African American Studies is a cornerstone of the University of Illinois Press. While we honor Black history all year, this month we’re celebrating with some of our favorite and forthcoming Black history publications.
AnneMarie Mingo
A depiction of moral imagination that resonates today, Have You Got Good Religion? reveals how Black Churchwomen’s understanding of God became action and transformed a nation.
Reparations and Reparatory Justice: Past, Present, and Future
Edited by Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Mary Frances Berry, and V. P. Franklin
Groundbreaking and innovative, Reparations and Reparatory Justice offers a multifaceted resource to anyone wishing to explore a defining moral issue of our time.
Black Cyclists: The Race for Inclusion
Robert J. Turpin
Eye-opening and long overdue, Black Cyclists uses race, technology, and mobility to explore a forgotten chapter in cycling history.
“‘The Black Princess’ and Black Editors: The (Re)Making of Piatt’s ‘Most Anthologized Poem’” by Karin L. Hooks
Two of the most prominent African American editors of their respective eras, Frederick Douglass and Pauline Hopkins exerted unimaginable political and cultural influence. The example of their recirculation of Sarah Piatt’s “The Black Princess” affirms the power of the Black press, especially in relation to nineteenth-century debates about slavery’s continued impact on the nation and African Americans’ ongoing struggle for equality.
To Advance the Race: Black Women’s Higher Education from the Antebellum Era to the 1960s
Linda M. Perkins
Compelling A first of its kind history, To Advance the Race is an enlightening look at African American women and their multi-generational commitment to the ideal of education as a collective achievement.
Ink: The Indelible J. Mayo Williams
Clifford R. Murphy
Vivid and engaging, Ink brings to light the extraordinary journey of a Black businessman and athlete.
In 1974, Bernice Johnson Reagon instituted the Smithsonian Institution’s Program in Black American Culture. Bernice likely envisioned this new program both as an opportunity and a mandate to give life to her vision for collecting, researching, documenting, interpreting, and presenting the history and culture of Black Americans in ways that would give full expression and credence to these voices and lived experiences.
Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell
Jason P. Chambers
Compelling and multidimensional, Advertising Revolutionary combines archival research and interviews with Burrell and his colleagues to provide a long-overdue portrait of an advertising industry legend and his times.
Union Divided: Black Musicians’ Fight for Labor Equality
Leta E. Miller
Broad in scope and rich in detail, Union Divided illuminates the complex working world of unionized Black musicians and the AFM’s journey to racial inclusion.
“But How?: (Re)Imagining the Public Place of (Black Canadian) Sport History” by Ornella Nzindukiyimana
The Canadian sport context is particularly fertile ground to explore the silencing of Blackness in national public histories. Using a Black Canadian lens, this essay adds a currently absent perspective to the discussion of the state of public sport history to illustrate directions for an enhanced presence of the work of historians of sport outside academia.
Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising
Jeremiah Favara
Compelling and eye-opening, Tactical Inclusion combines original analysis with personal experience to chart advertising’s role in building the all-volunteer military.
Thunder on the Stage: The Dramatic Vision of Richard Wright
Bruce Allen Dick
Bold and original, Thunder on the Stage offers a groundbreaking reinterpretation of a major American writer.
Women, Gender, and Families of Color
“The First (White-Assumed) Black Woman President: Five Years of Development through On-Campus Leadership” by Haley Pilgrim
“I became the first Black woman president of the student body. The best part was celebrating with my community. It was like we all won.”
Disrupting Colonial Pedagogies: Theories and Transgressions
Edited by Jillian Ford and Nathalia E. Jaramillo
Powerful and interdisciplinary, Disrupting Colonial Pedagogies challenges colonialism and its influence on education to advance freer and more just forms of knowledge making.
Beyond the Black Power Salute: Athlete Activism in an Era of Change
Gregory J. Kaliss
As Kaliss describes the breakthroughs achieved by these athletes, he also explores the barriers that remained–and in some cases remain today.
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
“African Americans, Africans, and Antiracism at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893” by Jacob S. Dorman
Black Americans were present at the Columbian Exposition, despite the fact that many historical textbooks and surveys today claim that they were not, even twenty-four years after Christopher Reed’s landmark 2000 monograph, All the World Is Here! This article expands on Reed’s work by showing how “Afro-Americans” at the first Chicago world’s fair articulated a thorough critique of racism rooted in the reigning stagist civizationism of their time and viewed African colonization and evangelism as tools of civilizational uplift.