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Tavis: Nell Irvin Painter is a professor emeritus of history at Princeton University, and the former director of the school's African American studies program. Her latest book is called "Creating Black Americans, African American History And Its Meanings, 1619 To The Present.' She joins us tonight from New York. Professor Painter, nice to have you on this program.

Nell Irvin Painter: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Tavis: I think the title of this book begs the question where Black history begins. You say from 1619 to the present. Where we begin Black history?

Painter: You can begin it where you want, actually. (laugh) And one of my questions at the very beginning is how we decide where we begin. So I began with the symbolic beginning of African American history, 1619. That was the first recorded large number of Africans landing in the area that became the United States. August, 1619. The people were from what is now Angola.

Tavis: So talk to me about the history of Black history, to your point, where you start this book.

Painter: I start by saying people have disagreed about what history means. For all people, and especially for African American people, because we have been under such siege in the United States, that history becomes a kind of a fulcrum for meaning, for identity. This is true for most people, but it's especially true for Black Americans.

Tavis: Our history is ever-changing and ever-evolving. How does that challenge one to track whatever Black history is?

Painter: Well, you have to decide what's important. And for me, I was trying to balance what we historians call agency, that is, the people you're talking about, in this case, Black Americans, as historical actors, not just people to whom things happened. Not just people who were given their freedom. But people who were actually out there doing something.

And also doing something to make that something remembered. So that's agency on the one side. But on the other side, I also wanted to get the terrible trauma that African American history includes, notably slavery and racial violence. So I had to walk a fine line between making people just victims, or making them the people to whom history happened.

And playing down the awful things that happened, because slavery and violence and segregation and discrimination, all those things really matter. And they still matter in African American history.

Tavis: You just ran a litany of words, three or four, that for many people, not just folk outside of Black America, but indeed, some folk inside of our community, those words are like four-letter words. Slavery, racial violence, segregation, discrimination. I wonder whether or not it is the case that on demand, Black history is depressing because it has to be told in the context, or against the backdrop, of those four-letter words?

Painter: Yes. This is why I think it was such a balancing act. I've called my book "Creating Black Americans" to stress the agency side. And you mentioned the images. The images are all Black fine art. They're the works of Black artists. That's the creation part. So it's not just the trauma, it's not just the hardship, but it's what people did to create themselves, to create an identity, and to create a history.

So it's creation, and I stressed creation because creation, not trauma, is in my title. And also within the book, I've put the chapter on freedom before the chapter on slavery. That's unusual, because I wanted to break up that assumption that Black equals slavery. Even from the very beginnings, and right down to the Civil War, there were large numbers of Black people, people of African decent, who were not slaves.

And those who were free were very invested in ending slavery. So I start in that chapter that's before the Civil War with freedom. With freedom being sort of normal, and then going to slavery.

Tavis: I want to talk in a moment about some of the artwork featured in this book. Before I get to that, though, I certainly appreciate your effort, your attempt to shall we say reformulate, to re-framework how we look at Black history by doing simple things, although poignant things, like moving freedom in advance of the slavery in the chapter.

I wonder though, whether or not it is always going to be the case that one, we have to fight to get Black history, the story of our people, told as the part of the telling of American history. One, is that always going to be a fight? And number two, as long as that fight is waged, do we have to accept the fact that for whatever reason or reasons, we will never tell Black history without the ugly part having to be told?

Painter: I think we always have to tell the ugly part. Because if you don't tell the ugly part, the ugly parts of our present don't make sense. So, when we look at the fact, for instance, that Black people have the smallest amount of household wealth in the country, that doesn't make any sense unless you understand about mortgage lending, the discrimination in housing patterns.

That sort of thing has to be there to explain what we're facing right now. Now, about the struggles with freedom, I'm sorry. (laugh) The struggles with history, over my own career, I have seen, I think, thanks to Black History Month, and thanks to African American history, and thanks to African American studies, really a striking increase in the way my non-Black colleagues think and write about the history of the United States.

So it's very different from the way it was when I was in graduate school in the 1970s and we were doing all that basic digging just to try to find out what happened.

Tavis: You mentioned artwork earlier, and this book is loaded with some beautiful artwork, and I'm glad you did that, again, because it really does speak to not just the tragedy that Black folk have had to deal with, but the triumph. Their creativity and their contribution.

Painter: The beauty.

