A Crescent of the Moon: Black Personhood Has Always Lived Under Tyranny

Black personhood is the natural, historical deterrent of the authoritarian impulse that electrifies white conservatives.

Hal H. Harris
AfroSapiophile
Published in
6 min readFeb 6, 2022

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Black protesters at a Black Lives Matter protest. Source: Nappy.

…enslavement is not a parable. It is damnation. It is the never ending night. And the length of that night is most of our history. Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains — whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains

— Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me.

Many moons ago, a white woman tried to ban a book about the desegregation of Little Rock public schools.

The attempted censorship happened in Tennessee last July regarding the book Ruby Bridges wrote about her experiences being the vanguard of integration. The Week reported that Robin Steenman, who heads Moms for Liberty’s Williamson County chapter, reportedly pointed to this book and others at an education committee meeting, claiming its mention of a “large crowd of angry white people who didn’t want Black children in a white school” was too harsh and pointing to the fact that it didn’t offer “redemption” at the end.”

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Hal H. Harris
AfroSapiophile

Black on Both Sides. Medium Writers Challenge Winner. The founder of Established in 1865. I Tweet @Established1865. E-mail is hal.harris@est1865.com.