This black history month, UIP is joining the #ReadingBlackout challenge and we want you to too! The Reading Blackout challenge was created by YouTuber Denise D. Cooper and it’s a call to prioritize reading books by African American authors during 2018. To celebrate the #ReadingBlackout challenge we’ll be releasing reading lists all month long and adding the books to our Little Free Library at the Illini Union! This list is just a teaser for the black history books we’re adding to our Little Free Library this week, so make sure to stop by and check out the rest! You can check out past lists here.
Here are 4 more books to add to your
#ReadingBlackout list:
Ring Shout, Wheel About: The Racial Politics of Music and Dance in North American Slavery
Katrina Thompson shows how traditional dances evolved into nineteenth-century minstrelsy and, ultimately, raises the question of whether today’s mass media performances and depictions of African Americans are so very far removed from their troublesome roots.
African American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond
John Perpener examines the politics of racial and cultural difference and their impact on these early African-American dance leaders. In particular, he documents the critical reception of their work, detailing the rigid preconceptions of African American dance that white critics imposed on black artists.
Blues all day long: The Jimmy Rogers Story
Wayne Goins mines seventy-five hours of interviews with Rogers’s family, collaborators, and peers to follow a life spent in the blues. Goins’s account takes Rogers from recording Chess classics to playing Chicago clubs to a late-in-life renaissance that included new music, entry into the Blues Hall of Fame, and high-profile tours with Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones.
Black Women & Music: More Than The Blues
In contradistinction to a compilation of biographies, Eileen Hayes and Linda Williams critically illuminate themes of black authenticity, sexual politics, access, racial uplift through music, and the challenges of writing (black) feminist biography. Black Women and Music is a strong reminder that black women have been and are both social actors and artists contributing to African American thought.
