Kimberly K. Smith - African American Environmental Thought: Foundations

AFRICAN AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL THOUGHT

AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

Wilson Carey McWilliams and Lance Banning, Founding Editors

FOUNDATIONS

KIMBERLY K. SMITH

university press of kansas

2007 by the University Press of Kansas

All rights reserved

Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Kimberly K., 1966

African American environmental thought : foundations /

Kimberly K. Smith.

p. cm. (American political thought)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7006-1516-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-7006-2808-7 (ebook)

1. African AmericansIntellectual life. 2. EnvironmentalismUnited StatesHistory. 3. Human ecologyUnited StatesHistory. 4. Douglass, Frederick, 18181895Political and social views. 5. Washington, Booker T., 18561915Political and social views. 6. Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 18681963Political and social views. 7. Locke, Alain LeRoy, 18861954Political and social views. 8. African AmericansPolitics and government. 9. AgricultureSocial aspectsSouthern StatesHistory. 10. RacismUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.

E185.6.S632007
305.896073dc22
2006034358

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in the print publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged.

Deuteronomy 1:21 , quoted in Edward Blyden,
The Call of Providence to the Descendants of Africa in America, 1862

Let us go on and possess the land.

Martin Delany , The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, 1852

Chapter 1
Strange Rendings of Nature

Chapter 2
A Land Cursed by Injustice

Chapter 3
Possessing the Land

Chapter 4
Race Natures

Chapter 5
Black Folk

Chapter 6
Urban Montage

In the fall term of 2000, I was teaching a course called American Environmental Thought. Its a standard course taught in many environmental studies programs, designed to introduce students to the canon of American environmentalism. My course featured Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Wendell Berry, among others. On the first day, a student approached me after class, handed me the syllabus, and asked, Why are there no black people in this course?

I dont know whether the double entendre was intentional, but it captured nicely a problem that had frequently worried me. There were no black writers on the syllabus, and it probably wasnt coincidental that there were no black students (or many minority students at all) in the class. The environmental justice movement was already twenty years old, but most environmental studies programs remained dominated by white middle-class students and white middle-class perspectives. If a major goal of environmental studies was to prepare students to tackle the most pressing environmental issues, we were missing an important part of our audience and an important part of the conversation.

This book is a partial response to that problem. It represents my effort to listen to some of the voices that didnt make it into the standard histories of American environmental thoughtin particular, the voices of nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century black Americans. They arent always easy to hear. Black Americans had a lot to say about nature, but they didnt write about wilderness in the same way that Thoreau or John Muir did. They were deeply concerned with agriculture and urban landscapes, but not for the same reasons that Liberty Hyde Bailey and Lewis Mumford were. As we would expect, talk of freedom and equality and of the devastating effects of racial oppression permeate their works, almost drowning out what they were saying about our relationship to the natural world. Almostbut not quite. Indeed, much of what they say about racial oppression makes sense only against a background of claims about humans proper relationship to the natural world. In order to recover that background, I had to abandon the received understanding of both environmental thought and black political thought and read the works of black writers from a different angle. The result, I hope, is a new perspective on American environmental thought, and a new appreciation for black Americans contributions to our common conversation about the natural world.

This project benefited from advice, support, and encouragement from many sources. Carleton College generously supported my research. I learned a great deal from conversations with Carol Rutz, Larry Cooper, Barbara Allen, Melvin Rogers, Baird Jarman, Michael Kowalewski, William North, Dale Jamieson, Jen Everett, David Schlosberg, Joe Lane, Dianne Glave, and Sheri Breen, and I am grateful for their help. Finally, thanks to Jessica Rodriguez, the student who started this by asking me the right question.

AFRICAN AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL THOUGHT

Herein the longing of black men must have respect: the rich and bitter depth of their experience, the unknown treasures of their inner life, the strange rendings of nature they have seen, may give the world new points of view.

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

One might think that 250 years of slavery would have left black Americans permanently alienated from the American landscape. Forced for generations to work the earth without just reward, without the right to own land, without even the freedom to travel, what meaning could they find in Americas pristine wilderness? Locked in a struggle for social justice, what interest could they have in the claims of nature?

And yet W. E. B. Du Bois took time in the midst of his campaign for racial equality to reflect on the beauty of Bar Harbor, Maine:

There mountains hurl themselves against the stars and at their feet lie black and leaden seas. Above float cloudswhite, gray, and inken, while the clear, impalpable air springs and sparkles like new wine. The land sinks to meadows, black pine forests, with here and there a blue and wistful mountain. Then there are islandsbold rocks above the sea, curled meadows;... all the colors of the sea lie about usgray and yellowing greens and doubtful blues, blacks not quite black, tinted silvers and golds and dreaming whites.

Published in Du Boiss 1920 collection Darkwater, this essay, Of Beauty and Death, is contemporary with the first flourishing of environmentalism in the United States; in fact, it describes Acadia, one of the first national parks. It suggests that Du Boiss appreciation for the beauty of the American landscape equaled that of John Muir and Aldo Leopold.