What The Color Blue Tells About Black History

Summary

Fresh Air Episode Summary: "What The Color Blue Tells About Black History"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Fresh Air
• Host: Tonya Moseley
• Guest: Imani Perry, Henry A. Morse Jr. and Elizabeth W. Morse Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.
• Episode Title: What The Color Blue Tells About Black History
• Release Date: January 28, 2025

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of Fresh Air, host Tonya Moseley engages in an in-depth conversation with scholar and author Imani Perry about her latest book, "Black and How a Color Tells the Story of My People." Perry's work intricately weaves the significance of the color blue into the fabric of Black history, exploring its literal and metaphorical manifestations in art, culture, and societal structures.

Exploring the Essence of Blue in Black Identity

Reading from the Book: Perry opens the discussion by reading a poignant passage from her book:

“The truth is this black as such began ennobly through conquering eyes... Blue was a color that had grace and elegance... they are powerful blues and they were also elegant blues and beautiful blues.”
[01:51] Imani Perry

Discussion on Blue and Blackness: Perry elaborates on how the color blue intersects with Black identity, drawing parallels between the emotional depth of blues music and the multifaceted nature of blackness. She explains that blue encapsulates both joy and melancholy, serving as a universal color that resonates deeply within the Black community.

“The way the sound of my people coming out of the deep south... creating beauty at the very site of wound.”
[03:24] Imani Perry

The Blue Note: Bridging Music and Identity

Understanding "Blue Note": The conversation delves into the musical term "blue note," which Perry explains as a subtle alteration in pitch that adds emotional depth to music. This concept serves as a metaphor for the nuanced experiences of Black Americans.

“The blue note really is like that. And it is something that you are attuned to. You can hear.”
[06:06] Imani Perry

Louis Armstrong’s Interpretation: Perry discusses Louis Armstrong’s 1951 rendition of "What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue," highlighting how Armstrong transformed the song into a commentary on racial identity and societal expectations.

“The song actually is able to encapsulate all of those dimensions with these rather simple sentences... it's about all of that.”
[10:35] Imani Perry

Sartorial Choices: Blue as a Statement

Historical Significance of Blue Attire: Moseley references historical figures such as Coretta Scott King and Jackie Robinson, noting their deliberate choice of blue attire. Perry argues that these sartorial choices are more than coincidental, symbolizing power, elegance, and a statement of identity.

“Blue is a color that certainly had a kind of grace and elegance... they were powerful blues and they were also elegant blues and beautiful blues.”
[17:32] Imani Perry

Indigo and the Slave Trade: Perry delves into the history of indigo, a blue dye that played a significant role in the transatlantic slave trade. She recounts how indigo cultivation was integral to the economy of plantations and its impact on the perception and treatment of Black individuals.

“Indigo is very hard to cultivate. It stinks. It makes you sick... it's something about what it meant for black people to be racialized as such.”
[25:51] Imani Perry

Blue and Authority: From Union Soldiers to Police Uniforms

Historical Context of "Boys in Blue": Perry traces the evolution of the term "boys in blue," initially referring to Union soldiers during the Civil War. She explains how blue uniforms later became emblematic of police forces, reflecting a complex and often fraught relationship between Black Americans and authority.

“The American dream is universal. I think that dream is of a castle of security that exists inside the palace gate.”
[22:09] Imani Perry

Blue Lives Matter: The discussion touches on the contemporary "Blue Lives Matter" movement, which Perry critiques as a backlash against Black Lives Matter. She emphasizes the historical continuity of tension between police forces and Black communities.

“It's not as though that was sort of something new that emerged in the Black Lives Matter era. You can look at newspapers 100 years ago that depict the difficult relationship between black people and police forces.”
[22:15] Imani Perry

Artistic Flourishing Amidst Adversity

1980s Black Art Movement: Perry highlights the resurgence of Black art in the 1980s, a period marked by political backlash and economic challenges. She describes how both hip-hop and literature flourished as forms of expression and resistance, with blue serving as a recurring motif.

