New Books in African American Studies

John Minton, "Folk Music and Song in the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives" (UP of Mississippi, 2025)

09 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the late 1930s, fieldworkers with the Works Progress Administration interviewed about 3,500 formerly enslaved people resulting in approximately 20,...

Zara Anishanslin, "The Painter's Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution" (Harvard UP, 2025)

07 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists...

Marion Orr, "House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr." (UNC Press, 2025)

06 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922-1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1...

Meredith L. Roman, "The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

05 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The contemporaneous movements for human rights that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers waged during the 1960s are analysed in a comparativ...

Ashleigh Wade on How Black Girls Use Social Media

29 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Ashleigh Greene Wade, Assistant Professor of Digital Studies with a joint appointment in Media Studies a...

Mary E. Hicks, "Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the bustling ports of Lisbon to the coastal inlets of the Bight of Benin to the vibrant waterways of Bahia, Black mariners were integral to every...

Constance Bailey, "Conversations with Kiese Laymon" (UP of Mississippi, 2025)

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a very special episode of the New Books Network, as the editor of Conversations with Kiese Laymon (UP of Mississippi, 2025), Dr. Constance B...

Deborah Willis, "The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship" (NYU Press, 2025)

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A stunning collection of stoic portraits and intimate ephemera from the lives of Black Civil War soldiers Though both the Union and Confederate armie...

Nicholas Bromell, "The Time is Always Now: Black Political Thought and the Transformation of U.S. Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2013)

23 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Nick Bromell is the author of By the Sweat of the Brow: Labor and Literature in Antebellum American Culture and Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psyc...

Kenja McCray, "Essential Soldiers: Women Activists and Black Power Movement Leadership" (NYU Press, 2025)

22 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Academics and popular commentors have expressed common sentiments about the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s—that it was male dominated a...

Calvin Schermerhorn, "The Plunder of Black America: How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Made" (Yale UP, 2025)

21 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. J Calvin Schermerhorn is a professor of history in the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Hi...

Jonathan White and Lucas Morel, "Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln" (Reedy Press, 2025)

20 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln (Reedy Press, 2025), acclaimed scholars Lucas E. Morel and Jonathan W. W...

Marcus Rediker, "Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea" (Penguin Group, 2025)

20 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Conspiracy, mutiny and liberation on America’s waterfront by the award-winning author of The Slave Ship. Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History o...

Jessica B. Harris, "Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine" (Clarkson Potter, 2025)

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Discover the sweeping story of how Indigenous, European, and African traditions intertwined to form an entirely new cuisine, with over 90 recipes for ...

Keisha N. Blain, "Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights" (W.W. Norton, 2025)

14 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Even before they were recognized as citizens of the United States, Black women understood that the fights for civil and human rights were inseparable....

Maria R. Montalvo, "Enslaved Archives: Slavery, Law, and the Production of the Past" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Explores the relationship between the production of enslaved property and the production of the past in the antebellum United States. It is extraordi...

Susana M. Morris, "Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler" (Amistad Press, 2025)

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A magnificent cultural biography, Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler (Amistad, 2025) charts the life of one of our greatest...

Patrice D. Douglass, "Engendering Blackness: Slavery and the Ontology of Sexual Violence" (Stanford UP, 2025)

29 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Engendering Blackness: Slavery and the Ontology of Sexual Violence (Stanford UP, 2025) Patrice D. Douglass interrogates the relationship between...

Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different...

Elaine Weiss, "Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Elaine Weiss, acclaimed author of The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, follows that magisterial work with a work of equal scholarly ...

LaShawn Harris, "Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York City" (Beacon, 2025)

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On October 29, 1984, 66-year-old beloved Black disabled grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs was murdered in her own home. A public housing tenant 4 months beh...

Gregg Mitman, "Empire of Rubber: Firestone's Scramble for Land and Power in Liberia" (New Press, 2021)

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1920s, Americans owned 80 percent of the world’s automobiles and consumed 75 percent of the world’s rubber. But only one percent of t...

Steve Luxenberg, "Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation" (Norton, 2019)

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Steve Luxenberg has created an unusual history of the famous Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson and the 19th century’s segregationist practices i...

