Book picks similar to
I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100 by Wil Haygood
art
history
biography-memoir
politics
The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto
Charles M. Blow - 2021
The point here is not to impose a new racial hierarchy, but to remove an existing one. After centuries of waiting for white majorities to overturn white supremacy, it seems to me that it has fallen to Black people to do it themselves.Acclaimed columnist and author Charles Blow never wanted to write a “race book.” But as violence against Black people—both physical and psychological—seemed only to increase in recent years, culminating in the historic pandemic and protests of the summer of 2020, he felt compelled to write a new story for Black Americans. He envisioned a succinct, counterintuitive, and impassioned corrective to the myths that have for too long governed our thinking about race and geography in America. Drawing on both political observations and personal experience as a Black son of the South, Charles set out to offer a call to action by which Black people can finally achieve equality, on their own terms.So what will it take to make lasting change when small steps have so frequently failed? It’s going to take an unprecedented shift in power. The Devil You Know is a groundbreaking manifesto, proposing nothing short of the most audacious power play by Black people in the history of this country. This book is a grand exhortation to generations of a people, offering a road map to true and lasting freedom.
Miles: The Autobiography
Miles Davis - 1989
Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles is one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. The subject of several biographies, now Miles speaks out himself about his extraordinary life.Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he has encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.The man who has given us some of the most exciting music of the past few decades has now given us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs.
Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman
Michele Wallace - 1978
She described how women remained marginalized by the patriarchal culture of Black Power and the ways in which a genuine female subjectivity was blocked by the traditional myths of black womanhood. In 1990 the author added a new introduction examining the debate the book had sparked between intellectuals and political leaders; an extensive bibliography of contemporary black feminist studies was also added. Black Macho raised issues and arguments that framed the terms of current feminist and black theory and continues to be relevant today.
The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President's Black Family
Bettye Kearse - 2020
Without this tradition Bettye Kearse would not have known that she is a descendant of President James Madison and his slave, and half-sister, Coreen. In 1990, Bettye became the eighth-generation griotte for her family. Their credo—“Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president”—was intended to be a source of pride, but for her, it echoed with abuses of slavery, including rape and incest. Confronting those abuses, Bettye embarked on a journey of discovery—of her ancestors, the nation, and herself. She learned that wherever African slaves walked, recorded history silenced their voices and buried their footsteps: beside a slave-holding fortress in Ghana; below a federal building in New York City; and under a brick walkway at James Madison’s Virginia plantation. When Bettye tried to confirm the information her ancestors had passed down, she encountered obstacles at every turn. Part personal quest, part testimony, part historical correction, The Other Madisons is the saga of an extraordinary American family told by a griotte in search of the whole story.
Wall and Piece
Banksy - 2005
Not only did he smuggle his pieces into four of New York City's major art museums, he's also "hung" his work at London's Tate Gallery and adorned Israel's West Bank barrier with satirical images. Banksy's identity remains unknown, but his work is unmistakable with prints selling for as much as $45,000.
Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger
Laurence Leamer - 2005
Universe, and the Terminator. Now he answers to "Governor." From humble beginnings in a small Austrian village, Arnold Schwarzenegger pumped himself into the greatest bodybuilder in history, the biggest movie star in the world, and a political force to be reckoned with--all with raw ambition and driving self-confidence. In Fantastic, esteemed biographer Laurence Leamer captures Arnold's amazing story as no one else could. Drawing on unprecedented interviews with Arnold, his wife Maria Shriver, and Arnold's friends, family, lovers, competitors, business partners, and political adversaries, Leamer offers a brilliant, uniquely detailed portrait of this self-made man who married a Kennedy princess and scaled the heights of America's elite. Readers will discover:· A troubled youth: growing up the son of a strict former Nazi and overcoming adversity by discovering the potential of weight training· The superhuman: the arrogant showman who revolutionized bodybuilding--and his astounding string of Mr. Olympia titles· Blockbuster stardom: why a heavy accent and wooden acting style couldn't keep Arnold and his publicist from marketing him into the world's largest grossing film icon · The unlikeliest Kennedy: his marriage to Maria Shriver and her role in Arnold's rise to governor of the Golden State...and more!
Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in That Order)
Bridget Quinn - 2017
Aligned with the resurgence of feminism in pop culture, Broad Strokes offers an entertaining corrective to that omission. Art historian Bridget Quinn delves into the lives and careers of 15 brilliant female artists in text that's smart, feisty, educational, and an enjoyable read. Replete with beautiful reproductions of the artists' works and contemporary portraits of each artist by renowned illustrator Lisa Congdon, this is art history from 1600 to the present day for the modern art lover, reader, and feminist.
