David Anderson
@dranderson15.bsky.social
I teach @UofLEnglish. I love to post on African American and American literature, music, sea writing, and history.
Teaching this novel this afternoon in my class on African-American writing about oceans.
November 5, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Teaching this novel this afternoon in my class on African-American writing about oceans.
Black smoke in Louisville 5 miles from a plane crash near Muhammad Ali International Airport.
November 4, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Black smoke in Louisville 5 miles from a plane crash near Muhammad Ali International Airport.
Not to beat a dead horse (no Derby pun intended), but check out the pronunciation guide for words for the 2014 Spelling Bee--it didn't even follow the International Phonetic Alphabet. It was terrible.
March 8, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Not to beat a dead horse (no Derby pun intended), but check out the pronunciation guide for words for the 2014 Spelling Bee--it didn't even follow the International Phonetic Alphabet. It was terrible.
1/ Among writings about African-American migration to the Pacific coast, one of the most important is the autobiography Shadow and Light (1902) by Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (1823-1915), a pioneer in business, politics, law, and diplomacy in both the United States and Canada. archive.org/details/shad...
February 7, 2025 at 2:13 PM
1/ Among writings about African-American migration to the Pacific coast, one of the most important is the autobiography Shadow and Light (1902) by Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (1823-1915), a pioneer in business, politics, law, and diplomacy in both the United States and Canada. archive.org/details/shad...
1/ Colleen McElroy was not only an outstanding poet but a terrific travel writer, too. She credited travel with broadening her mind, but added that "I travel to discover more about myself," including her roots in St. Louis in A Long Way from St. Louie (1997).
February 6, 2025 at 8:40 PM
1/ Colleen McElroy was not only an outstanding poet but a terrific travel writer, too. She credited travel with broadening her mind, but added that "I travel to discover more about myself," including her roots in St. Louis in A Long Way from St. Louie (1997).
For those who want to learn more about the 18th century mariner, abolitionist, and autobiographer Olaudah Equiano, here is a link to a terrific website where you can look up details about his life, travels (complete with maps!), acquaintances, and so on. equianosworld.org
February 5, 2025 at 10:10 PM
For those who want to learn more about the 18th century mariner, abolitionist, and autobiographer Olaudah Equiano, here is a link to a terrific website where you can look up details about his life, travels (complete with maps!), acquaintances, and so on. equianosworld.org
1/ In 1773 Olaudah Equiano joined a British expedition to find a northeastern passage from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean--becoming possibly the first person of African descent to participate in an Arctic expedition.
February 5, 2025 at 9:36 PM
1/ In 1773 Olaudah Equiano joined a British expedition to find a northeastern passage from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean--becoming possibly the first person of African descent to participate in an Arctic expedition.
1/ August 1st, the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, became a day of celebration in many parts of the African diaspora, including the U.S. Two wonderful poems about August 1st were written by James Madison Bell and James Whitfield.
February 5, 2025 at 9:14 PM
1/ August 1st, the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, became a day of celebration in many parts of the African diaspora, including the U.S. Two wonderful poems about August 1st were written by James Madison Bell and James Whitfield.
1/ Of the small body of African-American writing about migration to the Pacific coast in the mid-19th c., the strangest is a poem by the abolitionist poet James Madison Bell (1826-1902) entitled "Descriptive Voyage from New York to Aspinwall": babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=em...
February 5, 2025 at 8:51 PM
1/ Of the small body of African-American writing about migration to the Pacific coast in the mid-19th c., the strangest is a poem by the abolitionist poet James Madison Bell (1826-1902) entitled "Descriptive Voyage from New York to Aspinwall": babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=em...
Today is National Women's Physician Day, and I want to celebrate my pediatrician, the great Dr. Helen E. Nash (1921-2012), one of the finest pediatricians in St. Louis. She even made a house call once (when I tried to eat a teddy bear's ear). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_E...
February 4, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Today is National Women's Physician Day, and I want to celebrate my pediatrician, the great Dr. Helen E. Nash (1921-2012), one of the finest pediatricians in St. Louis. She even made a house call once (when I tried to eat a teddy bear's ear). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_E...
1/ Chester Himes wrote poignantly about African Americans’ migration to Pacific Coast port cities in search of shipyard work in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Besides his novel, If He Hollers, Let Him Go, he wrote a short story entitled “The Song Says ‘Keep on Smiling.’” books.google.com/books?id=F1s...
February 3, 2025 at 6:19 PM
1/ Chester Himes wrote poignantly about African Americans’ migration to Pacific Coast port cities in search of shipyard work in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Besides his novel, If He Hollers, Let Him Go, he wrote a short story entitled “The Song Says ‘Keep on Smiling.’” books.google.com/books?id=F1s...
1/ My late first cousin Harold Anderson was a cultural anthropologist who wrote several articles about watermen and sailors in Maryland and Virginia. This article is about menhaden chanteys--worksongs created by Afr-Americans in the menhaden fisheries of that region. www.mdsg.umd.edu/sites/defaul...
