Black Power and American History

Now on YouTube-- hear Vanderbilt University history professor Devin Fergus discuss his new book:

Part 1 │ Part 2

In this clip, Fergus is interviewed by colleague Gary Gerstle about LIBERALISM, BLACK POWER AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN POLITICS, 1965-1980.

In the interview, Gerstle presses Fergus to explain how his book relates the recent resurgence of scholarship on the Black Power movement in the U.S. Fergus makes a case for the need to reinsert Black Power into a broader narrative of American history. In particular, Fergus argues that it is important to find an account of the Civil Rights Movement and the decades that followed that "asserts the agency of black Americans," placing Black Power more centrally in that history.

The book will launch at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on Tuesday, May 26 at 7 pm.

Coverage of a recent visit to Oklahoma can be found here.

In further news, Fergus has been awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for the 2009-2010 academic year.



Technorati Tags: Black Power Liberalism Civil Rights Movement

Short Takes

The Paperback Row column in this Sunday’s New York Times will feature Anne Panning’s SUPER AMERICA.

Philip Levine recommends BOY by Patrick Phillips in this month's Ploughshares.

Hear poets from THE RINGING EAR with Cave Canem founders Toi Derricote and Cornelius Eady on New Letters on the Air.

The May/June issue of Orion Magazine includes a review of AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE; the book is also featured in a piece in the St. Petersburg Times by reporter Jeff Klinkenberg, who wrote frequently about Marjory Stoneman Douglas during her lifetime: “When she encountered Reubin Askew in 1971, she felt the need to remind the popular new governor that ‘your predecessors gave Florida land away like drunken sailors.’ Askew may have enjoyed a pro-environment reputation with voters, but by God, she wanted him to know he was on probation with her.”

The Spring 2009 issue of Fourth Genre reviews Michael Martone’s RACING IN PLACE: “Intellectual playfulness is, in fact, one of Martone’s strengths, and as I read his book, I found myself making comparisons to Montaigne, the granddaddy of the form, who wondered once in an essay whether he was playing with the cat or the cat with him.”

In a lengthy review, the Newnan Times-Herald calls WHAT VIRTUE THERE IS IN FIRE a “ground-breaking” account of the Sam Hose lynching.

The San Antonio Express News interviews Jeanne Campbell Reesman, author of JACK LONDON’S RACIAL LIVES. Reesman will be signing books at The Twig in San Antonio this Saturday.

MARGARET FULLER: WANDERING PILGRIM appears in a round-up review in the New York Review of Books.

Library Journal named TURTLES OF THE SOUTHEAST one of the best science reference books of the year.

Measured Perspectives on Latino Immigration in the South

The Southern Poverty Law Center has just released the report "Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South." The study finds that Latino immigrants--both legal and illegal--are routinely targets of wage theft and racial profiling and cites anti-immigration sentiment as a driving force behind these and other abuses. The debate over immigration, especially illegal immigration over our southern border--has grown increasingly heated and confrontational in recent years.

LATINO IMMIGRANTS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE U.S. SOUTH is a newly-published collection of essays edited by Mary E. Odem and Elaine Lacy that offers a measured perspective on the larger topic of Latino immigrants in the South. Contributors draw on social science and historical approaches to show the wide array of changes the South has undergone as the Latino population has more than doubled over the past decade. Southern food, religion, race relations, schools, and work places are all dramatically different than they were twenty years ago.

"Odem and Lacy effectively take the pulse of one of the nation's most significant--and unplanned--social experiments: the Latino invasion of Old South states, 1986-2006," comments historian Leon Fink. "Nine essays and a splendid introduction capture a unique tapestry of opportunity, fear, aspiration, and resentment."

If you're looking for more information about the rapidly changing South and Latino immigrants, these books may also interest you:

GROUNDED GLOBALISM: HOW THE U.S. SOUTH EMBRACES THE WORLD by James Peacock

LATINO WORKERS IN THE CONTEMPORARY SOUTH edited by Arthur D. Murphy, Colleen Blanchard, and Jennifer A. Hill

Technorati Tags: Southern Poverty Law Center Latino Immigration

Get to Know the Women Who Helped Shape South Carolina History

The symposium South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times offers an excellent opportunity to spend a day hearing the fascinating stories of the women who helped shape South Carolina history. Held in Columbia, South Carolina, the June 4 event will feature the editors of, and contributors to, the three-volume anthology SOUTH CAROLINA WOMEN: THEIR LIVES AND TIMES, which is published by the UGA Press. Volume 1 is currently available, Volume 2 is scheduled to appear in January 2010, and Volume 3 will follow later in 2010 or in 2011. Attendees will learn about a Native American queen, enslaved and free black women in the Old South, plantation mistresses, abolitionists, Revolutionary and Civil War heroines, suffragists, civil rights leaders, politicians, artists, scientists, teachers, jurists, and athletes. The symposium is sponsored by the University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences, The Southeastern Institute for Women and Politics, and The Alliance for Women.

The event will be held in the Daniel-Mickel Center on the eighth floor of the Moore School of Business on the University of South Carolina campus. Tickets are $40 per person (includes lunch and parking). For more information and to register, visit the University's Conferences and Event Services online, or call them at(803) 777-9444.

The symposium kicks off the Eighth Southern Conference on Women’s History, which will be held June 4–6 on the campus of the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Go online for more information, or call (803) 777-9444.

The South Carolina Women volumes are part of Southern Women: Their Lives and Times, a series of biographical, life-and-times histories of women from the various southern states. Each book in the series, which is published by the UGA Press, is a collection of insightful essays focused on the lives of individuals or small groups of women that address larger issues in the history of the state, the South, and the nation. These individual profiles also contribute to an understanding of the history of women and gender roles in American society.

Other currently available, or soon forthcoming, titles in the series cover women in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.