“Blue appears frequently in that work. But it's also just this remarkable period, even as there is this full scale attack on... that work is so resilient.”
[35:10] Imani Perry

Contemporary Challenges in Academia

Facing Conservative Backlash: Reflecting on her role as a professor, Perry discusses the current climate in higher education where studies on women, gender, sexuality, and Black American experiences are under threat from conservative factions. She draws strength from historical figures who persevered under similar adversities.

“I am standing in a tradition of people who did extraordinary work under adverse conditions.”
[37:39] Imani Perry

Personal Reflections and Legacy

Writing as a Means of Understanding: Perry shares her personal journey in writing the book, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to contribute to the discourse on Black history and identity. She views writing as a way to make sense of the world and leave a lasting legacy.

“Writing the book has really been a personal gift, and I'm just deeply hoping that it feels that way to my readers as well.”
[42:17] Imani Perry

Closing Thoughts: Perry reads a reflective passage from her book that encapsulates her complex relationship with American identity and Blackness.

“I am very much an American, and that is an uneasy title for me... My blackness is a conduit. But my Americanness is so often a betrayal of that connection with others. This is my blues.”
[40:54] Imani Perry

Conclusion

In this episode, Imani Perry offers a profound exploration of how the color blue serves as a lens to understand Black history, identity, and resilience. Her analysis bridges historical events, cultural expressions, and personal narratives, providing listeners with a rich and nuanced perspective on the interplay between color and race.

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Notable Quotes:

• “The sound of the blues can act as a means of curing the blues... it has this movement through the spectrum of emotions, this deeply human sensibility to it.”
  [03:24] Imani Perry

• “The blue note really is like that. And it is something that you are attuned to.”
  [06:06] Imani Perry

• “Our ancestors chose blue as a way of communicating a message to the world and asserting something about ourselves.”
  [17:32] Imani Perry

• “There is a repetition of suffering. And, of course, also a repetition of people trying to figure out how not only to make do, but to live in profound and meaningful ways.”
  [31:17] Imani Perry

• “We are no monolith. This is my blues.”
  [40:54] Imani Perry

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This episode serves as a compelling narrative that intertwines color theory with historical and contemporary Black experiences, offering listeners a deeper understanding of the symbolic and actual significance of blue in Black history.

Transcript

[Imani Perry]

This message comes from Capella University. With Capella's flexpath learning format, you can set your own deadlines and learn on your schedule. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella. Edu.

[Tonya Moseley]

This is FRESH air. I'm Tonya Moseley. You know, sometimes there are ideas that make you reconsider the way you look at the world around you. My guest today, scholar Imani Perry, does that with her new book, Black and How a Color Tells the Story of My People. Perry weaves the gravitational pull of blue in black life, both literally and metaphorically, in sound and in color, from the creation of dyed indigo cloths in West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century to the American art form of blues music and sartorial choices. Coretta Scott King wore blue on her wedding day. Fannie Lou Hamer wore a blue dress to testify before Congress. These examples could be seen as mere coincidences, but in this book, Perry weaves a compelling argument for why they are not. Imani Perry is the Henry A. Morse Jr. And Elizabeth W. Morse professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She's also the author of several books and has published numerous articles on law, cultural studies and African American American studies, including Looking for Lorraine, which is a biography of the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and A Letter to My Sons. Imani Perry, welcome back to FRESH air, and thank you so much for this fascinating book.

[Imani Perry]

Oh, thank you for having me.

[Tonya Moseley]

Can I have you read a passage, page 21, last paragraph.

