New Books in African American Studies

How can those in African, Africana, and African American Studies strengthen their disciplinary ties? What do these connections have to do with Kwasi Konadu‘s recent study The Akan Diaspora in the Americas (Oxford 2010)? How can the scholarship produced in African, Africana, and African American Studies serve the interests of people of African descent across the globe? Indeed, how can the history of the Akan people help us to better understand slavery and the history of the Americas? What does it mean for a scholar who is the descendant of Ghanaians, born in Jamaica and reared in America to make his life work about African history? And how does that scholar feel about his personal role in the legacy of the Diaspora, about a being a Black father in the U.S.? Kwasi Konadu speaks about all of this and more in his New Books in African American Studies interview. Konadu’s intellectual commitment to uncovering and explaining the Akan people, their language, culture, and performative practices is inspiring. In fact, he seeks to encourage his colleagues in Africana Studies–broadly construed to include African American and African studies–“to get the story straight,” that is, to cultivate a rich appreciation for the narrative histories of the peoples of the African Diasporas (plural) and to explore what those narrative histories mean for our teaching and even our lives. I am persuaded by Konadu and personally plan to take up his call in my own teaching and research. I ask myself, “How could I not after talking to him, especially since he gives suggestions that are easy to implement?” I bet that after listening to him that you too will become a believer. Enjoy the interview, and let us know what you think! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

I think this is really interesting. Among the thousands of iconic and easily recognizable photographs of segregated water fountains in the American South, you will almost never find one that features a black woman, a white woman or a white man drinking. They are nearly all of black men drinking. Why is that? In her fine and thoughtful book Signs of the Times: The Visual Politics of Jim Crow (University of California Press, 2010), Elizabeth Abel tells us why. Segregation, like many social phenomena, had a triple life. 1) It was a thing, part of an objective reality now past (one wants to cite Ranke here). 2) It was a thing seen, an object filtered through the subjective experience of viewers (one wants to cite Kant here). 3) And it was a thing shown, a sign made by one person to be communicated to others (one wants to cite Saussure here). We can see these three lives in the sources Abel examines: photographs of segregation signs: “Whites Only”, “No Negroes”, “Colored Entrance”, and so on. They simultaneously tell us about the way segregation actually worked (Ranke), the way participants observed it (Kant), and the way photographers tried to show it to their audiences (Saussure). Able analyses all three lives, but her focus–and the explanation for the black-man-at-a-water-fountain photographic cliché–is really to be found in her investigation of the third. The photographers, most of whom were white liberal northerners, framed the depictions of the signs so as to convince spectators that segregation was degrading to blacks. Thus they usually moved whites completely out of the frame. Moreover, they elected to focus attention on the subject who could be most humiliated because that subject had, relatively speaking, the most status. So black men (high status) were shown rather than black women (low status). This example is only one of Abel’s many fine readings of these photographs. There are many others. I encourage you to pick up the book and see for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Many scholars consider August Wilson to be the premier American playwright of the 20th Century. Alan Nadel is surely one of their number. In the early 1990s, he focused our attention on Wilson’s plays in the outstanding collection of essays May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson (University of Iowa Press, 1993). Since the publication of that work, Wilson completed his magnum opus–a ten-play cycle–shortly before his death in 2005. So now Nadel has followed up his first essay collection on Wilson with a second: August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle (University of Iowa Press, 2010). This volume, as Nadel asserts, is for the trained cultural critic and everyday reader. My opinion is that the volume, like the first one, is centrally important to literary critics, performance scholars, and your average serious theatre goer, as well as to anyone interested in 20th-Century American culture. Listen to the interview, read the book, and share your thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

I used to live in Washington DC, not far from a place I learned to call the “U Street Corridor.” I really had no idea why it was a “corridor” (most places in DC are just “streets”) or why a lot of folks seemed to make a big deal out if it. Don’t get me wrong. It was nice. There are coffee shops, jazz clubs, and the place is full of beautiful late Victorian architecture. But I confess I really didn’t understand what the “U Street Corridor” was. Having read Blair Ruble‘s terrific Washington’s U Street: A Biography (Johns Hopkins UP/Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010), I can confidently say that now I get it. U Street was arguably the first urban area in the post-bellum United States in which African Americans formed a vital, sophisticated, wealthy, and identifiably modern “negro” (as they would have said) culture. Today we take it for granted that African Americans make a vital contribution to the cultural life (though not only that) of the United States. At the end of the Civil War, that wasn’t so. The vast majority of Blacks were southern, rural, and poor. If they appeared on the stage of national culture (and they almost never did), it was through the devices of minstrels in black-face.  As Ruble points out, all that changed on U Street in the early 20th century, the birthplace of modern African American culture. Now I know, and I’m glad I do. Read the book, and you’ll know to0.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

