纽约黑人聚居区一托福阅读机经背景.docxVIP

智课网TOEFL备考资料 纽约黑人聚居区一托福阅读机经背景   While many Americans are familiar with black slavery in the South during the 19th Century and its role in igniting the nation’s great Civil War, less attention has been paid to the black experience in northern cities such as New York, where so-called freedmen lived.  很多美国人都熟知19世纪美国南方的黑奴制，以及奴隶制在引发美国内战方面所起的作用。相对而言，注意黑人在北方城市如纽约市的生活情况的人就比较少一些。很多逃跑的黑奴以及所谓的“自由人”住在纽约市。  Now, a new book, Black Gotham, by University of Maryland Professor Carla Peterson, shines a light on their remarkable stories.  有一本题为《纽约黑人聚居区》的新书介绍了黑人在那里的精彩历史。  Much of the history of black 19th-Century New York has been lost, in part because it was eclipsed in the popular imagination by the saga of southern slavery. Additionally, mostly-white academic historians minimized the contributions of African-Americans. And no comprehensive archive of black life existed until the 20th Century, when the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was established.  19世纪黑人在纽约的历史大部分都散失了。好几种原因造成了这种情况。南方的奴隶制引人注目，纽约的黑人被忽略了。另外，专业研究历史的人大都是白人，对非洲裔美国人的贡献轻描淡写。黑人历史的全面完整的档案直到20世纪才出现。  Petersons ancestors were distinguished members of the city’s black elite and she felt theirs was a powerful story that needed to be told. She spent 11 years researching and writing her book.  马里兰大学教授卡拉·彼德森是《纽约黑人聚居区》一书的作者。她的祖先就是纽约市黑人上层社会的成员。她认为纽约黑人的历史十分精彩，应当让人们了解。她为写这本书花了11年的时间搜集材料。  Writing this book was very important to me, says Peterson. It was a journey of hard work, but also of love and passion.  她说：“写这本书对我十分重要。写这本书是艰苦劳动的旅程，但也是爱和激情的旅程。”  Led by free blacks such as clergyman Alexander Crummell, newspaper editor Charles Ray and businessman George Downing, members of New York’s black elite tried to establish themselves as full Americans, not merely as Africans or coloreds as black slaves had once been called and called themselves.  在自由的黑人如牧师亚历山大·克伦梅尔、报纸编辑查尔斯·雷和商界人士乔治·唐宁的领导下，纽约黑人精英阶层试图为自己赢得全面的美国人身份，而不仅仅是“非洲人”或者是“有