ghoti_mhic_uait | Black History Month

One of the things that suddenly confused me wrt Black History Month - is it meant to be the interaction of black people with history, or is it meant to be the history of people who happen to be black? Because that's a hell of a lot of differing histories, either way. ETA: I've also seen it suggested that it's the history of Africans/people of African descent. Which is all of us ultimately, but never mind that.

In any case, what it practically means in school is that we talk about MLK/Rosa Parks and Mary Seacole. All of whom are fine people to talk about, and Mary Seacole has relevance to a British school by virtue of being Scottish. Also, she did a lot to combat growing colour-based racism in England (and presumably Scotland and Wales) by just getting on with being an excellent person. (Basically, at the beginning of her stint in the Crimea, she was 'that weirdo who looks weird and what the hell does she hink she's doing?' and at the end she was 'Mother Seacole who saved a lot of the lives of our brave boys'.)

However, I'm sure we could branch out. How about the first black pope? Actually, Victor I is quite important in Catholic history - he was the geezer who brought the Latin Mass to Rome, where previously they used Greek (but Latin was used in Africa). How about St Augustine? I know they might not be main-stream enough for general consumption, but I work in a Catholic school so Catholic history seems relevant.

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Ok,so there's no evidence that he was black, but there's also no evidence that he wasn't. Actually, I take this as a sign that we're not meant to care about his skin colour, which would seem the ideal position.

The problem with that is that people's mental images then tend to default to white, which contributes to a lack of awareness of the contributions of non-white people, alienation of minority ethnicities, and other suchlike bad things. It's a bit like the saying "I'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy"; ideally no-one would have to pay attention to such things, but in our current non-ideal state, it's incumbent on us to do so.

Fair enough. I think the pictures I've seen of Victor I (and certainly of St Augustine) tend to show them with dark skin, so that's how I think of them.

That's encouraging. Our church has a secondary dedication to St. Augustine, and our statue of him is very definitely white!

Oops, stupid question - is it the same St Augustine? I mean St Augustine of Hippo, but when I was talking to

marnanel he got confused because he was thinking of St Augustine of Canterbury. Sorry if that was obvious.

Not at all stupid, but yes, our dedication is to the one from Hippo. It's quite a rare dedication for C of E parish churches in England - in fact, our vicar thinks we may be the only one. I haven't tried to verify this myself, though.

There's no evidence, because the Romans didn't care. Augustine wasn't a Berber, I'm pretty sure, because he was Christian and conversion among the Berbers (who are (relatively) indigenous to Africa and white, suntans not withstanding) was as far as we can tell rare. But which of the various ethnic groups that remain (Nubian, Numidian, Punic/Carthaginian, I don't know what, Italian-Roman expat.), it's hard to guess. He and his mother seem to have had family in Italy but we know little about his father. Wikipedia says that "Augustine was of Berber descent", but their cites are all encyclopædic or textbooks; I don't know what their ultimate source is. I'll have a look in the U. L. next time I have a minute. I do know, however, that he spoke Punic, which might just be coincidence and/or convenience but may imply Punic ancestry, which is Semitic/Berber mixed.

As for Victor I, I doubt we even know that much; the Catholic Encyclopedia says that the African origin is testified to by the Liber Pontificalis, which is first pulled together from we're-not-sure-what in the seventh century and so may not know much, but it apparently names his father as Felix, which is at least a Latin name. That doesn't mean much though, as a Christian family would usually have such. Jerome's De Viris Illustribus has even less. Text for these two is online, the LP here in Latin (the translation is copyright) and Jerome here. Eusebius also mentions him in his Ecclesiastical History (English translation online here) but says nothing of his origins.

The word the LP uses for African is interesting though, "Afer" not "Africanus". Classical usage implies that this is native African not European immigrant, but I can also find instances of it as a nickname for Europeans with many years' service in Africa alas. The trouble with this sort of thing is that the web presence of any sane discussion has always been drowned by African Caucus-style "all key figures in European history were really black!" So in the end I don't have a final opinion, but it seems a shade more likely that Victor was genuinely dark-pigmented than was Augustine.

And the Internet's power of coincidence strikes again: someone has, just this week, posted online a translation of Possidius's biography of Augustine which is the main source for him except for the Confessions: it can be found here.

Online edition of the Confessions here, and there is a little bit of discussion of origins in the first note of all, which points out that his, and his mother's name, are both vanishingly rare in Roman Africa, which may suggest either, as the commentator says, "aristocratic pretensions" or, as I suspect, Italian descent. But again, names usually come from mothers; who was the father, and why were they in Africa?

There's also an old English translation of the Confessions here. That gives you approximately all the source material yourself, so I'm going to leave this now...

Black History Month

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