Black Family Values
My mother’s bedtime stories put me on my first solo flights in a world where misery transformed itself magically into good things and happiness. Borne by my imagination, I floated on a magic carpet that doubled as my bed, her words transporting me safely from the south end of town, occupied by colored folks like us, to places that might have been off-limits to African Americans by tradition if not by law.
I was the fourth of eight sons, so even though Mom only had an eighth-grade education, by the time I came along she had had plenty of practice reading children’s stories. She knew a trick or two about pirates’ coves and Sherwood Forest hideouts and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. And I was sure she could outwit giants in the sky, or chop down an overgrown beanstalk with the edge of her hand. The sound of her voice tucked me in, warmed me in winter, stirred up a dreamy breeze on raggedy hot summer nights, thrilled, soothed, and offered the sharpest contrast to the call of troubled streets.
In my house, the library was meager -- a feast for only the most imaginative child. My own books (mostly hand-me-downs) told of the usual assortment of childhood characters: bear families, wise owls, animals who walked and talked and blew houses down. Yet for all their remarkably human traits, not one of them could do the simplest thing of all: speak like a black person. And in those tales, not a soul lived in a neighborhood that bore any resemblance to my own. What’s more, the only “people” in tales or fables that I knew were wooden-bodied, or white -- except, that is, for a little boy named Sambo.
Sambo confounded me. Perhaps my confusion was the key to my fascination with him. During my youth, he was the only black character I had come across as a fan of fables. He was blacker than anybody I knew in real life, and he exhibited virtually no control over his world.
As his story goes, Sambo’s mother, Black Mumbo, sews him a red jacket and trousers. His father, Black Jumbo, buys him an umbrella and purple shoes with crimson soles and linings. Dressed to kill, Sambo ventures into the jungle, where on separate occasions he confronts a different tiger that threatens to eat him alive. Sambo bargains for his life, giving each tiger an article of clothing. Then, wandering virtually naked through the jungle, Sambo hears growling and sees the tigers arguing among themselves as to which is the best dressed. They undress, bite one another’s tail, and whirl around a palm tree. Sambo then reclaims his clothes and returns home. The tigers, meanwhile, whiz around the tree so fast that they melt into a stream of butter. Along comes old Black Jumbo, who scoops the butter into a brass pot and brings it home. Mumbo cooks hundreds of pancakes, using the tiger butter and milk and sugar and eggs. Then the family eats its heart out.
Looking back, I can easily vouch for the craziness behind the Sambo story. The Sambo story was created in 1899 by Helen Bannerman, an Englishwoman. She wrote and illustrated it to entertain her two daughters while living in India, where, her American publisher reported, “Black children abound and tigers are everyday affairs.”
The Sambo caricature was one of the first indirect attacks on my formative black self. The fable may have been related, in theme at least, to the shuck-’n’-jive acts of old minstrelsy troupes, popular diversions for whites who got their jollies from such stereotypic assaults.
Sambo’s legacy as the spook who sat by the tree drove home a lesson I didn’t come to grips with for many years: that the function of language, even seemingly innocent children’s stories, is humanity’s attempt to control and manipulate the universe by describing it, for the real power of words lies in how they shape ideas, unleash or bog down the imagination, stir emotions, and define reality. Forget Sambo or what his creator said about blacks; what had my own people said about themselves? What “manipulations” had they exercised over their own universe?
What devils had they exorcised from America? Or Africa? And what about that illegitimate manchild of the jungle, Tarzan? How is it that I could identify with him, swinging in trees like a hyperactive monkey to escape bone-through-the-nose cannibals out to stuff him in a pot? Only that Commando of the Vines possessed enough man-size dignity and apely strength to master the “Dark Continent,” which to me appeared in desperate need of taming.
I cannot blame my mother for a lack of sophistication in reading material. She and I were a captive audience. Bookstores and libraries and publishers offered us a minute repertoire from which to choose. Except for strange tales like Sambo’s, my race was passed off as virtually fableless in my hometown. So the three little bears versus the fiendish wolf had to suffice. And if I wanted to see a reflection of myself in fairy tales set outside of the animal kingdom, I had to mask my folks’ humanity -- my own humanity -- in white skin in nearly every characterization that met my mind’s eye before I drifted off to sleep. Still, something was always lacking, something black and kingly.
Decades later, I discovered that black tales abound. They’re just what children need, a body of literature they can be proud of: Sambo-less imagery. Stories that entertain without sacrificing the humanity of black folks. Stories with an eye toward teaching moral lessons. Stories that let black children know they have as much right to inherit the earth as anyone. Stories that establish a healthy frame of reference for people who can -- and do -- exercise control over their universe.
The African American Book of Values is a compendium of “black values,” which are quite simply the values of black folks. No secret here. As the title implies, this book is intended for use in the moral instruction of both children and adults, imparting lessons that involve codes of conduct, respectfulness, healthy, and wholesome regard for oneself and one’s community. This book can give children, families, teachers, and friends glimpses of values in action and provide moral examples that any reader can recognize.
