Book Discussion August 25, 2018. We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series met Saturday Aug. 25 with nine participants. We discussed Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.  It was a very timely discussion, since the book consists of eight articles Coates wrote for The Atlantic magazine, and has just announced his departure from the magazine to pursue other writing options.  The eight articles were written throughout the presidency of Barack Obama, one article for each year President Obama was in office.

Although the “eight years of good Negro government” in this book refers to the presidency of Barack Obama, it also refers to the “good Negro government “ that took place during Reconstruction, a period in which the history books tell us that was riddled with corruption. More former slaves learned to read during this period, although it had been illegal for them to be taught to read just a few years before. More former slaves voted during this period, and more former slaves came to own businesses during this period. It seems that the corruption the history books refer to was more of a re-writing of the true history of the emancipated slave.

Shelara said the narrative was beginning to be re-written as soon as the civil war was over.  She pointed out that General Robert E. Lee, instead of facing the consequence of leading an army against the United States went on to be named President of a university. Instead of the Southern states conceding that they wanted to leave the Union because they wanted to keep their slaves, began to use phrases like, “we fought for States’ Rights.” They wanted to keep the free labor so that they could reap astronomical profits.

Marion S. pointed out that it was more than just profits; it was also the notion that the former slaves had to be recognized as human beings and fellow citizens.

Carla said these things can be very painful to read about. This led to a discussion about reading, in which Carla shared that her son used to be an avid reader until one of his friends said that “reading wasn’t cool” and now he doesn’t read at all.

Martha shared how when she was in elementary school, a two-room school with a potbellied stove, in 1959 her school district, the Prince Edward District in Virginia opted to close the school rather than integrate.  Her education ended abruptly when she was just in fifth grade.  Martha finished her education after she was married and had three children. She went to Hillhouse High School here in New Haven for three nights a week over five years, finally receiving her High School Diploma. She also worked full-time during this time. She continued her education by attending South Central (now Gateway) Community College, then on to Albertus Magnus College, where she received her Bachelor’s Degree.

About five years ago, Prince Edward County offered a type of reparation to all the people who lost out on the opportunity to finish school by offering to pay for them to go to college in Virginia. We all agreed that Martha showed great tenacity by continuing her education but could the average person who had left school in 1959 finish school now? True reparations would include wages lost from careers never realized with interest.

 One of the most prominent articles in Coates’ book is “The Case for Reparations.”  Coates begins this article with a quote from Deuteronomy 15 in which Hebrew slave-owners are to compensate a slave, when freed after six years of service, “thou shalt not let him go away empty; thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress…”

Coates goes on to say,

“For the past twenty-five years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for ‘appropriate remedies.’  (p.178)

 A country curious about how reparations might actually work has an easy solution in Conyers’s bill, now called HR40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. (p.179)

John Conyers’s HR 40 is a vehicle for that hearing. No one can know what would come out of such a debate. Perhaps no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in America. Perhaps the number is so large that it can’t be imagined, let alone calculated and dispensed. But I believe that wrestling publicly with these questions matters as much as-if not more than- the specific answers that might be produced. An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. (pp.206-207)