So, who is Black?
These photographs, taken in 1863, depict children with white features who were once enslaved in New Orleans.
They were the property of their white fathers and their mothers were enslaved women.
The children’s emancipation had come with the fall of New Orleans to Union forces in 1862.
Abolitionists then brought the children North to pose for these photographs which were sold to raise funds for the education of Louisiana’s freed slaves.
These photos were printed in the news magazine Harper’s Weekly in January 1864.
The images of these children, with pale complexions, smooth hair and Victorian finery, imply that these children could easily have been upper-class whites.
Maybe the magazine reader’s own child, or the kid next door.
And they challenged the conventional wisdom of the time that Black heritage was always visible and only dark-skinned people were enslaved.
The very ‘whiteness’ of these little kids revealed two sad truths about Civil War America:
First, these children were the product of several generations of white male enslavers raping enslaved women.
Second, images of enslaved children with Black features, even if nicely groomed and dressed in finery, would not have aroused the public conscience.
From a letter to the editor of Harper’s Weekly from the group which brought these children North:
“WHEN the [civil] war began two things were inevitable: first, that the loathsome secret history of the slave system in this Country would be exposed;
“and, second, that the appalled and indignant common sense of the people would see that no honorable peace was possible except upon condition of the annihilation of the system.
“In the days when the Abolitionists were hunted as wild beasts they said calmly that if they were only allowed to speak and tell the truth their victory was sure.”
And the truth was painful.
Fast-forward 160 years.
In the current American population, African-Americans have been determined to carry, on average, 73.2% African, 24.0% European, and 0.8% Native American ancestry.
And approximately 3.5% of European-Americans have 1% or more African ancestry.1
So, who is Black?
Who is white?
Who decides?
And, will the day ever come when these labels no longer serve a useful purpose?
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I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289685/
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