Let these new and forthcoming titles welcome the changes to come in 2021.
Top, L to R: Milk Blood Heat (Grove Atlantic), Just As I Am (HarperCollins), We Too (The Feminist Press), Four Hundred Souls (One World/Random House). Bottom, L to R: This Close to Okay (Grand Central), Firekeeper s Daughter (Henry Holt + Co.), The Echoing Ida Collection (The Feminist Press), Love is an Ex-Country (Catapult). Illustration Credit: Courtesy CLG
We will never go back to a time before the devastating losses and surreal political theater seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. The year 2020 changed us irreversibly, both as individuals and en masse. Let these books usher in the new year in all its complexity, with topics on grief, sexuality, history and more.
Can a Comic Book Contain the Drama and Heat of Activism?
From “The Black Panther Party”
By Ed Park
Feb. 2, 2021
“Writing this book broke my heart,” David F. Walker admits in the afterword to his ambitious and informative graphic history
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY (Ten Speed, 183 pp., $19.99), crisply illustrated by Marcus Kwame Anderson. Founded in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was the most famous exponent of the Black Power movement. Its Ten Point Program (reproduced in full in these pages) was a forceful manifesto demanding “land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace” for the Black community. In the immediate wake of the horrific killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, Walker notes that “every single concern” the Panthers addressed from police brutality to reparations “is still relevant.”
Our national conversation about anti-Black racism made 2020 a pivotal year painful for many, cathartic for others, memorable to all. Now a new year brings new opportunities to listen to Black voices and stories. Pick up one of these titles to deepen your knowledge of our country’s past, and join the chorus of voices advocating for a better future.
Ida B. the Queen
Ida B. Wells gets the royal treatment in
Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells, written by Michelle Duster, Wells’ great-granddaughter.
From the 1890s through the early 20th century, Wells was a pioneering activist and journalist who fought racism by publicizing heinous acts of violence toward Black Americans during the Jim Crow era. Crafted with empathy for and intimate knowledge of this American icon, the book recounts Wells’ many groundbreaking achievements, which caused the FBI to dub her a “dangerous negro agitator” in her time. Unlike in a typical biography, however, Duster
Coming up on nearly a year in quarantine, there’s nothing that
doesn’t make me nostalgic for the before-times. But this week’s selections in particular twinged my memories of great big wonderful comics conventions, and strolling artists’ alleys to discover fantastic new works I didn’t know I needed in my life. It’s reminded me of just how much I miss the act of
browsing, just letting my mind wander as I gaze over tons of bright glittery colors and shapes until one thing grabs my attention in this week’s case, some books I probably would not have gone looking for but now that I’ve found them can’t stop thinking about.
Bookshop This nuanced, accessible history of the Black Panther Party doesnât shy away from the complexity of the political movement, nor does it fall into the trap of painting the diverse group as uniformly heroes or villains. âThe Black Panthers became mythicalâand it can be difficult to separate myth from reality,â explains Walker (
The Life of Frederick Douglass). He opens the narrative long before the Partyâs official founding in Oakland in 1966, showing why Black civil rights activists eventually saw problems with nonviolent reform in the face of violence from white supremacist mobs and state officials alike. Bobby Sealeâs famous speech from the steps of the California State Capitol building in 1967 resonate today: âBlack people have begged, prayed, petitioned, and demonstrated. to get the racist power structure of America to right [its] wrongs.â Other key Panther figures, such as Huey P. Newtown and Eldridge Cleaver are provided c