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Touré’s Inauthentic ‘Post-Blackness’

The Editors — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:43:58 +0000

By Kenneth J. Cooper
For starters, I’ll concede Touré is right about a couple points he makes in his new book, “Who’s Afraid of Pot-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now.” There is no such thing as “authentic” or “legitimate” blackness. African Americans as a people have never empowered anyone to make those judgments.

Two Women of Little Rock: 1957 and Beyond

The Editors — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 19:50:34 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
Their paths crossed for only a few moments that September day in 1957: Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan, two teenagers in Little Rock, Arkansas who were supposed to be on their way to school.

Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration”

The Editors — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 21:09:04 +0000

By Martin Kilson
Isabel Wilkerson’s, The Warmth of Other Suns, adds another important book to the great tradition of serious writing on the interaction between American society's white supremacist practices, on the one hand, and, on the other, the migration of black American citizens out of the viciously racist South to the North and West.

1920s Heyday: ‘The Harlem Renaissance Remembered’

The Editors — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 03:12:06 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
The Harlem Renaissance Remembered is an innovative compilation of poetry, sound, and substance. Featuring Jonathan Gross, Ph.D., a Professor of English at DePaul University, and musician “Mack” Jay Jordan, who played with Ramsey Lewis and Nat King Cole during a decades-long career that took him around the world, this CD will appeal to jazz enthusiasts and educators, poets and poetry lovers, avid readers and admirers of all things Renaissance.

Parallel Worlds: Black America’s”‘Fortunate Tenth”

The Editors — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 03:11:34 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels Parallel Worlds: The Remarkable Gibbs-Hunts and the Enduring (In)significance of Melanin fleshes out this much-maligned group by focusing on two individuals whose lives as much as any in the small black haute-bourgeoisie that existed from the 1860s to the 1950s embodied the groups’ remarkable status.

“To Kill A Mockingbird”: Who Does Atticus Finch Represent?

The Editors — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:54:49 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels Why is there so much focus on the “heroism” of Atticus Finch in confronting the racism of the town’s (and region’s) legal system and so little discussion of the fact that he lost.

Damon Wayans Pens Novel of Transformation

The Editors — Sat, 29 May 2010 02:43:29 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen Damon Wayans, the second-eldest son in one of Black Hollywood’s most successful family dynasties has written the perfect summer beach read novel with surprising insights into and empathy for a demographic very different than his own.

Henrietta Lacks: How a Black Woman’s Cells Fueled Medical Progress

The Editors — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:34:33 +0000

By Janet Singleton Throughout much of her childhood Deborah Lacks had no idea what became of her mother. Yet her mother even then, in the 50s and 60s, was famous. Random readers, undergrad science students, and ordinary lab technicians knew of HeLa: a still-growing cell line obtained from the cancerous cervical tumor of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who died from the malignancy in 1951.

Gerald Boyd: A Man and ‘The Times’

The Editors — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:38:09 +0000

By Pamela Newkirk
Boyd died of lung cancer in November 2006 at age 56, but his memoir was shepherded to publication by his widow Robin Stone, a journalist and author who penned the afterword. The book traces a black man’s uncharted path from an impoverished childhood in St. Louis to an iconic American institution that both reflects and shapes the nation’s racial attitudes

Picture Lady: Famed Graffiti Photographer Martha Cooper Returns to Her Roots

The Editors — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:37:40 +0000

By Deborah Rudacille
Martha Cooper’s iconic photos of graffiti-sprayed subway trains, hooded teens wielding cans of Krylon in deserted yards, and skinny kids twisting and flipping on flattened cardboard boxes on the streets helped introduce hip hop culture to the world—even though neither she nor the kids thought of it in those terms at the time.

Todd Bridges: In and Out of LA’s Hell Factories

The Editors — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:37:15 +0000

By Janet Singleton
Today Bridges is 44, and it has been 17 years since the former Diff’rent Strokes star has been on the bad side of the barbed wire. Killing Willis: From Diff’rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted is an update. And even a person who finds narcissistic celeb bios routinely loathsome (such as the author of this review) can see value in Bridges’ tale.

