New Books in African American Studies
Episodes
B. R. Roberts and K. Foulcher, "Indonesian Notebook: A Sourcebook on Richard Wright and the Bandung Conference" (Duke UP, 2016)
12 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is a Special Series on Third World Nationalism. In the wake of a rise in nationalism around the world, and its general condemnation by liberals ...
David A. Varel, "The Scholar and the Struggle: Lawrence Reddick's Crusade for Black History and Black Power" (UNC Press, 2020)
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most notable African American intellectuals of his generation, Lawrence Reddick helped to spearhead the early Black history movement, serve...
Jodi Rios, "Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis" (Cornell UP, 2020)
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis (Cornell University Press, 2020), Dr. Jodi Rios ...
Norah L. A. Gharala, "Taxing Blackness: Free Afromexican Tribute in Bourbon New Spain" (U of Alabama Press, 2019)
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During the eighteenth century, hundreds of thousands of free descendants of Africans in Mexico faced a highly specific obligation to the Spanish crown...
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, "Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History" (Beacon Press, 1995)
31 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Placing the West's failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution--the most successful slave revolt in history--alongside denials of the Holocaust and ...
Marjoleine Kars, "Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast" (New Press, 2020)
29 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (New Press, 2020), historian Marjoleine Kars tells the story of a massi...
Simon J. Gilhooley, "The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution: Slavery and the Spirit of the American Founding" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution: Slavery and the Spirit of the American Founding (Cambridge University Press, 2020) argues that con...
Jean Casimir. "The Haitians: A Decolonial History" (UNC Press, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In The Haitians: A Decolonial History (UNC Press, 2020), leading Haitian intellectual Jean Casimir argues that the story of Haiti should not begin w...
Isar P. Godreau, "Scripts of Blackness: Race, Cultural Nationalism, and U.S. Colonialism in Puerto Rico" (U Illinois Press, 2015)
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is part of our Special Series on Third World Nationalism. In the wake of a rise in nationalism around the world, and its general condemnation b...
Kim T. Gallon, "Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press" (U Illinois Press, 2020)
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press (University of Illinois Press, 2020), Dr. Kim Gallon examine...
Ashon T. Crawley, "The Lonely Letters" (Duke UP, 2020)
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In The Lonely Letters (Duke UP, 2020), A tells Moth: “Writing about and thinking with joy is what sustains me, daily. It nourishes me. I do not w...
J. A. Ball and T. Burroughs, "A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X" (Black Classic Press, 2015)
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is part of our Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. In this series, we delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and though...
Michael E. Sawyer, "Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X" (Pluto Press, 2020)
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part of a Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. In this series, we delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and ...
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, "Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge" (Simon and Schuster, 2017)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge ...
Martha S. Jones, "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All" (Basic Books, 2020)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power-and how it transformed America In the standard story, the suffrage crusade beg...
Brandon Mills, "The World Colonization Made: The Racial Geography of Early American Empire" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Brandon Mills is the author of The World Colonization Made: The Racial Geography of Early American Empire, published by the University of Pennsylvani...
Tony Bolden, "Groove Theory: The Blues Foundation of Funk" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Groove Theory: The Blues Foundation of Funk (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) by Tony Bolden, an Associate Professor of African and African Ame...
Justin Gifford, "Revolution Or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver" (Lawrence Hill, 2020)
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Revolution Or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver (Lawrence Hill Books, 2020) is a remarkable biography that examines the notorious Black revolution...
Erica Fretwell, "Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race, and the Aesthetics of Feeling" (Duke UP, 2020)
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We so often take our senses as natural, but perhaps we should understand them as historically situated. Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race and ...
Caroline H. Yang, "The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form" (Stanford UP, 2020)
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form (Stanford University Press, 2020) explores how antiblack racism lived on...
Quito J. Swan, "Pauulu's Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice" (UP of Florida, 2020)
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice (University Press of Florida, 2020) by Quito Swan is an enchanting, magisteria...
