In search of black history with Bonnie Greer

by Bonnie Greer

In Search Of Black History with Bonnie Greer brings you face-to-face with the people you never knew existed. People whose stories tell us a different tale about who we all are. From the earliest glimmerings of modern humanity, up to the present day, Bonnie Greer uncovers the lives of people of African descent that don’t fit with the accepted history of Western Civilisation we’ve traditionally been taught. From saints, to philosophers, to warrior women and king’s heralds - these people’s lives have been lost, hidden and distorted down the centuries. We’ve lost the full richness and complexity of our shared histories - it’s time to fill in the gaps.
In this eight part series, playwright and former Trustee of the British Museum, Bonnie Greer, travels with us through the ages, meeting the academics and experts who are uncovering these stories at the cutting edge of historical research, and she brings their subjects’ lives to life - with an imaginative re-telling of their stories.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Race, Historical, African American, Africa

Audible Audio

First published December 19, 2019

About the author

Bonnie Greer is an American-British playwright, novelist and critic. She is also the Chancellor of Kingston University, a university located in Kingston upon Thames, London.

Reviews

[Dr. Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need this to be adapted into a documentary and quadrupled in length. This audiobook explores history and the often erased or ignored role of Black people. It goes back into ancient times, Roman times, through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and includes figures from the 20th century. In only 8 episodes, In search of Black History with Bonnie Greer packs a punch in every way possible.

Friends, I laughed, I cheered and I teared up through these glorious episodes. I need more. Bonnie Greer's narrative was intelligent and captivating. I loved her discussions with various professionals throughout science as well as her own narration. I know I will be re-listening to this over and over again. Even though in total, this is only about 5 hours long, the amount of information we both learn and un-learn is astounding. I cannot recommend this enough.

[Auntie Terror · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intensely interesting and profoundly saddening podcast because it shows how little of non-white history is taught in school or in other ways in general. Thinking back to my school days, African history in the broadest sense popped up as Ancient Egypt, and then as a part of colonialism with mentions the slave trade and the colonial atrocities committed there (the latter of which especially was more due to my teacher than the curriculum as such). In the sense of Black history there was added a brief touch on the US civil war, and then Martin Luther King.
Which is sad because I'd have loved to learn about those African Empires other than Egypt, the Black Tudors, the black philosopher who took it up with Descartes, Pauli Murray, and all the other fascinating people this podcast presented.
Also, I'd like to second the bid I saw in someone else's review here: Can this please be made into a much-extended TV documentary, too? Or a really big book?

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing Sampling of Little Known Histories
Review of the Audible Original audiobook (December 2019)

NOTE: Most Audible sites list this audiobook as being 5 hours and 30 minutes, it is actually 6 hours and 18 minutes.

This was an interesting documentary audiobook which focused on one or two little known historical artifacts, events, kingdoms or persons in black history in each of the 8 episodes. The author is a novelist/playwright who was discovering many of these stories themselves. Occasionally other interviewers participate with historical experts. Many of the subjects were completely new to me and surprisingly there was even fairly recent 20th century persons who have had little recognition in the past.

I didn’t go back to re-listen, but I looked up links for many of the main topics after the fact (i.e. I may have missed a few). These were (in rough chronological order): Cheddar Man (ca. 7100 BC), Britian’s oldest complete human skeleton, whose nuclear DNA indicates that he had dark or black skin; Kingdom of Kush (ca. 1070 BC to 350 AD), Ethiopian kingdom that fought off the legions of Emperor Augustus; Bronze Head from Ife (probably 13th to 14th century AD), a Nigerian/Yoruba kingdom artifact whose craftmanship challenges preconceived notions of the sophistication of African art of the period; John Blanke (1501 - 1511), a trumpeter at the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII in Tudor England; Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703 - 1759), a philosopher during the era of the German Enlightenment; Graman Quassi (1692 - 1787) botanist from Suriname; the New York Slave Revolt of 1712; Sarah Baartmann (1789-1815), a South African woman who was demeaningly put on display in France, and whose remains were not repatriated from a French Museum until Nelson Mandela requested them; Pauli Murray (1910-1985) activist, jurist & priest, who worked for black and lgbtq rights well before many other better known proponents, for example was jailed for refusing to sit at the back of a bus 15 years before the famous incident with Rosa Parks. It is possible that her being transgender has led to her not being as well known as others.