Timothy Messer-Kruse, "Slavery’s Fugitives and the Making of the United States Constitution" (LSU Press, 2024)

23 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery's Fugitives and the Making of the United States Constitution (LSU Press, 2024) unearths a long-hidden factor that led to the Constitutional...

Rima Vesely-Flad, "Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation" (NYU Press, 2022)

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Finalist, Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Constructive-Reflective Studies, given by the American Academy of ReligionExplores how Black ...

Shennette Garrett-Scott, "Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal" (Columbia UP, 2019)

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Think running an insurance company or a bank is hard?  Try doing it as an African-American woman in the Jim Crow South.  Shennette Garrett-Scott's n...

Marlee S. Bunch, "Unlearning the Hush: Oral Histories of Black Female Educators in Mississippi in the Civil Rights Era"

19 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Unlearning the Hush: Oral Histories of Black Female Educators in Mississippi in the Civil Rights Era (University of Illinois Press, 2025), Dr. M...

Glenn Ligon, "Distinguishing Piss from Rain" (Hauser & Wirth, 2024)

19 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An expansive volume featuring over two decades of incisive reflections on race, art and pop culture by one of the greatest artists working today This ...

Darren W. Davis and David C. Wilson, "Racial Resentment in the Political Mind" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

18 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Racial Resentment in the Political Mind, Darren W. Davis and David C. Wilson challenge the commonly held notion that all racial negativity, disag...

Christopher M. Reali, "Music and Mystique in Muscle Shoals" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

17 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Roll...

Harriet Jacobs, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" (Norton, 2025)

16 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the stirring autobiography of Harriet Jacobs, a mother and fugitive, detailing her harrowing escape from ens...

Manuel Barcia, "The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the 19th-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade" (Yale UP, 2020)

11 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As we now know, epidemics and pandemics are not new phenomena. In her new book The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the 19th-Century Transat...

Bryon L. Garner, "Black Veteranality: Military Service and the Illusion of Inclusive Patriotism" (Routledge, 2025)

11 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Military service in the United States has long been associated with patriotism. But for Black veterans, this association with patriotism, love for cou...

Kenneth Jones, "African American Males and Video Games: How Gaming Technology Can Motivate and Enhance Learning" (Myers Education, 2025)

10 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

African American males are confronted with formidable barriers in their pursuit of quality education, resulting in stark disparities in academic perfo...

Stephanie McCurry, "Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the Civil War" (Harvard UP, 2019)

09 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the Civil War (Harvard UP, 2019), the award-winning author of Confederate Reckoning challenges the idea th...

Irvin Weathersby Jr., "In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space" (Viking, 2025)

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Amid the ongoing reckoning over America’s history of anti-Black racism, scores of monuments to slaveowners and Confederate soldiers still proudly do...

Teacher by Teacher: The People Who Change Our Lives

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Teacher By Teacher traces the journey of the tenth U.S. Secretary of Education and is a deeply personal love letter to all the teachers in our lives....

Kit W. Myers, "The Violence of Love: Race, Family, and Adoption in the United States"(U California Press, 2025)

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode features Dr. Kit W. Myers, associate professor of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced, d...

Neil Roberts, “A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass” (UP of Kentucky, 2018)

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The year 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ birth. It can hardly be said that scholars have neglected Douglass; indeed, he is o...

Dan-el Padilla Peralta, "Classicism and Other Phobias" (Princeton UP, 2025)

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Classicism and Other Phobias (Princeton University Press, 2025) shows how the concept of “classicism” lacks the capacity to affirm the aesthetic ...

Arianne Edmonds, "We Now Belong to Ourselves: J. L. Edmonds, the Black Press, and Black Citizenship in America" (Oxford UP, 2025)

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Black press provided a blueprint to help Black Americans transition from slavery and find opportunities to a...

Foluke Taylor, "Unruly Therapeutic: Black Feminist Writings and Practices in Living Room" (Norton, 2023)

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1977, The Combahee River Collective, a group of Black American feminists issued a statement communicating the harrowing following: “The psycholo...