D. T. Lawrence and E. J. Lawless, "When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri" (UP of Mississippi, 2018)
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The town of Pinhook in Missouri was founded in the 1940s by southern Black farmers who were looking for land that they could purchase and own in the f...
Anjali Vats, "The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans" (Stanford UP, 2020)
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans (Stanford University Press, 2020) by Anjali Vats is an intricat...
College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom: A Conversation with Eddie R. Cole
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some of America's most pressing civil rights issues--desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free s...
Jill Watts, "The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt" (Grove Press, 2020)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When did Black Americans move from stalwart party of Lincoln Republicans to dedicated New Deal Democrats? How did a group of self-organized Black econ...
Clayborne Carson, "Malcolm X: The FBI File" (Skyhorse, 2012)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is a Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. We delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and thought in the context of Black Na...
Nicholas Guyatt, "Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation" (Basic Books, 2016)
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why did the Founding Fathers fail to include blacks and Indians in their cherished proposition that “all men are created equal”? Racism is the usu...
Andre E. Johnson, "No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner' (UP Mississippi, 2020)
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
No Future in this Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner by Andre E. Johnson, an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media St...
Saladin Ambar, "Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era" (Oxford UP, 2014)
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1964, Malcolm X was invited to debate at the Oxford Union Society at Oxford University. The topic of debate that evening was the infamous phrase fr...
Eithne Quinn, "A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood" (Columbia UP, 2019)
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What is the history of equal rights in Hollywood? In A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia UP, 2019), Ei...
Lucas A. Dietrich, "Writing Across the Color Line: U.S. Print Culture and the Rise of Ethnic Literature, 1877-1920" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Writing Across the Color Line: U.S. Print Culture and the Rise of Ethnic Literature, 1877-1920 (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), Lucas ...
Jeremy M. Glick, "The Black Radical Tragic: Performance, Aesthetics, and the Unfinished Haitian Revolution" (NYU Press, 2016)
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What if the Haitian Revolution, perhaps the only “successful” Black revolution in history, weren’t over? On this episode of the New Books Networ...
Julia S. Charles, "That Middle World: Race, Performance, and the Politics of Passing" (UNC Press, 2020)
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this chronologically and thematically ambitious study of racial passing literature, Julia Charles highlights how mixed-race subjects invent cultura...
Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy, "Between Fitness and Death: Disability and Slavery in the Caribbean" (U Illinois Press, 2020)
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Long before the English became involved in the African slave trade, they imagined Africans as monstrous and deformed beings. The English drew on pre-e...
John Garrison Marks, "Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery: Race, Status, and Identity in the Urban Americas" (U of South Carolina Press, 2020)
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Prior to the abolition of slavery, thousands of African-descended people in the Americas lived in freedom. Their efforts to navigate daily life and ne...
Koritha Mitchell, "From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture" (U Illinois Press, 2020)
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Koritha Mitchell, Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University, has written a complex, interdisciplinary, and important analysis focusi...
Tera W. Hunter, "Bound In Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century" (Harvard UP, 2017)
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Americans have long viewed marriage between a white man and a white woman as a sacred union. But marriages between African Americans have seldom been ...
Brandi T. Summers, "Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City" (UNC Press, 2019)
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While Washington, D.C., is still often referred to as “Chocolate City,” it has undergone significant demographic, political, and economic change i...
Connor Towne O’Neill, "Down Along with That Devil’s Bones" (Algonquin Books, 2020)
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Down Along with That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy (Algonquin Books, 2020), journalist Con...
Zakkiyah Iman Jackson, "Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World" (NYU Press, 2020)
03 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a world where black(ened) flesh, particularly feminine flesh, is considered the ontological zero of humanness, what interventions and complications...
Kathryn A. Mariner, "Contingent Kinship: The Flows and Futures of Adoption in the United States" (U California Press, 2019)
03 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Contingent Kinship: The Flows and Futures of Adoption in the United States (University of California Press, 2019) offers an ethnography of adoption pr...
Eddie Cole, "The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom" (Princeton UP, 2020)
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some of America’s most pressing civil rights issues—desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and fre...
