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Start a conversation about black history

Feature by Matt Gifford

Five new books celebrate the perseverance, perspicacity and power of black Americans.

How should we talk about black history in a time like ours? Today’s political landscape definitely prompts discussion, debate and introspection, and it may warrant speaking bluntly about the state of things. When it comes to race, it’s hard to say if the world is more apt to listen to a benevolent voice or a belligerent demand, but luckily, these books have a little bit of both. As we reflect on the rich contributions of black Americans this month, the following titles make for compelling, relevant and worthy conversation starters.

Conversations in Black

Begin with Conversations in Black. Ed Gordon has assembled a who’s who of black voices in conversation with each other, discussing the world as they see it in 2020. We have Al Sharpton bouncing thoughts off of Charlamagne Tha God, Jemele Hill dissecting Obama’s legacy with Stacey Abrams, and Killer Mike and Harry Belafonte getting into it with Eric Holder. Together, they discuss the treatment of the black community during the Trump administration, the successes and failures of politicians in addressing racial disparity, reparations, the racial wealth gap and so much more. With so many voices animating the expanse of black experiences today, this is the perfect gateway to richer comprehension and, hopefully, conversation.

The Affirmative Action Puzzle

The past few years have seen renewed discussion of affirmative action, with several state legislatures reversing benefits, colleges rolling back programs and no shortage of incensed think pieces on both sides of the issue. If you’re looking to educate yourself on this complicated subject, look no further than The Affirmative Action Puzzle. Author Melvin I. Urofsky traces the development of affirmative action over the generations, beginning with hypothetical (and ultimately abandoned) motions to grant civil rights and reparations at the close of the Civil War, through the incremental fight to access voting, up to the current debate during the Trump era. With this exhaustive history under your belt, you’ll have no shortage of insights for your next roundtable discussion.

Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words

We all know Rosa Parks as the woman who bravely resisted yielding her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus in 1955, but there’s so much more to the story of this titan of American history—and who better to tell that story than her? In Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words, author Susan Reyburn provides a candid look into Parks’ personal life through previously unreleased letters, documents and photographs. The book is small enough to breeze through in one sitting, and its 96 colorful pages illustrate Parks’ innermost thoughts, fears and triumphs—from her work with the NAACP leading up to the bus boycott, through her years of relative poverty afterward and ending with her eventual glorification, meeting world leaders and seeing the impact of her life’s work upon the world. This courageous woman packed so much into her life, and likewise, the details of her life are packed into this inspiring portrait.

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice

Not all of America’s black heroes won their victories by sitting down. In fact, the athletes profiled in Olympic Pride, American Prejudice ran race after race to cement their names in the history books, at a time when they weren’t allowed to even walk through the front door of many American establishments. In an accessible narrative style, authors Deborah Riley Draper and Travis Thrasher weave together the stories of 18 different runners coming into their prime at the dawn of the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and culminating in their powerful performance in the 1936 Berlin Olympics—much to the dismay of Adolf Hitler. These athletes came from all walks of life, from college students to dock workers to housewives, and competed on the world stage decades before any meaningful civil rights progress was made in the U.S. These historic track and field stars come to life in full relief on the page, revealing their fears, internal debates and complicated relationships with a power structure that simultaneously exalted and shamed them. How do you represent a country that hates you, and should you even try? It’s a complicated question, and one that is well trod in this book.

These historic track and field stars come to life in full relief on the page, revealing their complicated relationships with a power structure that simultaneously exalted and shamed them.

Driving While Black

It’s a long journey on the road to equality, and it’s a bumpy road, at that. If you’re feeling a little highway weary, I’d recommend pulling over, taking a pit stop and cracking open a copy of Driving While Black by Gretchen Sorin. Like most civil rights, vehicular freedom was a cultural battle that took several extra decades to be actualized for African Americans. Once black Americans began to drive, personal automobiles became instrumental to progressive milestones like the Montgomery bus boycotts of 1955, in which fleets of community vehicles carried activists to and from work in lieu of buses. But dangers still abounded for black Americans behind the wheel, due to segregation, Jim Crow laws and white-supremacist terrorist groups running rampant across America. Driving While Black also chronicles the rise of car culture in tandem with rock ’n’ roll music (Chuck Berry loved his Cadillacs), as well as the vast network of black-friendly establishments outlined in the popular Green Book. Feeling gassed up yet? Grab this book to-go and get to reading.

Today’s political landscape definitely prompts discussion, debate and introspection, and it may warrant speaking bluntly about the state of things. When it comes to race, it’s hard to say if the world is more apt to listen to a benevolent voice or a belligerent demand, but luckily, these books have a little bit of both.
NonfictionFood & DrinkBlack HistoryBiographyAmerican History

Fall’s biggest biographies

Feature by BookPage contributors

Big names, big personalities and big legacies. The subjects of this fall’s most captivating biographies need no introduction.

Mad at the World
By William Souder

John Steinbeck just might be the novelist for our time. In his sprawling epic The Grapes of Wrath, he captured Americans’ peculiar yearning for a life not their own, the promise of wealth beyond the veil of desolation and the wretched impossibility of such a promise. Steinbeck’s other epic, East of Eden, illustrates the ragged desperation of human nature, wreaking destruction rather than carrying hope. William Souder’s bracing Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck vividly portrays the brooding and moody writer who could never stop writing and who never fit comfortably into the society in which he lived.

Souder, whose biography of John James Audubon was a Pulitzer finalist, traces Steinbeck’s love of stories to his childhood. As a teenager, Steinbeck immersed himself in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, which he translated later in life, and in adventure tales and classics such as Treasure Island, Madame Bovary and Crime and Punishment. This early reading gave him glimpses into the shadowy corners of the human heart and provided him with models for telling tales of people engaged in heroic struggles against the injustices of their eras.

Steinbeck was a born storyteller who was a bit out of step with his times; many of his social realist novels appeared during the innovations of modernism. But Steinbeck remains widely read and relevant today, as vibrantly illuminated by Mad at the World.

—Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

★ Eleanor
By David Michaelis

Fueled by 11 years of research, the new biography of Eleanor Roosevelt by David Michaelis (N. C. Wyeth) is both compelling and comprehensive, making use of previously untapped archival sources and interviews. Michaelis, who actually met Roosevelt when he was just 4 years old, trains his careful attention on virtually all aspects of her incredible life and times to craft a fast-moving, engrossing narrative.

Eleanor follows its subject from birth to her death in 1962. Roosevelt’s life journey took her from a shy, often ignored child, whose mother shamed her with the nickname “Granny,” to a dynamic first lady and then a “world maker” when, as one of the country’s first delegates to the United Nations, she spearheaded the adoption of the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights in history. Of course, Eleanor Roosevelt’s life was also entwined with that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Eleanor was so intrinsically linked with the New Deal and World War II, it’s sometimes easy to forget that she was born in 1884 and was almost 36 years old when the 19th Amendment passed in 1920.