[Imani Perry]

The truth is this black as such began ennobly through conquering eyes, writing that makes me wince because I hold my black tightly, proudly. Even honesty requires a great deal of discomfort. But here's the truth. We didn't start out black, nor did we choose it first. Black was a hard earned love. But through it all, the blue blues, the certainty of the brilliant sky, deep water and melancholy have never left us. I can attest you might be thinking by now that this blue thing I'm talking about is mere device, a literary trick to move through historic events. And if blue weren't a conjure color, that might have been true. But for real, the blue in black is nothing less than truth before trope. Everybody loves blue. It is human as can be. But everybody doesn't love black. Many have hated it and that is inhumane. If you don't already, I will make you love it with my blues song.

[Tonya Moseley]

Thank you so much for that, Amani. I also want to say that this book is. I know you don't think of yourself as a poet, but it's very lyrical. It's really poetry.

[Imani Perry]

Thank you.

[Tonya Moseley]

How did meditating on the color blue help you come to a deeper understanding about the use of the word black to articulate what we are?

[Imani Perry]

So, I mean, I have a sort of roundabout answer to that question. It's a beautiful question, and it may have more than anything to do with the blues. So it's the genre of music that is sort of the foundation of African American music, certainly, and the foundation of American music generally. And it is, as I say, sort of a sound to the world's favorite color. Meaning that it captures both the joy and the melancholy. You know, having the blues when you have the blues. Rather, playing the blues can act as a means of kind of curing the blues. You know, it has this movement through the spectrum of emotions, this deeply human sensibility to it. And so there was something about the universality of the color blue and the power of the sound of the blues. The way the sound of my people coming out of the deep south, coming out of a history of enslavement, coming out of having this identity cast upon them and making something beautiful, creating beauty at the very site of wound. There was something about the way in which those two senses of blue coincided so profoundly that actually, for me, became a pathway to thinking about blackness and in some ways, the absolute tragedy of the failure to recognize its beauty. And so, you know, the book is a journey through that. A journey through both the anguish, but of course, which you have to acknowledge, but of course, this remarkable beauty that actually has a resonance with everyone, even when they deny it. So, you know, that. I guess that's the simplest way I can think about saying how. Yeah. How that connection emerged for me.

[Tonya Moseley]

I want to talk a little bit about music. It's kind of the easiest way to get even deeper into this book and this thought. You know, I think the term blue note is so embedded in our understanding as something that relates to jazz music. If you're not a musician, maybe you just. But not really. At least, I didn't know what it meant, really, until I was reading your book, and I understood it to mean the in between.

[Imani Perry]

Yeah.

[Tonya Moseley]

I was just really curious how this definition of the in between also allows you to deepen your understanding of how black people's creation of the art form of jazz itself came to be.

[Imani Perry]

It's. Oh, it's. It's a beautiful question because, you know, it's the in between. It's the slurred notice that which isn't recognized on the Western scale. And of course, it is recognized. You know, increasingly, musicians have been talking about a blues scale. And there are other scales in which what we refer to as blue notes in this context are, you know, are understood just as notes. And that's actually just a wonderful example. Because the blue note, or the addition of the blue note to the sound of American music transforms it much in the way that there's something indispensable about the presence of black people in the United States in what it becomes. And at the same time, it is its own thing. And also it has connections to these other genres of music. And it's a beautiful example for me of actually the combination of African Americans being American, becoming a people in the context of the United States. And also having these connections that are like arteries to the rest of the black world. And so, you know, there are references in the book to Haitian history and Brazilian history and history of the Congo and all of these very deep connections that are present. And so the blue note really is like that. And it is something that you are attuned to. You can hear. It operates intuitively, I think, for listeners of American music. And in some ways, that is the whole globe. Because American music has journeyed everywhere, right? Even if you don't have its formal definition or even if you can't describe it. And there's something to that as well in this story, right? There is a presence and a power that isn't necessarily fully articulated that comes through this particular history. So, you know, the music really does. It's not even just. It's not just metaphorical. It functions as a kind of representation or an example of the fact of being black. And particularly being black American.

[Tonya Moseley]

I want to play an early reference that you write about. It's Louis Armstrong's 1951 recording of what Did I Do to Be so black and Blue? Let's listen to a little cold empty bed Springs on his lit Feel like old Ned wished I was dead what.

