New Books in African American Studies
Episodes
Ashley D. Farmer, “Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era” (UNC Press, 2017)
21 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Black Power was one of the most iconic movements of the twentieth century. Recent documentary treatments like The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 in 201...
Patrick Breen, “The Land Shall be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt” (Oxford UP, 2015)
14 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
How did African-American slaves react to slavery? What factors, particularly religion, might shape those reactions, even making them violent? Patrick ...
Sowande Mustakeem, “Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage” (U. Illinois Press, 2016)
14 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Most scholars and members of the public believe the process of enslavement was confined to the Western Hemispheric plantation or other locations of en...
Nikki M. Taylor, “Driven Toward Madness: The Fugitive Slave Margaret Garner and Tragedy on the Ohio” (Ohio U. Press, 2016)
05 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You may know Toni Morrison’s famed novel Beloved, but do you know much about the true story of the woman depicted in that story? You will know about...
Stephane Robolin, “Grounds of Engagement: Apartheid-Era African American and South African Writing” (U. Illinois Press, 2015)
30 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Writers have long created networks and connections by exchanging letters or writing back to one another in their poetry and fiction. Letters between E...
Michelle Kuo, “Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, A Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship” (Random House, 2017)
26 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It takes courage to walk into a classroom when students don’t look like you. It takes courage to return every day to teach a class when students dev...
Melissa Milewski, “Litigating Across the Color Line: Civil Cases between Black and White Southerners from the End of Slavery to the Civil Rights Era” (Oxford UP, 2017)
24 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on materials from archives in eight southern US states, Melissa Milewski’s Litigating Across the Color Line: Civil Cases Between Black and W...
David Goldstein, “Alley-Oop To Aliyah: African American Hoopsters in The Holy Land” (Skyhorse Publishing, 2017)
11 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by David A. Goldstein, author of the book Alley-Oop To Aliyah: African American Hoopsters in The Holy Land (Skyhorse Publishing, 2...
Martha J. Cutter, “The Illustrated Slave: Empathy, Graphic Narratives, and the Visual Culture of the Transatlantic Abolition Movement, 1800-1853” (U. Georgia Press, 2017)
19 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Slavery as a system of torture and bondage has fascinated the optical imagination of the transatlantic world for centuries. Scholars have examined var...
James Forman Jr., “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2017)
17 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I talk with James Forman Jr. about his book Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017...
Lisa M. Corrigan, “Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation” (U. Press of Mississippi, 2016)
16 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In the black liberation movement, imprisonment emerged as a key rhetorical, theoretical, and media resource. Imprisoned activists developed tactics an...
Steve Sheinkin, “The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights” (Roaring Brook, 2014)
06 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks...
Vincent J. Intondi, “African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement” (Stanford UP, 2015)
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For the first time, African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement (Stanford University Press, 2015)...
Anne C. Bailey, “The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
20 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Contemporary conversations and debates over Confederate monuments underline how memory-making and the legacies of U.S. slavery and the Civil War remai...
Sarah Haley, “No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity” (UNC Press, 2016)
15 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Recent popular and scholarly interest has highlighted the complex and brutal system of mass incarceration in the United States. Much of this interest ...
Ben H. Winters, “Underground Airlines” (Mulholland Books, 2016)
13 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Underground Airlines (Mulholland Books, 2016) is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like...
Keri Leigh Merritt, “Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
11 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017) reveals what h...
Beverly Jenkins, “Chasing Down a Dream: A Blessings Novel” (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2017)
07 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Blessings Series continue with a heartwarming novel, Chasing Down a Dream (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2017), about what makes a family when trials...
Joanna Dee Das, “Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora” (Oxford UP, 2017)
07 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
By drawing on a vast, never-utilized trove of archival materials along with oral histories, choreographic analysis, and embodied research, Katherine D...
Johari Jabir, “Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in the Civil War’s ‘Gospel Army'” (Ohio State UP, 2017)
29 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is the labor for Black soldiers of the regiment? That is the question Johari Jabir asks in his book Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in t...
Juilet Hooker, “Theorizing Race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos” (Oxford UP, 2017)
28 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 1845 two thinkers from the American hemisphere – the Argentinean statesman Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, and the fugitive ex-slave, abolitionist le...
