New Books in African American Studies

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 Crow in the County of Kings:The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn (University Press of Kentucky, 2014). Thiscase study of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Brooklyn joins one of the fastest-growing areas of research in the field: the roots and experience of the black freedom struggle above the Mason-Dixon. Challenging many of the nation’s persistent beliefs about the geographic timeline and ideological dynamics of that social movement, this literature has broadened our understanding of the past and given us a far more complicated view of the challenges facing grassroots organizations in the years before, during, and following the “classical period,” stretching from Rosa Parks’s arrest to Martin Luther King’s dream. Purnell looks at one of CORE’s most active, aggressive chapters in the North between 1960 and 1965. An exemplar of social history, the book explores the difficulties facing a small organization trying to upset the racial status quo in a city that prided itself on colorblindness–pioneering much of the legislation adopted by the federal government later–despite the fact that in education, housing, and labor segregation prevailed. Aggravating matters were a number of seismic changes in New York, as elsewhere: the flight of industry and middle class taxpayers to the suburbs and Sunbelt, and the influx of millions of laid-off southern sharecroppers to neighborhoods that, because of “de facto” Jim Crow, became increasingly poor,overcrowded, dilapidated, and ridden with trash, crime, and despair. Purnell gives us the story of a group valiantly attempting to avert and assuage these overwhelming developments. As he notes, their failures speak to the reality many still face today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

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 political science at Williams College. How do Black immigrants in the US view their racial and ethnic identities? Do they identify with being Black, African American, or something else? Like Christina Greer (Black Ethnics) and Natalie-Masuoka and Jane Junn (Politics of Belonging) who have appeared on the podcast before, Watts Smith aims to unpack the immigrant experience in the US. Her book takes terms like African American and Black, and analyzes the way individuals from a variety of immigrant backgrounds attach identity. Watts Smith finds areas of wide agreement on group consciousness, but also areas of divergence, particularly around finding a common policy agenda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

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 and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World (Harvard University Press, 2013), Dr. Edward E. Andrews challenges this view. Through his careful research, skilled use of anecdotes, and compelling narrative. Dr. Andrews shows how it was Native Americans and people of African descent themselves who did much of the heavy lifting when it came to mission work. Moreover, Dr. Andrews not only explores the complex relationship between these diverse groups of people within the Protestant churches he studies (primarily Puritan, Anglican, and Moravian), the meeting of Protestant Christianity and indigenous religious beliefs, and the relationship between culture and religion, he also shows how white, black, and Native American missionaries cooperated (and argued with) each other. This book is a fascinating read and is highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of the Atlantic World or missions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

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 transcended his game. But a closer look at Ashe’s life reveals a more complex picture. Certainly, Ashe was an admirable figure. When tennis tournament organizers barred the teenage phenom because of his race, Ashe maintained his dignity. Decades later, when he was teaching a university course on African Americans in sport, Ashe couldn’t find a suitable textbook. So he researched and wrote one himself. At the same time, however, Ashe’s views on civil rights initially were more in line with those of Booker T. Washington than those of other politically active athletes of the 1960s. He did not accept the equality of women in sports. And his position on competing in South Africa under apartheid went through a long evolution. On these issues and others, Arthur Ashe had plenty of critics-something that is often missed today. Surprisingly, despite his pioneering role in the history of tennis and his involvement in a range of pursuits off the court, Ashe has not been the subject of a scholarly biography. Eric Allen Hall’s book, Arthur Ashe: Tennis and Justice in the Civil Rights Era (Johns Hopkins University, 2014) fills this gap. As Eric explains in the interview, Ashe was a unique athlete in that he left his personal papers to a research archive. His biography thus draws not only from press accounts of Ashe’s life and the tennis star’s own memoirs (he wrote four during his lifetime), but also from Ashe’s notes and letters. The result is a portrait of Arthur Ashe that shows the fullness of his character-his broad interests, his impressive talents, and his missteps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