Michaelis never neglects the politics and history that marked the life of this remarkable, fascinating woman. At the same time, his impeccable storytelling and seamless integration of dialogue and quotations allow him to create an intimate, lively and emotional portrait that unfolds like a good novel. As America faces another challenging period in its history, there may be no better time for readers to turn to the life of one of our nation’s truly great leaders for inspiration.

—Deborah Hopkinson

His Truth Is Marching On
By Jon Meacham

It’s been only a few months since the death of civil rights giant John Lewis, and though eloquent tributes from leaders like Barack Obama have attempted to sum up his legacy, it will ultimately fall to future generations to fully assess his contributions to the cause of racial equality in America. One of our most prominent contemporary historians, Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham, offers an appreciative early assessment in His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope.

Meacham frankly admits that his book makes no attempt at a full-scale biography of Lewis. Instead, he focuses on the tumultuous period from 1957 to 1966, when Lewis rose from obscurity in a family of sharecroppers in Troy, Alabama, to national prominence in the civil rights movement. This “quietly charismatic, forever courtly, implacably serene” man was motivated by a fierce commitment to nonviolence and above all by his unswerving attachment to the vision he shared with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of a “beloved community”—in Lewis’ words, “nothing less than the Christian concept of the kingdom of God on earth.”

Meacham makes a persuasive case for his claim that “John Robert Lewis embodied the traits of a saint in the classical Christian sense of the term.” At a moment when events have once again forced Americans to confront the evils of racism, His Truth Is Marching On will inspire both courage and hope.

—Harvey Freedenberg

★ The Man Who Ate Too Much
By John Birdsall

American cookery rests squarely on the shoulders of the late, great James Beard. His life and experiences are extremely well known and have been written about extensively. Yet in his new book, The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard, John Birdsall—a gastronomic expert in his own right, having twice won a James Beard Award—gives foodies a fresh, intimate look at Beard. He writes with candor, wit and vibrancy, as if Beard himself is speaking through Birdsall’s pen, retelling his colorful life and inviting us into his world. And Birdsall doesn’t mince words, delivering a raw, revealing look into how and why Beard had to tread cautiously as he navigated the world as a closeted gay man during the often unforgiving 20th century.

Birdsall’s strength as a food writer shines, with mouthwateringly descriptive prose about cuisine peppered throughout the book. He also provides touchstones to what was going on globally, including both World Wars, the World’s Fair of 1939, the Vietnam War, Watergate and the civil rights movement, giving context for the major events that affected Beard’s life.

The Man Who Ate Too Much is meticulously researched. Additionally, Birdsall’s insightful style allows readers to feel Beard’s successes and failures, highs and lows, and revelations and discoveries as they become deeply familiar with the family, friends, colleagues and rivals who impacted his life.

—Becky Libourel Diamond

★ The Dead Are Arising
By Les Payne and Tamara Payne

Pulitzer Prize winner Les Payne’s monumental and absorbing The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X peers into the gaps left by Malcolm X’s autobiography, taking us more deeply into the intimate details of his life, work and death.

In 1990, investigative reporter Payne began conducting hundreds of interviews with Malcolm X’s family members, childhood friends, classmates and bodyguards, as well as with FBI agents, photographers, U.N. representatives, African revolutionaries and presidents and the two men falsely imprisoned for killing Malcolm X. Drawing on these conversations, Payne traces Malcolm X’s story from his childhood in Omaha, Nebraska, through his teenage years in Lansing, Michigan, where Malcolm learned to resist the racial provocations of his white classmates. Payne chronicles Malcolm X’s time in prison, where fellow inmate John E. Bembry challenged Malcolm X by telling the young prisoner, “If I had some brains, I’d use them.” This encouraged Malcolm X to read all he could and to not only engage others with words but also support those words with facts from experts. In vivid detail, Payne retells the events leading up to Malcolm X’s assassination, offering fresh information about those involved.

The Dead Are Arising is essential reading. Completed after the author’s death in 2018 by Tamara Payne, Les’ daughter and the book’s primary researcher, it captures the vibrant voice of a revolutionary whose words resonate powerfully in our own times.

—Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

★ Red Comet
By Heather Clark

In Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, biographer and Plath scholar Heather Clark lifts the poet’s life from the Persephone myth it has become and examines it in all its complexity. Clark admirably identifies and resists the morbid tendency to look at every moment, every work, as a signpost on the way to Plath’s tragic suicide. She also liberates the supporting cast of Plath’s life from the damning and one-dimensional roles they often occupy as part of the death-myth of Plath’s life. Her husband, Ted Hughes; his lover, Assia Wevill; Plath’s mother, Aurelia Plath—they are not villains but people who created art of their own, who loved and fought with Plath, who were not always good or right.

Clark’s detailed, multidimensional treatment infuses Plath’s life and work with dignity, character and a sense of interiority. We get the full scope of Plath’s incredible talent here, rightfully established as complicated, radiant and worthy of deep consideration. Plath was a genius. She was a woman living in a time of great social restriction for women. She had complicated and human relationships. She was mentally ill, and this mental illness both illumined her work and colored her perspective on the world. All of these things are held alongside one another without conflict in Clark’s book. Red Comet allows Plath to emerge from the shadows, shining in all her intricacy and artistry.

—Anna Spydell

Big names, big personalities and big legacies. The subjects of this fall's most captivating biographies need no introduction.
Mad at the World By William Souder John Steinbeck just might be the novelist for our time.…
NonfictionGraphic Novels & ComicsBlack History

Six books reveal the dreams of America’s Black forefathers and foremothers

Feature by Matt Gifford

Our national conversation about anti-Black racism made 2020 a pivotal year—painful for many, cathartic for others, memorable to all. Now a new year brings new opportunities to listen to Black voices and stories. Pick up one of these titles to deepen your knowledge of our country’s past, and join the chorus of voices advocating for a better future.

Ida B. the Queen

Ida B. Wells gets the royal treatment in Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells, written by Michelle Duster, Wells’ great-granddaughter.

From the 1890s through the early 20th century, Wells was a pioneering activist and journalist who fought racism by publicizing heinous acts of violence toward Black Americans during the Jim Crow era. Crafted with empathy for and intimate knowledge of this American icon, the book recounts Wells’ many groundbreaking achievements, which caused the FBI to dub her a “dangerous negro agitator” in her time. Unlike in a typical biography, however, Duster integrates her own perspective of her great-grandmother into this narrative, inspecting her family’s legacy along the way. Duster also outlines the cultural impact Wells had on her contemporaries, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, and draws a throughline from Wells’ defiant voice at the turn of the 20th century to the struggle for Black lives today.

In addition to its compelling content, this book is also drop-dead gorgeous. Vibrant illustrations of Wells and other important history makers, such as Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Malcolm X and Bree Newsome, add even more color to their colorful lives. Wells was righteously indignant and wise beyond her era, and Duster translates her drive to today’s racial discourse with insight and grace.

★ Four Hundred Souls

If you’re looking for a single work that spans the entirety of the Black experience in America, pick up a copy of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. This comprehensive meditation on Black history in the United States features 90 noteworthy Black authors and poets ruminating on the last 400 years—beginning with the date of the first recorded arrival of enslaved people from Africa on these shores.

Each author reflects on five years in America, focusing on a different “person, place, thing, idea, or event”—such as Phillis Wheatley, Oregon, cotton, queer sexuality and the war on drugs. At the end of each 40-year section, a poet captures that historical period in verse. With contributions from huge names in the community of Black thought leaders, such as Nikole Hannah-Jones, Isabel Wilkerson, Angela Davis and Jamelle Bouie, just to name a few, the scope of the writing is immense and powerful, the content both celebratory and harrowing.

You may feel drawn to this book because of its heavy-hitting roster of big names, but look forward to widening your familiarity with more up-and-coming writers, too. With so many authors and topics represented in these pages, you’re sure to gain new insight about every tumultuous period in our nation’s history.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Four Hundred Souls is the year’s most astounding full-cast audiobook production. Go behind the scenes with Kendi, Blain and the producers.

Julian Bond’s Time to Teach

One valuable yet often overlooked leader in the fight for Black equality is finally getting his due in Julian Bond’s Time to Teach: A History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. The late author’s lectures from his prolific teaching career, assembled here for the first time, are full of firsthand lessons from his direct involvement in the civil rights movement.

As one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Bond participated in myriad sit-ins and protests in the Southern United States and even worked directly with Martin Luther King Jr. Later he became an elected member of both the Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia Senate and then began teaching at institutions such as Harvard, the University of Virginia and American University. As a lifelong activist, Bond not only protested for Black civil rights but was also an early advocate for LGBTQ rights and rights for disabled people, long before any legislation, courts or popular thought addressed these needs.

Reflecting his storied life of activism, Bond’s lectures offer a road map of the history of the United States and white supremacy, covering the formation of the NAACP, the treatment of Black soldiers through World War II, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case and other milestones. Along the way, he meticulously details the daily efforts to build and expand the Southern civil rights movement throughout the 20th century, highlighting the contributions of many underrecognized individuals.

During his life, Bond wanted to educate the world about the history of the Black experience, as well as about the nuts and bolts of starting and maintaining a protest movement. With this posthumous collection, and with the help of the editors who assembled it, he can finally share his teachings with the broad audience he deserves.

★ A Shot in the Moonlight

Imagine being woken up in the middle of the night by a mob outside your house, calling your name, accusing you of crimes that you didn’t commit. Then imagine that they start throwing explosives and firing guns at your house, at your family. You defend yourself and your home as best you can, and one of the assailants dies from the intervening fight. Suddenly you find yourself, a Black man, a formerly enslaved person, fleeing through 1890s Kentucky, trying to stay out of the hands of lynch mobs. With the Ku Klux Klan and newspapers calling for your execution, you’re forced to put your life in the hands of a lawyer who fought to uphold slavery.

This complicated tale is masterfully told in Ben Montgomery’s A Shot in the Moonlight: How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South. Montgomery, the Tampa Bay Times journalist who covered the Dozier School for Boys (which would later inspire Colson Whitehead’s novel The Nickel Boys), guides us through the events that took place on the night of January 21, 1897, at the home of George Dining.

A Shot in the Moonlight reads like a riveting thriller, with multiple moving pieces and conflicting perspectives, but historical artifacts such as newspaper excerpts and first-person accounts also give it journalistic depth. Set during an era when being Black and accused of a crime was almost a guaranteed death sentence, this gripping history offers hope through the actions of an unlikely cast of characters who sought to save a man from a cruel and vindictive fate.

Soul City

If you’re looking for something lower octane that still offers an intriguing exploration of what could have been, take a trip to Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia. Author Thomas Healy tells the story of Soul City, North Carolina, an intentional community founded in the 1970s by the Black lawyer Floyd McKissick, aimed at helping Black people achieve the American dream. While not an exclusively Black community, Soul City was intended to be a place for Black people to grow, prosper economically and exercise their hard-won civil rights outside of segregated cities.

Envisioning a city whose main streets were named after the likes of Nat Turner, John Brown and Dred Scott, McKissick lobbied for help from the federal government to pursue his municipal dream, and surprisingly, the Nixon administration eventually granted him the seed money. However, despite years of effort, the town is now little more than a blip on the historical radar. And by some dark irony, Soul City’s largest industry today is the operation of a for-profit prison. 

So what happened? Was Soul City doomed from the beginning, like so many ambitious utopian experiments? As Healy shows, it’s not that simple. Soul City’s bumpy background is littered with statewide backlash, legislative resistance and financial undercutting, which prevented the project from flourishing. This chronicle of what went wrong, and who wanted it to go wrong, outlines both missteps by the city’s planners as well as outside obstacles that contributed to the experiment’s failure. Even so, McKissick’s shining vision for Soul City will inspire readers to dream of what kinds of communities we could create next.

The Black Panther Party

For education that’s easy on the eyes, snag The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History by David F. Walker (The Life of Frederick Douglass). Beautifully illustrated by Marcus Kwame Anderson and supremely informative, this graphic novel offers a digestible history of the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party, correcting many negative assumptions about them while still addressing their flaws.

The book especially excels in illuminating the motives of the party’s founders, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. Their original aims were to improve community security, defy the tactics of racist police departments, provide free community breakfast and offer support to underserved youth. However, the party’s faulty decision-making, along with efforts by police institutions and the FBI to sabotage the party every step of the way, led to its ultimate unraveling.

A breeze to read and a feast for the eyes (and mind), this book is perfect for every burgeoning revolutionary.

A new year brings new opportunities to listen to Black voices and stories. Pick up one of these titles to deepen your knowledge of our country’s past, and join the chorus of voices advocating for a better future.
NonfictionBlack History

Glimmers of hope during dark times

Feature by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

Inspiration has been hard to come by in a year marked by a devastating pandemic, economic hardship and shocking political turmoil. If your faith has been challenged, these books will encourage hope, offer guidance and provide glimpses of light amid the shadows.