Michael Vorenberg, "Lincoln's Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War" (Random House, 2023)

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

More than a century and a half after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, historians are still searching for exactly when the U.S. Civil War...

Shani Adia Evans, "We Belong Here: Gentrification, White Spacemaking, and a Black Sense of Place" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Although Portland, Oregon, is sometimes called “America’s Whitest city,” Black residents who grew up there made it their own. The neighborhoods ...

Asha Jeffers, "Against! Rebellious Daughters in Black Immigrant Fiction in the United States" (Ohio State UP, 2025)

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Against! is the first book-length study of Afro-Caribbean and African immigrant and second-generation writing in the United States. In it, Asha Jeffe...

Michael Stauch, "Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

28 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The criminalization of Black youth was central to policing in urban America during the civil rights era and continued in Detroit even after the rise o...

Joseph O. Jewell, "White Man’s Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era" (UNC Press, 2023)

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the financial chaos of the last few decades, increasing wealth inequality has shaken people's expectations about middle-class stability. At the sam...

Ashley Howard, "Midwest Unrest: 1960s Urban Rebellions and the Black Freedom Movement" (UNC Press, 2025)

24 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode features Dr. Ashley Howard, assistant professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Iowa, discussing her book, ...

The Tug of War: Why Racial Progress Often Meets Resistance and Backlash

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Karyne Messina and Dr. Felicia Powell-Williams, the host and co-host of “Psychoanalytic Perspectives of Racism in America” sponsored by The Am...

Katie Mitchell, "Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores" (Random House, 2025)

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Traversing teeming metropolises and tiny towns, Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores (Random House, 2025) explores these space...

Dayna Bowen Matthew, "Just Health: Treating Structural Racism to Heal America" (NYU Press, 2022)

19 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the United States, systemic racism is embedded in policies and practices, thereby structuring American society to perpetuate inequality and all of ...

Sabrina L. Hom, "Critical Mixed Race Philosophy: Rethinking Kinship and Identity" (Lexington Books, 2025)

19 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What are dominant narratives of mixed race identity? What are those narratives doing, in everyday life and within philosophical discourse? How can att...

Ahmad Greene-Hayes, "Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion Making in Jim Crow New Orleans" (U of Chicago Press, 2025)

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A rethinking of African American religious history that focuses on the development and evolution of Africana spiritual traditions in Jim Crow New Orle...

Jeremy Black, "The Civil War" (Saint Augustine's Press, 2025)

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The American Civil War may have been more consequential to American history (and its global supremacy) than its Revolutionary War and participation in...

Andrew S. Berish, "Hating Jazz: A History of Its Disparagement, Mockery, and Other Forms of Abuse" (U of Chicago Press, 2025)

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew S. Berish. 2025. Hating Jazz: A History of Its Disparagement, Mockery, and Other Forms of Abuse. (U of Chicago Press, 2025) Some good words ...

Joseph Darda, "Gift and Grit: Race, Sports, and the Construction of Social Debt" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

07 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. 'If you've got a special gift,' the president said of athletes, 'you owe more back.' Gif...

Michael Amoruso, "Moved by the Dead: Haunting and Devotion in São Paulo, Brazil" (UNC Press, 2025)

06 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the sprawling city of São Paulo, a weekly practice known as devotion to souls (devoção às almas) draws devotees to Catholic churches, cemeterie...

John Bardes, "The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930" (UNC Press, 2024)

05 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930 (UNC Press, 2024) reveals that Americans often assume that ...

Angela Katrina Lewis-Maddox ed., "Disrupting Political Science: Black Women Reimagining the Discipline" (SUNY Press, 2025)

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Political Scientist Angela K. Lewis-Maddox has pulled together an important and useful edited volume focusing on black women political scientists and ...

Cheryl Thompson, "Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict and Freedom, 1812-1895" (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2025)

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2025) traces the origins o...

Sarah Gold McBride "Whiskerology: The Culture of Hair in Nineteenth-Century America" (Harvard UP, 2025)

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hair is always and everywhere freighted with meaning. In nineteenth-century America, however, hair took on decisive new significance as the young nati...

Bryan D. Jones, The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History" (Oxford UP, 2025)

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History (Oxford University Press, 2025) explores the under-appreciated div...