In Search of Black History was originally released in December 2019 and was one of 11 free Audible Original audiobooks for members in June 2020. It was a late addition to the initial 10 selections announced on June 5, 2020. It is available to everyone for a standard price.

[CS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

The biggest miss I had with this is how especially in the beginning, our narrator and guide would often make assumptions and our experts (the ones she was interviewing) would have to go, “Mmmmmmm, not really”.

I love how these stories are beyond Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Should be required reading if you are a human.

[Silvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

[Gemma · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very short but interesting audio book.
It has made me want to learn more about black history and there were some very interesting facts presented. It felt more of a taster really .

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not bad. This eight-part documentary covers African history from prehistory through to the more recent times. Along the way, Bonnie Greer meets with many experts on the African presence throughout the ages and highlights how extensive that presence has been. Well worth listening too.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this 6 stars out of 5 I would! This is definitely the best audiobook I have listened to all year. The stories were amazing, learning about all the amazing women who feature in this story was an eyeopener. I feel like i questioned all I thought I knew about history and what the past looked like. Understanding how deeply complex this story is, the contradictions within it reminded me why I love learning history so much. In particular, questions of the right of museums to artifacts which are not by rights theirs really got me thinking. I highly recommend this!

[Katie Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent exploration of truth, power and the ownership of narrative. Complex, nuanced search for the questions to ask to uncover the absence of truth as much for truth itself. Do yourself a favour and listen to the masterclass on how to explore, focus, present and recover perspective on race, eugenics and in the end, Black History in all its complexity.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

In every chapter Bonnie Greer goes off the beaten path of black history. She uses a variety of angles that offer a wider view on matters than the usual history books show us. Greer takes you on a decentralizing journey, to meet people who have spent their lives on topics that are still untold to most of the world.
The powerful Queens of Kush who crushed Augustus Caesar's echo, the sad inhumane story of Sarah Baartman and the incredible Pauli Murray are now vivid in my mind, and I am grateful for discovering them.
A must read for all.

[D.K. Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of eight podcasts with multi-talented Bonnie Greer, who - among many, many accomplishments - was also the first Black American woman to become not just a trustee of the British Museum but also serve as Deputy Chair, is the first of a series of writings I'm working through looking at history through non-white eyes. I started with Simon Jenkins' 'A Short History of England' to ground myself in a sense of white English perspective first so that I could really feel the difference in approach. 'In Search of Black History' - which is about discovery as much as anything - seemed an excellent place to begin after that.

I wasn't wrong. Firstly, Greer is a delight to listen to. She's lovely, kind, gentle and fiercely intelligent. The love of learning and discovery oozes from her and she's clearly a remarkable woman. It would take someone remarkable to take on an institution like the British Museum and she does, finding many super experts from non-white backgrounds along the way working in archaeology, history, arts and other disciplines.

There are issues, I feel. Personally, I found what felt to be 'representative' traditional 'African' music, which recurred frequently in all the episodes, to be irritating and, ironically, perhaps a little stereotyped. There is, after all, no such thing as 'African music' as it is a continent of 50+ countries. Similarly, I felt Greer overplays the importance of some of the things she finds - black people in London during the Black Plague and so on - as though these are astonishing facts which have been eradicated from history. They may be a surprise to the general public, but not to anyone with any learning in history. Peter Frankopan's superlative 'Silk Roads' history of the world is a much more astonishingly informative book from this perspective. And finally, I really started to twitch when I realised that Greer was going to repeat the last few words of every single interview conducted in the podcasts as though the words were precious diamonds of 'wow' which contained the wisdom of the universe. It was okay for occasional use; but used continuously, the effect was tedious.

Having got all that lot off my chest, I'll move on because, frankly, these points don't really matter. I put them on record for those who might need the warning and find similar things (sound bite tunes, repetitive emphatic strategies etc.) irritating. The content of all eight of Greer's podcasts though is superb. She brings to life parts of history which, while not actually hidden, are certainly not emphasised enough in mainstream historical education. She doesn't shy away from difficult issues either. African queens who provided slaves for the European slave traders and, indeed, the whole aspect of internal slavery within Africa is dealt with unapologetically. We begin to understand why it happened and how it differed from transatlantic European/British slave-trading. Greer makes us look anew at people like American civil rights activist, Pauli Murray - someone I knew of and was quite sure Greer was wrong to say had been somewhat airbrushed out of the history books because 'she didn't fit' what black activists were supposed to be like. I went to the history books I use with my A level students to check and, sure enough, no mention of her. Greer was right. Of course she was.

