New Books In African American Studies

The real story behind the origin of gangsta rap is difficult to discern. Between the bombastic rhetoric and imagery, the larger-than-life characters, and the subsequent success of many of the individuals, it is hard to know exactly what to believe. Ben Westhoff’s new book, Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur and the Birth of West Coast Rap (Hachette Books, 2016), sets the record straight with a clear account of the rise and dissolution of N.W.A., the founding of Death Row Records, and the events that led up to the deadly beef between Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. Based on scores of interviews with the principals, Westhoff provides a definitive account of 1990s gangsta rap’s birth and growth. It offers clarity on the confusing turn of events and explores in rich detail the murders of Tupac and Biggie. Westhoff’s book also provides a great opportunity to reflect on the legacy of gangsta rap, especially after the film Straight Outta Compton and the transformed imag

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 University where her dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft prize. Her book The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (Yale University Press, 2016) centers the role of African Americans in ending slavery in the US by detailing the actions they took, the ideas they generated, and the ways they influenced white abolitionists. Acts of Black rebellion including the Haitian Revolution, escapes from bondage and slave revolts shaped the analysis and trajectory of the movement. Drawing on extensive archival research that spans centuries and nations, Sinha paints a complex picture of the transnational and radical movement to end slavery in the US from the 1500s to the Civil War. Previous historical scholarship on abolitionism focused on white participants in the “second wave” of abolitionism, depicting them as paternalistic middle-class reformers who believed in capital

When and where do African American religions begin? Sylvester Johnson, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Religious Studies at Northwestern University, disrupts the traditional temporal and geographical boundaries in the academic study of black religion in the Americas in his new book, African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Johnson places the productive forces in African American religion at the intersection of empire and colonialism and within the constructs of notions of democratic freedom. His study requires this analytical reformulation in order to examine how Black religious history unfolds within changing social and political contexts over the longue duree. In our conversation we discussed Afro-European commercialism, European views on Indigenous African religious practices, Black Christianization, violent state regulation, nineteenth century political theologies, Black settler colonialism and the creation of Liberi

Timothy S. Huebner, the Irma O. Sternberg Professor of History at Rhodes College in Memphis, has written Liberty & Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism (University Press of Kansas, 2016), a one-volume history of the constitutional debates regarding slavery and sovereignty from the Declaration of Independence through the end of Reconstruction. Huebner brings together three strands of history: African American history, military history, and constitutional/political history. In doing so, he joins often disparate areas of inquiry in an account of the unresolved questions from the Founding Era: 1) what would become of slavery? and 2) what was the nature of the Union and how was sovereignty divided between the states and federal government? Huebner reviews the competing theories and political events that repeatedly stoked debate and conflict over how slavery would be handled in a federated constitutional republic. Huebner makes original contributions to the debates about the Civil Wars origins an

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 speech at the March on Washington in 1963. In the many decades between, W. E. B. Du Bois contributed as much to the political and social advancement of African Americans as any other figure in history. W. E. B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line (Pluto Press, 2016) offers an accessible and brief introduction to the life and times of W. E. B. Du Bois. It takes in his many achievements, such as being the first black man to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University and co-founding the NAACP, and sets them alongside the seismic political changes of the twentieth century many of which Du Bois weighed in on, including anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles across Asia and Africa. The author reveals a Du Bois who was focused not just on the immediate question of African American rights, but also took up the question of socialism, the rise of communism, and the

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 mark on our nations history. Through extensive research of military documents, court records, appeals, and from Flippers personal journals and published papers, Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate (Wild Horse Press, 2015) captures the sum and substance of a nation torn apart by political ambitions and extreme prejudices and reveals the uncertainty of acceptance and intolerance of blacks in America following Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. In 1878, Flipper seemed destined for a long military career. Four years later, he was on trial at Fort Davis, Texas, for embezzlement of government funds and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But his journey through the West did not end in West Texas, it was only the beginning. Before Flipper’s life was over his adventures would take him through Mexico, South America, and Arizona. It was

