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July 23, 2010

WATCH: Harlem Book Fair Panel – “Can We Tell the Truth about the Black Past?”

Earlier this month the 12th annual Harlem Book Fair hosted a panel that included UNC Press authors Frank A. Guridy and Stephen Gillroy Hall. A video of the discussion, called “Can We Tell the Truth About the Black Past?”, is available through C-SPAN’s Book TV, which can be viewed here. Guridy is the author of Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African… Continue Reading WATCH: Harlem Book Fair Panel – “Can We Tell the Truth about the Black Past?”

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Cuba/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
July 22, 2010

To Forge a Better NAACP

What happened to the NAACP? It’s odd to think that the venerable and historic National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has been reduced to a talking point in the national media cycle this week. They received national attention in June when the Los Angeles chapter lodged a protest against a Hallmark card with a recorded message that they… Continue Reading To Forge a Better NAACP

Categories African American Studies/American History/Blair L. M. Kelley/Civil Rights/Education/North Carolina/Politics
July 13, 2010

Slavery and the NBA?

I have been frustrated by this week’s back-and-forth between the Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and civil rights veteran Jesse Jackson. Don’t get me wrong; Dan Gilbert’s letter smacked of grating paternalism; he spoke of James like a petulant child, rather than a man who had more than fulfilled his seven-year contract. His tone was inappropriate and disrespectful. Such a… Continue Reading Slavery and the NBA?

Categories African American Studies/Current Events/Sports
June 22, 2010

Feminism and the Republican Party: Equating Female with Feminist?

Until very recently, the term “feminist” was used by those on the right only as a negative descriptor of someone who would invariably be a political foe. Devoted feminists have struggled to set the word free from the negative connotations and reclaim the label as a source of pride, with mixed results, especially among younger generations of independent women whose… Continue Reading Feminism and the Republican Party: Equating Female with Feminist?

Categories African American Studies/American History/Current Events/Gender Studies/Politics/UNC Press Authors/Women's Studies
June 2, 2010

Interview: Victoria E. Bynum

Each month on the UNC Press homepage, we feature a handful of interviews with authors. I’d like to bring them over and share them with you blog readers because they’re so often just fun and interesting. I want to start by introducing Victoria E. Bynum, author of three books with us, including, most recently, The Long Shadow of the Civil… Continue Reading Interview: Victoria E. Bynum

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil War/North Carolina/Religion/Southern Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
May 20, 2010

Rand Paul and Segregation

It seems as though Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Kentucky, son of Texas congressman Ron Paul, and self-proclaimed representative of the Tea Party movement, has some serious difficulty explaining his approach to questions of race and civil rights. During an appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, Paul started by saying that he liked civil… Continue Reading Rand Paul and Segregation

Categories African American Studies/American History/Blair L. M. Kelley/Civil Rights/Columnists/Current Events/Politics
May 14, 2010

The Legacy of Thomas Day

During the mid-1800s, Thomas Day was the most successful cabinet maker working  in North Carolina.  A significant figure in the history of woodworking, equally as important for his role in American history as an astoundingly successful free man of color in the Antebellum South, Day developed a truly original aesthetic and showed unmatched skill as a maker of cabinets, furniture,… Continue Reading The Legacy of Thomas Day

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Craft/North Carolina/Southern Studies/UNC Press News
May 13, 2010

Sweet Tea on the Chicago Stage

We’ve blogged before about E. Patrick Johnson’s amazing Sweet Tea project–the book, the performances. Johnson is now starring in the one-man-show called Sweet Tea at the Viaduct Theater in Chicago through May 29. Here’s a taste of his preparation with director Daniel Alexander Jones. We have a special website dedicated to Sweet Tea, where you can see clips of Johnson’s… Continue Reading Sweet Tea on the Chicago Stage

Categories African American Studies/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Southern Studies/UNC Press Authors
May 12, 2010

Lena Horne and the Irony of Cultural Politics

We welcome a guest post today from Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, author of Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era. In her book, Sklaroff argues that New Deal cultural programs supporting notable black intellectuals, celebrities, and artists (including Lena Horne, Joe Louis, Duke Ellington, and Richard Wright) represent a key moment in the… Continue Reading Lena Horne and the Irony of Cultural Politics

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Film/Guest Bloggers
May 3, 2010

Septima Clark, Freedom’s Teacher

It is night. A lone black woman walks through a cornfield in South Carolina. The stars wink above her. Crickets and cicadas grow quiet as she passes and then resume their orchestral humming, now punctuated by the sound of rustling leaves a little farther off. She moves toward an unpainted one-room building. When she gets there, she will have to… Continue Reading Septima Clark, Freedom’s Teacher

Categories African American Studies/American History/Biography / Autobiography/Civil Rights/Education/Women's Studies
April 30, 2010

The Republicans’ “Southern Strategy” Unmasked?

