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May 19, 2021

Happy Haitian Heritage Month: A Reading List

A strong “Sak Pase” to all of our Haitian and Haitian-descendant readers! May is Haitian Heritage Month and we wanted to celebrate with a recommended reading list dedicated to the history of the first independent black republic in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti. May was chosen as Haitian Heritage Month because it marks the anniversary of the birth of Toussaint L’Ouverture,… Continue Reading Happy Haitian Heritage Month: A Reading List

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/Anthropology/Biography / Autobiography/folklore/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Religion/UNC Press News
May 13, 2021

Redefining The Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War

The following is an excerpt from Uzma Quraishi’s Redefining The Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War, winner of the 2021 Theodore Saloutos Book Prize. Remember to enter promo code 01DAH40 at checkout for 40% off any UNC Press book! In the 1950s, a small number of immigrants and college students from India and Pakistan began arriving… Continue Reading Redefining The Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War

Categories American History/American Studies/Asian Studies/History
May 6, 2021

Fighting Back: The Struggle against Anti-Alien Measures

In honor of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, the following is an excerpt from Stephanie Hinnershitz’ A Different Shade of Justice: Asian American Civil Rights in the South. This book is one of five titles from a reading list we created celebrating Asian American and Asian studies; view the entire reading list here. Because not all southern states amended their constitutions… Continue Reading Fighting Back: The Struggle against Anti-Alien Measures

Categories American Studies/Asian Studies/History/Law / Legal History/Southern Studies
April 30, 2021

Jason Berry’s City Of A Million Dreams film premieres at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival

Author of City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 Jason Berry is premiering his film City Of A Million Dreams, for which he is co-screenwriter, producer, and director, today at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival. The premiere of Jason Berry’s City of A Million Dreams is virtual, so grab your popcorn and visit this… Continue Reading Jason Berry’s City Of A Million Dreams film premieres at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/American Studies
April 27, 2021

Happy Pub Day to Adrian Miller’s Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

We are thrilled that today marks the official on sale date for UNC Press’s third book authored by James Beard Award winner Adrian Miller, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue. Black Smoke is the fourth book published in the Ferris & Ferris Imprint for high-profile, general-interest books about the American South. You can preview Black Smoke… Continue Reading Happy Pub Day to Adrian Miller’s Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Food Studies/Native American History/UNC Press News
April 26, 2021

West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

Reblogged with permission by ANZASA Online; by Kevin Waite, author of West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire I was born and raised in California, but it wasn’t until I moved to Pennsylvania to begin my PhD that I learned about the history of slavery in my native state. The subject never came up when I was a student… Continue Reading West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History
April 21, 2021

Reflecting on the Past Year Since the Publication of From Here to Equality

Guest post by  William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen, whose groundbreaking and critically acclaimed book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century was published one year ago this week. The year since the publication date of our UNC Press book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (FHTE),… Continue Reading Reflecting on the Past Year Since the Publication of From Here to Equality

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Civil Rights/Current Events/Economics/Guest Bloggers
April 21, 2021

Florida’s Environmental Issues and the Price of Unchecked Development

Happy Earth Week and #EHW2021! Guest blog post by Jason Vuic, author of The Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream (available now for preorder, and on sale June 2021) In early April 2021, to honor the U.S. Senate’s “Small Business of the Week,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was in Tampa… Continue Reading Florida’s Environmental Issues and the Price of Unchecked Development

Categories American History/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/Public Policy/Southern Studies
April 20, 2021

Swann at 50

Guest blog post by Pamela Grundy, author of Color & Character: West Charlotte High and the American Struggle over Educational Equality, and Tom Hanchett, author of Sorting Out the New South City, Second Edition: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975 Fifty years ago, on April 20, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in Swann v. Charlotte… Continue Reading Swann at 50

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Education/Guest Bloggers
April 17, 2021

New Series Announcement: Latinx Histories

As a leading publisher of American and Latin American history, UNC Press is delighted to announce the launch of Latinx Histories, a book series premised on the view that understanding Latinx history is essential to a more complete and complex understanding of the history of the United States, the Americas, and the world. The series editors and advisory board welcome book proposals that examine… Continue Reading New Series Announcement: Latinx Histories

Categories Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies
April 16, 2021