I find that when you read (or listen to) the likes of informed, passionate writers like Greer, that you are bound to learn something if you're prepared to come with an open mind. Even though that message can sometimes be overstated, it is still important. Greer's work here is honest and challenging - not just to those of us who are white, but Greer challenges herself and other black colleagues working in predominantly white and old institutions like the British Museum. Dealing with thousands of artefacts which can be very legitimately be said to have been stolen from colonised lands and peoples, squaring this circle is not an easy task and Greer et al don't pretend it is. What is clear is that they have a mission to continue to force their way into such institutions to bring about change and be a part of making a fairer, more honest history for the future.

That mission can only be a good thing. When you have a one-sided view of history, you have no history at all: you have national mythology. And if such mythology is allowed to breathe for too long in a community, then they start to believe it instinctively and unquestionably. For the British, this is an all too present reality and we're living with those consequences right now.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent, eye-opening series from Bonnie Greer that was so fascinating to listen to. My knowledge of history is embarrassingly small (I didn't take it for GCSE) so there was a lot here that I didn't know. I knew that history is whitewashed however didn't realise the extent to which it is.

If anything, this series could have been longer - it's rich with information, and Greer's ability to tell a story turns it from simply an informative listen to a proper experience (which you would expect, from her). It's given me many aspects of history to research, and I now feel like I have a much better understanding of black history. I liked that she introduced various different experts - some who we revisited - and really tried to get a balanced view. The audiobook has left me with lots to think about and question!

[Nicole (bookwyrm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting podcast series presented as an episodic audiobook. There are some really fascinating people discussed that I never learned about in my history classes (from many different points in time) and I was glad to get an overview of them. However, my biggest disappointment was a lack of ability to look into things further. The episode descriptions are very simple, and I didn't find a good list of the topics covered or even the experts Greer spoke with during the interviews. This could be a really good jumping off point to look into different history than I was taught in school, but I'm going to have to re-listen to it and pause whenever I find something I want to look into more. (Unless, of course, Audible does something to address this at some point.)

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended for Audible subscribers. Really brings to light the gaps in what we consider truth in our history given that Black voices have not been included in the storytelling. Like other reviewers mentioned, this would make a great documentary.

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly you think black history and you think tribes etc and slavery. This shows such a bigger picture, that blacks were so much more than that, so much more history and culture!!

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audio book. Excellent and thought provoking look at Black history. I will definitely be listening to this again. The music, narration and scope of this audiobook had me digging and searching for even more information. This is a must listen book for anyone who wants to know more about Black history.

[Babur Khan (The Pukhtoon Bibliophile) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was a good crash course into a lot of things I didn't know about Africa and the people of Africa. The author and narrator can be a little irritating at times though but other than that a good one to listen to.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have Audible, I absolutely recommend this! It is a very interesting look at the history of black people. I love learning about things I didn't know about. Thank you, Bonnie Greer for this wonderful history lesson.

[Hilary Cockshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully told. An excellent history lesson for everyone.

[Marjolein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memorable, intense, educational, empowering and more. I would highly recommend this audiobook, it’s however for mature readers because it does not skate around the subject.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Search of Black History assumes a certain content but this didn't feel like "black" history, but history meant for all of us, about what it means to be human in a real, multicultural, shades of grey sort of world. I am grateful for that. I am white (Irish American) but I was raised to be colour blind. My father was a disability rights advocate and taught me early on about the importance of the civil rights movement to the fight to get a decent education for my sister. So for me, as someone interested in history, indeed has a Master's Degree in Iron Age and Roman archaeology, this is less "black" history and more a look at how black people are represented in history from the stone age until today.

She does it more as a series of vignettes, individuals whose existence impact on the progression of Western Civilization. These are very human individuals who are neither saints not sinners, unless you count Pauli Murray who is both, depending on who you ask! And that's the point. Everyone is human, a product of their time and place. This does not excuse terrible crimes, but it explains why some may have acted as they did. The ones who come out the best are those who refuse to be defined by their colour or gender, refused to be a victim. They took ownership of their own lives, like the Signare women of Senegal. They were mixed race and a part of the slave trade, often owning slaves themselves. However they used their power and influence to create a better life for themselves and their people. They definitely were not victims. And their part of the history of Western Civilization is just as important as the men who ran the slave trade from European capitals.

