Substantive documentation of the underestimated, long-term effect of these unique colleges on Black life and success.
An academic history of the multipolar role of HBCUs and their long-term effects on civic engagement.
In this follow-up to Citizens by Degree, Rose, a professor of public policy and political science at Duke, provides a solid combination of in-depth statistical analysis and participation-based interviews. The author effectively establishes how they “have provided Black Americans with access to knowledge, skills, and opportunities needed to drive socioeconomic progress.” Furthermore, she writes, “as centers of Black excellence and amplifiers of Black voices and ideas, Black colleges represented a powerful threat to White supremacy.” Rose begins with the emergence of HBCUs in the mid-19th century and their central role in Black aspirations against the explicit marginalization of Jim Crow, then moves through the civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s. She shows how, over the decades, “government support for HBCUs pales in comparison to lawmakers’ esteem,” and she tracks a complex, intriguing narrative of these institutions’ progress during Reconstruction, followed by violent backlash as segregationist attitudes hardened. Despite their numerous obstacles, the author terms these hardy schools “essential institutional structures that made scholarly resistance to racism possible.” Prior to the Civil Rights era (in which students were engaged), the schools were not seen as interconnected; the apparent post-1960s openness of “predominantly White colleges” led to a “dramatic reimagining of their central purpose.” The bonding experienced by students at HBCUs demonstrates their continued relevance; despite the greater diversity other schools now embrace, they remain “uniquely empowering spaces.” Overall, Rose concludes, “HBCUs have played a central role cultivating highly engaged Black citizens.” Though occasionally dry, the discussion is informative, based on surveys and statistics and the author’s wise use of anecdotal recollections by multigenerational subjects.
Substantive documentation of the underestimated, long-term effect of these unique colleges on Black life and success.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780197776599
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlanticsenior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.
One of the best pitchers of his generation—and often the only Black man on his team—shares an extraordinary life in baseball.
A high school star in several sports, Sabathia was being furiously recruited by both colleges and professional teams when the death of his grandmother, whose Social Security checks supported the family, meant that he couldn't go to college even with a full scholarship. He recounts how he learned he had been drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the first round over the PA system at his high school. In 2001, after three seasons in the minor leagues, Sabathia became the youngest player in MLB (age 20). His career took off from there, and in 2008, he signed with the New York Yankees for seven years and $161 million, at the time the largest contract ever for a pitcher. With the help of Vanity Fair contributor Smith, Sabathia tells the entertaining story of his 19 seasons on and off the field. The first 14 ran in tandem with a poorly hidden alcohol problem and a propensity for destructive bar brawls. His high school sweetheart, Amber, who became his wife and the mother of his children, did her best to help him manage his repressed fury and grief about the deaths of two beloved cousins and his father, but Sabathia pursued drinking with the same "till the end" mentality as everything else. Finally, a series of disasters led to a month of rehab in 2015. Leading a sober life was necessary, but it did not tame Sabathia's trademark feistiness. He continued to fiercely rile his opponents and foment the fighting spirit in his teammates until debilitating injuries to his knees and pitching arm led to his retirement in 2019. This book represents an excellent launching point for Jay-Z’s new imprint, Roc Lit 101.
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13375-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roc Lit 101
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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