Runaway slave Sojourner Truth gained fame in the nineteenth century as an abolitionist, feminist, and orator and earned a living partly by selling photographic carte de visite portraits of herself at lectures and by mail. Cartes de visite, similar in format to calling cards, were relatively inexpensive collectibles that quickly became a new mode of mass communication. Despite being illiterate, Truth copyrighted her photographs in her name and added the caption “I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance. Sojourner Truth.” Featuring the largest collection of Truth’s photographs ever published, Enduring Truths: Sojourners Shadows and Substance (University of Chicago Press, 2015) is the first book to explore how she used her image, the press, the postal service, and copyright laws to support her activism and herself. A Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Arts and Humanities at the University of California at Berkeley, the book’s author, Dr. Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, specializes in 18th- through early 20th-cen

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 expected outcome, while still others are left wondering after such a tumultuous and divisive campaign season what is next. There were a significant number of African American religious and political leaders who emerged during this presidential campaign representing the GOP than can easily be remembered in recent years. Even before the most recent election in November, many in the African American community felt underserved by the Democrats, and now there are some who have even more fear about what to expect from President-elect Trump and the new Republican-dominated three branches of the federal government. But not everyone. In his book Black Elephants in the Room: The Unexpected Politics of African American Republicans (University of California Press, 2016), Corey D. Fields considers how race structures the political behavior of African American Republicans an

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 understand the coexisting desire and revulsion of the black body that traces its roots to Thomas Jefferson’s longstanding relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and extends to contemporary attitudes towards black hair? In Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), Paul C. Taylor examines primary themes in racialism from the perspective of aesthetic culture. Taylor, Associate Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies and an Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and at Penn State University, considers such issues as black invisibility, expressive culture and politics, and the problem of authenticity and cultural appropriation. He also lays the foundation for analytic philosophical tools to be brought more widely to bear on scholarly discussion of issues related to race and racialism. Learn more about your ad choices.

Now in its fifth printing of a very short life, Ashaki Jackson’s Surveillance examines the relationship between acts of violence, the witnessing of violence, the witnessing of the witnessing of violence, and the internalization of all three. Media offers no escape from trauma, instead it creates a cyclical nature where the traumatized are re-traumatized and forced to live out fear after dread after terror. Written over the course of 3 months, Surveillance stretches the far-reaching arms of community to tap into a universal empathy. The collection nearly demands that this empathy exists, almost calls it into being through faith and continued presence. After reading this collection, I thought of the Nikki Giovanni poem Allowables which ends with: I don’t think I’m allowed To kill something Because I am Frightened Our own fear can pull us away from this universal empathy and understanding. The hyper-anxiety mode we are placed in by media rendering of violence, social media proliferation of those renderi

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 Susan Greenbaum about her new book, Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images about Poverty (Rutgers University Press, 2015), which chronicles the lasting legacy of The Moynihan Report and the ways in which housing, criminal justice, education, and poverty policy all still bear its marks. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford, 2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

LaShawn Harris is an assistant professor of history at Michigan State University. Sex Workers, Psychics and Number Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy, (University of Illinois Press, 2016) offers a colorful look at the lives of black urban women who worked and lived in the space between the legitimate and illegal economy. Her subjects are women not previously considered in histories of the working class: mothers, single ladies, churchwomen, hustlers, and partygoers who worked in the underground economy. Motivated by many factors, they sought economic autonomy, to provide for their families, or individual pleasure and fulfillment. The underground economy offered women a break from middle class respectability and opportunities to forge complex identities of self-sufficiency and an escape from the confines of New Negro womanhood. Working outside the wage system in illegal gaming, sex work or as supernatural consultants, they experienced the dangers and thrill of illicit trade, and challen

In his new book The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), Ethan Michaeli charts the riveting history of the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s longest running and most significant black periodicals. Founded in 1905 by publisher Robert S. Abbott, the Defender came to play a central role in regional and national black politics; drawing African Americans north to Chicago as part of the Great Migration out of the South, condemning Jim Crow and bolstering the electoral power of black America, and helping to secure the election of presidents such as Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. Relying on exhaustive research, including dozens of interviews and extensive archival material, Ethan has constructed the most in-depth and illuminating history of the Defender ever published – highlighting not only the impact of publisher Abbott and iconic columnists such as Ida B. Wells and Langston Hughes, but also the hundreds of other journalists and editor

Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story (Temple University Press, 2014) offers a timely reminder of how racial bias and prejudice continue to shape political perspectives and dominant media narratives. Drawing on her unique experience as a journalist covering the case, Natalie Byfield explores the media response to and framing of the Central Park Jogger case which gained national attention during the late 1980s. Byfield is a cultural sociologist, who has taught in the fields of sociology and media studies. She is an associate professor at St. John’s University in Queens, New York where her research centers on the sociology of knowledge. She examines language, media systems, and methodologies exploring their roles in the production and construction of race/class/gender inequalities. In 1989 she was a member of a reporting team nominated by the Daily News for a Pulitzer Prize relating to the papers coverage of the Central Park Jogger case. Dr. Byfield is also the recipient of a Charle

Dr. Damien M. Sojoyner, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, joins the New Books Network to discuss his recently published book, entitled First Strike: Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). Through both ethnographic and historical analyses, First Strike explores the tragic relationship between education and the prison system in California. For any questions, comments, or recommendations for the New Books in Education podcast, you can connect with the host, Ryan M. Allen, at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thomas Aiello is associate professor of history and African American studies at Valdosta State University. In The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and the Debate that Shaped the Course of Civil Rights (ABC-CLIO, 2016) Aiello focuses on the conversation between Washington and Du Bois in order to fully examine its contours. The book serves as both a document reader and an authored text that enables readers to perceive how the back and forth between these two individuals produced a cacophony of ideas that made it anything but a bipolar debate, even though their expressed differences would ultimately shape the two dominant strains of activist strategy. The numerous chapters on specific topics and historical events follow a preface that presents an overview of both the conflict and its historiographical treatment; evaluates the legacies of both Washington and Du Bois, emphasizing the trajectories of their theories beyond 1915; and provides an explanation of the unique struc

In Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2016), Jack Hamilton examines major American and British recording artists of the 1960s to explain what happened during the decade to turn rock-n-roll white. By pairing musicians such as Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan or The Beatles and Motown, Hamilton explores the connections among artists and how artists influenced each other across racial and musical distinctions. Hamilton’s well-researched text seeks to expand how we think about the rock and roll canon and challenge how we think about music during the time period. He explores the ways in which rock and roll critics rebranded rock and roll as white and promoted and sold it as authentic to fans. Hamilton’s book challenges the racial categories of authenticity in the 1960s, and challenges readers to hear music differently. Rebekah Buchanan is an Assistant Professor of English at Western Illinois University. Her work examines the role of narrative–both analog and digital

Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2016) examines how, from the 1940s to the 1970s, the cinematic figure of the black soldier helped change the ways American moviegoers saw black men, for the first time presenting African Americans as vital and integrated members of the nation. In the process, Elizabeth Reich reveals how the image of the proud and powerful African American serviceman was crafted by an unexpected alliance of government propagandists, civil rights activists, and black filmmakers. Contextualizing the figure in a genealogy of black radicalism and internationalism, Reich shows the evolving images of black soldiers to be inherently transnational ones, shaped by the displacements of Diaspora, Third World revolutionary philosophy, and a legacy of black artistry and performance. Offering a nuanced reading of a figure that

Eric Gardner’s new study Black Print Unbound: the Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015) explores the development and voice of the Christian Recorder during the years leading up to and immediately after the American Civil War. As the house organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Recorder held a national reach among free African Americans and became an integral part of broader nineteenth-century black print networks. Through recovering the paper’s history, Black Print Unbound offers an important intervention into the study of African American literary history and American print culture. Eric’s teaching and research interests center on African American literature and culture and American literary history, and he is currently a professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University. His first monograph, Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature was published in 2009 by the University Press of Missis

Marisa J. Fuentes’, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) is an important new book that challenges historians to think more carefully about the methods and categories with which they have described and analyzed slavery. Marisa Fuentes uses fragmentary evidence about five enslaved women in 18th century Barbados to take up larger questions of agency, violence, the production of knowledge, and gender. At the same time, the book also offers detailed and often surprising stories from an atypical slave society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices