Okay so I'm starting a half history/Half politics podcast.
I am also white as shit. But because of some events in my life, and general interest, I have a strong interest in telling the story of what has lead to the weird mashup of modern black politics.
Now I am not going to discuss policies or anything like that, I want to explain the groundwork on how we got here.
I tried writing an "up to speed episode" but there is A LOT to talk about, rangeing from the Haitian revolution, to the role of quakers in American abolitionist movement. There is a lot. And I feel like I am doing an extreme disservice to talk about 500 years of Western black relations 20 minutes.
I'm also a "wikipedia researcher" so I'm not going to go amazingly in-depth, but I want to go further in-depth than a highschool history class.
I was thinking starting with the colonization of africa, although I wanted to set the political scene of the empires in Africa prior to the point slaves were sent to the Americas.
I realized I know absolutely nothing about this time period, and that's why I'm doing it, so I can learn.
But if anyone has a good suggestion on where I should start, or someone very briefly explaining everything in 20 minutes so I know where to dig. It's all appreciated.
There is plenty of rabbit holes, I just want to know what is the best one to enter.
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your creative project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists and the like, based on past experience: some people working on creative projects have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.