Living Black History: How Re-Imagining
the African-American Past Can Remake
America’s Racial Future
By Manning Marable
Basic Civitas Books, 2006
288 pp., $26.00 cloth, ISBN: 0465043895
Are the stars of the civil rights movement yesterday’s news? In Living Black History, scholar and activist Manning Marable offers a resounding “No!” with a fresh and personal look at the enduring legacy of such well-known figures as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and W.E.B. Du Bois. Marable creates a “living history” that brings the past alive for a generation he sees as having historical amnesia. His activist passion and scholarly memory bring immediacy to the tribulations and triumphs of yesterday and reveal that history is something that happens everyday. Living Black History dismisses the detachment of the codified version of American history that we all grew up with. Marable’s holistic understanding of history counts the story of the slave as much as that of the master; he highlights the flesh-and-blood courage of those figures who have been robbed of their visceral humanity as members of the historical canon.
As people comprehend this dynamic portrayal of history they will begin to understand that each day we, the average citizens, are “makers” of our own American history. Living Black History will empower readers with knowledge of their collective past and a greater understanding of their part in forming our future.
Dr. Manning Marable is professor of history, political science and public policy at Columbia University, where he is also the founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American studies. He is the author of 18 books including Black Leadership, Speaking Truth to Power, and Beyond Black and White.
Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering
the History of American Abolitionism
Edited by Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John Stauffer
The New Press, 2006
416 pp., $22.95 paper, ISBN: 1-56584-880-1
