Birth of a Notion; Or, The Half Ain't Never Been Told : a Narrative Account with Entertaining Passages of the State of Minstrelsy and of America and the True Relation Thereof

A critical look at black identity in American history and popular culture as told from a performative African American perspective.

In Birth of a Notion, poet and playwright Bill Harris confronts contemporary stereotypes and prejudices by looking back to their roots in early American history. In a hybrid work of prose and poetry that takes its cues from nineteenth-century minstrelsy, Harris speaks back to preconceived notions about "blackness" through many different characters and voices. His narrative is at turns sarcastic, serious, wry, and lyrical, as he investigates the source of pervasive racist images and their incorporation into American culture.

Harris takes readers on a tour of nineteenth-century American history, from the 1830s and the rise of the abolitionist movement, to Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution in the 1860s, and to the beginning of the twentieth century. He considers cultural productions that gave rise to America’s idea of the "new Negro," including the development of minstrelsy as popular entertainment, the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the museum curios of P. T. Barnum, and the exhibitions of "exotic" people at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Along the way, Harris interjects a range of symbols, word-play, and famous personalities into his narrative, referring to everyone from Karl Marx, Uncle Sam, Charles Dickens, Buffalo Bill, and Walt Whitman. He ends with the development of jazz and the blues as cultural products that would become important vehicles for self-representation in the new century.

Harris’s fast-paced narrative interspersed with graphic elements shows the importance of point-of-view in creating history, which always contains some elements of fiction as a result. Anyone interested in poetry, American history, and African American studies will appreciate Birth of a Notion.

"Through a virtuosic mastery of various literary genres, poet, playwright, and critic Bill Harris gives us an incisive, witty, and elegant account of the complex dimensions and often deeply disturbing realities informing the contentious American discourse(s) on racial mythology, cultural identity, and political history. Like its author, this book is profound, subtle, hilarious, and deadly serious."--Kofi Natambu, author of The Melody Never Stops, What is an Aesthetic? Writings on American Culture, and Malcolm X: His Life & Work and the editor of the Panopticon Review Looks at black identity in American history and popular culture from a performative African American perspective. This work takes readers on a tour of 19th-century American history, from the 1830s and the rise of the abolitionist movement, to Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution in the 1860s, and to the beginning of the 20th century.