More than ever, young people need to see evidence of morality in others around them and develop a knack for survival. In drugs and violence, youth today face more danger than their parents did. Black-on-black crime rates have reached a crisis point. Kids shoot one another in cold blood, and we’ve become so inured to armed pupils that to “solve” the problem we install metal detectors in schools. Homicide is the leading cause of death among black males between age fifteen and thirty-four, and it is reported that each year, more blacks die at the hands of other blacks than the total number of lynchings in Ku Klux Klan history. Part of the solutions to these problems may lie in exhorting black values.
Though the stories in this volume can inspire, this is not a book of inspiration; and while its contents may bear meditative worth, it is not a book of meditations. It is a book of guidance. To help children (and adults) develop upstanding habits and traits, we must explain why they’re important to uphold, admire, and emulate. Literature has long been a tool for accomplishing this task.
The material here originates in the treasure trove of black experience -- from the planting fields of pre–Civil War Mississippi to the bustling sidewalks of Harlem during the Renaissance, and from the corner beauty parlor to the local church. There is a rich library of material by black folks about black folks for black folks, and it is growing all the time.
In the following pages, you will find do-unto-others stories, cautionary tales on how to act right, stories on cooperative decision-making, domestic dramas, trickster stories. You will also find other forms of expression -- folk songs, spirituals, and blues, for example.
The descendants of kidnapped Africans gave us many of our early spirituals, songs borne out of the hazards of life in America. The lyrics are cries for freedom, or testimonies of strength and resiliency. Spirituals and blues and ballads pit courage against prevailing circumstances, compassion and love against the inhumanity of man.
These songs are also a unique legacy. They may have been inspired by African rhythms and chants, but they’re as un-African as a jazz band. “[The African’s] mother did not sing ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,’ ” James Baldwin wrote, “and he has not, all his life long, ached for acceptance in a culture that pronounced straight hair and white skin the only acceptable beauty.”
Some spirituals and folk songs report historical events. They honor heroes (bad men, too), tell sad love stories, express nostalgia and pain, or protest conditions. These songs are passed down through an oral tradition that continues to transform them, as singers reinvent the same tunes again and again.
Likewise, the narratives, stories, and poems in this book span many generations, relaying the values and wisdom of countless Americans, reflecting many a raconteur’s -- or main character’s -- triumphs and tragedies in confronting human dilemmas. Taken together, the poetry and prose and songs of slaves and free blacks make for a deep reservoir of information on what African Americans value as a people.
The values featured in this book are not the exclusive domain of any particular faith, either. Nor are they intended to promote indifferentism -- the belief that all religions are equally valid -- a notion that offends some people’s sensibilities. Religion, I believe, is an entirely personal matter that should not be subject to the whims or compulsions of others.
Whether you are Baptist or Muslim, Republican or Democrat, a fan of Duke Ellington or Queen Latifah, or both, this book can still apply to you and the children around you. It illustrates those noble values that can help dispel the debilitating sense of disability and nobodiness that has been imposed on black people for centuries.
A solid ethical system provides tools for self-mastertools for self-master and empathy, two prime values from which most others stem. With these two basic clusters of values -- those dealing with oneself (such as honesty and tenacity) an those shaping one’s orientation toward others (such as compassion and loyalty) -- a person can equip himself or herself to be a moral force in the community. Thus, I have used “self-mastery” and “empathy” as organizing principles for this book.
Humor, too, has played an important role in black survival. It has served as a shield against harsh realities, directed attention at the nation’s racial ills, and brought joy. Thus, I considered it a value worth including.
I never intended this book to contain every moral black America has ever produced. No single volume could. Space is limited, and there was much to cover.
Though some stories might seem dated, they nevertheless relate values that are as vital today as they were yesterday. Other inclusions deal with slavery because the words of slaves may offer insights into our human condition today. Everyone can benefit from knowing certain harsh facts about American history, including slavery.
This is not a history book, however. Using either excerpts or complete text, I have included both fiction and fact, the stuff of legend as well as the “minutes of meetings.” In some cases, the literal facts are bent to serve the moral ones. Lessons to be gleaned are what really counts.
So that this book will also benefit your child, read it aloud from cover to cover, or in whatever chapter order strikes you as good on a particular day. Use the table of contents to find entries that will prove helpful when a specific lesson is required. Or simply browse through the book as you would a favorite collection. Youth are invited to browse, too.
It is my hope that this work will provide a source of comfort, not necessarily admonition. It is a book meant to hearten, to give strength, not to sadden or to deflate. It is meant to appeal to our higher instincts; to jump-start us in our daily endeavors. Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, once said, “Everyone starts his day and is as a vendor of his soul, either freeing it or bringing about its ruin.” I hope that both readers and listeners will end each day with a reading from these pages and awake as a “vendor” of the values instilled the night before.
Steven Barboza
From the Hardcover edition.Copyright 2002 by Edited & with Commentary by Steven Barboza