Is Sinners a New Classic of Political Utopianism?

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the UConn Popcast, and we analyze the movie Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan, just released on streaming. We address the political themes o...

Judith Weisenfeld, "Black Religion in the Madhouse: Race and Psychiatry in Slavery’s Wake" (NYU Press, 2025)

24 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades after the end of slavery, African Americans were committed to southern state mental hospitals at higher rates as white psychiatrists li...

Philip Kadish, "The Great White Hoax: Frauds, Forgeries, and 200 Years of Selling Racism in America"

24 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fake news, outright political lies, a shamelessly partisan press, and the collapse of truth, civility, and shared facts, Dr. Philip Kadish argues, are...

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, "Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays and Writings" (Harper, 2025)

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfict...

Rob Edwards, "Defiant: The Story of Robert Smalls" (Stranger Comics, 2025)

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the height of the Civil War, on May 12, 1862, Robert Smalls—an enslaved harbor pilot in Charleston, South Carolina—carried out one of the most ...

Robell Awake, "A Short History of Black Craft in Ten Objects" (Princeton Architectural Press, 2025)

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ten beautifully illustrated essays tell the stories of handcrafted objects and their makers, providing inspiration and insight into Black history and ...

Alexandria Russell, "Black Women Legacies: Public History Sites Seen and Unseen" (University of Illinois Press, 2024)

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From Black clubwomen to members of preservation organizations, African American women have made commemoration a central part of Black life and culture...

Rob Franklin, "Great Black Hope" (Summit Books, 2025)

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Rob Franklin, Great Black Hope (Summit Books, 2025) Born and raised in Atlanta, Rob Franklin is a writer of fiction, criticism, and poetry, and a c...

Brando Simeo Starkey, "Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System" (Doubleday, 2025)

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System (Doubleday, 2025) takes readers...

Anthony C. Infanti, "The Human Toll: Taxation and Slavery in Colonial America" (NYU Press, 2025)

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Human Toll: Taxation and Slavery in Colonial America (NYU Press, 2025) by Anthony C. Infanti documents how the American colonies used tax law to ...

Nneka D. Dennie, "Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth Century Black Radical Feminist" (Oxford UP, 2023)

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1849, the Mary Ann Shadd Cary had not yet become one of the first Black woman newspaper editors in North America. She was decades away from being a...

Karida L. Brown, "The Battle for the Black Mind" (Legacy Lit, 2025)

27 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A gripping chronicle of the relentless fight for Black educational freedom--and the bold strategies to protect, nourish, and empower Black minds. The...

Frank X Walker, "Load in Nine Times: Poems" (Liveright, 2024)

24 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reim...

Rasheedah Phillips, "Dismantling the Master's Clock: On Race, Space, and Time" (AK Press, 2025)

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why do some processes—like aging, birth, and car crashes—occur in only one direction in time, when by the fundamental symmetry of the universe, we...

Robert F. Darden and Stephen M. Newby, "Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch" (Oxford UP, 2025)

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gospel singer and seven-time Grammy winner Andraé Crouch (1942-2015) hardly needs introduction. His compositions--"The Blood Will Never Lose Its Powe...

James B. Haile III, "The Dark Delight of Being Strange: Black Stories of Freedom" (Columbia UP, 2024)

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An ambitious genre-crossing exploration of Black speculative imagination, The Dark Delight of Being Strange: Black Stories of Freedom (Columbia Univ...

Ariel Nereson, "Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past" (U Michigan Press, 2022)

11 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, renowned choreographer and director Bill T. Jones developed three tributes: Serenade/The Proposi...

William Jennings, "Dibia's World: Life on an Early Sugar Plantation" (Liverpool UP, 2023)

10 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, Tarin Ahmed, the host, is joined by guest, William Jennings, a senior lecturer in French at the Universi...

Seulghee Lee, "Other Lovings: An Afroasian American Theory of Life" (Ohio State UP, 2025)

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Join me for a conversation with Dr. Seulghee Lee (Assistant Professor of African American Studies and English, University of South Carolina) about ...

