When Draper Chair of American History Manisha Sinha was a child, growing up in India between Patna, one of the oldest inhabited places in the world, and Delhi, one of today\u2019s most populous cities, dinnertime was a lot like it is for most families. Or so she insists.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery family has its disagreements, and we were no different,\u201d she says. \u201cWe would argue about history over the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinha\u2019s father, Lt.-Gen. Srinivas Kumar Sinha of the Indian Army, and her mother, a Gandhian nationalist, often recalled stories from India\u2019s declaration of independence in 1947. She and her two sisters, one of whom also is an endowed professor of history and the other a high school history teacher, and her brother, India\u2019s current ambassador to the United Kingdom, were thoughtful children. Drilled into them at an early age was a passion for debate, grounded in the idea that no successful future is possible without understanding the past.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s no surprise, then, that this past summer, when Kanye West called the 400-year legacy of slavery in the U.S. \u201ca choice,\u201d Sinha wasn\u2019t having it.<\/p>\n
Drawing on her decorated 2016 book,\u00a0The Slave\u2019s Cause: A History of Abolition<\/em>, she told\u00a0Time<\/i>\u00a0magazine that West would do well to read the history, including the slave spirituals, that his own music stems from. \u201cHe ought to know that even when blacks were enslaved, their minds were not enslaved,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen they did not have the right to vote, they voted with their feet.\u201d<\/p>\n