Dusk, Night, Dawn

With her characteristic deadpan humor, Anne Lamott shepherds us through the darkness in Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage. In short, affectionately candid chapters, Lamott meditates on the beauty of nature, the power of forgiveness, the wonder of love and kindness and the benefit of recognizing specks of hope all around us. When she’s in an airport, exasperated by flight delays, for example, she notices a young girl’s absorption in some hair ribbons. Suddenly it dawns on her how we can recover our faith in life “in the midst of so much bad news and dread, when our children’s futures are so uncertain: We start in the here and now. . . . We start where our butts and feet and minds are. We start in these times of incomprehensible scientific predictions, madness and disbelief, aging and constantly nightmarish airport delays, and we look up and around for brighter ribbons.”

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Anne Lamott shares some ideas for how to get by when the world seems especially dark.

Freeing Jesus

While Lamott explores how we restrict ourselves with limited ideas about grace, sin and forgiveness, Diana Butler Bass focuses on the ways we put Jesus in a cage, confining the universality of his life and message behind bars of dogmatism. In her moving Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence, Bass attempts to answer the age-old question, “Who is Jesus really?” Theologians have long responded to this question by focusing on either the human Jesus of history or the divine Christ of faith, but Bass writes that neither history nor theology, “neither intellectual arguments nor ecclesiastical authority elucidates the Jesus I have known.” She shares wonderful stories of finding Jesus during every stage of her life, noting that experiencing Jesus as a friend during one’s teenage years will be very different from experiencing Jesus as a friend in middle age. In this refreshing book, Bass tells readers of a Jesus “who shows up consistently and when we least expect him. Freeing Jesus means finding him along the way.”

Learning to Pray

Each of these books highlights practices that can heal fractured relationships or bring us closer to God, such as prayer. However, our understanding of prayer is often as constricted as our understanding of Jesus. In his monumental and elegantly insightful book Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone, James Martin, SJ, teaches a simple but enduring lesson: “Prayer is a personal relationship with God.” He gently guides the reader through reasons to pray and offers a richly detailed history of various types of prayer, from petitionary prayer and centering prayer to nature prayer and lectio divina, or praying with sacred texts. Martin reminds us of the many reasons we pray, including to praise God and to unburden ourselves. Because we often think of prayer as asking for favors from God, or as limited to a certain time and place, we don’t realize that we can pray without knowing it by “pausing to think about something that inspires you,” being “aware that you are grateful” or even simply wishing you could pray. Martin’s book is so abundantly full that it may be the only guide to prayer you’ll ever need.

The Black Church

In the book that accompanies his PBS series of the same title, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, Henry Louis Gates Jr. sublimely evokes the power of worship to create both religious and political solidarity. Drawing on meticulous archival research, as well as on insightful interviews with a diverse group of religious leaders, Gates plumbs the history of the Black church in America, from its roots in slavery, through its development in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to its struggles during the 1960s and into the 21st century. Gates elegantly illustrates that “the signal aspects of African American culture were planted, watered, given light, and nurtured in the Black Church.” He also teases apart the two stories present within African American religious traditions: “one of a people defining themselves in the presence of a higher power and the other of their journey for freedom and equality in a land where power itself . . . was (and still is) denied them.” Gates’ enthralling book offers a powerful reminder that our actions affect the communities in which we live.

Inspiration has been hard to come by in a year marked by a devastating pandemic, economic hardship and shocking political turmoil. If your faith has been challenged, these books will encourage hope, offer guidance and provide glimpses of light amid the shadows.
NonfictionBlack HistoryBiography

Book Clubs: May 2021

Feature by Julie Hale

These terrific titles shed new light on fascinating figures and monumental moments that have shaped our world today, and will make you wish you had read them years ago.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar illuminates the life of a freedom fighter in Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge. Born into enslavement in Mount Vernon, Virginia, Ona Judge moved with George and Martha Washington to Philadelphia, where, under Pennsylvania law, enslaved people were to be freed after six months—an edict Washington flouted. When Judge fled the Washington household, she became the center of a protracted search. Books clubs may view Washington in a new light after reading Dunbar’s revealing narrative, which also explores social justice, gender and notions of heroism.

In The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban Heartland, Walter Thompson-Hernández tells the remarkable story of the Compton, California, ranch where local youngsters have the opportunity to learn firsthand about the long history of America’s Black cowboys. The narrative focuses on a core group of characters, including single mother Keiara, who hopes to win a rodeo championship. A lively blend of reportage and history, the book provides a fundamental new perspective on the concept of the American cowboy and its legacy within the Black community.

Gareth Russell’s Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII provides fresh insight into the life of Catherine Howard, whose brief reign as queen of England ended when she was charged with treason and executed. Too often a side character in the story of her husband, Catherine is given new depth and dimension in Russell’s narrative, which focuses on her innermost circle and explores the court intrigue that brought about her end. Rich in detail and talking points, including Tudor politics and the role of aristocratic women in the 16th century, this compelling biography is a can’t-miss pick.

In Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, Adam Higginbotham delves into the mysteries behind the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl atomic energy station. The Soviet government tried to cover up the truth about the catastrophe, which sent radioactive clouds across parts of the Soviet Union and Europe. Incorporating newly available archival material and extensive interviews, Higginbotham pieces together the events that led to the accident and dispels the mythology that has since surrounded it in this darkly fascinating book.

These terrific titles shed new light on fascinating figures and monumental moments that have shaped our world today, and will make you wish you had read them years ago.

NonfictionFictionSocial ScienceGraphic Novels & ComicsBlack History

A season of literary art

Feature by Matthew Jackson

The range of comic book storytelling is vast, and this selection of 2021’s best graphic novels, memoirs and histories runs the gamut in terms of artistic style and narrative approach, yet all of them have two things in common: a mastery of the form and a unique sense of expression.

Bubble

The stakes of the gig economy have never been higher than in Bubble, a graphic novel by Jordan Morris and Sarah Morgan with illustrations from Tony Cliff and colors by Natalie Riess. Adapted from the scripted podcast of the same name, Bubble is set in a world where corporate-funded cities have sprung up as domes of safety, walling off humanity from a monster-ridden wilderness known as the Brush. Morgan was born in the Brush, and though she’s grown accustomed to life in the bubble, she’s retained a few of her more useful Brush skills, including the ability to kill pesky mutated imps. Naturally, her employers have just the thing to help her monetize that ability.

Bubble crackles with wit and biting commentary on piecing together a living one app at a time. Cliff’s art enriches the whole wild affair, lending a grounding sense of reality to the reading experience despite the fantastical setting. He’s as adept at depicting action-packed scenes as he is at homing in on a character’s eyes at a key moment of personal discovery. There’s tremendous glee to be found in Bubble, but also tremendous heart.

Ballad for Sophie

A young woman talks her way into the mansion of one of the world’s most reclusive musicians and convinces him to give her an interview. That’s the premise from which Ballad for Sophie springs, and with a sense of adversarial yet whimsical tension, we are propelled into a world of bittersweet wonders, tragedy and music.

Written by jazz composer Filipe Melo, illustrated by Juan Cavia and translated from the original Spanish by Gabriela Soares, Ballad for Sophie unfolds as the aging pianist tells his story. We meet a lifelong rival, a lost love, a tormented mother, a devilish piano teacher and more, their rich narrative tapestry unfolding against backdrops that range from World War II to the luxury of 1960s Paris. 

Through it all, Melo’s characters are either constantly growing or constantly resisting growth, while Cavia’s art sweeps across the page with lithe figures and elegant depictions of bygone eras. When the story dips into the past, his art grows slightly more magical, turning piano teachers into great horned creatures and piano recitals into dramatically lit clashes of titans.

Emotionally dense, texturally rich and humming with humanity, Ballad for Sophie is a moving portrait of the ways in which art can both save and doom us.

Interior image from Ballad for Sophie
From Ballad for Sophie. Used with permission from Top Shelf.

Lore Olympus

Some elements of Greek mythology are simply timeless. In Lore Olympus: Volume One, Rachel Smythe reminds us of this using her acclaimed artistic magic. This is the first volume of her webcomic “Lore Olympus,” and it’s striking to see her work collected in such a lavish tome after its celebrated web release.

As Smythe unveils her retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth, her gorgeous art elevates each scene. She uses precise color and shading to bathe the Greek gods in neon hues of purple and blue, like they’re perpetually in some mythic nightclub. Readers will revel in how seamlessly Smythe has adapted this classic story, and in no time at all, they’ll find themselves utterly lost in her beautifully dark, often startlingly timely world of sex, lies and immortality. 

The Middle Ages

You’ve probably heard that the Middle Ages wasn’t really the period of darkness and ignorance that popular culture has made it out to be, but you’ve never seen that truth demonstrated quite like in The Middle Ages: A Graphic History. Medieval historian Eleanor Janega and illustrator Neil Max Emmanuel set out to reveal how this period took shape and why it became so consequential, and they never miss in that mission. 

Rather than attempting a strictly linear dissection of centuries of human history, The Middle Ages unfolds almost as an illustrated textbook, with sections devoted to everything from the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne to the growth of major European cities. Janega’s prose is precise, informative, digestible and witty. Emmanuel’s simple but effective black-and-white art carries that same wit through to the visuals, alternating between modern compositions and homages to medieval aesthetics, with amusing revisions to the Bayeux Tapestry and clever representations of church schisms.

It all adds up to an utterly essential volume for history buffs, whether they’re diving into the medieval period for the first time or just brushing up on a few things. 

★ Run

The follow-up to Congressman John Lewis’ monumental, award-winning March series, Run: Book One kicks off a new graphic trilogy that further establishes Lewis as a fundamental, undeniable force in the mid-1960s American civil rights movement.

Lewis completed work on the script for Run before his death in 2020, and illustrator L. Fury joins writer Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell (both of whom collaborated on the March trilogy) in carefully layering Lewis’ recollections with vivid depictions of celebrations and violence, hope and heartbreak, despair and determination. The story picks up after the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act, as Lewis encountered new roadblocks and hurdles in the wake of that legislative victory. Through dramatic composition and movement, Powell and Fury’s illustrations capture the same energy as the March trilogy, while also conveying Lewis’ maturation as he grows out of his student organizing era and enters the realm of American statesmanship.

Run is another indispensable chronicle of the life and work of one of 20th-century America’s most exceptional figures, but it’s also a mission statement for the work yet to come.

Interior image from Run: Book One
From Run: Book One. Used with permission from Abrams ComicArts.

★ Seek You

It might sound like a cliche to say that a book delving into America’s loneliness epidemic will make you feel more connected to the world around you, but that’s exactly what writer and illustrator Kristen Radtke achieves in this ambitious book. 

Part memoir, part sociological study and part cultural history, Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness digs deep into the many ways that loneliness affects our daily lives. Through incisive, often disarmingly confessional writing, Radtke gets to the core of what loneliness is and what it does to our bodies and minds, exploring everything from its neurological roots to the impact of the sitcom studio audience laugh track. 

Throughout Seek You, we are guided by Radtke’s beautifully muted art. Some pages are powerful in their simplicity, such as a wide view of a massive apartment complex with a single lit window, while others are effective in their complexity, such as a spread showing a lone figure amid a fog of words describing their most alienating experiences. 

Seek You is a captivating combination of raw emotional exploration and thoughtful, sophisticated imagination.

The Waiting

A chance encounter with a dog on a city street pulls a character back through decades of memories and serves as the launching point for a stirring graphic novel by author-illustrator Keum Suk Gendry-Kim.

Translated from the Korean by Janet Hong, The Waiting explores a very particular kind of loss on the Korean peninsula. In bold, fluid black-and-white imagery, Gendry-Kim tells a story inspired by her own mother, who lived under Japanese occupation in Korea before World War II, then was forced to migrate during the Korean War and the permanent division of Korea along the 38th parallel. Many Koreans fled their homes amid the fighting, causing a surge of family separations that led to lifetimes of waiting and hoping. 

Though The Waiting is set amid some of the most consequential events of the 20th century, Gendry-Kim never makes the book’s scope wider than it needs to be. The Waiting is better for it, succeeding as a deeply intimate portrayal of one woman’s struggle to not only survive but also keep some measure of hope and determination alive. It’s also about the broader goal of an entire culture to somehow come back together after war, through individual efforts and massive group reunions. 

In depicting a people’s efforts to find each other, The Waiting is one of the most moving graphic novels of the year.

★ Wake

Writer and activist Rebecca Hall and illustrator Hugo Martínez present a powerful meditation on hidden history that transforms into a haunting, necessary statement on exactly why that history has been hidden, and how much of it still lives with us.

In Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, Hall, whose grandparents were enslaved, recounts her process of researching several 18th-century revolts that were led by enslaved women. Though some of the book’s most affecting sequences re-create these revolts, much of Wake is a memoir of Hall’s search for the brave, rebellious women who led them, the punishments they suffered and what, if anything, they managed to leave behind. In the process of constructing their stories, Hall tells much of her own, laying bare how the echoes of enslavement inform our political world as well as her own daily interactions.

Hall’s prose is stunning, and Martínez’s art takes it to another level, delivering expressive representations of the history Hall carries with her and of the reminders of slavery’s cruelty that are etched into the landscapes we walk now. His artwork bleeds past and present together, depicting the city streets around Hall as shadowy memorials of the slave markets that once stood there. When he projects the images of enslaved men and women onto the facades of skyscrapers, he transforms these feats of architecture into monuments to atrocities.

Wake is as poetic as it is powerful. Readers who adored the March trilogy and the graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred will find it to be an essential addition to their shelves.

A sampling of the year’s best graphics and comics includes a neon-bright retelling of a Greek myth and the continued memoirs of a civil rights legend.
HistoryBlack History

Homeless, Friendless, and Penniless

Review by James Hardy

In 1936, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) initiated a program to collect oral biographies from former slaves. Field workers solicited and edited thousands of slave narratives, some of which were sent to the Library of Congress, while others went to libraries in various states. Although most of these interviews have been previously published, in Homeless, Friendless, and Penniless, Ronald L. Baker has compiled for the first time all the Indiana interviews with former slaves who settled in the Hoosier state.

The slave narratives must be read with caution. Rather than reproducing exactly what the former slaves related, field workers customarily edited the interviews. Most of the field workers were white, and it is impossible to know how accurately the former slaves recounted unpleasant episodes to white questioners.The narrative of Hettie McClain illustrates the impact of slavery on free states. Hettie was the daughter of a slave, Hulda, and her owner, William McClain. To ensure that Hulda and Hettie would not be separated, McClain took them across the freedom line from Kentucky to Indiana, bought them a cottage and emancipated them. Many owners took their slave mistresses and children to a free state, a practice which often led to lawsuits.

Former slave John Rudd "recalled seeing seven ex – slaves hanging from one tree . . . just after the close of the war."Several slaves remembered families broken up by owners, and John W. Fields related that "Twelve children were taken from my mother in one day!" The final word belongs to Thomas Lewis: "There was no such thing as being good to slaves."

Ronald Baker, professor of English at Indiana State University, has done an excellent job of editing the WPA interviews, bringing them into a single edition and adding several previously unpublished interviews. Both scholars and interested readers will find this volume fascinating to read and easy to use.

James D. Hardy, Jr. is associate dean of the Honors College at LSU.

In 1936, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) initiated a program to collect oral biographies from former slaves. Field workers solicited and edited thousands of slave narratives, some of which were sent to the Library of Congress, while others went to libraries in various states. Although…

NonfictionLiteratureHistoryBlack HistoryArts & Culture

Tales of African-American history inspire and enlighten

Review by Robert Fleming

In time for Black History Month, publishers are honoring a community that has enriched the American social, cultural and political landscapes. While many of the books featured here chronicle the African-American fight for freedom and equality, others address the challenges that have produced a unique sense of determination and strength of will in the black community. The exceptional titles listed below explorations of both well-known and neglected chapters of African-American history are the perfect ways for readers to celebrate this special month. An impressive range of viewpoints is collected in Voices in Our Blood, an anthology of pieces, written by novelists, poets, critics and journalists, that explore aspects of the civil rights movement. Some of the most important authors and thinkers of the 20th century are featured in this fascinating book, including Richard Wright, John Lewis, Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Taylor Branch and James Baldwin. Included here are essays, reportage and memoir, along with classic pieces like Alex Haley's 1963 interview of Malcolm X for Playboy. Compiled by John Meacham, managing editor at Newsweek, Voices in Our Blood spans five decades, providing a kaleidoscopic look at the movement that changed the face of the nation.

The lengthy, complex relationship between two of the most vital figures of the Harlem Renaissance is immortalized in Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964. Following the pair of literary giants over a period of nearly four decades, this engrossing collection documents an unconventional friendship. Van Vechten, a noted white writer, acted as mentor to the younger black poet, helping Hughes get his first book published. Their correspondence is collected here for the first time, and the exchange between these great minds makes for fascinating reading. Hughes and Van Vechten comment knowledgeably on culture, art and politics, and both share gossip about common acquaintances like Zora Neale Hurston, H. L. Mencken and James Baldwin. Edited by Emily Bernard, assistant professor of African-American studies at Smith College, this collection provides new insight into the genius of two icons of the printed word.

History has never sufficiently recognized the achievements of heroic black women like Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks and Fannie Loy Hamer. With her pioneering new book, Freedom's Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement From 1830 to 1970, journalist Lynne Olson sets out to right this oversight. A comprehensive look at the females black and white who helped engineer the fight for civil rights, Freedom's Daughters traces the movement from its beginnings in the 1800s, when women worked to abolish lynching, to contemporary times, when they organized history-making protests. A moving tribute to female freedom fighters that also examines the women's rights movement, Olson's provocative book demands that we take a second look at the contributions made by these courageous individuals.

With Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television, scholar and media expert Donald Bogle gives readers the first exhaustive account of blacks on network television. Covering the programs that featured African-American performers, from cartoonish 1950s hits like Amos n' Andy and Beulah to the wild, racy programming on WB and the Fox Network in the 1990s, Bogle dissects racial and cultural stereotypes in this compelling and informative book. Great scholarship and lively writing make Primetime Blues a must for anyone interested in the history of the tube and its effect on American race relations.

An engaging look at what has become a major status symbol among African Americans, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in Americaexamines the cultural and political significance of hair among black women. Written by Ayana Byrd, a former research chief for Vibe, and Lori L. Tharps, a reporter for Entertainment Weekly, Hair Story chronicles the history of black hair, from afros to braids, dreadlocks to weaves. The evolution and import of all the major styles are included here, along with interviews with women who have worn them. An entertaining study that also covers milestones in the history of black hair, profiling important figures like hair care industry giant Madame C. J. Walker, this is an impressive work of cultural history.

Finally, mention must be made of another recent book, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963by David Levering Lewis. A companion volume to his earlier work, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919, Lewis' latest book opens with Du Bois' tenure as the editor of the NAACP publication The Crisis during the Red Summer of 1919, when racial violence was at an all-time high. Lewis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar and historian, vividly chronicles Du Bois' life, from his work at the magazine to his emergence as a worldwide leader in the struggle to end racism and colonialism. A balanced, well-researched narrative, this important book is full of revelations about a complex, aristocratic black figure.

Robert Fleming is the author of The African American Writers Handbook (Ballantine).

In time for Black History Month, publishers are honoring a community that has enriched the American social, cultural and political landscapes. While many of the books featured here chronicle the African-American fight for freedom and equality, others address the challenges that have produced a unique…

NonfictionFictionWomen's FictionTravelHistoryCrafts, Hobbies & HomeBlack HistoryBiography

Black History Month: A symphony of varied voices

Review by Robert Fleming

With the arrival of Black History Month comes the expectation of a host of African-American books, geared not only to that unique, highly creative community but to the general population as well. Mainstream publishers now understand that there is a large readership waiting for books that reflect African-American issues and concerns, so it is not unusual that the bookshelves are full of new volumes during the month of February. In the roundup that follows, we at BookPage have selected a precious few of the large collection of books currently available.

