New Books in African American Studies
Episodes
Cathy L. Schneider, “Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
08 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Cathy L. Schneider is the author of Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). She is a...
Brian Purnell, “Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings” (UP of Kentucky, 2014)
25 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Scholars interested in the history of the civil rights movement in the North will definitely be interested in Brian Purnell‘s new book, Fighting Jim...
Candis Watts Smith, “Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity” (NYU Press, 2014)
18 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Candis Watts Smith is the author of Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity (NYU Press, 2014). Watts Smith is assistant professor of ...
Edward E. Andrews, “Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World” (Harvard UP, 2013)
07 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Often when we think of missions to Native Americans or people of African descent, we think of white missionaries. In his book Native Apostles: Black a...
Eric Allen Hall, “Arthur Ashe: Tennis and Justice in the Civil Rights Era” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014)
04 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When he died from AIDS in 1993, Arthur Ashe was universally hailed as a man of principle, grace, and wisdom–a world-class athlete who had transcende...
John Morrow and Jeffrey Sammons, “Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War” (University Press of Kansas, 2014)
04 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
John Morrow and Jeffrey Sammons share their insights on the story of the fabled 369th Infantry Regiment in their book, Harlem’s Rattlers and the Gre...
Catherine W. Bishir, ‘Crafting Lives: African American Artisans in New Bern, North Carolina, 1770-1900’ (UNC Press, 2013)
28 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Seeking to fill the gap in scholarship focused on African American artisans in the American South, Catherine W. Bishir uses the very specific location...
Melvin Ely, “Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War” (Vintage Books, 2004)
21 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War (Vintage Books, 2004), Melvin Ely uses a trov...
Janet Sims-Wood, “Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howard University” (The History Press, 2014)
15 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
There was once a notion that black people had no meaningful history. It’s a notion Dorothy Porter Wesley spent her entire career debunking. Through ...
Adam Ewing, “The Age Of Garvey: How A Jamaican Activist Created A Mass Movement And Changed Global Black Politics” (Princeton UP, 2014)
09 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Ewing acknowledges the enduring, if reductive, image of Garveyism – “the parades and shipping lines and colonization schemes” – in its ea...
Lauren Araiza, ‘To March for Others: The United Farm Workers and the Black Freedom Movement’ (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
24 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Co-founded in 1962 by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, the National Farm Workers Association would eventually become the United Farm Workers (U...
Karl Spracklen, “Whiteness and Leisure” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
12 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Our taken for granted assumptions are questioned in a new book by Karl Spracklen, a professor of leisure studies at Leeds Metropolitan University in E...
Edward E. Baptist, “The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism” (Basic Books, 2014)
08 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
An unflinching examination of the trauma, violence, opportunism, and vision that combined to create the empire for slavery that was the Old South, Ed ...
Gabriel Solis, “Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall” (Oxford UP, 2013)
07 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
On November 29, 1957, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holliday, Zoot Sims, Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, and a multi-talented young R&B player who played jazz th...
Bruce Ackerman, “We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution” (Harvard UP, 2013)
02 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Bruce Ackerman is the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. His book, We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revol...
Toby Green, “The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589” (Cambridge UP, 2011)
30 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Slavery was pervasive in the Ancient World: you can find it in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In Late Antiquity , however, slavery went into de...
Lorena Turner, “The Michael Jacksons” (Little Moth Press, 2014)
23 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
During his lifetime, Michael Jackson became a global icon. Michael Jackson was beloved by millions; his journey began as he became a boy star with The...
Abigail Perkiss, “Making Good Neighbors: Civil Rights, Liberalism and Integration in Postwar Philadelphia” (Cornell UP, 2014)
16 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sitting in my home office this morning, I’ve periodically looked up from my computer screen and out the window to see who the dog is barking at. Som...
Robert E. Gutsche Jr., “A Transplanted Chicago: Race, Place and the Press in Iowa City” (McFarland, 2014)
01 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The city of Iowa City’s website promotes its “small-town hospitality” and its focus on “culture.” But a closer look at Iowa City, home to 70...
Ian Haney Lopez, “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class” (Oxford UP, 2014)
30 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Haney Lopez is the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (Oxford UP 2014). ...