John Lee Hooker Jr., "From the Shadow of the Blues: My Story of Music, Addiction, and Redemption" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025)

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the Shadow of the Blues: My Story of Music, Addiction, and Redemption (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025) is powerful memoir of redemption from the so...

Aaron Robertson, "The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America" (FSG, 2024)

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do the disillusioned, the forgotten, and the persecuted not merely hold on to life but expand its possibilities and preserve its beauty? What, in ...

Vanessa Priya Daniel, "Unrig the Game: What Women of Color Can Teach Everyone About Winning" (Random House, 2025)

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the U.S., many of the most significant social justice victories of our time have been spearheaded by women of color leaders. From the streets, to t...

No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice

29 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground. Polarizing debates over their meaning have intensified into legislative maneuvering...

Frederick Knight, "Black Elders: The Meaning of Age in American Slavery and Freedom" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Would there have been a Frederick Douglass if it were not for Betsy Bailey, the grandmother who raised him? Would Harriet Jacobs have written her reno...

Ben Arogundade, "Hollywood Blackout: The Battle for Recognition in a White Hollywood" (Cassell, 2025)

26 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On February 29, 1940, African American actor Hattie McDaniel became the first person of color, and the first Black woman, to win an Academy Award. The...

Alexander Stoffel, "Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the United States" (Stanford UP, 2025)

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The history of queer politics in the United States since 1968 is commonly narrated as either a progressive campaign for state recognition or as a subc...

Philip V. McHarris, "Beyond Policing" (Legacy Lit, 2024)

22 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What would happen if policing disappeared? Would we be safe? This book imagines a world without police. It's evident that policing is a problem. But w...

Reginald K. Ellis et al., "Black Citizens and American Democracy: Fighting for the Soul of a Nation" (UP of Florida, 2025)

20 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2020, Black Americans continued a centuries-long pursuit of racial equality and justice in the streets and at the polls. Arguing that this year ...

Alfred L. Martin, Jr., "Fandom for Us, by Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences" (NYU Press, 2025)

19 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Boldly going where few fandom scholars have gone before, Fandom for Us, by Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences (NYU Press, 2025) brea...

Aaron Kupchik, "Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice" (NYU Press, 2025)

15 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every year, millions of public school students are suspended. This overused punishment removes students from the classroom, but it does not improve th...

Maurice Jackson, "Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience: How Black Washingtonians Used Music and Sports in the Fight for Equality" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the Nation's Capital, music and sports have played a central role in the lives of African Americans, often serving as a barometer of social conflic...

Daryl Fairweather, "Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

13 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The secret insights of economics, translated for the rest of us. Should I buy or rent? Do I ask for a promotion? Should I tell people I’m pregnant? ...

Davida Siwisa James, "Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries" (Fordham UP, 2024)

12 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For last 100 years, the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City has stood as the capital of Black America and the capital of the global African diaspo...

Forest Issac Jones, "Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama and Derry, Northern Ireland Connection 1963-1972" (First Hill Books, 2025)

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Forest Isaac Jones is an award-winning author of non-fiction and essays, specializing in the study of Irish History, the US Civil Rights Movement and ...

Martha S. Jones, "The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir" (Basic Books, 2025)

06 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Martha S. Jones grew up feeling her Black identity was obvious to all who saw her. But weeks into college, a Black Studies classmate challenged Jones’...

Julie Malnig, "Dancing Black, Dancing White: Rock 'n' Roll, Race, and Youth Culture of the 1950s and Early 1960s" (Oxford UP, 2023)

05 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dancing Black, Dancing White: Rock 'n' Roll, Race, and Youth Culture of the 1950s and Early 1960s (Oxford University Press, 2023) offers a new look ...

Atiya Husain, "No God But Man: On Race, Knowledge, and Terrorism" (Duke UP, 2025)

04 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Atiya Husain’s No God but Man: On Race, Knowledge and Terrorism (Duke University Press, 2025) uses the FBI Most Wanted lists to rethink theoretica...

Womanist Bioethics: Social Justice, Spirituality, and Black Women's Health

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Black people, and especially Black women, suffer and die from diseases at much higher rates than their white counterparts. The vast majority of these ...