Sanctuary: African Americans and Empire
- ISBN-10
- 0195369912
- ISBN-13
- 9780195369915
- Series
- Sanctuary
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography
- Pages
- 218
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2011
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press, USA
- Author
- Nicole Waligora-Davis
Description
In 2005, hurricane Katrina and its aftermath starkly revealed the continued racial polarization of America. Disproportionately impacted by the ravages of the storm, displaced black victims were often characterized by the media as "refugees." The characterization was wrong-headed, and yet deeply revealing. Sanctuary: African Americans and Empire traces the long history of this and related terms, like alien and foreign, a rhetorical shorthand that has shortchanged black America for over 250 years. In tracing the language and politics that have informed debates about African American citizenship, Sanctuary in effect illustrates the historical paradox of African American subjecthood: while frequently the target of legislation (slave law, the Black Codes, and Jim Crow), blacks seldom benefited from the actions of the state. Blackness helped to define social, cultural, and legal aspects of American citizenship in a manner that excluded black people themselves. They have been treated, rather, as foreigners in their home country. African American civil rights efforts worked to change this. Activists and intellectuals demanded equality, but they were often fighting for something even more fundamental: the recognition that blacks were in fact human beings. As citizenship forced acknowledgement of the humanity of African Americans, it thus became a gateway to both civil and human rights. Waligora-Davis shows how artists like Langston Hughes underscored the power of language to define political realities, how critics like W.E.B. Du Bois imagined democratic political strategies, and how they and other public figures have used their writing as a forum to challenge the bankruptcy of a social economy in which the value of human life is predicated on race and civil identity.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2022-03-15
- 261 pages
- Ebook
- Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
-
- 2022-03-15
- 256 pages
- Paperback
- Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
-
- 2022-03
- 40 pages
- Paperback
- Candlewick Press
Similar books
-
Sanctuary
By Abby Sher, Paola MendozaGripping and urgent, co-authors Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher have crafted a narrative that is as haunting as it is hopeful in envisioning a future where everyone can find sanctuary.
-
Sanctuary: A Memoir
By Emily Rapp BlackBut what did those words mean, really? This book is an attempt to unpack the various notions of resilience that we carry as a culture.
-
Sanctuary
By Caryn LixAlien meets Alexandra Bracken’s The Darkest Minds in this thrilling debut novel about prison-guard-in-training, Kenzie, who is taken hostage by the superpowered criminal teens of the Sanctuary space station—only to have to band together ...
-
Sanctuary
By Thomas RomaA collection of fifty-two black-and-white images documents the varieties of religious architectural structures in Brooklyn as seen from juxtaposing backyards and alleys, and showcases additional photos of humbler worship places within ...
-
Surviving
By Henry GreenEdited by the author's grandson, the novelist Matthew Yorke, and with an Introduction by John Updike, this book is an excellent selection of Henry Green's uncollected writings.
-
Sanctuary: An Epic Novel of Thieves' World
By Lynn AbbeyA lone survivor from the past, Molin Torchholder prepares to die in hiding, but first he selects two successors--Cauvin, a refugee, and a boy named Bec--to uncover the secrets of Thieves' World and protect the dark mysteries of the city of ...
-
Sanctuary: A Novel
By V. V. JamesBig Little Lies meets Alice Hoffman in a gripping debut of dark domestic suspense following four women, a town secret—and an investigation that shakes their Connecticut town to the core. Sanctuary is the perfect town...to hide a secret.
-
Strife In the Sanctuary: Religious Schism in a Jewish Community
By Phil Zuckerman, Pitzer College, author of What It Means to be Moral and Living the Secular LifeThe first book-length study of a single congregation breaking in two, Strife in the Sanctuary provides a welcome ethnographic study for sociologists of religion.
-
Sanctuary Island: Sanctuary Island
By Lily EverettSANCTUARY ISLAND Lily Everett When Ella's sister decides to reunite with their estranged mother, Ella goes along for the ride—it's always been the two Preston girls against the world.
-
Shakespeare's Beehive: An Annotated Elizabethan Dictionary Comes to Light
By George Koppelman, Daniel WechslerThis revised and expanded second edition presents new evidence and furthers the argument that the annotations were written by William Shakespeare. This ebook contains text in color, and images.