February 3, 2025 at 3:35 PM
1/ My late first cousin Harold Anderson was a cultural anthropologist who wrote several articles about watermen and sailors in Maryland and Virginia. This article is about menhaden chanteys--worksongs created by Afr-Americans in the menhaden fisheries of that region. www.mdsg.umd.edu/sites/defaul...
Mary Malloy's 1990 bibliography African Americans in the Maritime Trades: A Guide to Resources in New England is still a useful guide to information about Afr-Am work in whaling, on merchant vessels, and in the navy--and it's freely available! www.whalingmuseum.org/sites/defaul...
February 2, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Mary Malloy's 1990 bibliography African Americans in the Maritime Trades: A Guide to Resources in New England is still a useful guide to information about Afr-Am work in whaling, on merchant vessels, and in the navy--and it's freely available! www.whalingmuseum.org/sites/defaul...
Another marvelous free online database is the Slave Voyages database, which contains maps, 3-D video reconstructions, a timeline and time-lapse map of the transatlantic slave trade, as well as data about individual ships: www.slavevoyages.org
February 2, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Another marvelous free online database is the Slave Voyages database, which contains maps, 3-D video reconstructions, a timeline and time-lapse map of the transatlantic slave trade, as well as data about individual ships: www.slavevoyages.org
A terrific online resource featuring African Americans and the world's oceans is the Searchable Sea Literature database, curated by the Maritime Studies Program at Williams College and Mystic Seaport. I want to point out some useful features: sites.williams.edu/searchablese... 1/
February 2, 2025 at 3:45 PM
A terrific online resource featuring African Americans and the world's oceans is the Searchable Sea Literature database, curated by the Maritime Studies Program at Williams College and Mystic Seaport. I want to point out some useful features: sites.williams.edu/searchablese... 1/
Alex Haley spent 20 years in the Coast Guard, eventually becoming a chief petty officer and the Coast Guard's first chief journalist. He wrote about his mentoring by an older steward's mate in the March 1961 issue of Reader's Digest: alexhaley.com/2018/08/14/t...
February 1, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Alex Haley spent 20 years in the Coast Guard, eventually becoming a chief petty officer and the Coast Guard's first chief journalist. He wrote about his mentoring by an older steward's mate in the March 1961 issue of Reader's Digest: alexhaley.com/2018/08/14/t...
Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I've been editing my anthology on African-American writing about the world's oceans. I will share information about it when I have more time.
December 28, 2024 at 9:51 PM
Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I've been editing my anthology on African-American writing about the world's oceans. I will share information about it when I have more time.
This presidential campaign reminds me of Mickey Spillane's reactionary hard-boiled detective novels featuring Mike Hammer--a detective whose social hatreds matched those of Eisenhower-era America. A detective who shot first and asked questions later.
October 29, 2024 at 6:41 PM
This presidential campaign reminds me of Mickey Spillane's reactionary hard-boiled detective novels featuring Mike Hammer--a detective whose social hatreds matched those of Eisenhower-era America. A detective who shot first and asked questions later.
I still remember a band named Vic Morrow's Head.
October 6, 2024 at 12:09 AM
I still remember a band named Vic Morrow's Head.
In "Stanzas for the First of August" from 1853, James Monroe Whitfield (1822-1871), one of the finest Black poets of the 19th century, celebrated the end of slavery in the British West Indies, and expressed hope for greater freedom within the Western Hemisphere. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=lo...
August 1, 2024 at 8:42 PM
In "Stanzas for the First of August" from 1853, James Monroe Whitfield (1822-1871), one of the finest Black poets of the 19th century, celebrated the end of slavery in the British West Indies, and expressed hope for greater freedom within the Western Hemisphere. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=lo...
James Madison Bell's "The Dawn of Freedom" is a long poem, first recited on August 3, 1868, when the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies was celebrated as an unofficial holiday in parts of the U.S., Canada, and Africa, too. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=em...
August 1, 2024 at 7:44 PM
James Madison Bell's "The Dawn of Freedom" is a long poem, first recited on August 3, 1868, when the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies was celebrated as an unofficial holiday in parts of the U.S., Canada, and Africa, too. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=em...
The abolitionist poet James Madison Bell (1826-1902) published two poems inspired by August 1st, the day that commemorated abolition of slavery in the British West Indies. The shortest of these is his powerful "The First of August." babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=em...
August 1, 2024 at 7:33 PM
The abolitionist poet James Madison Bell (1826-1902) published two poems inspired by August 1st, the day that commemorated abolition of slavery in the British West Indies. The shortest of these is his powerful "The First of August." babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=em...
In Louisville, there were Thomas Blue and Rachel Harris, who ran the first two Carnegie libraries to serve Black communities, Western Branch (which still exists) and Eastern Branch. Blue's papers are being digitized: kdl.kyvl.org/digital/coll...
June 20, 2024 at 1:39 PM
In Louisville, there were Thomas Blue and Rachel Harris, who ran the first two Carnegie libraries to serve Black communities, Western Branch (which still exists) and Eastern Branch. Blue's papers are being digitized: kdl.kyvl.org/digital/coll...
King Charles' reign is really an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery.
May 14, 2024 at 7:28 PM
King Charles' reign is really an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery.