Denial, Disavowal, and the Deferral of Black History

Many scholars—perhaps too many—have analyzed the conditions of slavery at the expense of exploring the survival strategies of the enslaved. The historical record documents state and private violence, the threats and favors, and the lies and bogus theories required to keep people in their supposed place. This somber recital encourages scholars to see only social death in the place of social history, a deferral of Black history that acts as a kind of disavowal. It becomes too easy to forget—to deny and refuse and then repress—the possibility that Black people worked out strategies and tactics to confront the scope, force, and direction of racial capitalism in their own time, and that Black people now might be guided in their own decisions by the example of their ancestors. Catherine Hall’s Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism (2024) is a timely call to understand and redress the racial capitalism that the planter-historian Edward Long worked to create and sustain.