Luke E. Harlow, “Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
26 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Luke E. Harlow, Religion, Race and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) examines the role of religion, and...
David Williams, “I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
05 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Lincoln was very clear–at least in public–that the Civil War was not fought over slavery: it was, he said, for the preservation of the Union first...
Christine Knauer, “Let Us Fight as Free Men: Black Soldiers and Civil Rights” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
20 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Recent controversies over integrating the military have focused on issues of gender and sexuality. In the 1940s and 50s, however, the issue was racial...
Vershawn Young et al., “Other People’s English” (Teacher’s College Press, 2013)
15 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In linguistics, we all happily and glibly affirm that there is no “better” or “worse” among languages (or dialects, or varieties), although we...
Marc Myers “Why Jazz Happened” (University of California Press, 2014)
06 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
How did jazz take shape? Why does jazz have so many styles? Why do jazz songs get longer as the twentieth century proceeds? Marc Myers, in his fascina...
Arica L. Coleman, “That the Blood Stay Pure” (Indiana UP, 2014)
18 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Arica Coleman did not start out to write a legal history of “the one-drop rule,” but as she began exploring the relationship between African Amer...
N. Jeremi Duru, “Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL” (Oxford University Press, 2011)
06 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Each year, following the end of the NFL season, there is a blizzard of activity as teams with disappointing records fire their head coaches and look f...
Kevin Quashie, “The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture” (Rutgers UP, 2012)
17 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Musician James Brown is famous for his civil rights slogan, “Say it loud; I’m Black and I’m proud,” illustrating the argument that Kevin Quash...
Aram Goudsouzian, “Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear” (FSG, 2014)
12 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When I was a kid in the 1970s, I really didn’t know anything about the “Civil Rights Movement.” I knew who Martin Luther King was, and that he h...
Adam Henig, “Alex Haley’s Roots: An Author’s Odyssey” (2014)
05 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Haley’s 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family still stands as a memorable epic journey into the history of African Americans during t...
Ravi K. Perry, “Black Mayors, White Majorities: The Balancing Act of Racial Politics” (University of Nebraska Press, 2014)
03 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Do black mayors face a different governing challenge than other mayors? Ravi K. Perry explores this question in his Black Mayors, White Majorities: Th...
Cindy Hooper, “Conflict: African American Women and the New Dilemma of Race and Gender Politics” (Praeger Press, 2012)
29 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Cindy Hooper is a veteran of various local, state, and national political campaigns. She is the founder of a national organization for African Americ...
Amy L. Wood, “Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940” (UNC Press, 2011)
25 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Host Jonathan Judaken talks with author and professor Amy Wood about her book, Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-194...
Keith Waters, “The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-1968” (Oxford UP, 2011)
18 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
“…when people were hearing us, they were hearing the avant-garde on the one hand, and they were hearing the history of jazz that led up to it on t...
Christina Greer, “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream” (Oxford UP, 2013)
13 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Christina Greer is the author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press, 2013). Greer is ass...
Nathaniel Millett, “The Maroons of Prospect Bluff and their Quest for Freedom in the Atlantic World” (UP of Florida, 2013)
20 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This is a very timely book, coming as it does in the midst of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 — the war that gave birth to the maroon commu...
Julia H. Lee, “Interracial Encounters: Reciprocal Representations in African and Asian American Literatures, 1896-1937” (NYU Press, 2011)
18 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Julia H. Lee is the author of Interracial Encounters: Reciprocal Representations in African and Asian American Literatures, 1896-1937 (New York Univer...
Susan D. Carle, “Defining the Struggle: National Organizing for Racial Justice, 1880-1915” (Oxford UP, 2013)
02 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Historians tell stories, and stories have beginnings and ends. Most human eras, however, are not so neat. Their beginnings and ends tend to blend into...
Matthew L. Basso, “Meet Joe Copper: Maculinity and Race on Montana’s World War II Home Front” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
09 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, World War II is now called “The Good War,” as opposed to bad ones, I suppose, like Vietnam. Moreover, the Americans who foug...
Simon P. Newman, “A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
10 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Ask most educated people about the development of American slavery, and you’re likely to hear something about Virginia or, just maybe, South Carolin...
