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Tag Archives: Diasporic Africa Press
Official Announcement: My New “People’s Biography” Of Ida B. Wells-Barnett Is Now Available During This Women’s History Month And Beyond
BOOK NOW AVAILABLE!
NEW BOOK DISCUSSES THE STRUGGLE OF BLACK WOMEN ACTIVISTS THRU THE LIFE OF JOURNALIST IDA B. WELLS
Ida B. Wells-Barnett is the historic link between Harriet Tubman, the great abolitionist and Civil War hero, and Ethel Payne, the pioneering twentieth century Chicago Black journalist who took up the journalism role she had pioneered. She lived during the time of the birth of Jim Crow and died 24 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, spurring the mass-action wing of the Civil Rights Movement.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) has gone from mid-twentieth century obscurity to a major twenty-first century subject in Women’s Studies and the history of Black American media.
But her life was much more complex than the one paragraph portrait written of her: Black journalist, anti-lynching crusader.
She was first and foremost a mother and wife. She was also a local Chicago community activist for decades. She was a devout Christian who believed deeply in the Black church and in Black schools, even when those institutions didn’t believe in her. She had no problem publicly criticizing Black ministers who failed to represent their flocks, and Black school systems when they failed the students in her charge. She would be fired and ostracized by many elements of the Black community for her stands. She was a major leader of several movements: the suffragist movement, the Black women’s club movement, as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was maneuvered out of power in many of the movements she led. It was especially despicable that, as the NAACP became more and more involved in anti-lynching, she was left out of its history, erased from the cause for which she risked her life!
This new book, Warrior Princess: A People’s Biography of Ida B. Wells (New York: Diasporic Africa Press), shows how her independent spirit infused her work.
By the time Wells-Barnett died, white women and Black northern men and women had the right to vote, the NAACP was on its way to becoming the most powerful civil rights organization of all time, and the Black press, thanks to the societal changes of the twentieth century, was about to become the most powerful nonreligious institution in Black communities.
This work is not a work of biography as much as it an ideological portrait from a Black feminist perspective. It’s a book that discusses the ideas and institutions around Ida B. Wells-Barnett as she spent her life in teaching, journalism, anti-lynching campaigns, and civil rights and political organizing. It discusses how she balanced white racism of both genders, and sexism from Black male leaders. It attempts to show how one Black woman created and maintained her selfhood amidst such challenges.
It is for Black women activists of the twenty-first century—those who are committed to showing that Black lives have always mattered most to them. It is for the young Black women who have spearheaded major protests and demonstrations during the presidencies of both Barack Obama, a Black Democrat, and Donald Trump, a white Republican.
This personal history tells us not only that there’s no easy road, but no reward for standing for the basics of civilization. It shows that victory does not equal celebration or credit. That when you use a sword to cut down injustice, the people who pass through the barriers you broke can have selective amnesia.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett demanded her own terms in life. She got them; she lived the life she wanted. But it was always a struggle, and the only reward was being able to express herself and live her own values in a deeply repressive time.
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Table Of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE—A POST-CIVIL WAR LIFE OF HOPE, DESTOYED BY PLAGUE; PARENTS AND AN ADOLESCENCE STOLEN
CHAPTER TWO—MISS IDA B. WELLS, THE SCHOOLTEACHER WHO FOUGHT ON A TRAIN
CHAPTER THREE—THE SHAPING OF BLACK AMERICA: IDA B. WELLS, THE BLACK PRESS AND FREE SPEECH IN POST-RECONSTRUCTION MEMPHIS
CHAPTER FOUR—KNOTTED ROPE: WELLS’ CAMPAIGNS AGAINST LYNCHING
CHAPTER FIVE—THE ‘PRINCESS OF THE PRESS’ BECOMES A FETED CLUBWOMAN
CHAPTER SIX—IDA’S ALPHABET: NAACP, NACW, NFL, NERL
CHAPTER SEVEN—FAMILY TIME
CHAPTER EIGHT—SEXISM IN THE MOVEMENT: WELLS-BARNETT FIGHTS BLACK FEMALE INVISIBLILTY
CHAPTER NINE—THE COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WELLS-BARNETT AND WHITE FEMINISM
CHAPTER TEN—AN ELDER, STOPPED IN MID-SENTENCE, AS THE BLACK MOVEMENT ROOTS ITSELF INTO THE 20TH CENTURY
CODA: A NATION OF LEADING BLACK FEMALE VOICES
Congrats To…..
…..Dr. Jared Ball, for his success with “Academics In Cars!” I was proud to be in the first one.
Official Press Announcement Of My New Book, “Marvel’s Black Panther: A Comicbook Biography, From Stan Lee To Ta-Nehisi Coates”
#theblackpanther #blackpanther #WakandaForever #BlackPantherLive #Reginald Hudlin #WhatWakandaMeansToMe
THE BOOK WILL BE RELEASED THIS WEEK! I WILL UPDATE WHEN IT IS ON AMAZON!
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FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS, THE BLACK PANTHER WAS ONCE ONE OF THE MOST OBSCURE OF MARVEL’S CHARACTERS.