[Imani Perry]

Did I do.

[Tonya Moseley]

To be so black and blue? Even the mouse ran from my house they laugh at you and scorn you too what did I do to be.

[Imani Perry]

So black and blue?

[Tonya Moseley]

I white inside.

[Imani Perry]

But that don't help.

[Tonya Moseley]

My case Cause I can hide what is in my baseball sports but these.

[Imani Perry]

Battles myself.

[Tonya Moseley]

How would it end? That was Louis Armstrong's 1951. What did I do to be so black and blue? It was really fun to go down memory lane and, like, listen to these old pieces. I'll Say, but what did you learn about how Armstrong really turned this song, which was several decades old by the time he sang it, into really a direct commentary for the time.

[Imani Perry]

Yeah. So the original version of the song actually took place in a black musical, and it was sung by a dark skinned black woman who was actually talking about colorism in the black community and the kind of preference for lighter skinned women. And the transition is. It's beautiful. But what Armstrong does is it's this example of the sort of multi layered references that exist in both black and blue. So there's. And it's a song that bridges blues and jazz as well. So it has this blues phrasing and sensibility, but then with the horns and the scatting, you hear the kind of growing complexity of jazz. And we have black and blue in the sense of being bruised, and you have blues in the sense of melancholy and of course, the general sense of sort of the blues that exist along with blackness. And in Armstrong's personal life, you have this struggle around being a person who is actually sent into the world as an advocate of the United States in the context of the burgeoning Cold War and as a kind of figure that is supposed to be an example of the glory of the United States. And yet, as was often the case, and we saw this in the context of World War I and World War II, even as black people served the nation valiantly, they were subject to deep inequality at home. And so the song actually is able to encapsulate all of those dimensions with these rather simple sentences, lyrics that are not directly about all of that, but absolutely are about all of that. So you get the sense of innuendo, of multi layered discourses. It's just so elegant and beautiful and profound.

[Tonya Moseley]

You also reference Nina Simone. You talk about her first album, which was in 1957. There is this song called Little Girl Blue. I also want to play that. Let's hear a little bit.

[Imani Perry]

Sit there and count your fingers what can you do?

[Tonya Moseley]

Oh, girl, you through?

[Imani Perry]

Should there.

[Tonya Moseley]

Count your little fingers? Unhappy little girl blue.

[Imani Perry]

Sit there.

[Tonya Moseley]

That was Nina Simone singing Little Girl Blue. And Imani, as you write about, there was just a lot going on with this album. There's a lot of delays with the recording label. It kind of set her on the path, really, her career path, decisions. From that point on. What did you learn about Simone and the recording of this song that made you want to explore it for the book?

[Imani Perry]

I'll just say, you know, I grew up on Nina Simone. My mother loved Nina Simone and so I've been listening to her literally for my entire 52 years of life. And, you know, we talk a great deal in some ways about the late Nina Simone in the world of sort of popular culture. Nina Simone as a woman who was both a musical genius and also a person who put politics in their music, and also a person who struggled with her mental and emotional health after so many tragedies. And so I wanted to look at the beginning. I wanted to attend to early Nina Simone, a person who had already experienced extraordinary disappointment. She was a trained classical pianist. She'd been denied admission to the Curtis Institute. She was certain that that denial was because of her race. And so she became this musician who was blending, you know, torch songs, show tunes, jazz as a performer, and then elements of the classical music. But she also was really struggling emotionally with the desire to have been a classical musician and the ways in which she was excluded from that. And so there's something about. In thinking and talking about this first album, I wanted to gesture to the complex emotions associated with her putting this work together and also its incredible beauty. It's yet again, one of these sites where you see, you know, the process of creating beauty at the site of wound. It happens over and over and over again in black culture and life. And I was able to do it through the story of a really cherished musician for me personally, but I think for the world.