T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, “Bricktop’s Paris: African American Women in Paris between the Two World Wars (SUNY Press, 2015)
26 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When Dorothy Sterling wrote her book about nineteenth-century black women in America, she stated in the introduction that the book was not a definitiv...
Mitch Kachun, “First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory” (Oxford UP, 2017)
23 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory (Oxford University Press, 2017) explores how Crispus Attucks’ death in the 1770 Boston M...
Marcia Walker-McWilliams, “Reverend Addie: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality (U. Illinois Press, 2016)
22 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Addie Wyatt stands at the intersection of unionism, feminism, and civil rights activism in post-World War II America. In Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith a...
Tanya Ann Kennedy, “Historicizing Post-Discourses: Postfeminism and Postracialism in United States Culture” (SUNY Press, 2017)
06 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Tanya Ann Kennedy‘s book, Historicizing Post-Discourses: Postfeminism and Postracialism in United States Culture (SUNY Press, 2017), is a complex an...
Rosalind Rosenberg, “Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray” (Oxford UP, 2017)
06 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Rosalind Rosenberg‘s book Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray (Oxford University Press, 2017) is a multi-layered and rich biography of Pauli Murray,...
Tommy J. Curry, “The Man-Not: Race, Class, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood” (Temple UP, 2017)
25 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood (Temple University Press, 2017) is a book-length justification for the burgeoning f...
Ira Dworkin, “Congo Love Song: African American Culture and the Crisis of the Colonial State” (UNC Press, 2017)
20 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his 1903 hit “Congo Love Song,” James Weldon Johnson recounts a sweet if seemingly generic romance between two young Africans. While the song’...
Patricia Spears Jones, “A Lucent Fire: New and Collected Poems” (White Pines Press, 2015)
19 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jackson Poetry Prize Winner Speaks Patricia Spears Jones has been writing poetry since she was twenty and then she was “good.” Today, the prolifi...
Leigh Fought, “Women in the World of Frederick Douglass” (Oxford UP, 2017)
16 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Leigh Fought is an assistant professor of history at Le Moyne College. Her book Women in the World of Frederick Douglass (Oxford University Press, 201...
Max Krochmal, “Blue Texas: The Making of a Multiracial Democratic Coalition in the Civil Rights Era” (UNC, 2016)
13 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Blue Texas: The Making of a Multiracial Democratic Coalition in the Civil Rights Era (University of North Carolina Press, 2016) is about the “other”...
Marlene Banks, “Ruth’s Redemption” (Lift Every Voice, 2012)
27 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It’s A Love Story. Set in the 1800s, Ruth’s Redemption (Lift Every Voice, 2012), is an unusual depiction of the lives of slaves and free blacks i...
Brittney C. Cooper, “Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women” (U. Illinois Press, 2017)
26 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Brittney C. Cooper, who is an assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University, explores the intellectual genealogy and g...
Jeanine Michna-Bales, “Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad” (Princeton Architectural Press, 2017)
23 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When the Sun comes back And the first quail calls Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd. For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom If you fol...
Michelle D. Commander, “Afro-Atlantic Flight: Speculative Returns and the Black Fantastic” (Duke UP, 2017)
20 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Afro-Atlantic Flight: Speculative Returns and the Black Fantastic (Duke University Press, 2017), Michelle D. Commander examines the (im)possibility...
Kathy Wilson Florence, “Jaybird’s Song” (Kathy Wilson Florence, 2017)
20 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Josie Flint, known as Jaybird, narrates her story of life in Atlanta during the turbulent South as Jim Crow laws come to an end. Her school desegregat...
Michael W. Twitty, “The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South” (Amistad, 2017)
19 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The “ownership” of Southern food is a divisive cultural issue, reflective of the ongoing struggle for racial justice in America. Michael Twitty sh...
Tom Adam Davies, “Mainstreaming Black Power” (U. Cal Press, 2017)
14 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is Black Power? Does it still exist in the so-called post-racial 21st Century? How does Black Power relate to similar movements, like Black Lives...
