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Oliver W. Hill Book Club discusses American Founders by Christina Proenza-Coles

Oliver W. Hill Book Club discusses American Founders by Christina Proenza-Coles

The Oliver W. Hill Book Club will discuss American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World by Christina Proenza-Coles as its first selection for 2022. The book is a foundational history of a variety of peoples from the African Diaspora who played important roles in the building of the New World. Christina is an engaging storyteller, and her passion for the subject matter will keep you enthralling.

Christina Proenza-Coles, the author of American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World (NewSouth Books 2019), holds a dual doctorate in sociology and history from the New School for Social Research and was an Assistant Professor of the Atlantic World/African Diaspora at Virginia State University from 2004 to 2011. Christina’s ancestors include Daughters of the American Revolution, Portuguese conversos, Cuban pirates, a Confederate sergeant, and a governor of Alabama.

In this kaleidoscopic narrative, American Founders tackles the long history of people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere. The book shows how Americans of African origin have been central to our country's history and served as active agents in pushing for their freedom and the freedom of others. Proenza-Coles writes well, her mining of her sources is impressive, her argument cogent. A passionate work of history with a clear point of view. ― Kirkus Reviews

Recently a famous U.S. musician tweeted that Atlantic World slavery lasted so long because enslaved people chose it. He should have read American Founders before he pressed send. In lucid and accessible prose, Proenza-Coles easily debunks the mythological thinking that imagines African-descended people as voluntary participants in their own enslavement. Instead, she offers a sweeping history of African-descended people in the Americas that not only centers them in the fight for their own freedom, but also positions them as the intellectual progenitors and central actors in freedom struggles throughout the Americas. Pointedly, she notes that the first court-recognized enslaved person in the future United States was also the first person to launch a legal fight against it. With an uncanny ability to tackle her subject in broad yet digestible strokes (her history of slavery begins in Mesopotamia), what Proenza-Coles does best is detail individual accounts of bravery, resistance, and resilience (some well known, others not so much) that challenge prevailing notions that black folks sat on the sidelines of American history. This is no Forrest Gump version of events where black people just happened to be there. Instead, American Founders makes plain that the possibility of freedom was conceptualized and enacted by black people throughout the Americas, sometimes in conjunction with European and Native actors, but often by themselves. ― Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Smith College, Associate Professor of History, author of Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship before the Civil War

The Oliver W. Hill Book Club invites readers to explore various books dealing with the law, civil rights, and social justice in America. The bi-monthly  virtual Oliver W. Hill Book Club meets online. The club is named in honor of Oliver W. Hill (1907–2007), a Richmond African American attorney and civil rights activist. His efforts, along with others, resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in public education was unconstitutional.

 

Date:
Monday, January 10, 2022
Time:
6:30pm - 7:45pm
Categories:
Author Visit   Book Discussion   Genealogy   Law   Lectures & Talks   Virtual  
Registration has closed.

Event Organizer

Profile photo of Meldon Jenkins-Jones
Meldon Jenkins-Jones

Meldon Jenkins-Jones is the Richmond Public Library / Community Services Manager at Hull Street Branch Library. 

Meldon also chairs the Get Lit Advisory Committee which supports the Richmond Public Library Get Lit Reading Initiatives including the Black Male Emergent Readers (BMER) program and the Lit Chicks Read book clubs.

Meldon is a graduate of the Leadership Metro Richmond Class of 2022. She was the first recipient of the Virginia Library Association (VLA) Librarians of Color Forum Award in 2021 and is an active member of VLA. She presented “Libraries Bringing Community Together” at the 2023 VLA Annual Conference.

In 2011, Meldon received her Master of Library and Information Studies from Florida State University. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers University School of Law—Newark and practiced law in New Jersey until her retirement in 2003. Meldon received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she studied African American Studies and Russian Civilization.

A Metro Richmond resident, Meldon is the mother of two adult children and enjoys spending time with her grandchildren.

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