African (to) American Literacies: Exploring Marginalized Literacy Histories of Enslaved People in the United States

ABSTRACT The literacy history of Black US‐Americans is often recounted beginning with furtive literacy learning during enslavement. The majoritarian narrative is that enslaved people from Africa came from societies without a writing system. In this study, the author draws on Critical Race Theory and a New Literacy Studies‐Multimodal Perspective to counter this deficit narrative that dismisses the rich literacy history of Black US‐Americans. The author offers the examples of three literacies that were practiced in areas of West and Central Africa, where people were enslaved and taken to the US before 1808. One of these systems, Talking Drums, is a semiotic system in which meaning is conveyed through drum sounds. The second, Nsibidi, is an ideographic system of communication invented in Africa that has been used in the Calabar region of Africa for centuries. Finally, Ajami is a writing system adapted from the Arabic script that is practiced among a variety of ethnic groups throughout Africa. These literacies are evidence that many enslaved people belonged to communities in which literacies were being practiced prior to and throughout the time during which the Atlantic Slave Trade occurred. The author calls on readers to recognize the presence of these literacies and include them in the narrative of Black US‐American literacy history.