Coda

James A. Emanuel’s poetry functions as a powerful expression of Black cultural mythology rooted in ancestor acknowledgment as framed by Christel Temple. In the poems, “Little Old Black Historian,” “Where Will Their Names Go Down?,” “For Young Blacks, the Lost Generation,” and “White-Belly Justice: A New York Souvenir,” Emanuel affirms the intellectual labor, civil rights activism, narratives of survival, and human prowess of African-American ancestors. His poetry acknowledges the silences forced by market-driven histories and exposes erasures. The archival dimensions of Emanuel’s poems underscore their function as lasting-literary memorials to the unnamed, the lynched, and the forgotten, for he is concerned with creating and responding to historical records. Emanuel’s poetry reminds us that ancestor’s experiences are opportunities to reclaim one’s heritage and learn from their experiences. Even when haunted by injustice, Emanuel insists on the ethical and cultural necessity of remembrance. In this way, his poetry becomes not just a record of the past but a call to carry forward the legacies of ancestral resistance and survival into the future.