Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
by Imani Perry
Ecco, 2025
[Publication date: January 28, 2025]
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY: Time, USA Today, People, AARP, Harper's Bazaar, Today.com, BookRiot, Bustle, LitHub, BookPage, The Millions, Ms., Our Culture, Electric Literature, W, and Vulture
A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry
Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.
Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as “Blue Black.” The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.
Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.
REVIEWS:
“This prismatic volume finds the National Book Award-winning Princeton professor meditating on skin color and the indigo trade, Louis Armstrong’s music and Toni Morrison’s writing, in short, lyrical chapters.” — New York Times
“An affective investigation into the many roles of blueness in Black life. . . it is full of archival gems – but it is also a lyrical [work]. . . . What unites its disparate contents is a mood, which is just as valuable as an argument. It is a contrapuntal document, musical and moving, and no less rich for its tumbling abundance.” — Washington Post
“As Imani Perry illuminates in a new book that swirls and flicks like an actual marble, [blue is] inextricable from the Black race. . . . Reading Black in Blues is like putting on a pair of those special Kodak 3-D viewfinders that make objects and issues leap suddenly into focus. . . . Its chapters are tide pools: quite short, but deep and teeming. . . . It will have you looking afresh even at your corner mailbox.” — New York Times Book Review
“One of those books that slips the boundaries . . . . ‘Ask the right questions,’ [Perry] insists, ‘and you’ll move toward virtue and truth.’ Words to live by, especially in a nation where a large swatch of the population seems intent on disavowing the better angels of our nature.”
— Los Angeles Times
“Touching on a range of historical, artistic, musical, and literary references—from the color’s significance in Yoruba cosmology to the blue candles used in hoodoo rituals to the ‘tremor’ of the “blue note’—Perry illuminates how the color has been variously associated with mourning, spiritual strength, and forces of freedom and oppression.” — New Yorker, "Briefly Noted"
“It is clear from reading Imani Perry’s Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People why she is adept at chronicling the history of the Black diaspora: She weaves stories like a village griot or a grandparent sitting on the porch recalling the past. . . . From Africans dressed in blue as if it were ceremonial garb to a tiny house in Alabama and a cloth of remembrance for a loved one, black and blue are brilliant and so is Black in Blues.” — Christian Science Monitor
“Vast, multifaceted and enchanting. . . . Black in Blues also gave me a renewed sense of direction, a clarity of purpose. Here it is: Hold fast to beauty. It has everything you need. It has everything we need.” — Minnesota Star Tribune
“A meditative and healing introspection on Black history presented through a fresh and innovative lens. . . . Innovative, melancholic, and expansive, Black in Blues achieves its goal to bring Black history to life.” — Atlanta Journal Constitution
“Each impressionistic chapter carries us into a distinctive, colorful world, and together, the sections weave a cultural richness that no traditional history could achieve. While Perry is a renowned Harvard academic who grounds her explorations in scholarship, here, she feels more like our private guide for a vast cultural voyage, her voice beautifully echoing those of her muses Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. By composing a story that unifies many generations of Black history and is experienced through a single color, Perry herself becomes a master blues artist.” — Oprah Daily
“[Perry] exemplifies the best of interdisciplinary analysis and storytelling, weaving together the threads of history and culture to point out common threads and trends that people may never have noticed otherwise. As a historian, she writes in a conversational tone about the atrocities that are often left out of high school textbooks. As a cultural critic, she’s insightful and artfully intentional about the details she draws readers to.” — The Advocate
“National Book Award winner Perry offers surprising revelations about the connection between the color blue and Black identity as she explores myth and literature, art and music, folklore and film. . . . An innovative cultural history.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“An impressionistic cultural history of the African diaspora through its connections to the color blue, from the Congo to Haiti, Jamaica, and the American South, in music, dance, folklore, art, and literature. . . . Packed with cultural references to Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Miles Davis, and Picasso’s African-inspired Blue Period, this is a fascinating and creative work of popular anthropology . . . Original and affecting.” — Booklist (starred review)
“A lyrical meditation on ‘the mystery of blue and its alchemy in the lives of Black folk.’ . . . In direct and intimate prose, Perry synthesizes an impressive range of research into a sinewy, pulsing narrative that positions the past as an active, living force in the present. Readers will be swept up." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Imani Perry's work is brilliant and lyrical as ever! How clearly she assesses the history of Black and Blue, knitting them together with language both precise and haunting. This book is a great gift, in that it allowed me to see the world anew with Perry's clear-eyed insight. How Perry allows me to understand my Blue better, too!” — Jesmyn Ward, author of Let Us Descend and Sing, Unburied, Sing
“Black in Blues is a stunningly original journey in search of the historical origins of the very soul of African American life and culture. Along the way, Perry shows, with telling detail and in engaging prose, how ‘The Blues’ became Black, and how Black people became ‘Blues People.’” — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
“With Black in Blues,Imani Perry establishes herself as the most important interpreter of Black life in our time. With intellectual skill, an artist’s eye, and the beauty of her pen, she powerfully tells the story of our people through the color blue. This is an extraordinary book.” — Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again and We Are the Leaders
“Imani Perry's Black in Blues is a masterful convergence of literature, history, and culture—where color itself becomes the field for reflection and revelation. The sheer span of Perry’s thinking, like the sweep of a great sky, stirs the most breathtaking of elusive emotions: awe.” — Evan Osnos, author of Wildland and Age of Ambition
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Imani Perry is the National Book Award–winning author of South to America, as well as seven other books of nonfiction. She is the Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow. Perry lives between Philadelphia and Cambridge with her two sons.
A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics
by Juanita Tolliver
Legacy Lit, 2025
[Publication date: January 14, 2025]
In 1972, New York Representative Shirley Chisholm broke the ice in American politics when she became the first Black woman to run for president of the United States. Chisholm left behind a coalition-building model personified by a once-in-an-era Hollywood party hosted by legendary actress and singer Diahann Carroll, and attended by the likes of Huey P. Newton, Barbara Lee, Berry Gordy, David Frost, Flip Wilson, Goldie Hawn and others. In A More Perfect Party, MSNBC political analyst Juanita Tolliver presents a path to people-centered politics through the lens of this soiree, with surprising parallels to our current electoral reality.
Chisholm worked the crowd of movie stars, media moguls, music executives and activists gathered at Carroll’s opulent Beverly Hills home, forging relationships with laughter as she urged guests to unify behind her campaign. With the feminist movement on the rise and eighteen- to twenty-year-olds voting for the first time in American history, the Democratic Party and the nation were on the cusp of long-overdue change.
Zooming in on one party attendee per chapter, A More Perfect Party brings this whimsical event out of the margins of history to demonstrate that there is an opportunity for all of us to fight for a better nation and return power to the people.
“[A More Perfect Party is an] ebullient and trenchant look at a trailblazing campaign for president. Tolliver writes that the fundraiser fueled a sense of optimism among traditionally marginalized groups. A Black woman has yet to be elected president of the United States, but that day may come, thanks in no small part to Shirley Chisholm paving the way.”