The Pursuit of Art: Travels, Encounters and Revelations
Martin Gayford - 2019
Gayford’s journeys, often to fairly inaccessible places, involve frustrations and complications, but also serendipitous encounters and outcomes, which he makes as much a part of the story as the final destination. In chapters that are by turns humorous, intriguing, and stimulating, Gayford takes us to places as varied as Brancusi’s Endless Column in Romania; prehistoric caves in France; the museum island of Naoshima in Japan; the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas; and an exhibition of Roni Horn’s work in Iceland.Interwoven with these tales are journeys to meet artists—Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris, Marina Abramovic´ in Venice, Robert Rauschenberg in New York—and travels with artists, such as a trip to Beijing with Gilbert George. These encounters not only provide fascinating insights into the way artists approach and think about their art, but reveal the importance of their personal environments.A perceptive, amusing, and knowledgeable companion, in The Pursuit of Art Gayford takes readers on a tour of art that is immensely entertaining, informative, and eminently readable.
Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle
Kristen Green - 2015
Board of Education decision when one Virginia school system refused to integrate.In the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia’s Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community’s white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-white classrooms. Meanwhile, black parents had few options: keep their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.Kristen Green, a longtime newspaper reporter, grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, which did not admit black students until 1986. In her journey to uncover what happened in her hometown before she was born, Green tells the stories of families divided by the school closures and of 1,700 black children denied an education. As she peels back the layers of this haunting period in our nation’s past, her own family’s role—no less complex and painful—comes to light.At once gripping, enlightening, and deeply moving, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is a dramatic chronicle that explores our troubled racial past and its reverberations today, and a timeless story about compassion, forgiveness, and the meaning of home.
The Keeper Of Lime Rock: The Remarkable True Story Of Ida Lewis, America's Most Celebrated Lighthouse Keeper
Lenore Skomal - 2002
Hailed for her lifesaving efforts by President Ulysses S. Grant, Admiral Dewey, Susan B. Anthony, and other luminaries of the day, Lewis was the first person awarded a Congressional medal for her years of bravery and extraordinary heroism. Weaving thrilling nautical adventures with tales of other female lighthouse keepers, this compelling biography opens a fascinating and previously unexplored chapter in the history of American women.
Up from Slavery
Booker T. Washington - 1900
Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period. "Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transitions from ex-slave to teacher and founder of one of the most important schools for African Americans in the south, The Tuskegee Industrial Institute.
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Robin D.G. Kelley - 2009
It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the twentieth century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of “bebop” and establishing Monk as one of America’s greatest composers. Elegantly written and rich with humor and pathos, Thelonious Monk is the definitive work on modern jazz’s most original composer.
Purpose: An Immigrant's Story
Wyclef Jean - 2011
In his own voice the multi-platinum musician and producer shares everything, from his childhood in Haiti to his rise to the top of the American music scene. For the first time ever, Wyclef reveals the behind-the-scenes story of the Fugees, including his partnership with Lauryn Hill and Pras Michel, the details of their award-winning album The Score, and the solo career that followed. For fans of early Wyclef efforts like The Carnival or later albums like From the Hut, To the Projects, To the Mansion—and for fans of books like Jay-Z’s Decoded or Russell Simmons’ Super Rich—Wyclef’s Purpose is an inspiring, one-of-a-kind look at one of the world’s most talented artists.
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. - 2020
Glaude Jr., in a moment when the struggles of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the election of Donald Trump, a president whose victory represents yet another failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race. From Charlottesville to the policies of child separation at the border, his administration turned its back on the promise of Obama's presidency and refused to embrace a vision of the country shorn of the insidious belief that white people matter more than others.We have been here before: For James Baldwin, these after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In these years, spanning from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name in the Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair.In the story of Baldwin's crucible, Glaude suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own after times, this Trumpian era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Mixing biography--drawn partially from newly uncovered interviews--with history, memoir, and trenchant analysis of our current moment, Begin Again is Glaude's endeavor, following Baldwin, to bear witness to the difficult truth of race in America today. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.
My Life, My Love, My Legacy
Coretta Scott King - 2017
One of the first black scholarship students recruited to Antioch College, a committed pacifist, and a civil rights activist, she was an avowed feminist—a graduate student determined to pursue her own career—when she met Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister insistent that his wife stay home with the children. But in love and devoted to shared Christian beliefs and racial justice goals, she married King, and events promptly thrust her into a maelstrom of history throughout which she was a strategic partner, a standard bearer, a marcher, a negotiator, and a crucial fundraiser in support of world-changing achievements.As a widow and single mother of four, while butting heads with the all-male African American leadership of the times, she championed gay rights and AIDS awareness, founded the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, lobbied for fifteen years to help pass a bill establishing the US national holiday in honor of her slain husband, and was a powerful international presence, serving as a UN ambassador and playing a key role in Nelson Mandela's election.Coretta’s is a love story, a family saga, and the memoir of an independent-minded black woman in twentieth-century America, a brave leader who stood committed, proud, forgiving, nonviolent, and hopeful in the face of terrorism and violent hatred every single day of her life.