“Backing Down Was Simply Not An Option:” Terrence Roberts and ‘Lessons From Little Rock’

The Editors — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:37:40 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
Lessons provides the important benefit of understanding, in full measure, the spirit that drove thousands of black Americans from the most ordinary of circumstances to forcefully but nonviolently confront white southerners’ threats and use of physical and economic reprisals

New Book Explores Link Between Blackness and Crime

The Editors — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:31:40 +0000

By Imani Perry
Khalil Gibran Muhammad introduces his book, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race Crime and the Making of Modern America, with a contemporary lens. He cites the dire reality that “Nearly half of the more than two million Americans behind bars are African American…” and describes the commonplace of associating blackness with crime in the contemporary United States.

‘Hollyhood’: Real-Life in La-La Land

The Editors — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:05:13 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen As we digest and debate the results of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards—including the racial aspects of various wins and nominations—Hollywood insider Valerie Joyner’s debut novel, Hollyhood, has special resonance and relevance.

Tara Betts’ ‘Arc & Hue’

The Editors — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:44:11 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen In her debut collection of poetry, Arc & Hue, Tara Betts articulates deeply-felt human emotion in a lyrical, beautiful way. Betts is a poet for the people.

A Wish After Midnight: Young Adult Novel With Lessons for All Ages

The Editors — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:35:42 +0000

By Paula L. Woods
A Wish After Midnight is written with a lyrical grace that many authors of what passes for adult literature would envy as it examines universal themes of finding lost love, belief in one’s dreams and the power of friendship.

The Black Book at 35: Still Rich, Relevant and Revealing

The Editors — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:24:40 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
In his introduction to The Black Book, Bill Cosby called it “a scrapbook…a folk journey of Black America…beautiful, haunting, curious, informative, and human,” and it is as intimate, revealing, heartbreaking, and uplifting as any treasured family album can be.

The Black List Returns with Stories of the Past in Volume Three

The Editors — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:08:58 +0000

By Grace Aneiza Ali
“Stories matter. Many stories matter,” said Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie in her speech on “The Danger of the Single Story” at the TEDGlobal 2009 forum last year. She warned against one-dimensional views and singular stories that often depict Africans as “fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves, and waiting to be saved.”

David Ruggles: Frederick Douglass’ First Professor of Abolitionism

The Editors — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:30:06 +0000

By Graham Hodges
In early September, 1838, the man who would become Frederick Douglass, the foremost black abolitionist of the nineteenth century, arrived in New York City, well aware that he still faced danger from the “slave catchers” who roamed the streets seeking to kidnap unwary blacks. Through fortuitous circumstance, Frederick Bailey, as he was then called, soon met David Ruggles, the city’s leading black abolitionist—and Frederick Douglass’ first and perhaps most influential professor of radical abolitionism.

RingShout Literary Salon: On Push, Precious and Erasure

The Editors — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:19:59 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen The controversial film Precious, released to great acclaim in November, is still making news. With Mo’Nique’s Golden Globe Awards win for Best Supporting Actress (with Oscar nods expected to follow), and eight NAACP Image Award nominations, the story of a teen abused every which way by both her mother and father provides fertile ground for introspection and discussion.

The Cornel West You Don’t Know

The Editors — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:15:26 +0000

By George E. Curry I thought I knew Cornel West, the most public of public intellectuals. But it was not until I read his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud that I realized how much I didn’t know about my friend.

Bound to Cotton

The Editors — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:54:44 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels In 1865, the North’s victory in the Civil War freed black Americans from slavery. But it did not free them from cotton.

A Conversation with Jabari Asim

The Editors — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:17:29 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen It is entirely fitting that Jabari Asim’s debut fiction, A Taste of Honey, is published in this, the year after Change. Everything is different now that the President of the United States is a black man. Everything changes in Asim’s collection of connected short stories, too—not because a leader is on the rise, but because one is shot down.

The Thrill is On: Attica Locke’s ‘Black Water Rising’

The Editors — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:24:57 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
Attica Locke has added her name to the list of best black genre fiction with her debut thriller, Black Water Rising, acclaimed by many, from The New York Times to The Seattle Times, and named Booklist Best Debut Crime Novel of 2009.

Funny. Literary. Funky. Hip. Victor LaValle’s ‘Big Machine’

The Editors — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:02:34 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
Victor LaValle’s third book belongs on your shelf if you enjoy fine literary work from African-American writers. Or if you like to kick back on a wild ride with a fast read. Or if you dig genre fiction.