[Tonya Moseley]

I actually referenced something in my introduction, and that's the sartorial choices of wearing blue throughout history. You reference how Coretta Scott King wore blue on her wedding day to Martin Luther King Jr. Carlotta Lanier was the youngest of nine children to desegregate high school in 1957, and she wore a blue dress. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in his Dodgers blue.

[Imani Perry]

Mm.

[Tonya Moseley]

What's the argument for these examples kind of being anything more than a coincidence?

[Imani Perry]

Yeah. So part of the reason it started to feel like more than a coincidence to me was actually encountering a letter written by a fabric trader in the 18th century in reference to a planter who was purchasing cloth for the people. He was purchasing cloth for the people enslaved on his plantation to make clothing. And the fabric trader mentioned that the planter said that he had to bring back blue cloth, otherwise the women, the black women who were enslaved, wouldn't want it. And so, you know, there's something extraordinary about these women who were enslaved insisting upon a particular color for adornment. And that has lots of roots, I think. You know, in some ways, blue is a color that has captivated the whole world, which is why indigo was so popular. Popular. But also there were spiritual and social meanings to the color blue in various parts of west and Central Africa. And that were probably sort of part of the root of that aesthetic desire. And so then when I see the repetition of the blue and particularly the repetition among black women of the South, I think of it as a color that certainly had a kind of grace and elegance. It's not too, you know, frou frou. It's pretty, but it's not but it has a seriousness to it. And it's a color that's associated with power, culturally speaking. And so I don't, you know, I don't think it's coincidence because there are these unbelievably important moments where it appears. And I don't think there's a kind of I don't assume that for those women, they said, well, I'm gonna wear blue because of this. But I think we are often drawn to colors and styles and forms of adornment as a way of communicating a message to the world and asserting something about ourselves. And so I think those blues were powerful blues and they were also elegant blues and beautiful blues.

[Tonya Moseley]

Our guest today is scholar and award winning author Imani Perry, who has written a new book, Black and How a Color Tells the Story of My People. We'll be right back in just a bit. I'm Tonya Moseley and this is FRESH air.

[Imani Perry]

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[Tonya Moseley]

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[Imani Perry]

Year of his life. Life is such a gift and can be enjoyed and it's all okay.

[Tonya Moseley]

Nothing to worry about, really. I'm Rachel Martin. My conversation with the legendary filmmaker David lynch is on the Wild Card Podcast, the show where cards control the conversation. I was thinking about the Retort against Black Lives matter back in 2020. And for some it was Blue lives Matter.

[Imani Perry]

Yeah.

[Tonya Moseley]

How are you thinking about the color blue as it relates to authority, to police, the military?

[Imani Perry]

Yeah. So, you know, so I chart a course of that by initially thinking about the term the boys in blue, which we now think about as terms of policing, but in the context of the Civil War were Union soldiers. And there was the sense of promise when the boys in blue arrived and this sense of extraordinary, not just courage, but liberation when black soldiers were able to don Union blue and free themselves and free their people because they were so essential to the Union war effort to save the nation. So that blue was a. Was a kind of powerful sense of the boys in blue and a positive sense of the boys in blue. And I also. One of the things that I tried to talk somewhat about was also about, you know, the naval forces and the Marines in for black soldiers, because that's the sort of under discussed part of the history of the Civil War. Also in blue, something happens to the color that is, that coincides in some ways with the betrayal of the nation. Reconstruction is turned away from, you know, this abandonment of the rights and liberties of black people who have in many ways been central to saving the nation, allowing for Jim Crow to take hold. And then the blue color, the blue uniforms that were part of the Civil War effort are turned into police uniforms because they're around and they're usable and they're easy and you know, to turn into uniforms of a different sort. And it also is part of this history of a very difficult relationship between police forces and black Americans. And for me, this is not a question of the sort where we usually discuss, you know, are police forces racist? But rather, when you exist in a society that has in many ways posited you as inferior or threatening or undeserving, then of course the force of policing is going to not just be a warm and fuzzy relationship to you. Of course you're going to be under greater threat and soc. Suspicion and punishment. And so that becomes part of the story of this country. It's not as though that was sort of something new that emerged in the Black Lives Matter era. You can look at newspapers 100 years ago that depict the difficult relationship between black people and police forces. And so the retort to Black Lives Matter as Blue Lives Matter is extraordinary because it posits the idea that for black people to live is a threat to policing. That's essentially what the formulation is. It's pretty remarkable.

[Tonya Moseley]

Something you referenced in our conversation is indigo the colonial export of indigo. And indigo was really instrumental in shaping the destinies of millions of Africans. What did you learn about the creation of indigo blue in the slave trade?

[Imani Perry]

Oh, I learned so much. So here's the thing. I have spent much more time before working on this book in thinking about and studying, of course, cotton, but also tobacco. Right. And so to turn my attention and even sugar and so to turn my attention to indigo was something different. And part of what I learned one is these scenes from the historical record of people being exchanged for a block of indigo were just absolutely devastating to me. People who were artisans and family members and skilled who had been adorned in indigo, now seeing their worth measured in dye. Right. I mean, it just sort of unbelievably poignant sense of what it meant to be enslaved. And then in the context of US Slavery and particularly South Carolina, having read about Eliza Pinkney, who was known as the person who sort of brought indigo to the States and a very young, precocious white woman plantation owner, and realizing that she struggled with the cultivation of indigo until an unnamed black person was brought to teach her how to cultivate it, and that the realization that that is part actually of the creation of certainly part of the institution of slavery, but also part of the creation of race is that this person who actually was the educator would not be credited for allowing this trade to flourish in the United States and also at the same time, other black people's lives would be, you know, made really unbearable by virtue of the success of this trade. Indigo is very hard to cultivate. It stinks. It makes you sick. There's flies, there's vermin. It's one of these really hard things to make. And so that, to me, it just was so poignant how that industry could actually communicate something about what it meant for black people to be racialized as such.

[Tonya Moseley]

My guest today is scholar and author Imani Perry, and we're talking about her new book, Black in How a Color Tells the Story of My People. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air. Wait, wait, don't tell me.

[Imani Perry]

Fresh Air up first, NPR News. Now Planet Money TED Radio Hour Throughline.

[Tonya Moseley]

The NPR Politics Podcast Code Switch Embedded books we love Wildcard are just some of the podcasts you can enjoy.

[Imani Perry]

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[Tonya Moseley]

Than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus.npr.org on NPR's Wild Card podcast, comedian Michelle Buteau says she's glad she ignored the people who Told her to lose weight. I'm just gonna show you what it looks like to love my body, My.

[Imani Perry]

Double chin, my extra rolls. Okay.

[Tonya Moseley]

My buckets of thighs. Sauce on the side.

[Imani Perry]

You can't afford it.

[Tonya Moseley]

I'm Rachel Martin. Michelle Buteau is on the Wild Card podcast, the show where cards control the conversation. Your book really does take us through history using. It's a history book, but in the best way. Thanks. It's not a dense text. You know, think of, like a history textbook. But this revisiting this time period, I mean, I was astounded to learn By 1775, South Carolina was exporting more than a million pounds of indigo annually. So it was, like, the colony's second most valuable export after rice. And to your point, like, when we learn about that history, the history of that time period, it's typically focused on those other exports like rice and cotton.

[Imani Perry]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm very interested in talking about products like indigo and sugar because. And not to the exclusion of things like indigo, sugar, tobacco, not to the exclusion of rice and cotton, but because those were luxuries. And to think about what it meant for people's lives to be ground down in the service of something that was for another person's delight is really a powerful reckoning with some of the ugliest parts of what it means to be human. And I don't mean that simply in terms of the history of slavery. I mean, these are questions we can ask ourselves today. Why are we allowing for so many industries to flourish that allow human beings to suffer for our pleasure?

