Black in the Middle
9781948742696
Regular price $20.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. Since the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets have renewed attention on the conditions of “Middle America,” but the national discourse continues to marginalize the Black people who live there. Black in the Middle brings the voices of Black Midwesterners front and center.
Filled with compelling personal narratives, thought-provoking art, and searing commentaries, this anthology explores the various meanings and experiences of blackness throughout the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. Bringing together people from major metropolitan centers like Detroit and Chicago as well as smaller cities and rural areas where the lives of Black residents have too often gone unacknowledged, this collection is a much-needed corrective to the narrative of the region.
“Ambitious and eclectic, with African American humanity on display.” ―Joseph P. Williams, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“The honesty in the essays, the emergency in the poetry, and the intensity of the photographs and paintings help to sharpen the edge of what it means to be Black in the middle of anything, which is the sum of our fears and the hope that manifests itself in our dreams.” ―Jason Vasser-Elong, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Timely and evocative . . . By calling forth the full range of the Black Midwestern experience, this bracing anthology offers crucial insights into why the region is the epicenter of current protests against police brutality and racial injustice.” ―Publishers Weekly
Hidden History of Black Cincinnati
9781467158138
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Hidden History of Black Cincinnati reveals the untold stories that shaped a city and defined a people.
Long before the Civil Rights Movement or the Harlem Renaissance, Black Cincinnatians were building communities, owning businesses, and resisting injustice in bold and brilliant ways. B.F. Howard and Pullman Porter Arthur J. Riggs co-founded the international organization now known as the Black Elks, and Margaret Garner’s tragic flight to freedom inspired Toni Morrison’s Beloved and ignited national debates on slavery. Celebrated painter Robert S. Duncanson rose to international acclaim in the nineteenth century despite the limitations of race.
Writer, historian, and cultural advocate Kareem A. Simpson unearths these powerful stories and more with clarity and care, offering a rich portrait of a city’s soul and the Black lives that shaped it.
Hidden History of Black Cincinnati
9781540299710
Regular price $34.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Hidden History of Black Cincinnati reveals the untold stories that shaped a city and defined a people.
Long before the Civil Rights Movement or the Harlem Renaissance, Black Cincinnatians were building communities, owning businesses, and resisting injustice in bold and brilliant ways. B.F. Howard and Pullman Porter Arthur J. Riggs co-founded the international organization now known as the Black Elks, and Margaret Garner’s tragic flight to freedom inspired Toni Morrison’s Beloved and ignited national debates on slavery. Celebrated painter Robert S. Duncanson rose to international acclaim in the nineteenth century despite the limitations of race.
Writer, historian, and cultural advocate Kareem A. Simpson unearths these powerful stories and more with clarity and care, offering a rich portrait of a city’s soul and the Black lives that shaped it.
Voices of Milwaukee Bronzeville
9781467148887
Regular price $21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%A history of the Cream City's lost Black neighborhood told by the people who lived there
Some people don't have to imagine what Milwaukee's Bronzeville was like. They have only to remember. They recall Walnut Street alive with businesses serving a hard-working Black population making something out of the meager resources available to them. They describe religious establishments such as St. Marks Methodist Episcopal, St. Benedict the Moor, Calvary Baptist, and St. Matthews CME attending to the spiritual life and remember the Flame, the Metropole, and Satin Doll night clubs taking care of entertainment and secular needs. Above all, they recollect a people looking out for the well-being of all within its realm.
Gathering interviews with residents of the now vanished neighborhood, Dr. Sandra E. Jones reimagines Bronzeville not just as a place, but as a spirit engendered by a people determined to make a way out of no way.