May 25, 2017 – In The New York Times Book Review, Ibram X. Kendi, the National Book Award-winning author of “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,” selects a list of the most influential books on race and the black experience in the United States for each decade of the nation’s existence.
Read MoreMany Americans might not know the more polemical side of race writing in our history. The canon of African-American literature is well established. Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin are familiar figures. Far less so is Samuel Morton (champion of the obsolete theory of polygenesis) or Thomas Dixon (author of novels romanticizing Klan violence). It is tempting to think that the influence of those dusty polemics ebbed as the dust accumulated. But their legacy persists, freshly shaping much of our racial discourse.
Read MoreContrary to popular conceptions, ignorant and hateful people have not been behind the production and reproduction of racist ideas in America. Instead, racist ideas have usually been produced by some of the most brilliant and cunning minds of each era.
Read MoreFeb 8, 2017 – A discussion between Mayor Lauren Poe and Ibram X. Kendi, author of "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America."
Read MoreWhen Ibram X. Kendi was studying for his doctoral degree in African American studies at Temple, he said he asked his professor Ama Mazama, “If we can’t be objective, what can we do?”
“We should just tell the truth,” Mazama said.
Read MoreBustle
January 24, 2017
I think I first read All About Love sometime in 2010. I had just earned my doctorate and was stepping into my career as a professor. At 28 years old, I was also stepping into a conscious understanding of who I was: I was consciously trying to understand who I wanted to be, and what I wanted to be. Every draft of myself contained the chapter of love.
Read MoreBarack Obama said in his final news conference that he planned to use his time off from politics “to do some writing.” I am hoping in his post-presidency, he begins to write a different racial history from the one he proclaimed from his presidential pulpit.
Read MoreDr. Ibram X. Kendi hopes that the 2016 National Book Award for nonfiction he was awarded for Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, could bring more attention to other scholars taking a hard look at the history of racism in America.
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