Fiction

Some African-American literary critics often lament the alleged lack of gifted young black novelists coming up, mistakenly comparing the young lions to legends such as James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. However, the emergence of such talents as R.M. Johnson, the author of the acclaimed The Harris Men, has quieted many of the naysayers. His latest novel, Father Found, chronicles the obsession of Zale Rowen, founder of Father Found, an organization that finds absent dads and forces them to fulfill their emotional and financial obligations. Zale's zeal for a social cause costs him dearly, bringing him to serious illness and crisis in this timely, disturbing novel that is certain to win Johnson much attention.

Venise Berry's All of Me follows her best-selling debut, So Good, with a humorous, insightful look at America's obsession with weight as Serpentine Williamson, a Chicago TV reporter blessed with the good life, learns the importance of self-esteem when everything she holds dear is threatened. This is Berry at her best, wry and knowing, using a new twist on the triumph-over-adversity motif.

While veteran novelist Kristin Lattany may be best known for her most popular book, The Landlord, her new work, Do unto Others offers us a different side of the author with the absorbing story of Zena and her husband Lucious, whose world is rocked by the entry of an unpredictable young African girl into their household. The novel is a scathing reminder of the futility of racism, the assumptions of Afrocentrism, and the occasional absurdity of political correctness.

The notion of May/December romance gets a fresh coat of paint in Patty Rice's novel Somethin' Extra, when Genie Gatlin, who specializes in safe married men, meets David Lewis, a man 30 years her senior. He shows her the full range of love and commitment, despite her fears and doubts. Rice writes with a candid, realistic view of amour that pulls very few punches.

Jeffrey Renard Allen's exceptional debut epic, Rails Under My Back, tells the complex story of the lives and loves of two brothers, Lucifer and John Jones, and their wives, Gracie and Sheila McShan. This multilayered, intricate fable delves deep into the themes of love, survival, responsibility, and trust, as the choices of the parents bear unforeseen consequences for their children. Sweeping, experimental, and rewarding.

Nonfiction

Call him an intellectual, call him an activist, Harvard University professor Cornel West is a man who defies category with an encyclopedic mind that is stumped by no topic or realm of study. His stand-out collection of social commentary, memoir, interviews, and essays, The Cornel West Reader, attests to his prowess as cultural analyst and academic philosopher-theologian with its astute observations on everything from Marxist theory and black sexuality to black-Jewish relations and rap.

A rare opportunity to enter the minds of three pivotal African-American leaders is presented by Dr. Sondra Kathryn Wilson, literary executor of the James Weldon's Johnson Papers and editor of In Search of Democracy: The NAACP Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins 1920-1977. Every page of this collection of essays, reports, speeches, and editorials yields a wealth of information about this trio of extraordinary men.

Biographies of noted African Americans have become very popular in recent years, gaining both in quality and critical notice. Maverick social critic Michael Eric Dyson, currently Ida B. Wells-Barnett University professor and professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, has reinterpreted our common perceptions of civil rights Rev. Martin Luther King with his latest book, I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. King, Dyson says, would have been a supporter of affirmative action, socialism, and a modest degree of separatism. In this controversial evaluation, the black spokesman was allegedly cynical about whites, believed America had spurned him, and suffered mightily from depression. This is a book destined to spark debate and a firestorm of criticism.

In the latest celebration of the genius of trumpeter Louis Armstrong, editor Thomas Brothers has sifted through the extensive archives of the master jazz horn man to compile Louis Armstrong: In His Own Words, an intriguing mix of letters, autobiographical sketches, magazine articles, and essays spanning Satchmo's long, eventful life. This assemblage reveals Armstrong to be a smart, clever wit, a master communicator, and a colorful human being with a heart as big as his musical sound.

With two competing books and a film on former boxing champion Rubin Hurricane Carter currently available, former New York Times reporter James Hirsch's Hurricane is one of the most engrossing takes on the ups and downs of the man who became an international cause celebre when wrongly convicted for the 1967 murder of three whites. Carter was later freed when evidence of police corruption was uncovered. Much care is taken in Hirsch's book to render Carter's spiritual and political transformation, as well as his lengthy legal battle.

Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research, has been a very busy man. First he, with Lynn Davis serving as his photographer, has produced a wonderful travel book on Africa's hidden past, Wonders of the African World, following his journey through 12 of the continent's most beautiful countries. A companion to a PBS TV special, the book gets much of its distinctive flavor from Gates's inspired narrative, which is accompanied by 66 photos, seven full-color maps, and over 130 illustrations. Definitely an item worth having for anyone wishing to know more about the mystery that is Africa.

Possibly Gates's greatest achievement comes in his editing, with an assist from fellow Harvard Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, of the landmark Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. For anyone wishing to learn more about Africa or America, this resource fills the bill with over 3,500 entries, hundreds of maps, tables, charts, and photographs. Every conceivable topic, from culture to politics, is covered in detail and expertly cross-referenced in this incredible fount of facts, figures, and general information.

The release of the splendid African Ceremonies by writer Angela Fisher and photographer Carol Beckwith has been the subject of much talk in recent weeks. A spectacular visual treat, the book redefines the coffee-table volume with its breathtaking images and sensitive text on the daily ritual of tribal culture. What the book says so skillfully is that no matter how different the external trappings of regional life may appear, the age-old rites of passage remain essentially the same. National Geographic, eat your heart out.

Robert Fleming is a journalist in New York City.

With the arrival of Black History Month comes the expectation of a host of African-American books, geared not only to that unique, highly creative community but to the general population as well. Mainstream publishers now understand that there is a large readership waiting for books…

HistoryBlack History

Branch’s brilliant look at King continues

Review by Roger Bishop

The civil rights movement that began in the 1950s continued to grow in scope and intensity into the early 1960s. A series of non-violent protests in such places as Birmingham, St. Augustine, and Selma met with strong resistance but led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That legislation was crucial, but it was only part of a long and bitter struggle for full equality for all of our citizens. Although various groups and leaders emerged during this period, the charismatic and eloquent Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference stood, out and, among other honors, received the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. In the outstanding second volume of his projected three volume narrative history of the civil rights movement, Pillar of Fire, Taylor Branch reminds us how divisive the issue was and how difficult the period. The first volume, Parting the Waters, which begins in 1954, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. A third volume, At Canaan's Edge, will follow. A project the author hoped to complete in one book over three years has now taken 15 years and two books.