Shelvy Haywood Keglar, “Underdog to Top Dog: An Improbable Rise” (IBJ, 2017)
14 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Most psychology books are written by experts with knowledge deriving from professional experience–for which we are grateful. Occasionally, a psychol...
John P. Langellier, “Fighting for Uncle Sam: Buffalo Soldiers in the Frontier Army” (Schiffer, 2016)
08 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
From the American Revolution to the present day, African Americans have stepped forward in their nation’s defense. Fighting for Uncle Sam: Buffalo S...
Bruce D. Haynes and Syma Solovitch, “Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family” (Columbia UP, 2017)
02 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Public scholarship takes many forms, from op-eds to activism to blog posts. In their new book, Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Fa...
Paul Youngquist, “A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism” (U. Texas Press, 2016)
27 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The legendary band leader Sun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on Earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form ...
Christopher Mele, “Race and the Politics of Deception: The Making of an American City” (NYU Press, 2017)
27 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Urban sociologists typically use a few grand narratives to explain the path of the American city through the twentieth century and into the twenty-fir...
Britt Rusert, “Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture” (NYU Press, 2017)
26 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Traversing the archives of early African American literature, performance, and visual culture, Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early Afric...
Ashon T. Crawley, “Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility” (Fordham UP, 2016)
19 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility (Fordham University Press, 2016) is innovative and lyrical, challenging and beautiful. Ashon Cr...
Melissa L. Cooper, “Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination” (UNC Press, 2017)
19 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) is a wide-ranging history ...
Stanley Corkin, “Connecting the Wire: Race, Space, and Postindustrial Baltimore” (U. Texas Press, 2017)
16 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Critically acclaimed as one of the best television shows ever produced, the HBO series The Wire (2002-2008) is a landmark event in television history,...
Sarah Bracey White, “Primary Lessons: A Memoir” (CavanKerry Press, 2013)
29 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned...
Stafanie Deluca, et.al. “Coming of Age in the Other America” (Russell Sage Foundation, 2016)
26 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Do you think that what poor people most need to escape poverty is grit? Join us as we speak with Stefanie Deluca, co-author, along with Susan Clampet-...
Samuele F.S. Pardini, “In the Name of the Mother: Italian Americans, African Americans, and Modernity from Booker T. Washington to Bruce Springsteen” (Dartmouth, 2017)
26 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In the Name of the Mother: Italian Americans, African Americans, and Modernity from Booker T. Washington to Bruce Springsteen (Dartmouth, 2017) emphas...
James A. Cosby, “Devil’s Music, Holy Rollers and Hillbillies: How America Gave Birth to Rock and Roll” (McFarland, 2016)
18 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Do you love Rock and Roll or is Rock and Roll music dead? Are you old enough to have put any money in a jukebox to hear your favorite song, watched Am...
Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, “Remixing Reggaeton: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico” (Duke UP, 2015)
12 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Puerto Rico is often depicted as a “racial democracy” in which a history of race mixture has produced a racially harmonious society. In Remixing R...
Marlene Banks, “Son of A Preacher Man” and “Greenwood and Archer” (Lift Every Voice, 2012)
05 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The tragic Tulsa Race Riots plus a smidgeon of romance equals to a compelling historical saga. Marlene Banks weaves fact and fiction together illustra...
Daina Ramey Berry, “The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation” (Beacon Press, 2017)
05 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A profoundly humane look at an inhumane institution, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Buildin...
Race and Democratic Virtue with Paul C. Taylor
05 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As US politics becomes increasingly driven by divisions, we need some way of sustaining a shared civic life. Paul Taylor makes the case for democratic...
Ruth Beckford and Careth Reid, “The Picture Man: From the Collection of Bay Area Photographer E. F. Joseph” (Arcadia, 2017)
30 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
From 1927 until his death in 1979, E.F. Joseph documented the daily lives of African Americans in the Bay Area. His images were printed in the Pittsbu...
Mia Mask, “Divas on the Screen: Black Women in American Film” (U. of Illinois Press, 2009)
29 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Five charismatic women navigate uneven terrain of racial gender and class stereotypes: Dorothy Dandridge, Pam Grier, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey a...
