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Robin D. G. Kelley

    Robin D.G. Kelley is a historian whose work delves deeply into cultural history and political activism. His writing examines complex patterns of resistance and freedom struggles, often focusing on the voices of marginalized communities. Through his scholarship, he offers incisive perspectives on the shaping of American history and the enduring fight for social justice. Kelley's approach combines rigorous historical research with a passionate engagement with the present.

    Reflections in Black
    Thelonious Monk
    Freedom Dreams (Twentieth Anniversary Edition)
    • The 20th-anniversary edition of Kelley’s influential history of 20th-century Black radicalism, with new reflections on current movements and their impact on the author, and a foreword by poet Aja Monet First published in 2002, Freedom Dreams is a staple in the study of the Black radical tradition. Unearthing the thrilling history of grassroots movements and renegade intellectuals and artists, Kelley recovers the dreams of the future worlds Black radicals struggled to achieve. Focusing on the insights of activists, from the Revolutionary Action Movement to the insurgent poetics of Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, Kelley chronicles the quest for a homeland, the hope that communism offered, the politics of surrealism, the transformative potential of Black feminism, and the long dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. In this edition, Kelley includes a new introduction reflecting on how movements of the past 20 years have expanded his own vision of freedom to include mutual care, disability justice, abolition, and decolonization, and a new epilogue exploring the visionary organizing of today’s freedom dreamers. This classic history of the power of the Black radical imagination is as timely as when it was first published.

      Freedom Dreams (Twentieth Anniversary Edition)2022
      4.7
    • Thelonious Monk

      • 624 pages
      • 22 hours of reading

      The first full biography of Thelonious Monk, written by a brilliant historian, with full access to the family's archives and with dozens of interviews.

      Thelonious Monk2010
      4.5
    • Reflections in Black

      A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present

      • 368 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      "[N]othing less than an epic of Homeric proportions....Willis's magnificent gathering of images...rewrites American history."―Robin D. G. Kelley Reflections in Black , the first comprehensive history of black photographers, is a groundbreaking pictorial collection of African American life. Featuring the work of undisputed masters such as James VanDerZee, Gordon Parks, and Carrie Mae Weems among dozens of others, this book is a refutation of the gross caricature of black life that many mainstream photographers have manifested by continually emphasizing poverty over family, despair over hope. Nearly 600 images offer rich, moving glimpses of everyday black life, from slavery to the Great Migration to contemporary suburban life, including rare antebellum daguerrotypes, photojournalism of the civil rights era, and multimedia portraits of middle-class families. A work so significant that it has the power to reconfigure our conception of American history itself, Reflections in Black demands to be included in every American family's library as an essential part of our heritage. A Los Angeles Times and Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2000, and a Good Morning, America best gift book of 2000. 600 duotone photographs, 32 pages of color.

      Reflections in Black2002