterways for black Americans, or for other academics?
A. I certainly hope that both academics and African-Americans will want to read it, and will enjoy and learn from it, but in a broader sense, Homelands and Waterways is a quintessentially American story that anyone who is looking for a gripping, epic narrative about our national history should enjoy. Its focus on family, country, and patriotism should resonate across a broad spectrum of readers.
Q. Homelands and Waterways begins with the story of a black Englishman who immigrates to the United States. Other chapters deal with members of your family who attended schools such as Harvard and the University of Chicago, and became commissioned officers in the United States Army. Surely these are not typical African-American stories.
A. The experiences of a black immigrant have some things in common with those of other immigrants, and some things in common with the millions of black people who were brought to this country in chains. In addition to members of my family who went to schools such as Harvard, others had very limited educations. By telling their diverse stories I try to to two things. First, I hope to show how the experiences of people in one African-American family are not very dissimilar from those of any other hard working and upwardly mobile Americans. Second, however, I want my readers to understand that regardless of how much black people work as hard, are just as patriotic, do many of the same things, and manage to achieve some of the same successes as white people, this country has continued to think of them and treat them as second-class citizens -- in many ways, a breed apart.
Q. A number of chapters in Homelands and Waterways are concerned with wars and the military experience. Why is this so important?
A. My great-grandfather, John Robert Bond, came to this country to serve in the Civil War navy. He was wounded and almost died in that conflict. His second son, Bob Bond, followed his father's example and served in the navy at the time of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the century. His life, too, was drastically changed by that experience. In the third generation I write about, my uncle, Aaron Day, who was a captain from Texas with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I. Each of those men put his life on the line for his country, just as did millions of other Americans, both black and white. They fought for what they believed were the important, democratic principles of the United States. Patriotism remained a vital factor in their lives. Nonetheless, because they were black, their country continued to discriminate against them. That cruel irony is central to Homelands and Waterways.
Q. Many questions recently have been raised about the significance of class and especially of color in the African-American community. How does Homelands and Waterways deal with these issues?
A. One of the things that I hope to do in Homelands and Waterways is to examine and unravel some class questions in the black community. Much of the literature we see portrays the African-American community as an undifferentiated monolith. We tend to be shown only pathological problems of the lower class, or, by contrast, the rare examples of heroes, or superstars -- be they Frederick Douglass (who appears in my book), Martin Luther King, Michael Jordan, or Oprah Winfrey. As in other segments of American society where we know that the vast majority is just "average," most black people are neither Jordans, Kings, nor Winfreys, nor are they criminals or welfare recipients. This book tries to present a more articulated picture of one African-American family, the people who surrounded them, and their struggles to achieve and maintain a certain amount of education, dignity, and property -- much as have so many other Americans.
As to the problematic question of color among African-Americans, I would be remiss to pretend that it does not exist. To some degree, a few people in this community have looked down on others because they are darker skinned. Nonetheless, I argue that those prejudices were and are minor. (Others disagree with this assessment.) More important, the reasons that skin color has any significance at all can be traced to the demeaning attitudes and demeaning laws about race that have permeated the United States. Those laws and attitudes were created, and for the most part have been perpetrated by white Americans. In one way or another, all "black" people, regardless of skin color have been disadvantaged by racism. The African-American "upper class" is largely characterized by its sense of race pride and responsibility, and not by class or color consciousness. To a great extent, it defines itself based on education, service to the community, manners, conservatism, and strong morality.
Q. What do you think and hope are the most important things that readers will come away with from Homelands and Waterways?
A. First and foremost, Homelands and Waterways is about the importance of family -- though "family" may be defined in many different ways. Nonetheless, however families are defined or may configure themselves, they remain the basic building blocks of society. Second, I hope that this book will help to break down stereotypes about African-Americans, and will help readers to understand that we have had many different and fascinating stories, and different experiences. The African-American community is hardly monolithic.
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- PublisherPantheon
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0679442286
- ISBN 13 9780679442288
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages704
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