‘The Black Intellectual Tradition: African American Thought in the Twentieth Century’ edited by Derrick P. Aldridge, Cornelius L. Bynum and James B. Stewart

(University of Illinois Press)

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Malcolm X famously complained, “it’s time to stop singing and start swinging.” Jeffrey Lamar Coleman’s essay in this anthology sets out to prove Malcolm wrong by analyzing the power of black protest through music—from sharecropper’s blues through hip-hop. It’s one of a dozen interesting essays collected in The Black Intellectual Tradition. Among them, La Tasha B. Levy’s analysis of how African American outliers became window-dressers for America’s far right in “Black Conservative Dissent.” The eclectic collection examines historians, novelists, artists and activists as well as academics.