Robert Cassanello, “To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville” (University Press of Florida, 2013)
30 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the rise of Jim Crow in Jacksonville, Florida is in many ways illustrative of the challenges facing newly emancipated African Americans t...
W. Caleb McDaniel, “The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Transatlantic Reform” (LSU Press, 2013)
20 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
How could members of a movement committed to cosmopolitanism accommodate nationalism? How could men and women committed to non-resistance reconcile th...
John K. Thornton, “A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820” (Cambridge UP, 2012).
12 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks in no small part to John K. Thornton, professor of history at Boston University, the field of Atlantic history has emerged as one of the most e...
Brian Harker, “Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings” (Oxford UP, 2011)
02 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“The public don’t understand jazz music as we musicians do. A diminished seventh don’t mean a thing to them, but they go for high notes. After a...
Sikivu Hutchinson, “Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels” (Infidel Books, 2013)
12 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Why does it seem like everyone in the atheist movement is white and male? Are African-American women less interested in secularism? In her book, Godle...
Matthew W. Hughey, “White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race” (Stanford UP, 2012)
09 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Whiteness studies has confirmed that race is a social construction, even for whites, and that the identity we understand as white is also a social inv...
Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, “The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America” (UNC Press, 2012)
25 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Jesus has inspired millions of people to both strive for social justice and commit horrific acts of violence. In the United States, Jesus has remained...
Carmen Kynard, “Vernacular Insurrections: Race, Black Protest, and the New Century in Composition-Literacies Studies” (SUNY Press, 2013)
18 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You know you are not going to get the same old story about progressive literacies and education from Carmen Kynard, who ends the introduction to her b...
H. Paul Thompson Jr., “A Most Stirring and Significant Episode: Religion and the Rise and Fall of Prohibition in Black Atlanta, 1865-1887” (NIU Press, 2012)
08 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The American Temperance Movement remains an interesting and important topic. Considering the various attitudes that influenced laws about alcohol sale...
Keith Clark, “The Radical Fiction of Ann Petry” (Louisiana State UP, 2013)
23 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What do you do if you accompany a friend on her research trip to Boston University’s Gotlieb Archival Research Center and end up finding a treasure ...
Marc Mauer, “Race to Incarcerate” (New Press, 2013)
18 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The American penitentiary model began as not merely a physical construct, but as a philosophical and religious one. Prisoners were to use their time i...
Monica R. Miller, “Religion and Hip Hop” (Routledge, 2012)
03 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between music and religion is a site of increasing interest to scholars within Religious Studies. Monica Miller, Assistant Professor ...
Alexis Wilson, “Not So Black and White” (Tree Spirit Publishing, 2012)
03 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When I think of the name “Billy Wilson” certain things come to mind immediately. I think of his sparkling career as director and choreographer of ...
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, “Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston” (UNC Press, 2011)
31 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Mye...
Marcus Rediker “The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom” (Viking, 2012)
24 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
If the moniker of the slave ship Amistad brings to mind images of Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, and Morgan Freeman you are likely not alone. The mo...
Henry Wiencek, “Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves” (FSG, 2012)
15 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The Louisiana Purchase was a perfect illustration of the challenges, yet seemingly boundless opportunities that slavery presented statesmen like Thoma...
Andre Williams, “Dividing Lines: Social Class Anxiety and Postbellum Black Fiction” (University of Michigan, 2013)
08 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Andrei Williams‘ provocative new book on African American class divisions in Post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow America is sure to spark spirited deba...
Steven Roby and Brad Schreiber, “Becoming Jimi Hendrix” (Da Capo, 2010)
03 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
After his incendiary performance at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, Jimi Hendrix almost immediately went from obscure musician to pop su...
Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen, “Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop” (W.W. Norton, 2012)
25 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The moral arguments in defense of slavery hinged on the claim that it was the best arrangement for all parties involved, especially the slaves. Thomas...
Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party” (University of California Press, 2013)
17 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
German military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz observed that many of the important variables in war exist in ‘clouds of great uncertainty’ which cre...
Vladimir Alexandrov, “The Black Russian” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013)
03 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Vladimir Alexandrov‘s new book The Black Russian (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013) tells the epic and often tragic story of Fredrick Bruce Thomas, an A...
