Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1992 by
Widely believed to be the most extreme incidence of white racial violence against African Americans in modern United States history, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre resulted in the destruction of over one thousand black-owned businesses and homes as well as the murder of between fifty and three hundred black residents. Exhaustively researched and critically acclaimed, Scott Ellsworth?s Death in a Promised Land is the definitive account of the Tulsa race riot and its aftermath, in which much of the history of the destruction and violence was covered up. It is the compelling story of racial ideologies, southwestern politics, and incendiary journalism, and of an embattled black community?s struggle to hold onto its land and freedom. More than just the chronicle of one of the nation?s most devastating racial pogroms, this critically acclaimed study of American race relations is, above all, a gripping story of terror and lawlessness, and of courage, heroism, and human perseverance.
Black Skin, White Masks by
Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. Fanon's masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.
The Wretched of the Earth by
A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanon's masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said's Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of postindependence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other. Fanon's analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emergingnations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.
Trauma and Race: A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity by
African American identity is racialized. And this racialized identity has animated and shaped political resistance to racism. Hidden, though, are the psychological implications of rooting identity in race, especially because American history is inseparable from the trauma of slavery. In Trauma and Race author Sheldon George begins with the fact that African American racial identity is shaped by factors both historical and psychical. Employing the work of Jacques Lacan, George demonstrates how slavery is a psychic event repeated through the agencies of racism and inscribed in racial identity itself. The trauma of this past confronts the psychic lack that African American racial identity both conceals and traumatically unveils for the African American subject. Trauma and Race investigates the vexed, ambivalent attachment of African Americans to their racial identity, exploring the ways in which such attachment is driven by traumatic, psychical urgencies that often compound or even exceed the political exigencies called forth by racism.
Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, 2nd ed. by
Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror documents EJI’s multi-year investigation into lynching in twelve Southern states during the period between Reconstruction and World War II. EJI researchers documented 4075 racial terror lynchings of African Americans in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia between 1877 and 1950 – at least 800 more lynchings of black people in these states than previously reported in the most comprehensive work done on lynching to date.
Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, 3rd ed. by
The lynching of African Americans was terrorism, a widely supported campaign to enforce racial subordination and segregation. Lynching in America documents more than 4400 racial terror lynchings in the United States during the period between Reconstruction and World War II.
Deep Symbols by
Here is an absorbing and exceptionally perceptive account of how deep symbols or words of power (which tend to be a culture's normaltive language) have undergone diminishment in a contemporary postmodern society. Edward Farley explains that such diminishment does not necessarily imply their demise since traces of these symbols remain and invite their rethinking. From the opening chapter - "Words of power, that is, deep and enduring symbols that shape the values of a society and guide the life of faith, morality, and action are subject to powerful forces of discreditation and even disenchantment. If this is so, we must find ways to recover their power or live without them.
Hidden History of Tulsa by
The story of Tulsa's transformation from a nineteenth-century cow town into the "Oil Capital of the World" has been above ground for years, but a great reservoir of Tulsey Town's heritage has remained beneath the surface. These neglected tales include the dirigible flyover of 1929, the Hominy Indians' victory over the New York Giants and the legendary final performance of Spade Cooley, convicted killer and the self-proclaimed "King of Western Swing." From the horrors of the city's early race riot and the proud legacy of Greenwood (aka Little Africa or Black Wall Street) to Tulsa's iconic landmarks and unforgettable personalities, Steve Gerkin provides an evocative and enjoyable voyage through T-Town's hidden history.
Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity by
In this book, Ron Eyerman explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory: a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Combining a broad narrative sweep with more detailed studies of important events and individuals, Eyerman reaches from Emancipation through the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the New Deal and the Second World War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond. He offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, as well as providing a compelling account of the birth of African-American identity. Anyone interested in questions of assimilation, multiculturalism and postcolonialism will find this book indispensable.
"Terrorism and the American Experience: A State of the Field" in The Journal of American History by
An essay is presented on the historiography of terrorism, particularly in the U.S. It offers suggestions for the historical analysis of terrorism and examines scholarly views of revolutionary, anarchist, and anti-colonial political violence. The author comments on treatments of terrorism by historians, social scientists, and journalists. She also reflects on the influence of the U.S. terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the field.
