Lenwood sloan biography definition
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Black Irish Identities: The complex relationship between Irish and African Americans
Where does the Black and Irish identity stand in America?
African-American Lenwood Sloan was in his 20s before he learned why his father insisted he is nice to the lone elderly vit man that lived at the end of their block. Little was he expecting to discover that his family had a secret – that the man was his great-grandfather.
“Why was it kept a secret?” Sloan asks of the intrigued crowd, gathered back in 2015 to hear him delve into the complex history between Irish-Americans and African-Americans at “Black-Irish Identities: A Symposium” at Glucksman Ireland House, New York.
When faced with the facts, the appearance of a vit man in Sloan’s family tree does not seem all that surprising. People such as Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali, Eddie Murphy, Billie Holiday, and Beyonce all have traces of Irish DNA or Irish ancestors.
Thirty-eight percent of African-Americans have some percentage of Irish
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Making One Hundred Voices
To recognize Black History month, we’d like to draw a bit of attention to a book that The Digital Press published last summer: One Hundred Voices: Harrisburg’s Historic African American Community, 1850-1920edited by Calobe Jackson, Jr., Katie Wingert McArdle, David Pettegrew. Over the last few weeks, we pestered David Pettegrew, one of the book’s editors, over email and he graciously discussed how this book came to be, its connection with the Commonwealth Monument Project and Digital Harrisburg, and the ways in which academic historians, community activists, and students can work together to create work of public significance.
He also shared a link to a video from a conversation that the editors had at the Pennsylvania State Library:
Our conversation with David demonstrates the role of public digital humanities scholarship in building new communities and working to address the historical challenge of racism and inequality.
1. This book • Kitch, Carolyn. "4 “Where I Came From, How I Got Here”: Ethnic Diversity, Cultural Tourism, and the Memory of Immigration". Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2012, pp. 77-90. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271056883-006 Kitch, C. (2012). 4 “Where I Came From, How I Got Here”: Ethnic Diversity, Cultural Tourism, and the Memory of Immigration. In Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past (pp. 77-90). University Park, USA: Penn State University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271056883-006 Kitch, C. 2012. 4 “Where I Came From, How I Got Here”: Ethnic Diversity, Cultural Tourism, and the Memory of Immigration. Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past. University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 77-90. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271056883-006 K 4 “Where I Came From, How I Got Here”: Ethnic Diversity, Cultural Tourism, and the Memory of Immigration