FROM SCHOLAR TO ARTIST: A LIFE IN ESSAYS
In her ninth book, “I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays,” Nell Irvin Painter writes, “how we envision our past shapes how we see ourselves today.” Indeed, this compendium — spanning art, politics and the legacy of racism that has shaped and continues to shape American history — is a looking glass that reflects clearly, and at times with searing truthfulness, the complexities of American identity and culture.
Author of several books — including the bestseller “The History of White People,” “Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol” and the National Book Critics Circle Award-finalist “Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over” — Painter is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2007.
After earning a PhD in history from Harvard (and several honorary degrees from other prestigious universities), she also completed degrees in painting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers and the Rhode Island School of Design in an inspiring late-career pivot from historian to visual artist.
Structured into six sections, “I Just Keep Talking” begins with a compressed autobiography and an excellent introduction to the author and her creative life, starting with her loving family and the community that significantly shaped her career as a scholar.
Readers are then led through a map of her academic journey from Houston, where she was born, to study in Berkeley, and then Ghana. The work paid off: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. once described her as “one of the towering Black intellects of the last century.”
The second section consists of biographical profiles of such Black luminaries as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs.
Of particular note is the essay on 19th century Black leader and abolitionist writer Martin R. Delany. Founder of “The Mystery,” the first Black newspaper west of the Alleghenies, Delany lived in Pittsburgh for many years where he practiced medicine. He later co-edited “The North Star” with Frederick Douglass before applying to, and becoming one of the first Black medical students at, Harvard University.
However, due to student protests, Dean Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. eventually asked the Black students to withdraw. This blatant example of racism is omitted from the historical placard on Market Street and Third Avenue recognizing Delany’s achievements.
In the chapters on history and southern history, Painter opens with the question “Who Decides What Is History?” that examines history-making from publication to citation and the ultimate codification of historical subjects in elementary and secondary school curricula.
Though written in 1982, the essay feels eerily prescient and au courant given the explosive and embattled school board meetings over critical race theory, racism and slavery in American history classes.
Throughout the book, images of Painter’s own art and digital collages serve as an illuminating counterpoint to the essays; the text and images are in conversation across multiple points, providing a powerful punctuation to each topic.
One of the many stunning images that stands out is “George Floyd Uprising 2020: From Slavery to Freedom” (ink and collage on paper) depicting the multicultural multitudes that protested police brutality against Black people.
In light of such historically significant events as the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the Jan. 6 insurrection, the insights of Nell Irvin Painter help us to reckon with the willful omissions and denials of history, especially as we approach another contentious presidential election.
She cautions: “One can only hope that increasing numbers of Americans will conclude that standing at the top of a racial hierarchy is not worth the loss of American democracy.”
Veronica Corpuz is a poet and mixed media artist who explores themes of cultural identity, grief and loss. She is currently working on a collection of poems and essays about her Filipino-American childhood growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.