New Acquisitions in Black Literature and Culture

By Zora Neale Hurston and Deborah G. Plant (New York, NY: Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018). “Zora Neale Hurston’s genius has once again produced a Masterpiece.” (Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple ). “Short enough to be read in a single sitting, this book is one of those gorgeous, much too fleeting things…Brimming with observational detail from a man whose life spanned continents and eras, the story is at times devastating, but Hurston’s success in bringing it to light is a marvel.” (NPR)

By Gene Allen Smith (St. Martin’s Press; 1st edition, January 22, 2013). “In The Slaves’ Gamble, Gene Allen Smith richly details the lives of enslaved people struggling for freedom through an array of strategies in a complex war. Thoroughly researched and wide-ranging, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian frontier, and from the sunny Caribbean to dank Dartmoor Prison, this superb book illuminates the plight, courage, and resourcefulness of African Americans in the early republic.” ―Alan Taylor, author of The Civil War of 1812

By Derrick E. White (University of North Carolina Press; Illustrated edition, August 15, 2019). White highlights the life and career of Jake Gaither to examine an era. “This fascinating social history effectively uses mid-twentieth-century Black college football as a microcosm through which one can understand the larger civil rights struggle. An important contribution to social history.” –Booklist, starred review

By Evelio Grillo (Arte Publico Press, First Edition,January 1, 2000). “This work presents a seldom-made contrast, that of the differing experiences of a black man in Cuba and in the United States. Grill, a community organizer and political activist, often tells us of the milder divisions between blacks and whites on his home island and of the much tougher, more inextricable racial barriers for blacks in “el Norte.” Not only do whites abuse blacks in Tampa but U.S. blacks also set up hurdles for immigrant blacks such as Grillo and his family.” — Library Journal