Navigating History and Identity

Generally speaking, a common conception of U.S. race relations in the mid-twentieth century runs like this: segregation was racist and bad, the doctrine of "separate but equal" masked genuine inequality, and the racial integration brought about by the famous Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was a long-awaited triumph. But is the story as neat as that? What did writers - and in particular Black women writers - think about segregation in the 1930s-1950s? Did they view racial integration as a path to the promised land? Or as yet another false and incomplete promise? How did their writings reflect a resistance to conventional liberal wisdom - and how might their narrative models speak to today's world? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Eve Dunbar about her book Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction: Black Women Writing Under Segregation. PLUS Deni Kasa (The Politics of Grace in Early Modern Literature) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 617 Politics and Grace in Early Modern Literature (with Deni Kasa) | Mike Recommends... James Baldwin! | My Last Book with Carlos Allende
• 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) | Charles Dickens's Gospel (with Scott Carter)
• 485 Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Tara A. Bynum)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

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