The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X - REVIEW

by Les Payne and Tamara Payne

An epic biography of Malcolm X finally emerges, drawing on hundreds of hours of the author’s interviews, rewriting much of the known narrative.

Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X―all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam figures, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to transform what would become over a hundred hours of interviews into an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction.

The result is this historic biography that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist, a work whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his Hartford followers stir with purpose, as if the dead were truly arising, to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting Malcolm’s life not only within the Nation of Islam but against the larger backdrop of American history, the book traces the life of one of the twentieth century’s most politically relevant figures “from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary.”

In tracing Malcolm X’s life from his Nebraska birth in 1925 to his Harlem assassination in 1965, Payne provides searing vignettes culled from Malcolm’s Depression-era youth, describing the influence of his Garveyite parents: his father, Earl, a circuit-riding preacher who was run over by a street car in Lansing, Michigan, in 1929, and his mother, Louise, who continued to instill black pride in her children after Earl’s death. Filling each chapter with resonant drama, Payne follows Malcolm’s exploits as a petty criminal in Boston and Harlem in the 1930s and early 1940s to his religious awakening and conversion to the Nation of Islam in a Massachusetts penitentiary.

With a biographer’s unwavering determination, Payne corrects the historical record and delivers extraordinary revelations―from the unmasking of the mysterious NOI founder “Fard Muhammad,” who preceded Elijah Muhammad; to a hair-rising scene, conveyed in cinematic detail, of Malcolm and Minister Jeremiah X Shabazz’s 1961 clandestine meeting with the KKK; to a minute-by-minute account of Malcolm X’s murder at the Audubon Ballroom.

Introduced by Payne’s daughter and primary researcher, Tamara Payne, who, following her father’s death, heroically completed the biography, The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
Liveright 
ISBN: 978-1-63149166-5

Beyond Baseball's Color Barrier: The Story of African Americans in Major League Baseball, Past, Present, and Future - REVIEW

by Rocco Constantino

A fascinating history celebrating Black players in Major League Baseball from the 1800s through today, with special insight into what the future may hold.

In Beyond Baseball's Color Barrier: The Story of African Americans in Major League Baseball, Past, Present, and Future, Rocco Constantino chronicles the history of generations of ballplayers, showing how African Americans have influenced baseball from the 1800s to the present. He details how the color line was drawn, efforts made to erode it, and the progress towards Jackie Robinson’s debut—including a pre-integration survey in which players unanimously promoted integration years before it actually happened. Personal accounts and colorful stories trace the exponential growth of diversity in the sport since integration, from a boom in participation in the 1970s to peak participation in the early 1990s, but also reveal the current downward trend in the number of African American players to percentages not seen since the 1960s.

Beyond Baseball's Color Barrier not only explores the stories of icons like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Satchel Paige but also considers contributions made by players like Vida Blue, Mudcat Grant and Dwight Gooden. Exclusive interviews with former players and individuals involved in the game, including the President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, add first-hand expert insight into the history of the topic and what the future holds.

Rocco Constantino is the director of athletics at Santa Barbara City College and a sports historian. He is the cofounder and lead baseball writer for BallNine.com and has written for many national online media outlets, including Bleacher Report, Baseball Hot Corner, American Online, and multiple collegiate athletics official websites. Constantino's first book, 50 Moments That Defined Major League Baseball, was published by Rowman & Littlefield and was named among Sports Collectors Digest's' best baseball books of 2016. Constantino resides in Santa Barbara, California.

Beyond Baseball's Color Barrier: The Story of African Americans in Major League Baseball, Past, Present, and Future
by Rocco Constantino
Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 978-1-5381-4908-9

When I Die, I Shall Return to My Own Land: The New York City Slave Revolt of 1712 - REVIEW

by Ben Hughes

The First Comprehensive Investigation into the First Uprising Against Slavery in North America 

At 2 a.m. on April 7, 1712, a fire broke out in New York City’s North Ward. Unbeknown to the residents who roused themselves to combat the flames, the blaze had been started with murderous intent. A group of at least twenty-four enslaved West African men and women, mostly Akan from modern-day Ghana, had long plotted this moment. Armed with guns, daggers, swords, axes, and clubs, they fell upon their enslavers. In the next few frantic moments, eight Europeans were killed and seven were wounded. The perpetrators were rounded up, jailed, and put on public trial. Twenty enslaved men and one woman were executed or transported for carrying out the plot. As the first event of its kind to take place in the North American colonies, this revolt was the progenitor of those that followed—it inspired, the Stono Rebellion of 1739, the New York Conspiracy of 1741, and Nat Turner’s 1831 insurrection. 

When I Die, I Shall Return to My Own Land: The 1712 New York City Slave Revolt is the first comprehensive investigation into this major event in the history of slavery in North America. Consulting court records, correspondence, and the minutes of the various colonial councils, as well as a wide range of sources related to eighteenth-century slavery, historian Ben Hughes vividly recreates early colonial New York, the lives of its enslaved inhabitants, the factionalism among the city’s Dutch and English elites, and their precarious hold on Manhattan Island in the face of French and Native American threats. Hughes traces the origins of the New York rebels, details how they came to be enslaved, and recreates the shadowy dealings that took place between African polities, European and American slavers, and New York merchants. The forerunners of a movement which continues to this day, the deeds of these original African American rebels have now been all but forgotten. Here, Hughes attempts to redress this imbalance by recovering their story. 

When I Die, I Shall Return to My Own Land: The New York City Slave Revolt of 1712
by Ben Hughes
Westholme Publishing 
ISBN: 978-1-59416-356-2

    

The New Great Depression: Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World - REVIEW

by James Rickards

     The current crisis is not like 2008 or even 1929. The New Depression that has emerged from the COVID pandemic is the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. Most fired employees will remain redundant. Bankruptcies will be common, and banks will buckle under the weight of bad debts. Deflation, debt, and demography will wreck any chance of recovery, and social disorder will follow closely on the heels of market chaos. The happy talk from Wall Street and the White House is an illusion. The worst is yet to come. But for knowledgeable investors, all hope is not lost.

     In The New Great Depression, James Rickards, New York Times bestselling author of Aftermath and The New Case for Gold, pulls back the curtain to reveal the true risks to our financial system and what savvy investors can do to survive -- even prosper -- during a time of unrivaled turbulence. Drawing on historical case studies, monetary theory, and behind-the-scenes access to the halls of power, Rickards shines a clarifying light on the events taking place, so investors understand what's really happening and what they can do about it.

     A must-read for any fans of Rickards and for investors everywhere who want to understand how to preserve their wealth during the worst economic crisis in US history.

The New Great Depression: Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World
by James Rickards
Portfolio-Penguin 
ISBN: 978-0-593-33027-2