Steve Aldous, “The World of Shaft: A Complete Guide to the Novels, Comic Strip, Films and Television Series” (McFarland, 2015)
29 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Who’s the black private dick That’s a sex machine to all the chicks? (Shaft) Ya damn right Who is the man that would risk his neck For his bro...
Quincy T. Mills, “Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America” (UPenn Press, 2013)
25 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Business. Community. Politics. That’s the making of a barbershop. In Cutting Along the Color Lines: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America (Unive...
James McGrath Morris, “Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press” (Amistad, Reprint Edition, 2017)
22 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his acclaimed biography Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press (Amistad, Reprint Edition, 2017), James McGrath Morris ...
Patrick Phillips, “Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America” (W.W. Norton, 2016)
13 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of New Books in African American Studies covers Patrick Phillips’ powerful new book Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (W...
Tyina Steptoe, “Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City” (U. California Press, 2015)
09 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What do you know about Houston, Texas? That Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States? That Houston was the home of the 2016 NCAA Final ...
Andre Carrington, “Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction” (U. Minnesota Press, 2016)
03 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever watched a futuristic movie and wondered if there will actually be any black people in the future? Have you ever been surprised, disappoi...
Jeroen Dewulf, “The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves” (U. Press of Mississippi, 2016)
27 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) presents the ...
Amy Brown, “A Good Investment? Philanthropy and the Marketing of Race in an Urban Public School (U. Minnesota Press, 2015)
23 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There has been much talk in the news recently about funding for public education, the emergence of charter schools, and the potential of school vouche...
Kerry Pimblott, “Faith in Black Power: Religion, Race, and Resistance in Cairo, Illinois” (U. Press of Kentucky, 2016)
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When you think of black power, do you think about churches and religious institutions, or do you relate them more to the civil rights movement of the ...
Deborah Hopkinson “Steamboat School” (Jump At the Sun, 2016)
15 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Steamboat School (Jump at the Sun, 2016), an historical picture book based on true events, author Deborah Hopkinson recounts the story of Reverend ...
Carol Hardy-Fanta and Dianne Pinderhughes, “Contested Transformation: Race, Gender, and Political Leadership in 21st Century America” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
06 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the podcast, I speak with Carol Hardy-Fanta and Dianne Pinderhughes, the co-authors (along with Pei-te Lien and Christine Marie Sierra) o...
Eve Rosenhaft and Robbie Aitken, “Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884-1960” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
04 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
“There were black Germans?” My students are always surprised to learn that there were and are a community of African immigrants and Afro-Germans ...
Robyn C. Spencer, “The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender and the Black Panther Party in Oakland” (Duke UP, 2016)
01 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As the first substantive account of the birthplace of the Black Panther Party (BPP), Robyn C. Spencer’s The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender...
Holly Charles, “Velvet” (AuthorHouse, 2013)
25 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever wondered about your family history, and how family traditions or secrets through the years may affect you, your behavior, and major aspe...
Tom Rice, “White Robes, Silver Screens: Movies and the Making of the Ku Klux Klan” (Indiana U. Press, 2016)
23 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There has been much discussion recently in the United States about the contentious recent presidential election. Along with the election results, ther...
Toni Pressley-Sanon, “Zombifying a Nation: Race, Gender and the Haitian Loas on Screen” (McFarland, 2016)
18 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Zombifying a Nation: Race, Gender and the Haitian Loas on Screen (McFarland, 2016) dwells on the intersections of memory, history, and cultural produc...
Patrick Phillips, “Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America” (W.W. Norton, 2016)
16 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, far...
Ben Westhhoff, “Original Gangtas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap” (Hachette, 2016)
09 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The real story behind the origin of gangsta rap is difficult to discern. Between the bombastic rhetoric and imagery, the larger-than-life characters, ...
Manisha Sinha, “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition” (Yale UP, 2016).
06 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Manisha Sinha is the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut. She was born in India and received her Ph.D from Columbia Univ...
Sylvester Johnson, “African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
29 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When and where do African American religions begin? Sylvester Johnson, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Religious Studies at Northw...
Timothy S. Huebner, “Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism” (U. Press of Kansas, 2016)
19 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Timothy S. Huebner, the Irma O. Sternberg Professor of History at Rhodes College in Memphis, has written Liberty & Union: The Civil War Era and Americ...
