New Books in African American Studies

The realities of race that continue to plague the United States have direct ties to the anthropology. Anthropologists often imagine their discipline as inherently anti-racist and historically connected to social justice movements. But just how true is that? In Boasians at War: Anthropology, Race, and World War II (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) Anthony Hazard examines the work of Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Ashley Montagu, Margaret Mead, and Melville Herskovits to examine the ways they did -- or didn't -- theorize the emergence of racism as both systemic and interpersonal. Putting their work in the context of the black freedom struggle, Hazard evaluates the ways in which these anthropologists engaged racism both in the discipline of anthropology and in the wider world.

In this episode of the podcast, hose Alex Golub sits down with Tony and has a frank talk about the strengths and weaknesses of some of American cultural anthropology's key figures. They also discuss some 'meta' questions, including how we should judge people who lived in a different time and different context from us, and where the line between 'ally' and 'co-conspirator' as anthropologists and other academics take their moral sensibilities outside the academy and into the broader world.

Associate professor of anthropology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

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African-Americans and women are increasingly visible in professional mathematical institutions, organizations, and literature, expanding our mental models of the mathematics community. Yet early representation also matters: We begin building these models as soon as we begin seeing and doing mathematics, and they can be slow to adapt. In her wonderful activity book Women Who Count: Honoring African American Women Mathematicians (MAA Press, 2019), Dr. Shelly Jones invites children, and their parents and educators, to immerse themselves in the lives and deeds of Black women mathematicians.

The 29 profiles trace back to "the Firsts" in their fields, such as early PhD awardee Evelyn Boyd Granville; the "Pioneers" of emerging fields and programs, including ethnomathematics co-founder Gloria Gilmer; through "Unhidden Figures" like Dorothy Johnson Vaughan of recent biopic fame; and to "Contemporary Firsts" who are living, working, and opening new doors today. Along with their mathematical contributions, Dr. Jones shares details of these mathematicians' early lives, their hobbies and interests, and how they have been shaped by and in turn shaped their communities. Each mini-biography introduces a whole person whom readers new to mathematics can relate to and be inspired by.

Each profile is accompanied by a pencil-and-paper activity that brings to life the some part of their story. Some are classics, including word searches and I-Spy, while others introduce readers to mathematical and educational concepts explored by their subjects—coloring tessellations, for example, or solving equations to decode messages. The text and activities are targeted to grades 3–8, and are ideal for elementary and middle school classrooms.

In our conversation, Dr. Jones described how she conceived the book, assembled the stories and activities, and connected with illustrator Veronica Martins. I came away with a richer perspective on the state of the field for aspiring mathematicians—in addition to a perfect gift for my second-grade nephew.

Suggested companion works:

• Mathematicians of the African Diaspora
• Mathematically Gifted and Black
• Mathematician Project
• Lathisms
• We are Indigenous Mathematicians
• Black Girl MATHgic
• Talitha Washington

Dr. Shelly M. Jones is a Professor of Mathematics Education at Central Connecticut State University. She has been an educator for 30 years and currently teaches undergraduate mathematics content and methods courses for pre-service teachers as well as graduate level mathematics content, curriculum and STEM courses for in-service teachers. Dr. Jones serves her community by working with various professional and community organizations. You can see her CCSU TEDx talk on YouTube where she talks about culturally relevant mathematics. She is also a contributing author to The Brilliance of Black Children in Mathematics: Beyond the Numbers and Toward a New Discourse and co-author of Engaging in Culturally Relevant Math Tasks: Fostering Hope.

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Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Rochester Press, 2024) examines the leadership strategies that Black women educators have employed as influential power brokers in predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States. Author Donna J. Nicol tells the extraordinary story of Dr. Claudia H. Hampton, the California State University (CSU) system's first Black woman trustee, who later became the board's first woman chair, and her twenty-year fight (1974-94) to increase access within the CSU for historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. Amid a growing white backlash against changes brought on by the 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Nicol argues that Hampton enacted "sly civility" to persuade fellow trustees, CSU system officials, and state lawmakers to enforce federal and state affirmative action mandates.

Donna J. Nicol is Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University, Long Beach, CA.

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Greg Jarrell's book Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods (Fortress Press, 2024) uncovers how race, geography, policy, and religion have created haunted landscapes in Charlotte, North Carolina, and throughout the United States. How do we value our lands, livelihoods, and communities? How does our theology inform our capacity--or lack thereof--for memory? What responsibilities do we bear toward those who have been harmed, not just by individuals but by our structures and collective ways of being in the world?

Abram and Annie North, both born enslaved, purchased a home in the historically Black neighborhood of Brooklyn in the years following the Civil War. Today, the site of that home stands tucked beneath a corner of the First Baptist Church property on a site purchased under the favorable terms of Urban Renewal campaigns in the mid-1960s. How did FBC wind up in what used to be Brooklyn--a neighborhood that no longer exists? What happened to the Norths? How might we heal these hauntings? This is an American story with implications far beyond Brooklyn, Charlotte, or even the South. By carefully tracing the intertwined fortunes of First Baptist Church and the formerly enslaved North family, Jarrell opens our eyes to uncomfortable truths with which we all must reckon.

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The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in collective memory. But this pivotal era looked very different to African Americans in the South transitioning from bondage to freedom after 1865. They were besieged by a campaign of white supremacist violence that persisted through the 1880s and beyond. For too long, their lived experiences have been sidelined, impoverishing our understanding of the obstacles post-Civil War Black families faced, their inspiring determination to survive, and the physical and emotional scars they bore because of it.

In I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people building hope-filled new lives. Drawing on overlooked sources and bold new readings of the archives, Williams offers a revelatory and, in some cases, minute-by-minute record of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan strikes. And she deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to consider how the effects of these attacks would linger for decades-indeed, generations-to come. For readers of Carol Anderson, Tiya Miles, and Clint Smith, I Saw Death Coming is an indelible and essential book that speaks to some of the most pressing questions of our times.

Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

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