[Tonya Moseley]

You meditate on that. Thinking about, I think in the book, you mention Kobold. You mention, like, what's used to create the technology that we use. The labor.

[Imani Perry]

Yeah. And the Congo, you know, it's. Oh, the repetition is so painful. You know, the people of the Congo die at extraordinary rates for us to have these phones and these computers. And, of course, for African Americans. So much of our culture comes from the Congo culture. Historically, we have, you know, much of the sort of blended culture that we have in the United States or in the Americas is derived from the root of Congo culture. And so it becomes part of the story, that the story moves in multiple directions, but there is a repetition of suffering. And, of course, also a repetition of people trying to figure out how not only to make do, but. But to live in profound and meaningful ways.

[Tonya Moseley]

One of the more powerful, perhaps also really painful things that you do is reflect on what our ancestors saw. Looking out into the deep blueness of the sea during the middle Passage. I think we've heard these fables that speak to this, that many chose to end their lives by jumping overboard, maybe transfixed. These are stories that really change this idea of the hort nature of it. Like transfixed by the blueness and possibility that the ocean gave, that maybe there was an underworld under the deep blue sea where our ancestors found liberation. What was this process like for you, imagining what that deep blue sea offered to those during the Middle Passage?

[Imani Perry]

Oh, you know, it's hard. I mean, when we talk about the difficulty of writing, we often talk about the crafting of sentences, which is, of course, hard, and the putting together structure. But there's also the emotional component. You actually, I think, do or you should try to grasp. Of course I fail, but try. Try to grasp what it was to be snatched from everything you knew, to be thrown into the hold of a ship in unbelievably horrifying conditions, chained together, sometimes chained people who were dead. And so. And of course, that meant a kind of disorientation that is nearly unfathomable. And so to then look to the sky and the water and think, well, maybe something there, right? Maybe there's something there. Maybe that's a path to return is understandable and I think offers something much more kind of complex than simply saying people chose to end their lives. Because I think it was a much more. You know, I do think it was a much more complex reality.

[Tonya Moseley]

I want to fast forward to modern times. There was this period in the 80s which was really like close to two decades after the civil rights movement. I'm thinking, like the late 80s when it felt like. Like, as you write, progress had stalled, and you called it a time when art took center stage as a way to make meaning. Can you say more about that? Yeah.

[Imani Perry]

So, I mean, there's almost, you know, an immediate backlash to the gains of the civil rights movement. And you get that in the context of the Reagan era pretty aggressively and of course, an attack on the social safety net at the same time. And then much like the post reconstruction period, you also have this flourishing of black art, and in particular in the 80s. On the one hand, you have hip hop, which is largely kind of a masculinist form. And you also, on the other hand, you have literature, which is heavily being made by black women. These extraordinary novelists, the ones we all know and love, you know, from Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, Paula Marshall and Zake Shange, they're producers. This tradition in that period. Part of the reason, of course, in this book, that I had to talk about it is Blue appears frequently in that work. But it's also just this remarkable period, even as there is this full scale attack on, in many ways and rejection of the progress of black people and that there is this sort of digging down insistence that we have something to say and that work is so resilient. And I don't know, we don't necessarily like describe it as such, but that period was just unbelievable. And for me, as someone who was a voracious reader and who is still a voracious reader, I'm a reader first in some ways and a writer second. That's the landscape in which I grew up.

[Tonya Moseley]

Let's take a short break. My guest today is scholar and author Imani Perry, and we're talking about her new book, Black and How a Color Tells the Story of My People. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air. You know, thinking about this time period that we're in. What is it like to be at this moment a professor of studies on women and gender and sexuality and black American studies at a time when conservatives are fighting against having most, if not all of those things studied at higher education institutions?

[Imani Perry]

Yeah. I mean, so everything that I research is under attack from many sectors in the society. And I think of it as, on the one hand, you know, it's devastating, but not so much personally, but because I'm so aware of how much the generation immediately preceding mine, you know, my parents generation, how hard they fought to have our stories and our history taken seriously, how many of them were kicked out of school, how many of them devoted their lives to a struggle that they didn't survive to see when and didn't survive to see actually take place. This is a period where there is an effort to relitigate the 60s and 70s and all of the transformations of that period. So for me, though, as a faculty member who studies these things that are under attack, I'm finding myself consistently turning actually to people from the past. And this is what I mean. I'm turning to thinking about those enslaved people who learned to read despite the risk of death and who nevertheless, despite that danger, insisted that this was a pathway to freedom. I'm thinking about those educators who insisted on the study of black people and black life and black history and black culture, despite the fact that that people were told they were told that black people had not contributed meaningfully to any civilization. I'm thinking about it being 99 years since Negro History Week was formally established and that celebration happening in underfunded segregated schools, students being nevertheless given a glorious story of their own past. I'm thinking about it being 125 years since the writing of Lift Every Voice and Sing. I wrote a book about called May We Forever Stand, you know, this song that became the national anthem for black people at a time when black people were systematically excluded from virtually every sector of society except for labor. And so it's not new to do this work under adverse conditions. And I am standing in a tradition of people who did extraordinary work under adverse conditions. And so I feel equipped to do it despite that. And I will continue to do it, even if by some, you know, turn of events, I can't do it in the same way or in the same type of institutions. This is my, you know, it's my life work.

[Tonya Moseley]

I like to end our conversation on a passage of your book that I feel is so rooted in the present moment. It's page 228, the last paragraph. It starts with an admission, an admission.

[Imani Perry]

I am very much an American, and that is an uneasy title for me. I have a culture and an identity tied to this land. I am, without apology, who and what I am. The unease is about the relationship between my citizenship and the rest of the world. My blackness is a conduit. But my Americanness is so often a betrayal of that connection with others. I know the classic response is coming from some people want to come here from all over the world. The American dream is universal. I think that dream is of a castle of security that exists inside the palace gate. I come from inside the territory, but outside the gates. So I know better. But I have one take. There are many others. We are no monolith. This is my blues.

[Tonya Moseley]

Thank you for reading that, Amani. I mean, I feel like this book is really. This meditation on the color blue has given me more language to understand. Thank you. So I want to thank you for that. And I also want to know what has it done for you to spend this time on the color and the sensibility and the sound of blue?

[Imani Perry]

Oh, you know, it's. On the one hand, I will say I am endlessly sort of grateful and in disbelief that I get to do this thing, writing books, because books are so important to me. I feel so fortunate to be able to write books. And this book was hard and painful at moments, but also an absolute joy to be able to offer to the world. But part of what it did for me and writing does for me in general, is it helps me make sense of the world. It helps me make sense of my place in the world. It helps me develop a confidence that there is possibility. You know, there's something very hopeful about the act of writing because it's a thing that you hope to leave on the earth when you're no longer here in physical form. And because this book was so spiritually inflected and so dependent on ancestors and the past, I felt really in tune with this journey that, you know, that will end for me but will continue after my life. You know, there's that Maya Angelou said that thing, you know, that was so profound in an interview where she said, I didn't come here to stay. And that orientation, I think, is helpful as we try to figure out ways to tell the truth. And so it's, you know, so writing the book has really been a personal gift, and I'm just deeply hoping that it feels that way to my readers as well.

[Tonya Moseley]

Imani Perry, as always, thank you so much for this thought provoking conversation.

[Imani Perry]

Thank you.

[Tonya Moseley]

Imani Perry's new book is Black and How a Color Tells the Story of My People. Tomorrow on FRESH air. We've been talking a lot about loneliness. Research shows we're spending more time alone than ever. Atlantic writer Derek Thompson joins us to talk about how all of this me time is having a profound impact on our personalities, our politics and our relationship to reality. I hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram @NPRFreshAir. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Thanks to Jose Yanes from WDET for additional engineering help. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Annemarie Baldonar, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show with Terry Gross. I'm Tanya Mosley.