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A Treasury of African-American Christmas Stories. - book reviews
By Gloria H. Dickinson
Jul 12, 2007, 04:35

A well-known West African proverb states: "Only when lions have historians will hunters stop being heroes."

After reading A Treasury of African-American Christmas Stories, there is no doubt that Temple University Historian Bettye Collier-Thomas, who compiled and edited the book, has taken this maxim to heart. As the "lions' historian," she unveils entirely new insight into nineteenth century African American life and lore. We must remain indebted to her for the rare blend of scholarship and narrative that she brings to this project.

Although A Treasury of African-American Christmas Stories has arrived just in time for holiday giving, its timelessness and "family-friendly" contents ensure that readers will return to this first-ever collection of Christmas stories written by African Americans throughout the year. The volume is carefully crafted with enchanting and informative stories brimming with new and enlightening literary, historical, and cultural content. Whether conjuring images of ante-bellum or post-bellum life, these tales highlight the loves, hopes, aspirations, holiday traditions, family values, spirituality, and fears common to those times.

In her "Introduction," the author speculates that readers may be surprised to find that well-known journalists, activists, and national leaders such as Ida B. Wells Barnett, T. Thomas Fortune, Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, and others wrote fiction.

"It was their commitment to address the pressing issues confronting the African American community and their high level of responsibility to positive race relations that encouraged them to use as many mediums as possible to get their messages across," she writes.

By inserting brilliantly crafted, highly readable, and exceptionally informative headnotes at the beginning of each story, Collier-Thomas has done much the same thing. Each story begins with a biographical profile and contextual notes particular to the locale, people, traditions and concerns of the times. in this way, the stories take on far greater meaning. One can not only appreciate the lyrical and narrative strengths of the stories, but can simultaneously learn far more about issues of concern to African Americans a century ago.

The technique employed by Collier-Thomas and the authors whose works she has collected is in the oldest of the West African story-telling traditions. Noting that the concept of "art for art's sake" was outside of the cultural constructs of most West African communities, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe has often observed that the writer -- like the griot before him -- approached his subject assuming an obligation to educate and entertain.

A Treasury of African-American Christmas Stories is unquestionably situated amidst this African-centered paradigm. Like the West African creators of praise-poems and legends, these nineteenth century authors also combine fact and fiction to create the hybrid often called "faction."

Indeed, Collier-Thomas notes that most of the stories were based on real events and the authors "changed the names/locales to protect the innocent." Clearly, they continue to employ the griot's "how and why" tradition of education and entertainment.

The viability of this technique is evident in the headnotes for Ida B. Wells Barnett's "Two Christmas Days: A Holiday Story." The tale risks being interpreted as a love story. The headnotes, however, give it an entire different meaning. The reader learns that Barnett, best known for her anti-lynching activism, was also a steadfast critic of "the [B]lack intellectual elite." Collier-Thomas explains how and why Wells-Barnett use this story to reassert her belief that Black professionals needed to dedicate their lives uplifting their race.

By clarifying such issues, Collier-Thomas helps to affirm that the work of man contemporary activists is "in the tradition." When Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson write about the importance of Christmas to children in "The Children's Christmas Plea," she also admonishes adults to remember "the reason for the season." One can't help but draw parallels between her pleas and those echoed by Children's Defense Fund founder Dr. Marion Wright Edelman almost a century later. It's quite likely that those who carry on the racial-uplift traditions advocated by all of these authors will be energized and inspired by their connection to these tales.

Last but not least, the book reveals that the concept of "bearing witness" -- long noted by scholars as representative of the art produced by Holocaust survivors -- is not peculiar to the chronicling of that genocidal experience. Collier-Thomas's authors also "bear witness."

Although some authors bear witness by evoking memories of plantation life and myriad injustices to ensure -- like the Holocaust artists -- that their pain is neither forgotten nor repeated, others appear to have a different objective. Augustus Hodges, in "Three Men And A Woman," writes about taboos such as miscegenation and armed Black retaliation to lynching to make sure that the abundant myths and stereotypes dominating the literature of the era was not the only voice being heard.

This compendium of enlightening stories so effectively negotiates the difficult space between entertainment and education that its "cross-over" appeal must be noted. Whether it is read for fun, during a Kwanzaa celebration in tribute to the ancestors, or in a classroom as an example of ways in which African Americans fought against discrimination, it is certain to be well received.

By shepherding the re-issue -- almost a century after their original publication -- of fictional works by activist leaders whose names we rarely connect with this genre, Collier-Thomas has given readers a Christmas gift of unprecedented value.

Dr. Gloria H. Dickinson is an associate professor in the African American Studies Department at the College of New Jersey.