Peter Benjaminson, “Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar” (Chicago Review Press, 2012)
09 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Who is Motown’s first real star? The answer, of course, is Mary Wells, singer of such classics as “My Guy,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “The One Who R...
Reiland Rabaka, “Hip Hop’s Amnesia: From Blues and the Black Women’s Club Movement to Rap and the Hip Hop Movement” (Lexington Books, 2012)
19 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In Hip Hop’s Amnesia: From Blues and the Black Women’s Club Movement to Rap and the Hip Hop Movement (Lexington Books, 2012), the second installme...
Michael P. Jeffries, “Paint the White House Black: Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America” (Stanford UP, 2013)
16 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last year, this podcast has featured several authors who’ve examined the presidency of Barack Obama. John Sides, Daniel Kriess, and Enid Lo...
Andra Gillespie, “The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America” (NYU Press, 2012)
08 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Andra Gillespie is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America (NYU Press, 2012). She is an Associate Profess...
Stephen G. Hall, “A Faithful Account of the Race: African American Historical Writing in Nineteenth-Century America” (UNC Press, 2009)
08 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Stephen Hall passionately engages in the history of nineteenth-century African American intellectual life in his first monograph, A Faithful...
Richard W. Leeman and Bernard Duffy, “The Will of a People: A Critical Anthology of Great African American Speeches (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012)
30 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The Will of a People: A Critical Anthology of Great African American Speeches (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) is a compendium of 22 oration...
Stephen Caliendo and Charlton McIlwain, “Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in US Political Campaigns” (Temple University Press 2011)
22 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Caliendo and Charlton McIlwain are the authors of Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in US Political Campaigns (Temple University Press 2...
Carla L. Peterson, “Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City (Yale UP, 2011)
18 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Digging up our roots seems to be the thing these days. There are a host of genealogy resources available for anyone who cares to (re)discover their...
Preston Lauterbach, “The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll” (W. W. Norton, 2011)
15 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Where does rock ‘n’ roll begin? In The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll (W. W. Norton, 2011), Preston Lauterbach makes a stro...
Marcia Alesan Dawkins, “Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity” (Baylor UP, 2012)
11 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Performance queen RuPaul once famously quipped that “we’re born naked; the rest is drag”–meaning everyone dons identity, performs one’s conc...
Yael Tamar Lewin, “Night’s Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins” (Wesleyan UP, 2011)
11 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean for a contemporary scholar to be trusted with the unfinished autobiography of a dance legend? How does one ensure that the integrity...
Meredith Roman, “Opposing Jim Crow: African Americans and the Soviet Indictment of US Racism, 1928-1937” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012)
21 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1958, US Senator Hubert H. Humphery recalled that at some point during an eight hour meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Premier “...
Sikivu Hutchinson, “Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars” (Infidel Books, 2011)
13 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Sikivu Hutchinson‘s book Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (Infidel Books, 2011) is a brave examination of African ...
Catherine Higgs, “Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa” (Ohio University Press, 2012)
14 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
With elegant and accessible prose, Catherine Higgs takes us on a journey in Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa (Ohio University Pr...
Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields, “Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life” (Verso Books, 2012)
11 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Racism is a process by which people are segregated and discriminated against based on their race, and race is defined as a set of physical characteris...
Peggy Schwartz and Murray Schwartz, “The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus” (Yale UP, 2012)
02 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
For some time now I’ve been in spaces with dancers and dance scholars who lament the amount of available research on some of the black luminaries in...
Michele Elam, “The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics and Aesthetics in the New Millennium” (Stanford UP, 2011)
31 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“What are you?” The question can often comes out of nowhere One can be going about her quotidian activities, or she might have just finished a mee...
Donald Spivey, “‘If You Were Only White’: The Life of Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige” (University of Missouri Press, 2012)
25 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Of all American sports, baseball has contributed the greater number of folk heroes to the larger culture. Fictional characters of awe-inspiring abilit...
David Kirby, “Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Continuum, 2009)
02 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop, a-lop-bam-boom!”And so rock and roll was born. And so American culture changed forever. So says David Kirby in Little Richar...