THEN, FOR THE FIRST TIME, HIS BLACK COMICBOOK WRITERS TOOK OVER.
Now, a new book tells the history from the perspective of its Black and white writers.
MARVEL’S BLACK PANTHER: A COMIC BOOK BIOGRAPHY, FROM STAN LEE TO TA-NEHISI COATES (Diasporic Africa Press) is a collection of chronological thoughts about the 52 years this character has existed.
The first, in-depth examination of the first Black superhero to appear in American mainstream comics, it is a group of chronological essays—a “biography” of a comicbook character—exploring what writer Todd Steven Burroughs thinks about how this Black/African hero character has been shaped: first by white liberal American men—Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas and Don McGregor—then by a Black American liberal man, Christopher J. Priest, and even later by American neo-Black-nationalists Reginald Hudlin and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
It is about race, mainstream superhero comics and the Black American imagination within the backdrop of American history and world history. It’s about the limitations of white liberalism and the power of Black-centered but white-controlled American popular culture; ultimately, it’s how 20th century white liberalism had to yield to the 21st century multicultural reality.
This book, a new addition to the growing scholarly literature on the growing literature on Black American comic books, shows how Black writers developed the version of The Black Panther now seen and beloved on movie screens throughout the world.
Excerpts from the book can be found here and here.
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BEFORE HIS BLACK WRITERS TOOK OVER, THE BLACK PANTHER HAD FADED FROM THE LEE-KIRBY BAD-ASS WHO HAD TRAPPED THE FANTASTIC FOUR IN MINUTES TO, FIRST, A SIDNEY POITIER HARLEM TEACHER AND, LATER, A GUY WHO TOOK FOUR PAGES TO FREE HIMSELF FROM A BEAR TRAP.
“Marvel’s Black Panther: A Comic Book Biography, From Stan Lee To Ta-Nehisi Coates” shows the character’s growth under Priest, Hudlin and Coates, writers who understood that The Black Panther was at least as cool as Batman. Both Priest and Hudlin turned The Black Panther, a character known primarily for leaping around, into a literal Dark Knight; Marvel finally had a character that imitated and matched Batman’s powerful aura.
Christopher Priest brought him back to his first, dangerous Lee-Kirby Fantastic Four 1966 appearance, and
Reginald Hudlin then followed up by bringing him out of the comicbook store into the larger 21st century Black popular-culture world.
Ta-Nehisi Coates put him in the complex world of 21st century African domestic politics.
By doing so, Marvel now had the Batman-like character it had long wanted, and Black comicbook readers, Afrofuturists and Black fantasy-lovers had essentially a brand-new, culturally-relevant version of an established Marvel superhero.
Thanks to Priest, Hudlin and Coates, one of Marvel’s greatest Hollywood blockbuster film superheroes in 2016, 2018 and beyond is an unapologetic Black Cat.
*****
The book answers the following questions:
• Which Black Panther writer created Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan?
• What is The Black Panther’s complex relationship with The Avengers?
• When was The Black Panther ever female? When was the Black Panther a half-Jewish New York City police officer?
• Who are the secret LGBT characters a Panther writer slipped into the 1970s comic book?
• How does Ta-Nehisi Coates’ first Panther storyarc thematically compare with his acclaimed full-length essay book, “Between The World and Me”?
*****
The book’s Foreword is written by Makani Themba, chief strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies based in Jackson, Mississippi. A social justice innovator and pioneer in the field of change communications and narrative strategy, she has spent more than 20 years supporting organizations, coalitions and philanthropic institutions in developing high impact change initiatives.
The book’s Afterword is written by Greg Carr, Ph.D., J.D., chair of the Black Studies Department of Howard University.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD— Makani Themba, community activist/strategist, Higher Ground Change Strategies, Jackson, Mississippi
INTRODUCTION—Black Panther vs. White Panther
CHAPTER ONE— From Patrice Lumumba to Sidney Poitier: Early Fantastic Four and Avengers Appearances
CHAPTER TWO— The Jungle Book: Don McGregor Creates His Own Africa
CHAPTER THREE— The Finished Man: Don McGregor (Almost) Completes His ‘Panther Novel’
CHAPTER FOUR— The Return of the Kings: The Amazing and Wacky Adventures of Jack Kirby’s Panther
CHAPTER FIVE—The Client Was a Man of Remarkable Focus: A Panther and a Priest
CHAPTER SIX—The Spy King: How Christopher Priest’s Version of The Panther Forever Shook Up The Avengers
CHAPTER SEVEN—’Bad Mutha’: Reginald Hudlin’s Uncompromised Royal Black (Super-)Man and the Unbridled Black Imagination
CHAPTER EIGHT—Side-Swipes: The New York Ghost Cop and the Wakandan Princess As ‘Replacement’ Panthers
CHAPTER NINE—The (Black) Man Without Fear: That Time Panther Briefly Replaced Daredevil
CHAPTER TEN—Between the World and Him: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Panther
CONCLUSION—Panther Slices Through Captain America: Civil War
AFTERWORD—Greg Carr, Chairperson, Africana Studies, Howard University
The Covers To My Two New Books
Official announcements forthcoming!
Drums in the Global Village 