Emily J. Lordi, "The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 1960s" (Duke UP, 2020)
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Soul is one of those concepts that is often evoked, but rarely satisfactorily defined. In The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 19...
Warren Hoffman, "The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical", 2nd edition (Rutgers UP, 2020)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Warren Hoffman’s The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical, 2nd edition (Rutgers UP, 2020) explores the ways that race and racism have shap...
Karlos K. Hill, "The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History" (Oxford UP, 2020)
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The image of Emmett Till’s open coffin, revealing the 14-year old’s horrifically disfigured face, is one of the most heart-wrenching images of the...
Felicia Angeja Viator, "To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America" (Harvard UP, 2020)
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1985, Greg Mack, a DJ working for Los Angeles radio station KDAY, played a song that sounded like nothing else on West Coast airwaves: Toddy Tee’...
Lisa B. Thompson, "Underground, Monroe, and the Mamalogues: Three Plays" (Northwestern UP, 2020)
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lisa B. Thompson is equally renowned as a scholar of African and African-American studies and as a playwright. Her latest book Underground, Monroe, an...
Simone C. Drake, "Are You Entertained?: Black Popular Culture in the Twenty-First Century" (Duke UP, 2020)
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Simone C. Drake and Dwan K. Henderson's Are You Entertained?: Black Popular Culture in the Twenty-First Century (Duke UP, 2020) is an engaging and in...
Dan Royles, "To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle Against HIV/AIDS" (UNC Press, 2020)
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the decades since it was identified in 1981, HIV/AIDS has devastated African American communities. Members of those communities mobilized to fight ...
Nadia Nurhussein, "Black Land: Imperial Ethiopianism and African America" (Princeton UP, 2019)
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Land: Imperial Ethiopianism and African America (Princeton University Press, 2019), Nadia Nurhussein explores late nineteenth and twentieth c...
Chinua Thelwell, "Exporting Jim Crow: Blackface Minstrelsy in South Africa and Beyond" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)
20 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Exporting Jim Crow: Blackface Minstrelsy in South Africa and Beyond (U Massachusetts Press, 2020) by Dr. Chinua Thelwell is a rich, well-researched, a...
Tamura Lomax, “Jezebel Unhinged: Loosing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture” (Duke UP, 2018)
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One of the central threads in the public discourse on Black womanhood is the idea of the “Jezebel.” This trope deems Black women and girls as dish...
Alexandra J. Finley, "An Intimate Economy: Enslaved Women, Work, and America’s Domestic Slave Trade" (UNC Press, 2020)
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Alexandra J. Finley is the author of An Intimate Economy: Enslaved Women, Work, and America’s Domestic Slave Trade, published by the University of N...
Why are Blacks Democrats?: An Interview with Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird
15 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Black Americans are by far the most unified racial group in American electoral politics, with 80 to 90 percent identifying as Democrats—a surprising...
Hannah L. Walker, "Mobilized by Injustice: Criminal Justice Contact, Political Participation, and Race" (Oxford UP, 2020)
08 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Walker’s new book, Mobilized by Injustice: Criminal Justice Contact, Political Participation, and Race (Oxford UP, 2020), brings together the...
Jerry Gershenhorn, "Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle" (UNC Press, 2018)
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) by Jerry Gershenhorn is a hi...
Armstrong Williams, "What Black and White America Must Do Now: A Prescription to Move Beyond Race" (Hot Books, 2020)
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What Black and White America Must Do Now: A Prescription to Move Beyond Race (Hot Books, 2020) explores the complexity of race and culture in the Unit...
Laura J. Arata, "Race and the Wild West" (U Oklahoma Press, 2020)
01 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After Laura Arata first visited Virginia City, Montana in graduate school, she became fascinated by the story of one historical figure—Sarah Bickfor...
Ariella Rotramel, "Pushing Back: Women of Color-Led Grassroots Activism in New York City" (U Georgia Press, 2020)
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pushing Back: Women of Color–Led Grassroots Activism in New York City (U Georgia Press, 2020) explores women of color’s grassroots leadership in o...