We are still facing the consequence of the evil of the slave trade today. It's existence is still being felt generations after the last American slaves have died. Slavery still exists in the world, although it is no longer confined to the colour of the skin or whether a nation allows slavery or not. It is often unseen, hidden away, but it is there. But this series ends by addressing the challenges of a post colonial world. How do we reconcile the consequences of empire with the way the world is structured today. It is a difficult topic, too often dressed in black and white terms. But Bonnie is sensitive in addressing this issue, especially as she is now part of the establishment that was once involved in the enslavement of her ancestors. In a time when so much of academia is becoming polarised in the extreme, we need people to stand up and remind us that the past is rarely straight forward and by studying it we can become better people in the present .

[Lindsay Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Podcast style Audible Freebie. I thought this was going to be something to listen to in bed each night, but it was so much more! Host/author Bonnie Greer is an ex-pat living in England. She used to be a trustee of the British Museum and this has given her a more British and European perspective than the usual African American history we get in the US.
The 8 episodes start with prehistory and continue chronologically to roughly the present, telling stories of artifacts and people to shed light on each period with the assistance of outside, mostly academic experts. Although I wasn't shocked by anything I heard, I did learn a lot. I hadn't heard of several of the people and hadn't kept up with the advances in archaeology. I wish there had been a PDF as it was sometimes hard to figure out how to spell some of the things I wanted to look up.
Episode 1: The origin of humans in Africa and their subsequent spreading around the world. DNA has changed what we know about ancient people and "race". It turns out that Cheddar Man, a 10,000 year old skeleton found in England, had dark skin and blue or green eyes.
Episode 2: Ancient people in England included people who came from Africa and the Mediterranean with the Romans and how that has been determined. Ancient Greeks and Romans encountered Africans, but didn't think of race in the modern way. In Kush (aka Nubia), they had a bronze head of Caesar Augustus buried in front of their temple, so they could step on his head as they entered.
Episode 3: Black depicted in European art - St Maurice and the Magi. Also, indications that black people in London in the 1300s were healthier that whites, who had grown up with the effects of the plague.
Episode 4: Henry VIII hired an African man as a diver to salvage guns off a sunken ship and also had a black trumpeter, John Blanke.
Episode 5: The age of enlightenment. Anton Wilhem Amo was brought to Germany as a slave, and ended up a scholar, philosopher, and professor before eventually returning to Ghana. Another former slave became a priest in the Netherlands.
Episode 6: Slavery in the US. Women lead slave insurrections shipboard. Slave uprising in Haiti.
Episode 7: The 19th century. British Empire and white supremacy. Rebellion in Jamaica, Darwin and eugenics. James McCune Smith, the first Africa American doctor, who went to medical school in Glasgow since he couldn't go in the US. Smith's descendants eventually passed for white and only discovered they were related to him when he came up in a college class. The Hottentot Venus.
Episode 8: The civil rights movement in the US. Pauli Murray - a truly remarkable woman I had never heard of. The future of artifacts in the British Museum, study of African artifacts by African scholars.

[Michael Rhames · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall: 3.6/5
We get a lot of new information which suggests that much of what we've learned about history, particularly black history is lacking data which paints a completely different scenario when one puts the pieces together. The amount of lies or at least half-truths we've been led to believe is astonishing. This is my first reading by this author and despite what my overall rating of this book may suggest, it will likely not be the last. Read on and you'll see why.

Cover: 2/5
It's okay. It does the job, but I wasn't particularly attracted to it beyond the promise of discovery the title itself suggests. Based on the cover alone, I probably wouldn't have picked it. But it being on the list of free Audible Originals available free to Audible subscribers for July 2020 certainly gave it a nudge my way, which I'm glad it did.

Writing/Delivery: 8/10
I very much liked the way all the information was presented, the linear timeline used to bring us from what it used to be and a glimpse of how much of what we were taught that was is now turning out to be inaccurate or incomplete at best. It's an ongoing research in the quest to uncover these half truths we know. I would have liked it more if some sort of documentation of these discoveries had been made available at some point in the book. If there was any, I missed it.

Narration/Performance: 8/10
I loved the rhythm which with this series was carried out. Most of the voices were pleasant to listen to, especially Bonnie Greer's. The music was carefully inserted as to not mess the clarity of what was being said and added a nice mystical effect to the experience. My only complaint is that it lacked volume. This made it hard to follow at times.