Celebrating the Life of North Carolina’s Barbecue Legend Wilber Shirley

Earlier this month, Wilber Shirley, a true legend in North Carolina’s barbecue world, passed. In honor of his legacy, we have chosen to post his interview from John Shelton Reed, Dale Volberg Reed and William McKinney’s co-authored Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue. “That grease hitting those coals makes the smoked flavor. You can’t spray it on… Continue Reading Celebrating the Life of North Carolina’s Barbecue Legend Wilber Shirley

Categories Cooking / Food/History/North Carolina
April 15, 2021

Lawrence Reddick and Recent Antiracism Initiatives in the American Historical Profession

Guest post written in conjunction with the start of the Organization of American Historians’s annual conference #OAH21, by David A. Varel, author of The Scholar and the Struggle: Lawrence Reddick’s Crusade for Black History and Black Power Black historian and activist Lawrence Reddick (1910-1995), the subject of my new UNC book, died over a quarter century ago, but his legacy… Continue Reading Lawrence Reddick and Recent Antiracism Initiatives in the American Historical Profession

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Biography / Autobiography/Guest Bloggers/Politics
April 13, 2021

Policing and Ongoing Social Injustice Towards Black Lives in America: A Reading List

In response to recent events in Brooklyn Center MN, the following curated reading list provides information regarding ongoing injustices and discriminatory practices perpetuated by a lack of criminal justice reform that’s historically targeted Black Americans. In the aftermath of the police killing of Daunte Wright, here are resources for donating and healing. The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the… Continue Reading Policing and Ongoing Social Injustice Towards Black Lives in America: A Reading List

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American Studies/Civil Rights
April 7, 2021

Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Guest post by Dale W. Tomich, co-author of Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery: A Visual History of the Plantation in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, on sale April 19, 2021 The terms “plantation” and “plantation landscape” commonly conjure up the image of the Big House of the great planters of the Americas. The Big House is how the plantation was meant… Continue Reading Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Guest Bloggers
March 31, 2021

Our Sisters in China Are Free: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Bringing our celebration of Women’s History Month on the UNC Press Blog to a close, the following excerpt is taken from Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement by Cathleen D. Cahill The shadows were just starting to slide across New York’s Washington Square Park on the evening of May 5, 1912, when a company of fifty… Continue Reading Our Sisters in China Are Free: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Categories American History/History/Women's Studies
March 26, 2021

UNC Press stands in solidarity with workers fighting for dignity and workplace democracy

The University of North Carolina Press stands in solidarity with workers fighting for dignity and workplace democracy in the book industry—especially the more than 5,000 Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who are in the midst of the historic first attempt to unionize one of the e-commerce giant’s warehouses. This is of particular interest to us both as publishing workers and… Continue Reading UNC Press stands in solidarity with workers fighting for dignity and workplace democracy

Categories History/Labor Studies/UNC Press News
March 25, 2021

Historian Comes Clean, Stay Dirty

Follow the UNC Press Blog for a celebration of women’s histories and women historians throughout March. This year we are celebrating the significant contributions of notable women, renown and lesser known, throughout history, as well as women historians past and present that have been published by UNC Press. The following excerpt is taken from Writing Kit Carson: Fallen Heroes in a… Continue Reading Historian Comes Clean, Stay Dirty

Categories Gender Studies/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
March 23, 2021

Revolutionary Latin American Women

Follow the UNC Press Blog for a celebration of women’s histories and women historians throughout March. This year we are celebrating the significant contributions of notable women, renown and lesser known, throughout history, as well as women historians past and present that have been published by UNC Press. Two recently published biographies, Celia Sánchez Manduley: The Life and Legacy of… Continue Reading Revolutionary Latin American Women

Categories Cuba/Gender Studies/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./UNC Press News/Women's Studies
March 19, 2021

Embracing Contradictions: Grace Lee Boggs’s Philosophic Journey and Political Emergence

UNC Press denounces racial terrorism and stands in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. #StopAsianHate The following excerpt is taken from In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs by Stephen M. Ward Grace Lee Boggs was both product and producer of an improbable history. “I grew up in New York as… Continue Reading Embracing Contradictions: Grace Lee Boggs’s Philosophic Journey and Political Emergence

Categories American History/Asian Studies/Civil Rights/History
March 18, 2021

The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States

UNC Press denounces racial terrorism and stands in solidarity with the Asian American community. #StopAsianHate The following excerpt is taken from Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States by Lon Kurashige The 1882 act excluding Chinese laborers from the United States for ten years did more than displace the egalitarian spirit of the Burlingame… Continue Reading The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States

Categories American History/Asian Studies/History