By Michelle McCaster
Guest Column
Sometimes the most powerful history lessons happen when we least expect them.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, while attending our Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Regional Conference, I had a candid conversation with my mentor and Soror, Ardenia Jones-Terry. As our nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, we began talking about America, African American history and the stories that too often go untold.
That conversation left me looking differently at two things almost every American recognizes: blue jeans and the Statue of Liberty.
The Black History Behind the Blue
I had always considered blue jeans a uniquely American creation. And technically, the modern riveted blue jean was patented by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis in 1873.
But what about the blue?
Long before the invention of modern jeans, indigo dyeing was a highly developed tradition in parts of West Africa. Enslaved Africans brought agricultural knowledge, craftsmanship and expertise in indigo cultivation and processing with them to the Americas.
In colonial America, particularly South Carolina, indigo became a tremendously valuable crop. Enslaved Africans provided much of the labor that made the industry possible, and historical research has increasingly recognized the importance of African knowledge and expertise in cultivating and processing the plant into dye.
So while African Americans did not invent the modern blue jean, Black history is deeply woven into the larger story of the blue that came to define denim.
And the connection didn’t end there.
During the Civil Rights Movement, denim jeans and overalls became powerful symbols. Activists wore them not only because they were practical, but also as an expression of solidarity with Black Southern laborers, farmers and sharecroppers.
The fabric had become part of the visual language of the struggle for freedom.
The Chains Most of Us Never See
Then Ms. Jones-Terry shared something else that stopped me in my tracks.
“Did you know the Statue of Liberty has broken chains at her feet?”
I didn’t.
Yet they have been there all along.
According to the National Park Service, broken shackles and chains lie at the feet of Lady Liberty, symbolizing the abolition of slavery. Her foot is raised as if she is moving forward, away from bondage and toward freedom.
Most of us know the torch. We know the crown. We know the famous statue standing in New York Harbor.
But how many of us were taught about the chains?
Perhaps there is a lesson in the fact that they are difficult to see from the ground.
250 Years—and Still More to Learn
As America commemorates its 250th anniversary, we should celebrate—but we should also learn.
African American history is not an appendix to American history. It is American history.
It is found in our agriculture, clothing, music, inventions, movements and institutions. Sometimes it is even beneath the feet of one of America’s greatest symbols of freedom.
Our young people deserve to know these stories.
I am grateful to my mentor and Soror, Ardenia Jones-Terry, for reminding me of the importance of conversations between generations. I left our discussion wanting to research more—and wanting others to know what I had learned.
The next time you put on a pair of blue jeans, think about the generations of African people whose knowledge and labor contributed to America’s indigo story.
And the next time you see the Statue of Liberty, don’t just look at her torch.
Look toward her feet.
Because sometimes the history we most need to understand isn’t really hidden.
It’s been right in front of us all along.