When Leadership Falls Short: The Crisis of Care in Library Work
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Commemorating Black History Month with TIE and Choice Content
In honor of Black History Month, we selected TIE and Choice resources that center Black history, including book reviews, blog posts, and more.
Posted on February 4, 2025 in Blog Posts
Commemorating Black History Month
This Black History Month the Toward Inclusive Excellence (TIE) team put together TIE content and Choice resources that highlight notable leaders, movements, literature, and art in Black history. Choice, the publisher of TIE and a publishing unit at the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, provides book reviews to help librarians identify academic sources and professional development tools like webinars, podcasts, and white papers. Make sure to revisit this page for new content that will be added throughout February. We hope these resources will support your exploration of Black history this month and throughout the year.
Featured Reviews
Featured Reviews consider how a title exposes racist systems and inequities or proposes means of dismantling them. These important works from valuable perspectives are of use to undergraduates, faculty, and anyone interested in learning more about racism and racial inequalities. Selections include President Obama’s legacy, a biography of John Lewis, and more.
A Champion for the People: A New Biography of Shirley Chisholm Charts Her Pathbreaking Life
Curwood (Univ. of Kentucky) has written a new biography of Shirley Chisholm, a towering figure in American politics from the 1960s through the 1980s, which doubles as a primer on the American political system, covering the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Read the full review of Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics.
Exposing Digital Racism: A Timely Exploration of Racism and Resistance Online
When the Hood Comes Off documents how racism manifests online and how anti-racist activists mobilize to combat it both online and off. Eschmann (social work, Columbia Univ.) began this eight-year study in 2014, notably in the wake of the Fergusson unrest sparked by the fatal shooting of Michael Brown that same year.
Read the full review of When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Digital Age.
America’s First Black President: A New Biography Considers Barack Obama’s Presidential Legacy
Claude A. Clegg III (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) is the author of An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad (1997), The Price of Liberty: African Americans and the Making of Liberia (2004), and Troubled Ground: A Tale of Murder, Lynching, and Reckoning in the New South (2010). In The Black President he sets out to explore the “Obama White House years, specifically how they were witnessed, experienced, and interpreted by African Americans” (p. x).
Read the full review of The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama.
Getting in Good Trouble: John Lewis and the Quest for a More Equitable Society
Although John Lewis (1940–2020) was born in Pike County, Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to him as “the boy from Troy.” That boy had been raised by sharecroppers and was determined to become a minister from a young age: as a four-year-old he preached to the family’s chicken flock morning and evening.
Read the full review of John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community.
The Worlds of a Black Fantastic: An Arresting Catalog of Afrofuturist Art
The worlds of a “Black fantastic” are surely the worlds we need: places where Black life arrives fantastically confident, in embrace of any manner of technology, spiritually grounded, ready to defend the world, and moving beyond gendered regulations or sects.
Read the full review of In the Black Fantastic.
Speaking Truth to Power: George Yancy in Conversation with Leading Intellectuals in Pursuit of Justice and Love
Having admired the philosophical career and writings of George Yancy (philosophy, Emory Univ.) for some time, this reviewer can confidently assert that Until Our Lungs Give Out is another significant contribution to a long series of important texts on race and inclusion.
Read the full review of Until Our Lungs Give Out: Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future.
An Autoethnographic Call to Social Justice: Ruha Benjamin Interrogates the Culture of Injustice
Cultural anthropologists conduct ethnographic research to “write a culture,” entailing years of intensive observations and in-depth interviews with a specific group of people. The aim is to describe what E. B. Tylor defined in 1871 as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
Read the full review of Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want.
A Complicated Portrait: A New Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Falls Short
Positive mainstream publicity for this biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is palpable. Lauded as the first comprehensive examination of his life in over a generation, civil rights scholars have lined up to praise author Jonathan Eig, who, as a journalist, has also completed a biography of renowned boxer Muhammad Ali, similarly titled Ali: A Life (2017).
Read the full review of King: A Life.
Entangled Legacies of Exploitation: How Capitalism and Racism Converge in American History
In the searing pages of Black Scare / Red Scare, Charisse Burden-Stelly (African American studies, Wayne State Univ.) unravels the sinister threads of racist oppression, capitalist exploitation, and political repression that have been woven into the fabric of U.S. history.
Read the full review of Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States.
TIE Blog
These selections include TIE posts on topics like visiting the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum and Afrofuturism resources. To keep up with upcoming TIE content, subscribe to the TIE newsletter.
Blog Posts
Lessons from the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum
The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore is a fantastic institution that I visited for the first time in July. When it opened at its current site in 1983, the concept of a wax museum focused on the history of Black Americans was groundbreaking. While the museum’s historic timeline seems to end around 2008 (with the election of former President Barack Obama), its approach to storytelling and design remains direct, affecting, and refreshingly honest. Read the full blog post.
Interviews
Dr. Bunch discusses culturally responsive teaching, her collaboration with the Illinois State Board of Education, her upcoming book on leveraging AI for human-centered learning, and reflections from former students. Read the interview with Marlee.
Elena Guzman, Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies and Anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington, discusses what led to her research interests in Black ritual performance across the Caribbean and the African Diaspora and her work as an artist and filmmaker. She also chats about the intersections between the creative arts and scholarship, her upcoming title on Black Spiritual Borderlands, and the mission behind her co-founded feminist filmmaking collective Ethnocine. Read the interview with Elena.
