An ambitious, honest portrait of the Black experience in flyover country. One of The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2020.
Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. After the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets renewed their attention on the conditions of Middle America, but they often marginalized or completely overlooked the experience of the Black people who live there.
Edited by Terrion Williamson, the director ... Read More
Format: Hardcover
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An ambitious, honest portrait of the Black experience in flyover country. One of The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2020.
Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. After the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets renewed their attention on the conditions of Middle America, but they often marginalized or completely overlooked the experience of the Black people who live there.
Edited by Terrion Williamson, the director ... Read More
An ambitious, honest portrait of the Black experience in flyover country. One of The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2020.
Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. After the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets renewed their attention on the conditions of Middle America, but they often marginalized or completely overlooked the experience of the Black people who live there.
Edited by Terrion Williamson, the director of the Black Midwest Initiative, Black in the Middle places the voices of Black midwesterners front and center. Filled with compelling personal narratives, thought-provoking art, and searing commentaries, this anthology explores the various meanings and experiences of blackness throughout the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. It brings together people from major metropolitan centers like Detroit and Chicago as well as smaller cities and rural areas where the lives of Black residents have too often gone unacknowledged to create a timely, compelling collection that allows predominantly Black Midwesterners to reclaim their home, histories, and future.
A much-needed corrective to common narratives about the Midwest.
Details
Pages: 224
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Imprint: Belt Publishing
Publication Date: 1st September 2020
ISBN: 9781948742696
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI) BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / African American & Black SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies HISTORY / African American
Reviews
[A] timely, compelling collection that allows predominantly Black Midwesterners to reclaim their home, histories, and future.―Jen Cox, Chicago Review of Books
Williamson’s affectionate tour of Flyover Country is ambitious and eclectic, with African American humanity on display....Though esoteric, 'Black in the Middle' has a consistent through-line: Where there are African Americans, there is creativity, joy, sorrow and a sense of place; nowhere becomes somewhere. There are Black roots in the Midwest, sometimes hard to see, watered with blood, sweat and bitter tears.―Joseph P. Williams, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The honesty in the essays, the emergency in the poetry, and the intensity of the photographs and paintings help to sharpen the edge of what it means to be Black in the middle of anything, which is the sum of our fears and the hope that manifests itself in our dreams. Black in the Middle reminded me of a home imagined and of a home realized as someone who grew up in the Midwest. ―Jason Vasser-Elong, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A rare anthology in that its subject is Black and lives in the Midwest. Through well-crafted essays, poems, photography and other musings on everyday life, the collection shares the inner workings of some families who make due with what little they are given or who build a future on their own terms.―Jane Henderson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Best Books of 2020
Timely and evocative.... By calling forth the full range of the Black Midwestern experience, this bracing anthology offers crucial insights into why the region is the epicenter of current protests against police brutality and racial injustice. ―Publishers Weekly
Author Bio
Terrion L. Williamson is an associate professor of African American & African Studies at the University of Minnesota and the director of the Black Midwest Initiative. A native of Peoria, she is author of Scandalize My Name: Black Feminist Practice and the Making of Black Social Life. She lives in Minneapolis.
Table of Content
Based on the Black Midwest Initiative symposium, held at the University of Minnesota in fall 2019
Speaks to and tells the stories of a population that will help decide the 2020 election
Foreword by Jamala Rogers, author of Ferguson Is America
An ambitious, honest portrait of the Black experience in flyover country. One of The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2020.
Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. After the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets renewed their attention on the conditions of Middle America, but they often marginalized or completely overlooked the experience of the Black people who live there.
Edited by Terrion Williamson, the director of the Black Midwest Initiative, Black in the Middle places the voices of Black midwesterners front and center. Filled with compelling personal narratives, thought-provoking art, and searing commentaries, this anthology explores the various meanings and experiences of blackness throughout the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. It brings together people from major metropolitan centers like Detroit and Chicago as well as smaller cities and rural areas where the lives of Black residents have too often gone unacknowledged to create a timely, compelling collection that allows predominantly Black Midwesterners to reclaim their home, histories, and future.
A much-needed corrective to common narratives about the Midwest.
Pages: 224
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Imprint: Belt Publishing
Publication Date: 1st September 2020
ISBN: 9781948742696
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI) BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / African American & Black SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies HISTORY / African American
[A] timely, compelling collection that allows predominantly Black Midwesterners to reclaim their home, histories, and future.―Jen Cox, Chicago Review of Books
Williamson’s affectionate tour of Flyover Country is ambitious and eclectic, with African American humanity on display....Though esoteric, 'Black in the Middle' has a consistent through-line: Where there are African Americans, there is creativity, joy, sorrow and a sense of place; nowhere becomes somewhere. There are Black roots in the Midwest, sometimes hard to see, watered with blood, sweat and bitter tears.―Joseph P. Williams, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The honesty in the essays, the emergency in the poetry, and the intensity of the photographs and paintings help to sharpen the edge of what it means to be Black in the middle of anything, which is the sum of our fears and the hope that manifests itself in our dreams. Black in the Middle reminded me of a home imagined and of a home realized as someone who grew up in the Midwest. ―Jason Vasser-Elong, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A rare anthology in that its subject is Black and lives in the Midwest. Through well-crafted essays, poems, photography and other musings on everyday life, the collection shares the inner workings of some families who make due with what little they are given or who build a future on their own terms.―Jane Henderson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Best Books of 2020
Timely and evocative.... By calling forth the full range of the Black Midwestern experience, this bracing anthology offers crucial insights into why the region is the epicenter of current protests against police brutality and racial injustice. ―Publishers Weekly
Terrion L. Williamson is an associate professor of African American & African Studies at the University of Minnesota and the director of the Black Midwest Initiative. A native of Peoria, she is author of Scandalize My Name: Black Feminist Practice and the Making of Black Social Life. She lives in Minneapolis.
Based on the Black Midwest Initiative symposium, held at the University of Minnesota in fall 2019
Speaks to and tells the stories of a population that will help decide the 2020 election
Foreword by Jamala Rogers, author of Ferguson Is America