Peter Hoffer, “Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739” (Oxford, 2010)
26 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 (Oxford, 2010), Peter C. Hoffer offers a succinct and refreshing new look at the Stono s...
Theresa Runstedtler, “Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line” (University of California Press, 2012)
24 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the history of American sports, few athletes were as famous and hated in their day as Jack Johnson. The first African American boxing champion, Joh...
Reiland Rabaka, “Hip Hop’s Inheritance: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Hip Hop Feminist Movement” (Lexington Books, 2011)
11 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Cultural movements don’t exist in vacuums. Consciously or not, all movements borrow from, and sometimes reject, those that came before. In Hip Hop’...
Brenda Dixon Gottschild, “Joan Myers Brown and the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011)
29 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
For the launch of the Dance Channel, I thought long and hard about what the first author interview would be. I felt that it was critically important t...
Minkah Makalani, “In the Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism from Harlem to London, 1917-1939” (UNC Press, 2011)
15 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Minkah Makalani is the author of a new intellectual history on the efforts of early twentieth century black radicals to organize an international move...
Charlotte Pierce-Baker, “This Fragile Life: A Mother’s Story of a Bipolar Son” (Lawrence Hill Books, 2012)
30 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
When a mother listens to the beats of her own heart, where angst, fear and fortitude compete, and then beautifully weaves emotion into a story about h...
Erica R. Edwards, “Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership” (University of Minnesota Press, 2012)
29 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Picture the familiar scene: the visiting pastor thanks the local pastor for granting him the use of his pulpit; he sends out the call (“Can I just s...
Koritha Mitchell, “Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930” (University of Illinois Press, 2012)
29 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Koritha Mitchell‘s Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930 (University of Illinois Press, 201...
Kelly Baker, “Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930” (University Press of Kansas, 2011)
24 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
If images of white robes, pointed hoods, and a burning cross represent racism and violence for you then you are not alone. But do they also evoke idea...
David J. Leonard, “After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness” (SUNY Press, 2012)
15 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The NBA Finals are under way, with the Oklahoma City Thunder facing the Miami Heat. Network executives and the sports punditocracy are elated with the...
Enid Logan, “At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama’s Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race” (NYU Press, 2011)
08 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Enid Logan‘s At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama: Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race (NYU Press, 2011) examines the campaign and ...
Erin D. Chapman, “Prove It On Me: New Negroes, Sex, and Popular Culture in the 1920s” (Oxford University Press, 2012)
29 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Whoever states the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words” grossly underestimates. So Erin D. Chapman shows in Prove It On Me: New Negroe...
Kevin Whitehead, “Why Jazz? A Concise Guide” (Oxford UP, 2011)
21 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Whitehead‘s highly readable, informative and entertaining Why Jazz? A Concise Guide (Oxford University Press, 2011) is bookshelf “must have”...
Kathryn Lofton, “Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon” (University of California Press, 2011)
17 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In December of 2011, Oprah Winfrey appeared on The Dr. Oz Show to talk about her new big plans and her inspirations for the future. Oprah replied, “...
Vershawn Young, “From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances” (Wayne State UP, 2011)
07 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be black? In From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances (Wayne State University Press, 2011) editor Vershawn Ashan...
Manning Marable, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” (Penguin, 2011)
01 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly 50 years after his death, Malcolm X remains a controversial figure. An 8th grade dropout (he ditched school when a white teacher told him it wa...
Matthew Delmont, “The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia” (University of California Press, 2011)
20 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Delmont‘s The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia (Universit...
Elizabeth West, “African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature, and Being” (Lexington Books, 2011)
09 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth West has written an insightful study about the presence of African spirituality in the autobiographies, poetry, speeches and novels of Afric...
Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, “Dorothy West’s Paradise: A Biography of Class and Color” (Rutgers UP, 2012)
09 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
One lesson that the ever-present trickster figure in African American folklore teaches is how to use signifying to protect one’s intimate self. A ch...
Mia Bay, “To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells” (Hill and Wang, 2009)
24 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
I can’t remember when I first saw one of those horrible photographs of a lynching, with crowds of white people, kids included, laughing and pointing...