Postcolonial Melancholia by
In an effort to deny the ongoing effect of colonialism and imperialism on contemporary political life, the death knell for a multicultural society has been sounded from all sides. That's the provocative argument Paul Gilroy makes in this unorthodox defense of the multiculture. Gilroy's searing analyses of race, politics, and culture have always remained attentive to the material conditions of black people and the ways in which blacks have defaced the "clean edifice of white supremacy." In Postcolonial Melancholia, he continues the conversation he began in the landmark study of race and nation 'There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack' by once again departing from conventional wisdom to examine--and defend--multiculturalism within the context of the post-9/11 "politics of security." This book adapts the concept of melancholia from its Freudian origins and applies it not to individual grief but to the social pathology of neoimperialist politics. The melancholic reactions that have obstructed the process of working through the legacy of colonialism are implicated not only in hostility and violence directed at blacks, immigrants, and aliens but in an inability to value the ordinary, unruly multiculture that has evolved organically and unnoticed in urban centers. Drawing on the seminal discussions of race begun by Frantz Fanon, W. E. B. DuBois, and George Orwell, Gilroy crafts a nuanced argument with far-reaching implications. Ultimately, Postcolonial Melancholia goes beyond the idea of mere tolerance to propose that it is possible to celebrate the multiculture and live with otherness without becoming anxious, fearful, or violent.
Surviving Wounded Knee: The Lakotas and the Practice of Memory by
On December 29, 1890, the US Seventh Cavalry killed more than two hundred Lakota Ghost Dancers - including men, women, and children - at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. After the work of death ceased at Wounded Knee Creek, the work of memory commenced. For the US Army and some whites,Wounded Knee represented the site where the struggle between civilization and savagery for North America came to an end. For other whites, it was a stain on the national conscience, a leading example of America's dishonorable dealings with Native peoples. For Lakota people it was the site of the"biggest murders," where the United States violated its treaty promises and slaughtered innocents.Historian David Grua argues that Wounded Knee serves as a window into larger debates over how the US's conquest of the indigenous peoples should be remembered. Opposing efforts to memorialize the event ultimately proved a contest over language and assumptions rooted in the concept of "race war" orthe struggle between "civilization" and "savagery." Was Wounded Knee a heroic "battle" - the final victory of the American empire in the trans-Mississippi West? Or was it a "massacre" that epitomized the nation's failure to deal honorably with Native peoples? Even today, over a century later, thetransmission of memory to survivors' descendants remains potent, and December 29, 2015, the 125th anniversary of Wounded Knee, will be marked by commemorations and lingering questions about the United States' willingness to address the liabilities of Indian conquest.
Theopoetic Folds: Philosophizing Multifariousness by
In complex philosophical ways, theology is, should, and can be a "theopoetics" of multiplicity. The ambivalent term theopoetics is associated with poetry and aesthetic theory; theology and literature; and repressed literary qualities, myths, and metaphorical theologies. On a more profound basis, it questions the establishment of the difference between philosophy and theology and resides in the dangerous realm of relativism. The chapters in this book explore how the term theopoetics contributes to cutting-edge work in theology, philosophy, literature, and sociology.
Riot on Greenwood: The Total Destruction of Black Wall Street by
An in-depth account of the worst riot in u.s. history, the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, by oral historian and Tulsa community activist Eddie Faye Gates.
They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa by 
Native Voices: American Identity & Resistance by
Native peoples of North America still face an uncertain future due to their unstable political, legal, and economic positions. Views of their predicament, however, continue to be dominated by non-Indian writers. In response, a dozen Native American writers here reclaim their rightful role as influential voices in the debates about Native communities at the dawn of a new millennium. These scholars examine crucial issues of politics, law, and religion in the context of ongoing Native American resistance to the dominant culture. They particularly show how the writings of Vine Deloria, Jr., have shaped and challenged American Indian scholarship in these areas since the 1960s. They provide key insights into Deloria's thought, while introducing some of the critical issues still confronting Native nations today. Collectively, these essays take up four important themes: indigenous societies as the embodiment of cultures of resistance, legal resistance to western oppression against indigenous nations, contemporary Native religious practices, and Native intellectual challenges to academia. Individual chapters address indigenous perspectives on topics usually treated (and often misunderstoo