Bill V. Mullen, “W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line,” (Pluto Press, 2016)
17 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Born just five years after the abolition of slavery, W. E. B. Du Bois died the night before Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speec...
Jane Eppinga, “Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate” (Wild Horse Press, 2015)
09 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The remarkable story of Henry Ossian Flipper, a young man born into slavery on the eve of the Civil War, and his struggle for recognition left its mar...
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, “Enduring Truths: Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance” (U. of Chicago Press, 2015)
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Runaway slave Sojourner Truth gained fame in the nineteenth century as an abolitionist, feminist, and orator and earned a living partly by selling pho...
Corey D. Fields, “Black Elephants in the Room: The Unexpected Politics of African American Republicans” (U. of California Press, 2016)
21 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The 2016 election cycle will be remembered as one for the history books. Many people are left asking questions as to what happened to lead to such an ...
Paul C. Taylor, “Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics” (Wiley Blackwell, 2016)
15 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Why is it controversial to cast light-skinned actress Zoe Saldana as the lead character in a film about the performer Nina Simone? How should we under...
Ashaki Jackson, “Surveillance” (Writ Large Press, 2016)
09 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Now in its fifth printing of a very short life, Ashaki Jackson’s Surveillance examines the relationship between acts of violence, the witnessing of ...
Susan Greenbaum, “Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images about Poverty” (Rutgers UP, 2015)
06 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick Moynihan’s Report on the Negro Family was a seminal document in Great Society-era racial politics and public policy. Join us as we talk with...
LaShawn Harris, “Sex Workers, Psychics and Number Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy” (U. of Illinois Press, 2016)
03 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
LaShawn Harris is an assistant professor of history at Michigan State University. Sex Workers, Psychics and Number Runners: Black Women in New York Ci...
Ethan Michaeli, “The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016)
27 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), Ethan Michaeli charts the riveting ...
Natalie Byfield, “Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story” (Temple UP, 2014)
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story (Temple University Press, 2014) offers a timely reminder of how racial bias and prej...
Damien M. Sojoyner, “First Strike: Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2016)
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Damien M. Sojoyner, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, joins the New Books Network to discuss his recent...
Thomas Aiello, “The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: W.E.B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, and the Debate that Shaped the Course of Civil Rights” (ABC-CLIO, 2016)
14 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Aiello is associate professor of history and African American studies at Valdosta State University. In The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: ...
Jack Hamilton, “Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination” (Harvard UP, 2016)
11 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2016), Jack Hamilton examines major American and British ...
Elizabeth Reich, “Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema” (Rutgers UP, 2016)
10 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, an...
Eric Gardner, “Black Print Unbound: The Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture” (Oxford UP, 2015)
07 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Gardner’s new study Black Print Unbound: the Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture (Oxford University Press, ...
Marisa J. Fuentes, “Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive” (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2016)
19 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Marisa J. Fuentes’, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) is an important new book t...
Ibram X. Kendi, “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” (Nation Books, 2016)
08 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ibram X. Kendi is an assistant professor of African American history at the University of Florida. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History ...
Loki Mulholland, et.al. “She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland” (Shadow Mountain, 2016)
08 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
“Anyone can make a difference. Find a problem, get some friends together, and go fix it. Remember you don’t have to change the world, just change ...
Carol McCabe Booker, ed. “Alone Atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan” (U. of Georgia Press, 2015)
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Carol McCabe Booker is a Washington, D.C. attorney and former journalist. In the 1960s and 70s, she covered civil rights for the Voice of America, fre...
Benjamin Fagan, “The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation” (U. of Georgia Press, 2016)
30 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, antebellum African Americans elites turned to the newspaper as a means of translating their belief in blac...
Russell Rickford, “We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power and the Radical Imagination” (Oxford UP, 2016)
31 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Russell Rickford is an assistant professor of history at Cornell University. We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power and the Radi...
Jon Hale, “The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement” (Columbia UP, 2016)
28 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Jon Hale, Assistant Professor of Educational History, Department of Teacher Education, College of Charleston, joins the New Books Network to discu...