When we got wind of Michael Steele’s recent comments about the Republican Party continuing a “Southern Strategy” for the past 40 years, we turned to an expert on southern politics for insight into Steele’s allusion to the Nixon-era strategy of racial exclusion. Michael Perman is author of Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the American South, which traces the… Continue Reading The Republicans’ “Southern Strategy” Unmasked?

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics
April 27, 2010

Confederate History Month and the Politics of Memory

We welcome a guest post today from Anne E. Marshall, author of Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State, which we’ll publish in December 2010. The book traces the development of a Confederate identity in Kentucky between 1865 and 1925 that belied the fact that Kentucky never left the Union and that… Continue Reading Confederate History Month and the Politics of Memory

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil War/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics
April 15, 2010

A Retired Postal Worker’s Tax Day Recollections

From Mississippi to Manhattan, I learned that African American postal workers’ decades-long challenge to the post office and postal union status quo–that for years included segregation and discrimination–was a key factor in transforming the post office. Continue Reading A Retired Postal Worker’s Tax Day Recollections

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Guest Bloggers/History/UNC Press Authors
April 14, 2010

Today’s Segregated Schools

A federal judge Tuesday ordered a rural county in southwestern Mississippi to stop segregating its schools by grouping African American students into all-black classrooms and allowing white students to transfer to the county’s only majority-white school, the U.S. Justice Department announced. (read the whole story here) When I saw the story yesterday headlined “Miss. county schools ordered to comply with… Continue Reading Today’s Segregated Schools

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Current Events/Education/Guest Bloggers/History/Law / Legal History/Public Policy
April 13, 2010

Why Are Children Killing Children in New Orleans?

We published Lance Hill’s book The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement several years ago, but we’ve stayed in touch with him, eager to hear his reports from New Orleans through Katrina and after. As an activist and civil rights historian, he brings a valuable perspective to local politics and educational issues of a city still… Continue Reading Why Are Children Killing Children in New Orleans?

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Current Events/Guest Bloggers
April 13, 2010

‘Change Comes Knocking’ to air on WUNC-TV tonight

Tonight at 10 p.m. on WUNC-TV will be the broadcast premiere of the documentary film Change Comes Knocking: The Story of the NC Fund. The film explores a bold, biracial initiative to fight poverty in 1960s North Carolina. The anti-poverty project known as the North Carolina Fund is also the subject of a new book by Robert Korstad and James… Continue Reading ‘Change Comes Knocking’ to air on WUNC-TV tonight

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Film/North Carolina/Public Policy/UNC Press News
March 29, 2010

Up to Date in Kansas City

We welcome a guest post today from Joshua M. Dunn, author of Complex Justice: The Case of Missouri v. Jenkins. Dunn’s book explores the 1987 case that became the federal court’s most expensive attempt at school desegregation: Judge Russell Clark mandated tax increases to help pay for improvements to the Kansas City, Missouri, School District in an effort to lure… Continue Reading Up to Date in Kansas City

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Current Events/Education/Guest Bloggers/History/Law / Legal History
February 24, 2010

To Right These Wrongs: A Groundbreaking Project

The first few books from UNC Press’ Spring|Summer 2010 catalog made it to bookshelves this month, and many more will be debuting in the coming months. One of the books we’re excited to publish, in partnership with Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement, is Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis’ To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and… Continue Reading To Right These Wrongs: A Groundbreaking Project

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Appalachian Studies/Civil Rights/Film/History/North Carolina/Public Policy/Southern Studies/UNC Press News
February 22, 2010

How do you Explain the Seemingly Unexplainable?

This is the question Susan Reverby considers in a post over at Wonders & Marvels. The author of, most recently, Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy writes: In my most recent book, I had to explain: why did the doctors do it? Sometimes it is easy to answer this: all the men were black and poor, and… Continue Reading How do you Explain the Seemingly Unexplainable?

Categories African American Studies/American History/Health / Medicine/History/UNC Press Authors