Laura Briggs, "Taking Children: A History of American Terror" (U California Press 2020)
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Laura Briggs’s Taking Children: A History of American Terror (University of California Press 2020) is a forceful and captivating book that readers w...
William L. Patterson, "We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People" (International Publishers, 2017)
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People, the historic petition authored by William L. Patterson, was published i...
Jennifer Cobbina, "Hands Up, Don’t Shoot: Why the Protests in Ferguson and Baltimore Matter, and How They Changed America" (NYU Press, 2019)
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Following the high-profile deaths of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryla...
Teresa A. Goddu, "Selling Antislavery: Abolition and Mass Media in Antebellum America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Selling Antislavery: Abolition and Mass Media in Antebellum America (University of Pennsylvania Press) is a richly illustrated history of the American...
Postscript: A Discussion of Race, Anger and Citizenship in the USA
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How do we have a serious conversation about race that moves beyond the brevity of Twitter or an op-ed? In this episode of Post-Script (a New Books in ...
Edward C. Valandra, "Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing Our Realities" (Living Justice Press, 2020)
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing Our Realities (Living Justice Press, 2020) consists of stories that have arisen from the lived experiences of ...
Roundtable Discussion of Jennifer Morgan's "Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery" (UPenn Press, 2004)
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to New Books in African American Studies, a channel on the New Books Network. I am your host Adam McNeil. Today is part 2 of my discussion abo...
B. Heersink and J. A. Jenkins, "Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Prior to the 1960s, Democrats were seen as having a lock on the South in national and local electoral politics, while Republicans had strengths in oth...
Hettie V. Williams, "Bury My Heart in a Free Land: Black Women Intellectuals in Modern U.S. History" (Praeger, 2018)
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Black women intellectuals have traditionally been overlooked in the academic study of American intellectual history. Bury My Heart in a Free Land: Bla...
Muhammed Fraser-Rahim, "America’s Other Muslims" (Lexington Books, 2020)
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
America's Other Muslims: Imam W.D. Mohammed, Islamic Reform, and the Making of American Islam explores the oldest and perhaps the most important Musli...
Jennifer L. Morgan, "Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2004)
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2004, Dr. Jennifer L. Morgan’s Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (University of Pennsylvania Press) was published. Six...
Catherine Adel West, "Saving Ruby King: A Novel" (Park Row Books, 2020)
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two south side Chicago families are bound together by a violence-infused past. Ruby’s mother, Alice King, has been murdered. Her father, Lebanon Kin...
Stooges Brass Band, "Can’t Be Faded: Twenty Years in the New Orleans Brass Band Game" (U Mississippi Press, 2020)
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Can’t Be Faded: Twenty Years in the New Orleans Brass Band Game (University of Mississippi Press, 2020) is a collaboration between musician and ethn...
Postscript: Shirley Chisholm as Principled Political Strategist
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States of America. “I am not the candidate...
Simon Hall, "Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s" (Faber and Faber, 2020)
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s (Faber, 2020), Simon Hall, a Professor of Modern History at the Univer...
Charisse Burden-Stelly, "W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History" (ABC-CLIO, 2019)
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why is the scholarship and advocacy work of W.E.B. Du Bois so relevant for 21st century politics? Does his unique combination of both serve as a possi...
Jessica Marie Johnson, "Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The story of freedom and all of its ambiguities begins with intimate acts steeped in power. It is shaped by the peculiar oppressions faced by African ...
Dan Edelstein, "On the Spirit of Rights" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
By the end of the eighteenth century, politicians in America and France were invoking the natural rights of man to wrest sovereignty away from kings a...
A Discussion with J. T. Roane on Writing African American Lives
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to New Books in African American Studies, a channel on the New Books Network. I am your host, Adam McNeil. Today on the podcast I have the hon...
Lauren Michele Jackson, "White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation" (Beacon, 2019)
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation (Beacon, 2019), Lauren Michele Jackson analyzes Christi...
Benjamin Talton, "In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics" (Pennsylvania UP, 2019)
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press) by Benjamin Talton is a transnational history...
Khary O. Polk, "Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948" (UNC Press, 2020)
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Khary Oronde Polk is the author of Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948, published by the ...
