And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK

by Henry L Gates, Kevin M Burke

Overview

The companion book to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s PBS series, And Still I Rise—a timeline and chronicle of the past fifty years of black history in the U.S. in more than 350 photos.

Beginning with the assassination of Malcolm X in February 1965, And Still I Rise: From Black Power to the White House explores the last half-century of the African American experience. More than fifty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the birth of Black Power, the United States has both a black president and black CEOs running Fortune 500 companies—and a large black underclass beset by persistent poverty, inadequate education, and an epidemic of incarceration. Harvard professor and scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. raises disturbing and vital questions about this dichotomy. How did the African American community end up encompassing such profound contradictions? And what will “the black community” mean tomorrow?

Gates takes readers through the major historical events and untold stories of the sixty years that have irrevocably shaped both the African American experience and the nation as a whole, from the explosive social and political changes of the 1960s, into the 1970s and 1980s—eras characterized by both prosperity and neglect—through the turn of the century to today, taking measure of such racial flashpoints as the Tawana Brawley case, OJ Simpson’s murder trial, the murders of Amadou Diallo and Trayvon Martin, and debates around the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policies. Even as it surveys the political and social evolution of black America, And Still I Rise is also a celebration of the accomplishments of black artists, musicians, writers, comedians, and thinkers who have helped to define American popular culture and to change our world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062427007
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/27/2015
Edition description:	Illustrated
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	618,593
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored seventeen books and created fourteen documentary films. Having written for such leading publications as The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Time, Professor Gates now serves as chairman of the daily online magazine The Root and is editor in chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center. He has received more than fifty honorary degrees from institutions the world over.

Kevin M. Burke is Director of Research at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and the Senior Historical Adviser on the PBS series And Still I Rise. He also serves as President of the Downing Film Center, an award-winning nonprofit independent movie theater he helped launch in Newburgh, New York, in 2006. Dr. Burke graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1998 with a degree in Afro-American Studies and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2003. He received his master's degree in History and Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard in 2004 and 2006, respectively.

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2015
Titled from a 1978 Maya Angelou poem, this companion to the documentary PBS series of the same name offers an illustrated year-by-year chronicle highlighting epic phenomena and trending events in African American history and culture since the landmark civil rights victories of 1964–65. Harvard University scholars Gates (director, Hutchins Ctr. for African & African American Research; Life upon These Shores) and Burke (director of research, Hutchins Ctr. for African & African American Research) erect a platform for various voices to recall what happened where and when and to challenge historical memory with hard questions about black community and identity. Discussing glory, irony, pain, and triumph, Gates and Burke expose the breadth and depth of black culture's infusion into the American mainstream from comedy to fashion to music while exposing and exploring divisions and divisiveness among blacks as class differences and diverging consciousness magnify increasing inequalities amid expanding opportunities. VERDICT This heavyweight production in the form of a combination picture and reference book suitable for the classroom, the reference desk, or the coffee table is sure to stimulate conversation among thoughtful readers interested in the African American past, present, and future. [See Prepub Alert, 4/6/15.]—Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe

Library Journal

2015-09-02
A stirring chronology of advances—and some backward steps—in the long struggle for African-American civil rights. The subtitle is a touch imprecise, for Martin Luther King is still alive at the beginning of Gates (African-American Studies/Harvard Univ.; Finding Your Roots, 2014, etc.) and Burke's compendium, a companion to the forthcoming PBS series. It is Malcolm X, instead, who falls just two pages in, a victim of an internal struggle within the Black Muslim movement. As the authors observe, his memoir soon became "a canonical text for the Black Power movement," selling 6 million copies within 10 years. Ten days after Malcolm's funeral, hundreds of civil rights marchers were beaten in Selma, Alabama, launching King's march to Montgomery and affirming the commitment of the Lyndon Johnson administration to civil rights at the federal level. Two dozen pages in, and King has fallen as well, killed at the age of 39, "the same age Malcolm X was when he was assassinated three years prior." The year 1968 would mark much upheaval, symbolized by medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos' raising of the Black Power salute at the Mexico City Olympics. Gates and Burke chart political and social events alongside the incalculable influence of black culture on mainstream American culture, from Broadway (James Earl Jones, "long before he is known as the voice of Darth Vader," won a Tony in 1969) to music ("Although most of the audience is white, African American performers star at the three-day Woodstock music festival in upstate New York") to sports and science, the latter represented most visibly by the immensely popular interpreter of cosmology Neil deGrasse Tyson. Presented in accessible entries seldom exceeding 100 words, the chronology is richly illustrated with images both iconic and seldom seen, making this especially useful as a visual reference for readers too young to have scenes from the early years burned into their memories. A must for the look-it-up shelf and a poignant reminder of how far we have come—and have yet to go.

Kirkus Reviews