Even when they embody everything the nation claims to respect, African Americans cannot count on being treated like citizens. Simply consider the black soldiers and nurses who served in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII only to be disfranchised and denigrated … or consider the Ivy League-educated constitutional lawyer who rose to the office of president only to face demands that he “show his papers,” his birth certificate and academic transcripts. Though their success will not likely bring them the safety and respectability it should, African Americans seem to cling to all that purportedly makes one an ideal citizen, including the heteronormative nuclear family and its traditional household. What does this pattern of investing against the odds reveal about African American culture? The short answer: homemade citizenship.
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Dr. Mitchell is a literary historian, cultural critic, and associate professor of English at Ohio State University and is author of Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship.
