Black Resistance in the Americas

All across the United States, in the last few years, there has been a resurgence of Black protest against structural racism and other forms of racial injustice. Black Resistance in the Americas draws attention to this renewed energy and to how this theme of resistance intersects with other communities of Black people around the world. This edited collection examines in-depth stories of resistance against slavery; narratives of resistance in African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latin American literature; resistance in politics, education, religion, music, dance, and film, exploring a range of new perspectives from established and emerging researchers on Black communities. The chapters in this pivotal book discuss some of the mechanisms that Black communities have used to resist bondage, domination, disempowerment, inequality, and injustices resulting from their encounters with the West, from colonization to forced migration.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of Contributors

Introduction

D.A. Dunkley

PART 1 Race, Nation, and Resistance in Brazil and the Caribbean

1 Resistance and the Evaporation of Masters’ Authority: Two Brazilian Cases

Karl Monsma

2 Rastafari: Race and Spirituality

D.A. Dunkley

3 Birth and Death of a Creole Nation

Raymond Ramcharitar

4 Black Man’s Cry in the Babylon System: A Comparative Analysis of Fela Kuti and Bob Marley

Stephanie Shonekan

5 On the Wings: Muralism as Feminist Political Praxis by Afro-Puerto Rican Women

Bethzabeth Colón-Pizzini

6 A Geração Tombamento: Black Empowerment Through Aesthetics in Salvador da Bahia

Joshua Reason

7 English Language Hegemony and STEM Education in the Caribbean

Wilton Lodge

PART 2 African American Narratives of Resistance

8 "No Scheme More Monstrous Could Have Been Invented": Slave Election Ceremonies and the New York Slave Conspiracy of 1741

Lawrence Celani

9 Anna Julia Cooper’s Quintessential Resistance in the Early Pan-Africanist Voice of Women

April Langley

10 Unlikely Agents of Change: Desegregation at the University of Missouri

Mary Beth Brown

11 Rewriting the Bible: The Jesus Figure in Black Atlantic Women’s Literature

Aurélia Mouzet

12 Big Chief: The Black Indian Tradition of New Orleans

Sascha (Alexandra) Just

13 Black Nationalism and the Presidency of Donald Trump

Stephen C.W. Graves

Conclusion

Stephanie Shonekan

Index

D.A. Dunkley is Assistant Professor in the Department of Black Studies, University of Missouri, Columbia.

Stephanie Shonekan is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Black Studies, University of Missouri, Columbia.