With Slight Pepper details the social education of Ronald "Tulum" Jones, as he navigates childhood to adulthood, having grown up in a conservative household and national culture that romanticized horn, a uniquely Trinidadian infidelity. Ronald's early experience with Trini-horn saw him tragically and violently lose his close mentor in a love triangle. Later, he discovered sexual voyeur and disappointment when he stumbled upon, respected neighbor, Mrs. Joseph losing her religion to her husb...

In The StigMa, Sherwyn Besson maps the role race plays in the continuing disenfranchisement of students of color, and White students that attend the Malville school system, where minority students are the dominant population. His work challenges, parents, educators, administrators, residents, policy makers, and other stakeholders, to engage a student-first, all-in philosophy to move the District forward.Besson draws on his veteran experience in the classroom and community activist ...

The Epic Story of Motown and Detroit's Independent Soul Music Scene It's January 1967-and one of the worst snowstorms in decades is blanketing Detroit, Michigan. Berry Gordy, owner of Motown Records, is trapped in his home, unable to do anything about the internal war ravaging his most successful group, The Supremes. Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard are imploding as Ballard battles alcoholism and the aftermath of rape. But soon, even more chaos will descend on Detroit. As the ...

Through the figure of Josephine Baker, Second Skin tells the story of an unexpected yet enduring intimacy between the invention of a modernist style and the theatricalization of black skin at the turn of the twentieth century. Stepping outside of the platitudes surrounding this iconic figure, Anne A. Cheng argues that Baker's famous nakedness must be understood within larger philosophic and aesthetic debates about, and desire for, 'pure surface' that crystallized at the convergenc...

Among today’s leading filmmakers, none brings to the screen such a deep awareness of how power is channeled from First to Third World societies, or exhibits such great human sensitivity, as Raoul Peck. Collected here for the first time are Peck’s three early feature and documentary screenplays as well as his seminal film Lumumba.In this collection of screenplays are Raoul Peck’s award-winning pair of films that cemented the director’s place in the internationalist cinema c...

New York Times Notable Book“A smart, crackling chronicle of fast game, the ’80s art market, [and] the attraction of destruction.”— Village VoiceA bold and vivid biography that chronicles the dazzling rise and tragic death of Neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.In less than a decade, Jean-Michel Basquiat went from being a teenage graffiti artist to an international art star. His meteoric r...

As a young South African woman of about twenty, Saartjie Baartman, the so-called “Hottentot Venus,” was brought to London and placed on exhibit in 1810. Clad in the Victorian equivalent of a body stocking, and paraded through the streets and on stage in a cage she became a human spectacle in London and Paris. Baartman’s distinctive physique became the object of ridicule, curiosity, scientific inquiry, and desire until and after her premature death. The figure of Sarah Baartman was reduced ...

"Taken as a trilogy, consent not to be a single being is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis."—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary ImaginationIn Black and Blur—the first volume in his sublime and compelling trilogy consent not to be a single being—Fred Moten engages in a capacious consideration of th...

A biographical reflection on the art and life of Horace H. Pippin-the best-known African-American artist of his time-Primitive is a critique on current perceptions surrounding African-American folk art, as well as the absence of key African-American history in present-day curricula. Award-winning poet Janice Harrington connects readers with a fascinating, odds-defying artist, all while underscoring the human need for artistic expression.

Words and images come together in a collaboration between celebrated poet Ntozake Shange and an acclaimed group of photographers, to result in this stunning celebration of contemporary Black life in America.From the first publication of The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava in 1967, to Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats, collaborations between writers and photographers have been important in A...

In Jamaican dancehalls competition for the video camera's light is stiff, so much so that dancers sometimes bleach their skin to enhance their visibility. In the Bahamas, tuxedoed students roll into prom in tricked-out sedans, staging grand red-carpet entrances that are designed to ensure they are seen being photographed. Throughout the United States and Jamaica friends pose in front of hand-painted backgrounds of Tupac, flashy cars, or brand-name products popularized in hip-hop culture in...

An intimate look into the life and inspiring work of a renowned watercoloristMore Than a Likeness: The Enduring Art of Mary Whyte is the first comprehensive book on the life and work of one of today's most renowned watercolorists. From Whyte's earliest paintings in rural Ohio and Pennsylvania, to the riveting portraits of her southern neighbors, historian Martha R. Severens provides us with an intimate look into the artist's private world.With more...