Although King is the major figure in the book, Pillar of Fire is not a biography. Instead, Branch is interested in a broad overview of the move toward equal rights. This involves exploring the relationships between individuals and groups, the actions and reactions that led, in some cases, to good, and in others to suffering. He demonstrates that the movement was not monolithic and that often even King and his advisers could not agree on appropriate courses of action. We follow Malcolm X as he breaks from the Nation of Islam and develops his own approach to racial issues. Branch skillfully shows us the tense and often frustrating relationship between King and Robert and John Kennedy until the latter's death and later with Lyndon Johnson. And although the FBI was eventually able to solve some of the worst racial crimes of our time, the Bureau displayed strong animosity toward King and his objectives, and, unknown to him, had him under surveillance for a long period and taped many of his private conversations.

Branch relates the stories of brave and courageous individuals who were not public figures or government officials but put themselves at risk because they believed strongly in equal rights, and he conveys how powerful the resistance to change was and how violent. He relates such incidents as the Birmingham church bombing that killed four girls, and the murder of Medgar Evers. He discusses the Mississippi Summer program in 1964 that brought many students to a part of the country they had never seen before. He details the events leading up to and following the deaths that year of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

The author's meticulous accumulation of detail upon detail helps us to gain a greater appreciation for what King, as a political as well as spiritual strategist, with the help of many others, accomplished. I was led to reflect on what the late Alex Haley told me in a BookPage interview in 1988. Haley, who collaborated with Malcolm X on his autobiography also conducted what is considered to be one of the most incisive interviews that King ever gave. Haley told me: "The thing that has always intrigued me about Dr. King and Malcolm was how easily either of them might have been the other . . . Dr. King would have made a tremendous hustler. And Malcolm would have made a tremendous theologian. Both of them were great powers in their own way. And so to me always the intrigue has been the two men are a case of Ôbut for the grace of God . . . ' And as a matter of fact, not enough recognition is given to the fact that Malcolm was most helpful to Dr. King. The way Malcolm . . . scared people. And what it did was shake people enough so that when Dr. King came along, speaking of turning the other cheek and the Gandhi principles, he was a lot less threatening . . ." Branch's magnificent work is a must for anyone who wants to understand a turbulent time that helped change the attitudes and practices of this country.

The civil rights movement that began in the 1950s continued to grow in scope and intensity into the early 1960s. A series of non-violent protests in such places as Birmingham, St. Augustine, and Selma met with strong resistance but led to the passage of the…

NonfictionAudioBlack History

How the Word Is Passed

Review by Autumn Allen

Writer, poet and educator Clint Smith narrates the audio edition of How the Word Is Passed (10 hours), a timely reckoning with America’s past dependence on the cruel institution of chattel slavery. Smith brings the listener on a tour of locations with fraught ties to the transatlantic slave trade, from his hometown of New Orleans to Senegal. He reads his smooth, journalistic prose in a weighty, measured cadence. Listeners will find themselves paying closer attention and appreciating the author’s perspective even more because of how Smith’s narration lends gravity to his experiences and purpose to their telling.

Those who appreciate a good documentary will feel most at home with this audiobook. The content is heavy, at times nearly overwhelming, but Smith’s factual storytelling voice, with fitting but muted inflection throughout, models the courage and fortitude required to take it all in. This book is a generous gift to a nation struggling to define itself.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: From a Louisiana native to a D.C. high school teacher to a Harvard Ph.D. candidate to a staff writer for The Atlantic—Clint Smith shares the journey that led to his brilliant nonfiction debut.

Clint Smith’s narration of How the Word Is Passed models the courage and fortitude required to face this timely reckoning with America’s past.
NonfictionAudioBlack History

We Are Each Other’s Harvest

Review by Mari Carlson

The audiobook of Natalie Baszile’s We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy (13.5 hours) explores farming by Black Americans, past and present, through essays, interviews and poetry from farmers and historians, wordsmiths and activists. The expansive project, born out of Baszile’s extensive research for her 2014 novel, Queen Sugar, is bookended by the author’s own words about her family and her creative process. In between, we learn about the Black community’s enduring connection to the land despite slavery’s disenfranchisement and northern and urban migration, among other factors.

Tina Lifford, an actor in the TV adaptation of Queen Sugar as well as the series “Parenthood” and “South Central,” captures the book’s soulful tone through her deep voice, slow delivery and an array of accents. Her performance pays tribute to the Black community’s oral history tradition, which is referenced throughout the book. 

With rich descriptions of crops, recipes, family meals and current efforts to revitalize Black farming and land ownership, this audiobook inspires, empowers and enlightens through the spoken word.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of the print version of We Are Each Other’s Harvest.

With rich descriptions of crops, recipes, family meals and more, this audiobook inspires, empowers and enlightens through spoken word.
NonfictionEssaysBlack History

Carry On

Review by Amy Scribner

When longtime Georgia Congressman John Lewis died from pancreatic cancer in 2020, President Obama said, “He, as much as anyone in our history, brought this country a little bit closer to its highest ideals.” This lovely book offers Lewis’ meditations on everything from love to public service and affirms that he indeed represented the best of our nation.

Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation is divided into short sections in which Lewis shares hard-earned wisdom from his years on the front lines of the civil rights battle. The son of a sharecropper, Lewis joined Martin Luther King Jr. and the Freedom Riders as they protested segregation across the South. For someone who faced injustice, police brutality and racism, Lewis remained remarkably optimistic. “Yes, we were jailed, arrested, firebombed, bloodied,” he writes in a chapter on activism. “But we never felt hate, and even though it can be hard to hold back our anger, it is worth the effort because it works in the end. We changed America, and now the time has come for more change.”

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Actor Don Cheadle narrates the audiobook edition of Carry On.

Lewis devotes much of the book to the current expression of our nation’s racism. He compares the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Trayvon Martin to the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till and urges his fellow Americans to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement.

There are lighter chapters, too, in which Lewis writes about art, sports, clothes and books. He loved comic books as a kid, and a favorite hobby as an adult was frequenting flea markets searching for old books. These chapters read like someone shooting the breeze with an old friend. He recalls telling Congressman Elijah Cummings, for whom he was often mistaken, that he was going to get a tattoo on the back of his head so people would stop confusing them.

Carry On is a bittersweet book, coming so soon on the heels of Lewis’ death, but a beautiful reminder of finding hope and joy in the simplest things. “Happiness is being at home after a long day, playing with and feeding my cats,” Lewis writes. “I’m a happy person.”

This lovely book offers John Lewis’ meditations on everything from love to public service. It’s a beautiful reminder that he represented the best of our nation.

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