Tavis: There you go, the beauty that Black folk have contributed. Let me throw up, one at a time on this screen here, three pieces of artwork from this book that I'll give you a chance to expound upon. The first I'm putting up on the screen that you cannot see, but you know the piece, 'We Came To America" by Faith Ringgold.

Painter: Yes, yes. I'm going to actually look at my book, so I have the image in front of me. This starts chapter two, which is called 'Captives Transported.' And it's a rather complex image. In my book, you have virtually a whole page. And so, you see in the foreground the promise of the Statue of Liberty, and in this case, the Statue of Liberty is an African American woman holding a child. And then she's holding up the torch of freedom.

But the torch of freedom is smoking, and the smoke goes back toward the top of the image, which you see is the deep space, and you see a slave ship on fire in the back. And then there are people who are in the ocean, and on the one hand, (cough) excuse me, they might be frolicking in cold water off New Jersey or off Brooklyn, but probably they are people who are fleeing a slave ship.

So it's a complex image. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to use art. Because art can get into these complexities without my having to put quite as many words in the book.

Tavis: The second piece I wanna put on the screen is a piece by Glenn Ligon. It's called 'Malcolm Martin.'

Painter: Yes. Glenn Ligon is a younger artist than Faith Ringgold. (cough) Excuse me. And this is typical of his work. He very often uses letters and words, and very often other people's words. They start at the top of the frame very clear, and then they run together. And in this case the, two words are Malcolm and Martin. During the 1960s, many people thought of Malcolm and Martin as opposing figures.

But as you move down, you see that they're running together. And so in this image, and also in other artwork, you see that the artist put together these two figures as two heroes, two martyrs, of the fight for civil rights.

Tavis: The last piece I wanna put is a piece called 'How You Like Me Now.'

Painter: Yes, this is very funny.

Tavis: No, it's not by Cool Moe Dee. 'How You Like Me Now,' by...

Painter: (cough) No, no, but inspired.

Tavis: (laugh) ...by David Hammonds.

Painter: Yes. David Hammonds is a senior artist who's done a lot of work, and actually, he's represented in three pieces in my book. And this is a controversial piece from 1988, when Jesse Jackson was running for President, with a good deal of success. So Hammonds asked, how you like me now, Jesse Jackson, as a blue-eyed, blond White man.

And actually, this piece was attacked. We don't know who attacked it, or exactly why, but people attacked it with sledgehammers, perhaps because it was profaning Jesse Jackson, perhaps because they thought it was profaning blue-eyed blond people. (laugh) I don't know. But this is an example of the playfulness that Black artists can bring to very serious topics.

Tavis: That last picture is a nice set-up for the exit question I wanna offer you for this conversation, which is what your next project is about. Am I hearing correctly that your next project is about the history of White people?

Painter: Yes, it's called 'The History of White People.'

Tavis: Is there a history of White people?

Painter: Yes, there is now. The big story in American race will always be Black-White. But the big story is not the only story. So there's also a story about changing ideas and definitions of White race, and so that's what I'm doing. The part I'm writing now, actually, this fits very nicely with 'How You Like Me Now,' with people who were called in the late nineteenth and early century, Dalico (sp?) blondes.

That is to say, people with long heads, who had light skin and light hair.

Tavis: I gotta make room for a conversation with another young lady who is doing her part to try to make sure that people understand our history, Karyn Parsons, formerly of the 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air.' Before I get to Karyn, though, right quick, how would you respond, quickly, to those watching this program in Black History Month 2006 who say that the last thing the world needs is another book about White history, and that's essentially what all the books we have now are telling as a story?

Painter: Well, the books that are telling it as a story aren't telling it as about White people. They're saying, oh, this is people, or this is normal, or this is Americans. I'm saying, well, let's see what people have had to say about this. So Ralph Waldo Emerson plays a big part in my book.

Tavis: I just wanted to see what the distinction was, and you clarified it for me.

Painter: Good.

Tavis: She is Nell Irvin Painter, former professor at Princeton, now retired from the chair of the Department of African Studies at Princeton. Her new book is called "Creating Black Americans, African American History And Its Meanings, 1619 To The Present.' Professor Painter, nice to have you on. We look toward the that book about the history of White people. Thank you.

Painter: Thank you. (laugh) Okay. Very good.

Tavis: Take care.

Painter: Bye bye.

Tavis: Up next on this program, former "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" star, Karyn Parsons. That's right. That was Hillary. She's here now. Stay with us.