Page 45 Review by Stephen
Never in my wildest dreams did I think that in my lifetime I would see a President of the United States who was black. Not even in my slightly unlikely daughter's lifetime did I conceive that someone like Barack Obama could be President of the United States. Not until about a year ago could I have envisaged he'd win, and even then I refused to allow myself too much hope.
Reading this book will remind you of just how impossible - not improbable, but impossible - Barack Obama's victory has been.
From the 1600s onwards, it's a chronicle of the relentless white-skinned oppression of black human beings during the last five centuries, and brings with it many revelations for me at least. I somehow assumed, for example, that slavery started in its widely perceived form at some godforsaken point from scratch, but it didn't. To begin with back in 1618 there was Indentured Slavery, whereby some actually contracted themselves into bondage for specific periods in the hope of being able to buy their own land later: "Some were Native Americans, but most were Europeans looking for a way out of poverty and misery in Europe. Instead they found misery and poverty in North America."
The hard labour was cheap but not cheap enough. Importing Africans proved more profitable because a) they were less expensive and b) they were natural farmers with generations of experience and therefore far better toilers on the land than their unskilled European counterparts. So that'd be white resentment number one rearing its ugly head after which, as we all know, it only snowballed. Coming back to profitability, however, cheaper was good but free was much better, and that's when the importing stopped and the kidnapping began. It's always about the fucking money, isn't it? Right through this book, it's about money and jobs - and oh yes ingratitude, failing to match the loyalty black soldiers displayed fighting wars for an America which continued to treat them like dirt afterwards. Like any history, it's not a straight trajectory, it's a catalogue of determined struggle, small victories, major setbacks, much treachery, creative invention, selfishness and blind hypocrisy, but what I particularly liked about this book was the singling out of named individuals recognised for their acts of heroism, courage and sacrifice. Many a tale told here filled me with respect.
At no point, however, was it as profoundly moving as it should have been and could have been had they employed an artist. I mean, someone who really understands the craft of comics like Kyle Baker whose NAT TURNER graphic novel puts this to shame. Instead the pages are such a bland jumble of childishly drawn talking heads and even caricatures of white and black figures, that throughout the experience I was continually lamenting that this wasn't just prose. That way there'd have been far more room for the missing details of living conditions, diet, and exactly what the Railroad experience was like smuggling escaped slaves to safety. Instead it detracts from what's written and distracts the writers into providing redundant dialogue for speech balloons:
"Carter G. Woodhouse became the father of Black Studies in 1915 by starting the Association For The Study Of Negro Life And History," reads a caption. "The history of the negro must be documented and told," thinks Carter underneath. I understood your motives from your actions, mate.
Worse still, the exchange between A. Philip Randolf and President Roosevelt on page 174 is embarrassingly crude. As with several other graphic novels, I can mitigate these failings by suggesting that breaking the words up with little speeches and pictures, however badly drawn, would certainly make it more palatable as a text for children, and if it was marketed as such I'd commend it as such. And I do - commend it as such to teachers - but as a graphic novel for adults it falls lamentably short. As a graphic novel for adults it actually confirms the stigmatic preconception on the part of the general population that comics are an inferior form of literature.
We're going to be carrying it because I'm glad that I read it. I learned much about the intended Reconstruction which was stalled at its outset and so responsible for much of ensuing deprivation. It was staggering to be reminded that the KKK was legally recognised at one point, and that interracial marriage remained illegal in seventeen states of America until as recently as 1967!! I learned where the term 'The Real McCoy' came from (and, umm, have since forgotten but it's here!) and there's plenty about the Jim Crow segregation laws. I was just hoping for a whole lot more.