One of the great “grey” areas of World War I historiography concerns the African-American experience. Even as the war was ending, white historians, participants, and politicians strove to limit the record of the African-American soldiers’ participation, while also casting the standard narrative of the war as a white American crusade against German militarism. The rich experience of the African-American community–from the quest for legitimacy and equality by educated black social and political leaders, to the Great Migration of thousands of families out of the Deep South in search of wartime work and opportunity; from the battles waged by black soldiers against both Germans and Jim Crow abroad and at home, to the violent white backlash against entire black communities–has far too long been hidden away from public view. While there have been some efforts since the war ended to restore this history to its rightful place, until recently too many of these accounts have focused on specific units, individuals, or events, often by well-meaning amateurs, driven by their own zeal to correct injustices and set the record straight as any desire to assist in crafting a solid historical narrative. Chad Williams‘ new book Torchbearers of Democracy: African-American Soldiers in the World War I Era (UNC Press, 2010) is part of the effort by a new generation of scholars to recount the history of the African-American wartime experience. Grounded in extensive archival research, Williams offers a painstakingly constructed narrative, balanced with insightful analyses on how World War I and the immediate post-war period, for all of their disappointments and challenges, should be considered as the founding point of the modern Civil Rights movement. An assistant professor at Hamilton College, Chad Williams has received the 2011 Society of Military History Distinguished Book Award for Torchbearers of Democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Jonathan Metzl, a psychiatrist and cultural critic, discusses the troubling intersection of race and mental health in his work. He reveals how the diagnosis of schizophrenia became racially charged during the Civil Rights movement, linking the perception of the illness with African American men. Metzl explores cultural influences, racial biases in psychiatric diagnoses, and the criminal justice system's treatment of those labeled with schizophrenia. His insights urge a critical re-evaluation of mental health care and highlight the need for systemic change to combat these disparities.

Why did Reconstruction fail? Why didn’t the post-war Federal government protect the civil rights of the newly freed slaves? And why did it take Washington almost a century to intercede on the behalf of beleaguered, oppressed African Americans in the South? In a terrific new book, Charles Lane explains why. The Day Freedom Died. The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction (Henry Holt, 2008) tells the tale of a little-known though remarkably important incident: the murder of close to 100 freedmen by a posse of White supremacists in Louisiana in 1873. Charles does an excellent job of narrating this heart-wrenching and disturbing event. The book would be worth reading for that story alone. But he really comes into his own in describing the legal aftermath of the slaughter. With all the skill of a seasoned reporter–which he is–Charles chronicles the passage of the Colfax case from the courts of New Orleans to the U.S. Supreme Court. The result was a landmark decision–United States v. Cruikshank–that effectively placed the civil rights of Southern African Americans in the hands of Southern Whites for almost a century, with predictable results. A must-read for anyone interested in Reconstruction, constitutional law, and the sad history of race-relations in the United States. Please become a fan of “New Books in African American Studies” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

We in the West tend to classify people by the color of their skin, or what we casually call “race.” But, as Nell Irvin Painter shows in her fascinating new book The History of White People (Norton, 2010), it wasn’t always so. The Greeks didn’t do it, at least very seriously. The Romans didn’t do it, at least very often. And the folks of the Middle Ages didn’t do it, at least with much gusto. In fact, the people who invented the modern concept of “race” and the classification of people by skin color were Europeans and Americans of the Enlightenment and Romantic Era. Why then and there? As Painter points out, a number of historical trends coincided to produced “racial science” and its child “whiteness” in Europe and North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These trends included: the “discovery” of New Worlds (and the people in them) in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the evolution of the African slave trade and with it the historically novel identification of “negroes” with slavery; the birth of proto-anthoropology and with its ancillary sciences (e.g., “craniometry”); nationalism, and desire of nationalists (especially Germans) to discover the intrinsic “greatness” of particular nations (notably theirs); the massive influx of “undesirable” Irish and Eastern Europeans into the United States; and the “progressive” idea that human populations could be bred for “superior traits,” that is, eugenics. All these things forced European and American elites to think hard about what kind of people they were. The conclusion they reached was that they were (variously) “Anglo Saxons,” “Nordics,” “Aryans” and eventually just “Whites.” That they believed themselves to be superior to all other “races” should not surprise us (humans being naturally prideful). But the muddle-headed quality of their thought on matters racial should raise some eyebrows, for these people were not dumb. They were, however, afraid, and fear often drives even well-intentioned, intelligent people to say foolish things. This they certainly did. Alas, some people still do. They should read Nell Painter’s fine book. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

