Something to Do with Power:
Julian Mayfield’s Journey toward A Black Radical Thought, 1948–1984
by David Tyroler Romine
The University of North Carolina Press, 2025
[Publication date: June 3, 2025]
Unlike his more well-known contemporaries such as Malcolm X and Maya Angelou, Julian Hudson Mayfield (1928–1984) has remained on the periphery of mainstream historical narratives. Yet his extensive intellectual archive has been a vital resource for historians exploring Black radicalism. By centering Mayfield’s lived experiences across five decades and four continents, this book offers a unique lens into the complex intersections of Black communism, Black nationalism, and Black internationalism during the Cold War era.
Something to Do with Power highlights the importance of Mayfield’s story of mutual interest and solidarity in shaping literary and political activism, offering a fresh examination of the Black left’s role in American culture. His legacy as a writer, propagandist, and artist committed to resisting the domination of white supremacy underscores his significant, though underappreciated, contribution to American history.
Something to Do with Power highlights the importance of Mayfield’s story of mutual interest and solidarity in shaping literary and political activism, offering a fresh examination of the Black left’s role in American culture. His legacy as a writer, propagandist, and artist committed to resisting the domination of white supremacy underscores his significant, though underappreciated, contribution to American history.
“By rescuing a dedicated and principled participant in the global Black liberation struggle, Romine’s work offers a welcome contribution to the scholarship on the nexus between Black militancy, literary nationalism, Black arts, and radicalism.”—Christopher M. Tinson, Saint Louis University
“Julian Mayfield has deserved a book-length treatment for some time now, and David Romine has the storytelling and analytical skills to do him justice. This book will change how scholars understand the domestic and international dimensions of Black power.”—Benjamin Talton, Howard University
“Julian Mayfield has deserved a book-length treatment for some time now, and David Romine has the storytelling and analytical skills to do him justice. This book will change how scholars understand the domestic and international dimensions of Black power.”—Benjamin Talton, Howard University
Book Description:
Unveiling an intellectual journey through art and activism
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
David Romine is lecturer of history at Winston-Salem State University.
by Glenn Ligon
Hauser and Wirth, 2024
(Edited by James Hoff)
[Publication date: August 13, 2024]
[Publication date: August 13, 2024]
This long-awaited and essential volume collects writings and interviews by Glenn Ligon, whose canonical paintings, neons and installations have been delivering a cutting examination of race, history, sexuality and culture in America since his emergence in the late 1980s. No stranger to text, the artist has routinely utilized writings from James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Pryor, Gertrude Stein and others to construct work that centers Blackness within the historically white backdrop of the art world and culture writ large. Ligon began writing in the early 2000s, engaging deeply with the work of peers such as Julie Mehretu, Chris Ofili and Lorna Simpson, as well as with artists who came before him, among them Philip Guston, David Hammons and Andy Warhol. Interweaving a singular voice and a magical knack for storytelling with an astute view of art history and broader cultural shifts, this collection cements Ligon’s status as one of the great chroniclers of our time.
REVIEWS:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Glenn Ligon was born in the Bronx in 1960. He began as an abstract painter but shifted to text-based works which often incorporate quotes from Black authors. His work can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images
by Maurice Berger
Aperture, 2024
Edited by Marvin Heiferman
[Publication date: December 17, 2024]
[Publication date: December 17, 2024]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Maurice Berger (1956–2020; born in New York) was a cultural historian, curator, and writer, who spent much of his career studying and teaching racial literacy through innovative visual literacy projects. In influential essays, books, and provocative museum exhibitions, Berger gathered and presented compelling photographic images to engage and challenge readers and viewers into reconsidering both cultural and personal assumptions and prejudices. His books include White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness (2000) and For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights (2010), which was also one of the premier projects mounted by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He received honors and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, Association of Art Museum Curators, and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
ABOUT THE EDITOR:
Marvin Heiferman is an independent curator, writer, and organizer for projects about photography and visual culture for institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution, International Center of Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the New Museum. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Gagosian Gallery, CNN, Artforum, Design Observer, Aperture, and BOMB.