"A More Perfect Party is a must-read. Tolliver’s work is not only a deep dive into a pivotal moment in history but also a call to action for readers to reflect on their own roles in shaping a better nation."―TheGrio
“Juanita Tolliver reveals what might be the most iconic fundraising party of all time. A More Perfect Party is a beautifully written political-social page turner, full of hope, glamour, the triumphs and failures of race and gender allyship, and most of all, the audacity to believe a Black woman could be the president of the United States of America. This is a perfectly timed book.” ―Joy-Ann Reid, host of MSNBC’s The ReidOut and New York Times bestselling author of Medgar and Myrlie
“Juanita Tolliver is an incisive, vibrant, and increasingly prominent voice in today’s politics, and she brings her analytical lens and appreciation for history to A More Perfect Party. Effective campaigns bring people together, and progress usually requires that we see each other as fully human and valuable; Tolliver explores those themes through the 1972 Democratic Party, and one dazzling, historic, literal party — with lessons that echo in today’s debates about liberalism, diversity and of course, winning.”―Ari Melber, host of MSNBC’s The Beat and MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent
“A More Perfect Party is a detailed, thorough, and inspiring look into the meeting between Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll that brought together two of the most influential Black women of our time—both from very different walks of life, both looking to change the world. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Juanita Tolliver’s gifted storytelling brings this historic encounter back to life in a way that has never been done before. As we celebrate what would have been Congresswoman Chisholm’s 100th birthday, Tolliver's timely book is a reminder that because of Shirley Chisholm, I am. Tolliver’s work emphasizes Chisholm's impact, and beautifully connects it to what we're witnessing in politics today.” ―U.S. Representative Barbara Lee
“Juanita Tolliver artfully weaves together pop culture and history to shed new light on Shirley Chisholm's enduring legacy and lessons from her political career that our nation can, and must, learn. The vivid stories Tolliver presents speak to each of the necessary ingredients for building power and community, offering a roadmap through complex American history, our current reality, and the limitless future of Black women in politics.”―Anna Malaika Tubbs, New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers
“Juanita does something beautiful throughout these pages. She captures a story that is unique and universal at the same time—a snapshot of Black women striving to make change. A must read for those in the work of movement and coalition building.”―U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley
"A More Perfect Party is the story of the historic presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, which turns out to be the story of the historic presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, which turns out to be the story of Black women and their historic campaigns to make America great for the first time ever. Black women can help us, if we'd only just let them."―Elie Mystal, New York Times bestselling author of Allow Me to Retort
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Juanita Tolliver is an MSNBC Political Analyst, an Opinion Contributor for theGrio, and a Contributor for SiriusXM Progress. Previously, she served as the Director of Campaigns at the Center for American Progress. She is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal
by Mohammed El-Kurd
Haymarket Books, 2025
Perfect Victims is an urgent affirmation of the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal―an ode to the steadfastness of a nation.
Palestine is a microcosm of the world: on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured―the perpetrators are coddled while the victims are blamed and placed on trial.
Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El-Kurd refuses a life spent in cross-examination. Rather than asking the oppressed to perform a perfect victimhood, El-Kurd asks friends and foes alike to look Palestinians in the eye, forgoing both deference and condemnation.
How we see Palestine reveals how we see each other; how we see everything else. Masterfully combining candid testimony, history, and reportage, Perfect Victims presents a powerfully simple demand: dignity for the Palestinian.
REVIEWS:
“Great poets are truth-tellers, and the truth hurts. Mohammed El-Kurd’s raw eloquence and razor-sharp clarity will make you hurt and curse and cry and sometimes chuckle. A few will think, only to realize he is also talking about 'us,' the allies, the empathizers, even the comrades whose solidarity unwittingly demands the perfect victim. We are not completely free of Zionist lies; we are not decolonized. Mohammed El-Kurd has written a new Discourse on Colonialism for the twenty-first century. And like Aimé Césaire, he demands that we confront the truth, wipe away our crocodile tears, and take down Goliath once and for all.”
―Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
“Here's a river of fire. Dive in, if you dare. It will clear the fog.”
―Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things
“In Perfect Victims, Mohammed El-Kurd recenters the Palestinian gaze as compass and metric unit.”
―Noura Erakat, author of Justice for Some
“Mohammed El-Kurd’s voice is unequivocal in a hallucinatory media sphere that portrays the colonized and the occupied as either passive victims of an unnamable crime or the very perpetrators of unspeakable crimes they themselves experience. Perfect Victims is essay and memoir at its best. It portrays children forged by occupation and war and a humble people conditioned by the necessity of resistance for survival in the face of a twenty-first century genocide. Humility, irony, and irreverence are the languages of self-defense, and words are El-Kurd’s weapons.”
―Nick Estes, author of Our History Is the Future
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mohammed El-Kurd is a writer, poet, journalist, and organizer from Jerusalem, occupied Palestine. He is the Nation’s first-ever Palestine Correspondent and editor-at-large at Mondoweiss, the recipient of numerous honors and awards, and the author of the highly-acclaimed poetry collection Rifqa, which has been translated into several languages.