Quotes:
"My feeling is that if this country is to survive, we must live together, in harmony...but we cannot survive as a divided country."

"In each case, I personally failed. But I have lived to see the thesis upon which I was operating, vindicated. And what I say very often is that I've lived to see my lost causes found."

[Ashley (Red-Haired Ash Reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an eight part series that discusses Black history from 300,000 years ago to now. It presented information about people who have barely been heard of before and you will not find in your school textbooks. I was hooked from the first episode and didn’t want to stop listening and learning.

Bonnie Greer is a playwright and former Trustee of the British Museum. Throughout this series she travels to various museums and archives to look at historical materials and she talks to historians about historical Black people who are not known. As an archivist, I love that she traveled to view and discussed this history with the actual historians who are finding these people. I loved hearing their voices and views on the history they have uncovered.

My only issue with this series was that the audio would fluctuate throughout the episode, which was usually during an interview. This wasn’t a huge issue but did make it hard a few times to hear what someone was saying. I just went back and replayed those sections. Clearly this didn’t affect my rating of this series though.

Overall, this is a wonderful series! I really wish it was longer because it was so fascinating learning about these historical people who are just now being heard.

This review was originally posted at Red-Haired Ash Reads.

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the recent Black Lives Matter protests, I realised there was so much that I did not know about the racism in the world, and the history of Black people, much of which has been erased from the history books or boiled down to slavery. In Search of Black History is an audio show on Audible which looks through history, from the early days of humanity to modern day, shining a light on Black people who have nearly disappeared from white-washed history books. It was utterly fascinating to listen to. With interviews from experts, discussing archaeology, historical documents, various studies and investigations, I was engrossed in the lives of the people they discussed, and the expansive presence of Black people in a world that is so often depicted in media and textbooks as white. This was one of the best audio shows I have listened to and I highly recommend.

[Duane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Black History from a different perspective. Bonnie Greer is a Black playwright who left the US to become a British citizen who sits on the board of the British Museum, UK's premier Natural History Museum which has significant archaeological & historical holdings from throughout the empire. She uses many of these to illuminate Black History. Even though I majored in History with Black History Concentration (my university didn't offer a Black History degree at that time) and have been a lifelong Black History reader, she lays out things I didn't know. I didn't know that the oldest human remains in Britain is of a black-skinned blue-eyed man who died 300,000 years ago. I didn't know that the only power to stop the Roman Empire's drive for global domination cold were the Warrior Queens' of Kush. I didn't know that as the African slave trade became a windfall for the UK & Europe, there was a Black philosopher in Europe who challenged its legitimacy & the racism that came with it. I didn't know that before Charles Houston & Thurgood Marshall successfully used the courts to give opportunities to Blacks that they were following in a path set by lawyer, activist & clergywoman, Pauli Murray. She schooled me on a lot more that I didn't know in this 8 chapter audiobook. Anyone who wants to understand the missing gaps in history most of us have been taught should read this book.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many stories of individuals and peoples that I've never heard before. And, it's not just Black history I was unfamiliar with, but women's history. Stories of individual women and the roles women have played throughout history that are never told.

My only critique is I wanted more. I particularly wanted more of the pre-slave trade history. I wanted more of the history of Africa and the history of Africans in other parts of the world before the colonial slave trade. It was also missing history of Africa post-slave trade – it did cover some of what was going on in Africa during the slave trade, but how about after? But, these are 'good' critiques, in that I really enjoyed it and just plain wanted more of it.

[Maria Novella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to start my thoughts on this audiobook with one word: enriching.
Bonnie Greer guides us through the discovery of many aspects of Black History that were lost. Starting from the beginning, proving that the word 'race' doesn't really have any sense at all.
We learn the stories of women warriors, saints, philosophers. It's a voyage through the ages, all around the world, discovering the marvellous richness of Black History. There are so many things they don't teach us in school, history lost, kings, queens, women, and men forgotten.
The stories that I will especially carry with me are those of Sarah Baartman and the incredible Pauli Murray.
A must from Audible original.

[Erin H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. My biggest critique is that I wish the series had some sort of interactive resource page. There were so many visual aspects (coming out of the British Museum) and subjects/authors/texts that I wanted to detour through and not every detail was available to be able to search (at least with my abstract research skills). It brings up so many topics and historic humans who continually refute the insipid white supremacist narrative—people we often never hear of in our school history classes. Not to mention Bonnie Greer has a lovely lyrical narration that connects and digs into each topic.