Resource Lists
Resources for Understanding and Engaging with Afrofuturism
Bibliographic Essays
Every issue of Choice features a bibliographic essay, also available online for free on the LibGuides platform. These comprehensive guides cover the essential titles on a given topic. Each is written by a qualified expert in the field. This essay explores the history and intersections of race and housing.
Race, Housing, and Social Inequality in Urban America (November 2024)
This essay examines the critical body of literature exploring the intersection of race, housing, and the long history of social and economic inequality in urban America. It especially singles out for examination such phenomenon as the shaping of the “Black ghetto” and the major forces engendering that process, namely the Great Migration following the Civil War (c. 1877–1920) and the role of local and federal policy, including restrictive covenants, zoning ordinances, U.S. Federal Housing Administration policy, the action of real estate brokers, and bank policies. It concludes with a look at recent literature on the Black underclass and the subject of racism versus caste. Read the full essay.
Review of the Week
Each week Choice highlights a review that addresses a topical issue, event, or holiday—or simply, a review we believe deserves more attention. These reviews include freedom narratives, the life of vocal artist Al Jarreau, and the impact of public school reform on Black children.
Hot Topic
Hot Topic takes a deep dive into timely, significant, or niche topics guided by reviews over the decades. These collections look at Toni Morrison’s impact and legacy, breakdancing’s history, and Afrofuturism.
Toni Morrison
Breakdancing and Hip-Hop
Reimagining Black Pasts and Futures
TIE Podcast
TIE Podcast interviews thought leaders from across academia and the professional community to explore a range of topics to address DEIA through a pedagogical, scholarly, curatorial, and workplace/professional lens. The TIE Podcast is part of the Toward Inclusive Excellence content vertical. These episodes include discussions on environmental justice, investigating the “hard histories” of universities, and Black speculative thought.
Camille Dungy on Environmental Justice and the Making of Soil
Camille T. Dungy, University Distinguished Professor of English at Colorado State University, discusses her latest book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. An author of prose and poetry, Camille explains how she planned for the title to be a collection of nature poems, but while writing—crucially, in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic—she was instead inspired by her ongoing project to transform her yard into a space with diverse, native plants. Recounting the seven-year journey of her garden, Camille interweaves key environmental justice texts and nature writing to underscore the importance of diversifying both our gardens and environmental literature. Listen to the episode with Camille.
Dr. Martha S. Jones on Hard Histories at Hopkins and Committing to Knowledge
Dr. Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, returns to the podcast to discuss her research project Hard Histories at Hopkins, which investigates the history of racism, discrimination, and slavery at Johns Hopkins University and its impact on the institution and communities in Baltimore. Martha chats about the development and genesis of the project, outlining its aim to “lift the hood” of the scholarly process with a webinar series and weekly posts on Substack. In addition, Martha highlights the contributions of Hard Histories’ student-led labs that provide consistent updates and continuity to the project throughout the year. Listen to the episode with Martha.
Ekow Eshun on Afrofuturism, Black Speculative Thought, and In the Black Fantastic
Ekow Eshun, author of In the Black Fantastic, discusses the book’s development and how it acts as a mode of possibility for Black freedom and liberation. A companion piece to the 2022 art exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery, In the Black Fantastic weaves together fables, myths, science fiction, and speculative fiction from throughout the African diaspora to explore Black culture and lived experiences. The title includes various creative disciplines—music, film, visual art, and more—that pull from African stories and knowledge systems to demonstrate the freedom of Black speculative thought and how it can inform the everyday. Listen to the episode with Ekow.
Forthcoming Academic Titles
Forthcoming Titles gathers the latest and soon-to-be-released publications in select disciplines. These lists center on upcoming titles in African American Studies.
Forthcoming Titles in African American Studies, 2025 (Added 2/7/25)
Forthcoming Titles in African American Studies, 2024
Ask an Archivist
Ask an Archivist is a monthly feature that explores the research and production behind compelling special collections through interviews with their curators, archivists, and directors. This interview spotlights the Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures exhibit.
Joanna Banks Collection of African American Books (Added 2/27/25)
In this interview, Lynne Farrington, Director of Programs/Senior Curator, Special Collections, in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, talks with Choice about the Joanna Banks Collection of African American Books. Lynne provides a fascinating overview of how Banks began collecting contemporary Black literature and explains the process of moving the collection to Penn Libraries. Lynne also details Banks’s involvement in the Black Womyns/Women’s Art Resource Collective (BWARC) and how the collection spotlights the larger Black literary community. Lynne further shares the Joanna Banks Collection’s applications in curricula and research, along with the curatorial process behind the 2020 exhibition, “Writing Across Genres: African American Women Writers in the Joanna Banks Collection.” Read the Ask an Archivist interview.
Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures
Choice sits down with Kevin Strait, curator of the Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture. Kevin provides a background of Afrofuturism, explaining how the exhibit came about and what inspired its title. Kevin further discusses the theme of space and its relationship to Black resistance and describes how the exhibit places the past, present, and future in conversation. Kevin closes with what he hopes viewers take away from the exhibition and his thoughts on Afrofuturism’s influence on American culture. Read the Ask an Archivist interview.
Outstanding Academic Titles
Outstanding Academic Titles is Choice’s premier editorial franchise of the best titles of the year. Published each December, the list is separated into unique categories and previewed for collection development purposes or personal reading pleasure. These selections pertain to Black History.
Outstanding Academic Titles 2024: Black History (Added 2/14/25)