Aaron Carico, "Black Market: The Slave's Value in National Culture after 1865" (UNC Press, 2020)
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On the eve of the Civil War, the estimated value of the U.S. enslaved population exceeded $3 billion--triple that of investments nationwide in factori...
Kimberly Brown Pellum, "Black Beauties: African American Pageant Queens in the Segregated South" (History Press, 2020)
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Florida A&M University professor and former Miss FAMU Kimberly Brown Pellum, Ph.D., recently released her book, Black Beauties: African American Pagea...
Rae Linda Brown, "Heart of a Woman: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price" (U Illinois Press, 2020)
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1933, the Chicago Symphony performed the Symphony in E Minor by Florence B. Price. It was the first time a major American orchestra played a compos...
Andrea Benjamin, "Racial Coalition Building in Local Elections: Elite Cues and Cross-Ethnic Voting" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What explains voting behavior in local elections? More specifically, what explains how ethnic and racial blocs vote in local elections, especially whe...
Kyle Barnett, "Record Cultures: The Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry" (U Michigan Press, 2020)
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Record Cultures: The Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry (University of Michigan Press, 2020), Kyle Barnett tells the story of the smalle...
Polly E. Bugros McLean, "Remembering Lucile: A Virginia Family's Rise from Slavery and a Legacy Forged a Mile High" (UP of Colorado, 2018)
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1918 Lucile Berkeley Buchanan Jones received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado, becoming its first female African American gr...
Nate Marshall, "Finna: Poems" (One World, 2020)
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Finna: Poems (One World), his new collection of poetry, Nate Marshall examines the way that pop culture influences Black vernacular, the role of st...
Monica Coleman, "Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman’s Journey with Depression and Faith" (Fortress Press, 2016)
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Monica A. Coleman's great-grandfather asked his two young sons to lift him up and pull out the chair when he hanged himself, and that noose stayed in ...
Nyasha Junior, “Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible” (Oxford UP, 2019)
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Popular culture helps shape how audiences imagine Biblical personalities in our contemporary moment. For many, Warner Sallman’s portrait of Jesus fi...
Charlton D. McIlwain, "Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from AfroNet to Black Lives Matter" (Oxford UP, 2020)
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from AfroNet to Black Lives Matter (Oxford Univeristy Press), Charlton McIlwain, Vice Provost for ...
Melissa J. Wilde, "Birth Control Battles: How Race and Class Divided American Religion" (U California Press, 2020)
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Although it has largely been erased from the collective memory of American Christianity, the debate over eugenics was a major factor in the history of...
David A. Harris, "A City Divided: Race, Fear and the Law in Police Confrontations" (Anthem Press, 2020)
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How do we move police forces from a warrior culture to connecting better with communities they serve? Today I talked to David A. Harris about his new ...
Philip Butler, "Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Technology and Spirituality" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his book Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Technology and Spirituality (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), Philip Butler explores what might happen if...
Sophie White, "Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana" (UNC Press, 2019)
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her prize-winning study Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Colonial Louisiana (Omohundro Institute of Early American Histor...
Kevin J. Bryne, "Minstrel Traditions: Mediated Blackface in the Jazz Age" (Routledge, 2020)
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Blackface minstrel show is typically thought of a form tied to the 19th century. While the style was indeed developed during the Antebellum period...
Jan Doering, "Us versus Them: Race, Crime, and Gentrification in Chicago Neighborhoods" (Oxford UP, 2020)
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With such high levels of residential segregation along racial lines in the United States, gentrifying neighborhoods present fascinating opportunities ...
M. C. Stevenson et al. (eds.), "The Legacy of Racism for Children: Psychology, Law and Public Policy" (Oxford UP, 2020)
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When children become entangled with the law, their lives can be disrupted irrevocably. When those children are underrepresented minorities, the potent...
Andrew Kettler, "The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Dr. Andrew Kettler charts the impac...
Justin Gomer, "White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights" (UNC Press, 2020)
24 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Justin Gomer is the author of White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights, published by the University of Nort...