I’ll tell you something I’ve never really understood: the difference between “art” and “craft.” Yes, I get the sociological difference (“art” is made in New York and Paris; “craft” is made in Omaha and Wichita), but what about the substantive difference? One common way to differentiate the two is to say “art” is not functional and “craft” is functional. You can’t sit on a painting but you can sit on a chair. If that’s the difference, then the “Museum of Modern Art” in New York should be called the “Museum of Modern Art and Craft,” because it’s full of (not very comfortable) furniture. I also cannot really comprehend the difference between “insider art” and “outsider art.” Again, I get the sociological distinction (see above), but who gets to say who’s inside and who’s outside? And if there’s “insider art” and “outsider art,” is there “insider craft” and “outsider craft?” In the world of quilting (which is much bigger than you think), Powers is a bit like Vermeer: not many pieces, but all highly valued. And like Vermeer, she’s interesting because we don’t know a lot about her. All I know is this: there was a freed slave named Harriet Powers who made really beautiful, highly literate, and deeply religious quilts. In the world of quilting (which is much bigger than you think), Powers is a bit like Vermeer: not many pieces, but all highly valued. And like Vermeer, she’s interesting because we don’t know a lot about her. In This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilt and Other Pieces (2010), Kyra Hicks does her best to fill in the many blanks. The book is a combination detective story, journey of discovery, and guide to further research. Hicks, a master quilter herself, doggedly pursues every lead she can find regarding the mysterious Powers, and they take her to some very unexpected places (for example, Keokuk, Iowa). The picture of Powers that emerges from This I Accomplish is that of a skilled, religiously-inspired artist, confident and proud of her work, moving through a long-forgotten world of African American quilters. If you know any quilters (and I know you do), this book would make an excellent gift. If you’d like to see Powers’ quilts for yourself, they are held by the National Museum of American History (part of the Smithsonian) in Washington and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

I imagine the guys who first faced Bill Russell felt like I did when I had to guard Antoine Carr in high school. I “held” Carr to 32 points. But no dunks! Russell’s opponents in college and the NBA rarely fared any better. Sports talk is full of hyperbole, but in Russell’s case most of it is true. In his time, he was far and away the best player to ever step on the court and, for most of his career, he completely owned every court he stepped on. He was so dominant that they changed the rules so less gifted players would have a chance. Bill Russell, however, was not only a surpassingly great basketball player, he was also an African American star in an era in which being an African American star (or just being an African American) was very complicated. Today we are used to seeing outstandingly successful blacks in all (or almost all) spheres of life. In the mid-1950s that just wasn’t true. The American ruling elite was lily white, and that’s the way most white Americans thought it should be. Bill Russell (and Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, Willie Mays, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, among others) were anomalies: they were black, but they were both extraordinarily accomplished and remarkably famous. They couldn’t just be athletes; they had to be symbols of some promising (or frightening) new world as well. That’s quite a burden to bear. In King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution (University of California Press, 2010), Aram Goudsouzian has done a great service by detailing the ways Russell bore this weight, and the ways in which he fought to throw it off. Aram makes clear that Russell was a conflicted soul. He lacked self-confidence, but he was brusk and even arrogant. He was friendly and gregarious to some, but often simply rude to others. He was hot tempered, but he affected a cool, distant demeanor. He believed he was a man of principle (and convinced others he was), but he periodically abandoned his family for a playboy lifestyle. If Russell couldn’t be honest about himself, he insisted on being honest about everything and everyone around him. He meant what he said and said what he meant–about race, about sports, about anything that bothered him. He was a sort of athletic Socrates, always questioning and never fully accepting the way things were. And, like Socrates, Russell was willing to suffer for his beliefs. As Aram points out, he did in many ways. But in the process he gained the respect of almost everyone he encountered. He was a hard man to like, but he was an easy man to admire. I should add that if you like white-hot game narratives, this book is full of them. Remember this?: “Greer is putting the ball in play. He gets it out deep and Havlicek steals it! Over to Sam Jones… Havlicek stole the ball! It’s all over… It’s all-l-l-l over!” Johnny Most, RIP. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies