J-Rod moves like a small battle tank on the court, his face mean, staring down his opponents. "I play just like my father," he says. "Before my father died, he was a problem on the court. I'm a problem." Playing basketball for him fuses past and present, conjuring his father's memory into a force that opponents can feel in every bone-breaking drive to the basket. On the street every ballplayer has a story. Onaje X. O. Woodbine, a former streetball...

The Marrow of Tradition (1901) is a historical novel by African American author, lawyer, and political activist Charles Chesnutt. Based on the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, in which a group of white supremacists rioted and overthrew the elected government of Wilmington, North Carolina, killing hundreds of African Americans and displacing thousands more-The Marrow of Tradition follows two interconnected families on opposite sides of the violence. Set...

The essential guide to understanding how racism works and how racial inequality shapes black lives, ultimately offering a road-map for resistance for racial justice advocates and antiracists When #BlackLivesMatter went viral in 2013, it shed a light on the urgent, daily struggles of black Americans to combat racial injustice. The message resonated with millions across the country. Yet many of our political, social, and economic institutions are...

This is a book for those who want to know what really happens when, in circumstances of enormous complexity and under the impetus of the New Deal, an irresistible drive for labor organization runs head-on into an immovably imbedded race prejudice. It is based on interviews by the authors with those people most intimately concerned.Originally published in 1939.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology...

The Civil Rights Movement is now remembered as a long-lost era, which came to an end along with the idealism of the 1960s. In Dark Days, Bright Nights, acclaimed scholar Peniel E. Joseph puts this pat assessment to the test, showing the 60s-particularly the tumultuous period after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act-to be the catalyst of a movement that culminated in the inauguration of Barack Obama. Joseph argues that the 1965 Voting Rights...

What does it mean to have, or to love, a black body? Taking on the challenge of interpreting the black body's dramatic role in American culture are thirty black, white, and biracial contributors-award-winning actors, artists, writers, and comedians-including voices as varied as President Obama's inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander, actor and bestselling author Hill Harper, political strategist Kimball Stroud, television producer Joel Lipman, former...

"Winner of the 1995 Outstanding Book Award, National Conference of Black Political Scientists" Michael C. Dawson is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Political scientists and social choice theorists often assume that economic diversification within a group produces divergent political beliefs and behaviors. Michael Dawson demonstrates, however, that the growth of a black middle class has left race as the dominant...

This book offers a critical analysis on the seemingly unsolvable problem of black and white people coexisting together in peace and harmony. It attacks the untouchable topics that are just too difficult and troubling at their core, thus causing most writers and speakers to remain on the fringe of the points and issues that are met head-on in this enlightening book. Emotions will be stirred, often deeply by new thoughts and points of view emanating...

The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States was the most powerful and effective social movement of the nineteenth century and has served as a recurring source of inspiration for every subsequent struggle against injustice. But the abolitionist story has traditionally focused on the evangelical impulses of white, male, middle-class reformers, obscuring the contributions of many African Americans, women, and others.Prophets of Protest, the...

The Hip Hop Generation is an eloquent testament for black youth culture at the turn of the century. The only in-depth study of the first generation to grow up in post-segregation America, it combines culture and politics into a pivotal work in American studies. Bakari Kitwana, one of black America's sharpest young critics, offers a sobering look at this generation's disproportionate social and political troubles, and celebrates the activism and politics...