"If you are an American than you are part of all American history not just some of it, but the good and the bad."
 |
A Black Patriot, The Real American by Victor Carter Horne Trafford Publishing
book review by Linda Murdock
Horne's book is an essay on what it means to be Black in urban America. He does not like the term African-American, because he feels it strips culturally diverse people of their differences, much as early settlers used the word Indian to strip individual tribes of their uniqueness. He makes a valid point that Black history and American history are one and the same and that slavery is just a small part of that intermingled history.
Especially insightful is Horne's interjection of numerous Black Americans, who were important in the making of America. His awareness invites the reader to research these noteworthy people. These leaders, inventors, and trendsetters of the past two hundred years parallel the achievements of Whites, who are extolled in history books. Horne notes that they achieved this success way before Affirmative Action or any other public assistance. He also puts the controversy over the Confederate flag in perspective, saying that slavery under the American flag was around much longer than the four years of the Confederacy.
Horne is a strong individualist, who believes that drugs, gangs, and getting a good education are more relevant to young Blacks than is the worry over racism or whether or not their ancestors were slaves. If you want a feisty, no-holds-barred view of Black America, Horne delivers. Don't be surprised if your curiosity about Grandville T. Woods, Robert Smalls, S. B. Fuller, Paul Cuffe, Henry Blair, Norbert Rillieux, and others is piqued in the process.