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Robin D. G. Kelley

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Book
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Robin D. G. Kelley
2002
Book
Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies
Colin Kaepernick, Robin D. G. Kelley, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
2023
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Related Excerpts

One Year
Podcast
One Year

1942: The Day the Music Stopped

On Aug. 1, 1942, the nation’s recording studios went silent. Musicians were fed up with the new technologies threatening their livelihoods, so they refused to record until they got their fair share. This week, Evan Chung explores one of the most consequential labor actions of the 20th century, and how it coincided with an underground revolution in music led by artists like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
November 3, 2022
Hip hop nightclub.

Golden-Era Rap Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition

In Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities.
by Antoine S. Johnson via Black Perspectives on August 15, 2023
George Washington Williams
partner

George Washington Williams and the Origins of Anti-Imperialism

Initially supportive of Belgian King Leopold II’s claim to have created a “free state” of Congo, Williams changed his mind when he saw the horrors of empire.
by Mohammed Elnaiem via JSTOR Daily on June 10, 2021
Illustration of enslaved people and the royal crown.

The Consciousness of New World Slaves as Workers

Atlantic slavery was capitalist, with enslaved workers producing profit and resisting exploitation as a “chattel proletariat.”
by Aaron Berman, David McNally via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on April 8, 2026
CPUSA members demonstrate in Union Square on May Day, ca. 1930s.

Maurice Isserman’s Red Scare

A new history of the CPUSA reads like a Cold War throwback.
by Benjamin Balthaser via The Baffler
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on November 21, 2024
Group of people playing various instruments

A Hip-Hop Syllabus—For Fans, By Fans

Reflections on popular books written about hip-hop.
by Brittany Allen via Literary Hub on September 11, 2024
Joe Biden holding hands with Black members of Congress.

Black Class Matters

Class conflict undermines assumptions about political solidarity.
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via Hammer & Hope on August 30, 2023
Covers of popular history books.

Who Is History For?

What happens when radical historians write for the public.
by David Waldstreicher via Boston Review on July 25, 2023
Colin Kaepernick at the ACLU SoCal Hosts Annual Bill of Rights Dinner in 2017.

“Black History Is an Absolute Necessity.”

A conversation with Colin Kaepernick on Black studies, white supremacy, and capitalism.
by Colin Kaepernick, Indigo Olivier via The New Republic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on June 19, 2023
Two unnamed Black officers in the Union Army.

Richard Wright’s Civil War Cipher

Archival records of Black southerners' military desertion tribunals can be read as a distinct form of political action.
by Jonathan Lande via Process: A Blog for American History on February 14, 2023

The Country That Could Not Mourn

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown just how hard it is for Americans to grieve.
by Sarah Jaffe via The New Republic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on September 23, 2022
Illustration of Cedric Robinson by Joe Ciardiello.

Cedric Robinson’s Radical Democracy

Rejecting the resignation of the 1970s and ’80s, Robinson found in the disinvested ruins of the city a new egalitarian form of politics.
by Jared A. Loggins via The Nation
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on April 18, 2022
A picture of armed militias

What the Term “Gun Culture” Misses About White Supremacy

The rise of tactical gun culture among civilians reveals a new front in the U.S. battle against nativist authoritarianism.
by Chad Kautzer via Boston Review on December 17, 2021
Howard Fuller outside Malcolm X Liberation University

The Lost Promise of Black Study

Even as they carve out space for Black scholarship, established universities remain deeply complicit in racial capitalism. We must think beyond them.
by Andrew J. Douglas, Jared A. Loggins via Boston Review on September 24, 2021
Black mother holding baby

The Persistent Joy of Black Mothers

Characterized throughout American history as symbols of crisis, trauma, and grief, these women reject those narratives through world-making of their own.
by Leah Wright Rigueur via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on August 11, 2021
Artwork depicting two people with shovels and a machette, entitled “Broken Skies: Nou poko fini” (We aren't done yet), 2019, by Didier William

Tarry with Me

Reclaiming sweetness in an anti-Black world.
by Ashanté M. Reese via Oxford American on March 23, 2021
Cover of "The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 1960s"

In Search of Soul

A musicological conversation about the history and social value of Black music.
by Sasha Frere-Jones, Emily J. Lordi via Bookforum on November 24, 2020
Statue of George Washington with an American flag tied to his face to cover his nose and mouth, like a covid mask or a gag.

Direct Action and the Rejection of Monumental History

As people have gathered across the country to oppose police violence, they have targeted statues, monuments, and buildings commemorating white supremacy.
by Jacob F. Lee, Mathew E. Stanley via CounterPunch on June 5, 2020

On Eric Garner, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Police Brutality as American Tradition

“¿DEFACEMENT?,” Inspired by the 1983 Police Murder of Michael Stewart.
by Johanna F. Almiron via Literary Hub on September 13, 2019
Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The Afro-Pessimist Temptation

An examination of the tragic echoes of Reconstruction-era politics following Obama's presidency.
by Darryl Pinckney via New York Review of Books
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on May 23, 2018
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