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 Great War: The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African American Quest for Equality (University Press of Kansas, 2014). Our guests reveal a great deal about the... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Seeking to fill the gap in scholarship focused on African American artisans in the American South, Catherine W. Bishir uses the very specific location of New Bern, North Carolina to “dig a deep hole” and produce a longitudinal study of black artisans that moves chronologically from the colonial period, through the early national period to the period following the Civil War. Crafting Lives: African American Artisans in New Bern, North Carolina, 1770-1900 (University of North Carolina Press, 2013) looks at how artisans, enslaved and free, negotiated a complex social landscape that relied on their skills but circumscribed their lives. Specifically, Bishir examines the broader American artisan-citizen identity, the hallmarks of which are independence, mastery and self-determination and how the racial mores of the South made the enactment of this identity a problematic proposition for black artisans in New Bern despite its relatively lenient racial laws. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

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 trove of documents primarily found in the county court records of Prince Edward County, Virginia to unravel a rich story about the free blacks who inhabited “the gentle slope of Israel Hill.” The story begins in 1796 when Richard Randolph, a prominent Virginian and cousin to Thomas Jefferson, left a will full of fiery abolitionist sentiment that emancipated his slaves and parceled 350 acres of his land among them. Ely explores the lives of the freed people who used this land to cultivate small farms and launch successful entrepreneurial ventures. Israel on the Appomattox demonstrates that historians can gain a deep understanding of a society using legal documents as their window into the past. Ely’s research exposes the little known fact that Afro-Virginians could file (and often successfully filed) civil suits, despite not being allowed to testify in criminal courts. While not a perfect check on abuse, Ely explains that civil suits were an inroad free blacks could make against an unjust system. Through Ely’s exploration of the quotidian behavior of Prince Edward’s inhabitants, much is revealed about the relationship between politics, law, and actual behavior in societies past or present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

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 her 43 years at Howard University, where she helped create the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, her own publishing endeavors and collecting, and her unfettered support of the researchers she encountered, Wesley devoted her entire life to the preservation of black history. Her career was once summed up as that of a “historical detective”, and the characterization is apt. As Dr. Janet Sims-Wood writes in her excellent study, Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howard University: Building a Legacy of Black History (The History Press, 2014) she was unrelenting in her mission: “To supplement her meager acquisitions budget, Porter appealed to faculty to donate manuscripts of their published works as well as any letters from noted individuals. […] she appealed to publishers, authors and friends who were collectors to donate their materials. She also rummaged through the attics and basements of recently deceased persons to acquire materials.” The portrait that emerges is that of an indefatigable, iconic archivist, a researcher’s dream. But, beyond the life, there is the legacy. A mighty legacy, as Sims-Wood establishes. Sims-Wood is an oral historian and she assembles here an interesting chorus of voices: those who knew Dorothy Porter Wesley, who worked with her, who watched her, whose lives and careers were impacted by her. Timed to coincide with the centenary of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Sims-Wood’s book is an important reminder of how much the preservation of history relies upon individuals. And, also, what a significant impact one person can have. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Adam Ewing acknowledges the enduring, if reductive, image of Garveyism – “the parades and shipping lines and colonization schemes” – in its early, Harlem-based incarnation, but focuses The Age Of Garvey: How A Jamaican Activist Created A Mass Movement And Changed Global Black Politics (Princeton University Press, 2014) on tracing the myriad manifestations of this “organic mass politics” beyond the larger-than-life figure at its center, to shed scholarly light on a diffuse movement observable throughout the African diaspora in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Ewing explains why Garveyism is so much more than Marcus Garvey, not an ordinary strain of pan-Africanism nor merely an extension of (Booker T.) Washingtonianism. In fact, he asserts, it is precisely when the more notorious initiatives of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) fail, that the age of Garvey truly begins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Co-founded in 1962 by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, the National Farm Workers Association would eventually become the United Farm Workers (UFW), the landmark labor union dedicated to achieving better wages and working conditions for rural California agricultural workers. In To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), Lauren Araiza uses the UFW as a lens through which to examine the factors that contribute to the viability of cross-racial coalitions in achieving civil and economic rights. Specifically, Araiza looks at the UFW’s alliances with “five organizations that represented a wide spectrum of black activism”, namely the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Black Panther Party. In this interview, the author discusses, among other things, her deliberate departure from the black/white and North/South binary paradigms that dominate the discourse on race in the United States, instead examining the intersecting interests of organizations representing African Americans and Latinos. Listen here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies