Author: Cecil Brown
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674028906
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
Although his story has been told countless times--by performers from Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, and the Isley Brothers to Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Taj Mahal--no one seems to know who Stagolee really is. Stack Lee? Stagger Lee? He has gone by all these names in the ballad that has kept his exploits before us for over a century. Delving into a subculture of St. Louis known as "Deep Morgan," Cecil Brown emerges with the facts behind the legend to unfold the mystery of Stack Lee and the incident that led to murder in 1895. How the legend grew is a story in itself, and Brown tracks it through variants of the song "Stack Lee"--from early ragtime versions of the '20s, to Mississippi John Hurt's rendition in the '30s, to John Lomax's 1940s prison versions, to interpretations by Lloyd Price, James Brown, and Wilson Pickett, right up to the hip-hop renderings of the '90s. Drawing upon the works of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, Brown describes the powerful influence of a legend bigger than literature, one whose transformation reflects changing views of black musical forms, and African Americans' altered attitudes toward black male identity, gender, and police brutality. This book takes you to the heart of America, into the soul and circumstances of a legend that has conveyed a painful and elusive truth about our culture.
Stagolee Shot Billy
Author: Cecil Brown
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674028906
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
Although his story has been told countless times--by performers from Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, and the Isley Brothers to Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Taj Mahal--no one seems to know who Stagolee really is. Stack Lee? Stagger Lee? He has gone by all these names in the ballad that has kept his exploits before us for over a century. Delving into a subculture of St. Louis known as "Deep Morgan," Cecil Brown emerges with the facts behind the legend to unfold the mystery of Stack Lee and the incident that led to murder in 1895. How the legend grew is a story in itself, and Brown tracks it through variants of the song "Stack Lee"--from early ragtime versions of the '20s, to Mississippi John Hurt's rendition in the '30s, to John Lomax's 1940s prison versions, to interpretations by Lloyd Price, James Brown, and Wilson Pickett, right up to the hip-hop renderings of the '90s. Drawing upon the works of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, Brown describes the powerful influence of a legend bigger than literature, one whose transformation reflects changing views of black musical forms, and African Americans' altered attitudes toward black male identity, gender, and police brutality. This book takes you to the heart of America, into the soul and circumstances of a legend that has conveyed a painful and elusive truth about our culture.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674028906
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
Although his story has been told countless times--by performers from Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, and the Isley Brothers to Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Taj Mahal--no one seems to know who Stagolee really is. Stack Lee? Stagger Lee? He has gone by all these names in the ballad that has kept his exploits before us for over a century. Delving into a subculture of St. Louis known as "Deep Morgan," Cecil Brown emerges with the facts behind the legend to unfold the mystery of Stack Lee and the incident that led to murder in 1895. How the legend grew is a story in itself, and Brown tracks it through variants of the song "Stack Lee"--from early ragtime versions of the '20s, to Mississippi John Hurt's rendition in the '30s, to John Lomax's 1940s prison versions, to interpretations by Lloyd Price, James Brown, and Wilson Pickett, right up to the hip-hop renderings of the '90s. Drawing upon the works of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, Brown describes the powerful influence of a legend bigger than literature, one whose transformation reflects changing views of black musical forms, and African Americans' altered attitudes toward black male identity, gender, and police brutality. This book takes you to the heart of America, into the soul and circumstances of a legend that has conveyed a painful and elusive truth about our culture.
I, Stagolee
Author: Cecil Brown
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781556435744
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
It's the birth year of Ragtime music, 1895, and Lee "Stagolee" Shelton, a St. Louis pimp, murders Billy Lyons, a political gang member. Afterwards, Stagolee makes a deal with Judge Murphy to bring order to the underworld. As a member of a group of pimps called the "Stags," Stagolee makes alliances with the Democratic Party and votes for a Democratic Mayor. Later, the Stag Party, along with the Democratic Party, elects St. Louis's first black policeman. It is this policeman who is sent to arrest Stagolee for the murder of Billy Lyons. Now, nearly 50 years after singer Lloyd Price introduced mainstream audiences to the "Stagger Lee" story, Cecil Brown portrays the events that gave rise to this mainstay of African-American popular culture. This follows the successful Stagolee Shot Billy, Brown's nonfiction account of the same story.
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781556435744
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
It's the birth year of Ragtime music, 1895, and Lee "Stagolee" Shelton, a St. Louis pimp, murders Billy Lyons, a political gang member. Afterwards, Stagolee makes a deal with Judge Murphy to bring order to the underworld. As a member of a group of pimps called the "Stags," Stagolee makes alliances with the Democratic Party and votes for a Democratic Mayor. Later, the Stag Party, along with the Democratic Party, elects St. Louis's first black policeman. It is this policeman who is sent to arrest Stagolee for the murder of Billy Lyons. Now, nearly 50 years after singer Lloyd Price introduced mainstream audiences to the "Stagger Lee" story, Cecil Brown portrays the events that gave rise to this mainstay of African-American popular culture. This follows the successful Stagolee Shot Billy, Brown's nonfiction account of the same story.
Stagger Lee
Author: Derek McCulloch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781582406077
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A graphic novel adaptation of the legend of Lee Shelton, better known as Stagger Lee, which tells of the dice game that led to Lee shooting and killing Billy Lyons, and which inspired the famous song.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781582406077
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A graphic novel adaptation of the legend of Lee Shelton, better known as Stagger Lee, which tells of the dice game that led to Lee shooting and killing Billy Lyons, and which inspired the famous song.
Unprepared To Die
Author: Paul Slade
Publisher: Soundcheck Books
ISBN: 099294807X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
The Gory Stories Behind The Murder Ballads Cheerfully vulgar, revelling in gore, and always with an eye on the main chance, murder ballads are tabloid newspapers set to music, carrying word of the latest ‘orrible murders to an insatiable public. Victims are bludgeoned, stabbed or shot in every verse and killers often hanged, but the songs themselves never die. Instead, they mutate – morphing to suit local place names as they criss cross the Atlantic and continue to fascinate each generation’s biggest musical stars. Paul Slade traces this fascinating genre’s history through eight of its greatest songs. Stagger Lee’s “biographers” alone include Duke Ellington, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Dr John, The Clash and Nick Cave. No two tell his story in quite the same way. Covering eight classic murder ballads, including “Knoxville Girl”, “Tom Dooley” and “Frankie & Johnny”, Slade investigates the real-life murder which inspired each song and traces its musical development down the decades. Billy Bragg, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey, Laura Cantrell, Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family and a host of other leading musicians add their own insights.
Publisher: Soundcheck Books
ISBN: 099294807X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
The Gory Stories Behind The Murder Ballads Cheerfully vulgar, revelling in gore, and always with an eye on the main chance, murder ballads are tabloid newspapers set to music, carrying word of the latest ‘orrible murders to an insatiable public. Victims are bludgeoned, stabbed or shot in every verse and killers often hanged, but the songs themselves never die. Instead, they mutate – morphing to suit local place names as they criss cross the Atlantic and continue to fascinate each generation’s biggest musical stars. Paul Slade traces this fascinating genre’s history through eight of its greatest songs. Stagger Lee’s “biographers” alone include Duke Ellington, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Dr John, The Clash and Nick Cave. No two tell his story in quite the same way. Covering eight classic murder ballads, including “Knoxville Girl”, “Tom Dooley” and “Frankie & Johnny”, Slade investigates the real-life murder which inspired each song and traces its musical development down the decades. Billy Bragg, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey, Laura Cantrell, Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family and a host of other leading musicians add their own insights.
Hear My Sad Story
Author: Richard Polenberg
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501701487
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
In 2015, Bob Dylan said, "I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them, back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything belongs to everyone." In Hear My Sad Story, Richard Polenberg describes the historical events that led to the writing of many famous American folk songs that served as touchstones for generations of American musicians, lyricists, and folklorists. Those events, which took place from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, often involved tragic occurrences: murders, sometimes resulting from love affairs gone wrong; desperate acts borne out of poverty and unbearable working conditions; and calamities such as railroad crashes, shipwrecks, and natural disasters. All of Polenberg’s account of the songs in the book are grounded in historical fact and illuminate the social history of the times. Reading these tales of sorrow, misfortune, and regret puts us in touch with the dark but terribly familiar side of American history. On Christmas 1895 in St. Louis, an African American man named Lee Shelton, whose nickname was "Stack Lee," shot and killed William Lyons in a dispute over seventy-five cents and a hat. Shelton was sent to prison until 1911, committed another murder upon his release, and died in a prison hospital in 1912. Even during his lifetime, songs were being written about Shelton, and eventually 450 versions of his story would be recorded. As the song—you may know Shelton as Stagolee or Stagger Lee—was shared and adapted, the emotions of the time were preserved, but the fact that the songs described real people, real lives, often fell by the wayside. Polenberg returns us to the men and women who, in song, became legends. The lyrics serve as valuable historical sources, providing important information about what had happened, why, and what it all meant. More important, they reflect the character of American life and the pathos elicited by the musical memory of these common and troubled lives.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501701487
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
In 2015, Bob Dylan said, "I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them, back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything belongs to everyone." In Hear My Sad Story, Richard Polenberg describes the historical events that led to the writing of many famous American folk songs that served as touchstones for generations of American musicians, lyricists, and folklorists. Those events, which took place from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, often involved tragic occurrences: murders, sometimes resulting from love affairs gone wrong; desperate acts borne out of poverty and unbearable working conditions; and calamities such as railroad crashes, shipwrecks, and natural disasters. All of Polenberg’s account of the songs in the book are grounded in historical fact and illuminate the social history of the times. Reading these tales of sorrow, misfortune, and regret puts us in touch with the dark but terribly familiar side of American history. On Christmas 1895 in St. Louis, an African American man named Lee Shelton, whose nickname was "Stack Lee," shot and killed William Lyons in a dispute over seventy-five cents and a hat. Shelton was sent to prison until 1911, committed another murder upon his release, and died in a prison hospital in 1912. Even during his lifetime, songs were being written about Shelton, and eventually 450 versions of his story would be recorded. As the song—you may know Shelton as Stagolee or Stagger Lee—was shared and adapted, the emotions of the time were preserved, but the fact that the songs described real people, real lives, often fell by the wayside. Polenberg returns us to the men and women who, in song, became legends. The lyrics serve as valuable historical sources, providing important information about what had happened, why, and what it all meant. More important, they reflect the character of American life and the pathos elicited by the musical memory of these common and troubled lives.
Bluegrass Banjo for the Complete Ignoramus!
Author: Wayne Erbsen
Publisher: Native Ground Books & Music
ISBN: 1883206677
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 131
Book Description
Beginning banjo lessons have never been more fun! Written for the absolute beginner, this FUN book is guaranteed to help you learn to play bluegrass banjo (How many books come with a personal guarantee by the author?). · Teaches the plain, naked melody to 23 easy bluegrass favorites without the rolls already incorporated into the tune. · Wayne shows simple ways to embellish each melody using easy rolls. · With Wayne’s unique method, you’ll learn to think for yourself! · Learn how to play a song in different ways, rather than memorizing ONE way. · Includes a link to download 99 instructional audio tracks off our website! You WILL learn to play: Bile ‘Em Cabbage Down, Blue Ridge Mountain Blues, Columbus Stockade Blues, Down the Road, Groundhog, Little Maggie, Long Journey Home, Lynchburg Town, Man of Constant Sorrow, My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Nine Pound Hammer, Palms of Victory, Pass Me Not, Poor Ellen Smith, Pretty Polly, Put My Little Shoes Away, Red River Valley, Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Shall We Gather at the River, Wabash Cannonball, When I Lay My Burden Down, When the Saints Go Marching In.
Publisher: Native Ground Books & Music
ISBN: 1883206677
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 131
Book Description
Beginning banjo lessons have never been more fun! Written for the absolute beginner, this FUN book is guaranteed to help you learn to play bluegrass banjo (How many books come with a personal guarantee by the author?). · Teaches the plain, naked melody to 23 easy bluegrass favorites without the rolls already incorporated into the tune. · Wayne shows simple ways to embellish each melody using easy rolls. · With Wayne’s unique method, you’ll learn to think for yourself! · Learn how to play a song in different ways, rather than memorizing ONE way. · Includes a link to download 99 instructional audio tracks off our website! You WILL learn to play: Bile ‘Em Cabbage Down, Blue Ridge Mountain Blues, Columbus Stockade Blues, Down the Road, Groundhog, Little Maggie, Long Journey Home, Lynchburg Town, Man of Constant Sorrow, My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Nine Pound Hammer, Palms of Victory, Pass Me Not, Poor Ellen Smith, Pretty Polly, Put My Little Shoes Away, Red River Valley, Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Shall We Gather at the River, Wabash Cannonball, When I Lay My Burden Down, When the Saints Go Marching In.
The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger
Author: Cecil Brown
Publisher: Frog Books
ISBN: 9781583942109
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
“If you're black you don't need to get at anything. You're already there. You can live right out of your insides.” So says the antihero of this legendary novel that reimagines the Bible’s prodigal son as a young black man in post-Civil Rights-era America. George Washington—one of his many aliases—is a classic trickster figure, a blend of con artist, deep thinker, and willing object of white women’s sexual fantasies. Fed up with life in racist America, he leaves his rural South for Denmark on a curious quest, determined to discover if there is “any mother fucker in this despiteful world who ever told himself the truth.” In Denmark he spends his days bantering with fellow black expatriates and his nights bedding a series of white women who project their desires on him. Inevitably, these worlds collide, with Washington, aka Anthony Miller, aka Paul Winthrop, aka Mr. Jiveass Nigger, increasingly alienated in a world of opportunists. A return to America after his self-imposed exile promises transformation, but is Washington too far gone? Cecil Brown brings blistering prose, unabashed eroticism, and biting satire to this controversial masterpiece that’s as timely today as when it was first published.
Publisher: Frog Books
ISBN: 9781583942109
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
“If you're black you don't need to get at anything. You're already there. You can live right out of your insides.” So says the antihero of this legendary novel that reimagines the Bible’s prodigal son as a young black man in post-Civil Rights-era America. George Washington—one of his many aliases—is a classic trickster figure, a blend of con artist, deep thinker, and willing object of white women’s sexual fantasies. Fed up with life in racist America, he leaves his rural South for Denmark on a curious quest, determined to discover if there is “any mother fucker in this despiteful world who ever told himself the truth.” In Denmark he spends his days bantering with fellow black expatriates and his nights bedding a series of white women who project their desires on him. Inevitably, these worlds collide, with Washington, aka Anthony Miller, aka Paul Winthrop, aka Mr. Jiveass Nigger, increasingly alienated in a world of opportunists. A return to America after his self-imposed exile promises transformation, but is Washington too far gone? Cecil Brown brings blistering prose, unabashed eroticism, and biting satire to this controversial masterpiece that’s as timely today as when it was first published.
Glastonbury 50
Author: Emily Eavis
Publisher: Trapeze
ISBN: 1409183947
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK IN THE TIMES: 'Captivating' A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR: 'In-depth and inspiring' 'Beautifully compiled ... the perfect festival experience' SUNDAY TIMES Glastonbury 50 is the authorised, behind-the-scenes, inside story of the music festival that has become a true global phenomenon. The story begins in 1970. The day after Jimi Hendrix's death... dairy farmer Michael Eavis invites revellers to his field in Somerset to attend a 'Pop, Folk & Blues' festival. Tickets are £1 each, enticing more than a thousand customers with the promise of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment - as well as free milk from his own Worthy Farm cows. Fast forward through five tumultuous decades and the Eavis's vision now encompasses a gigantic 'city in the fields', with a total annual population nearing a quarter of a million. Tickets sell out within minutes, the show is beamed live to more than 40 countries around the globe, and over 3 million people are registered to attend. Meanwhile, the bill has expanded to include big name performers, artists and designers from every branch of the creative arts. Glastonbury Festival is now the largest outdoor green fields event in the world. In their own words, Michael and Emily Eavis reveal the stories behind the headlines, and celebrate 50 years of history in the Vale of Avalon. They're joined by a host of big-name contributors from the world of music - among them Adele, JAY-Z, Dolly Parton, Chris Martin, Noel Gallagher, Lars Ulrich and Guy Garvey. They're joined by artists - Stanley Donwood, Kurt Jackson and many more. Writers - Caitlin Moran, Lauren Laverne, Billy Bragg - and by a host of photographers, from Seventies icon Brian Walker to rock and roll legends Jill Furmanovsky and Greg Williams. Together they bring you the magic that makes Glastonbury, Glastonbury.
Publisher: Trapeze
ISBN: 1409183947
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK IN THE TIMES: 'Captivating' A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR: 'In-depth and inspiring' 'Beautifully compiled ... the perfect festival experience' SUNDAY TIMES Glastonbury 50 is the authorised, behind-the-scenes, inside story of the music festival that has become a true global phenomenon. The story begins in 1970. The day after Jimi Hendrix's death... dairy farmer Michael Eavis invites revellers to his field in Somerset to attend a 'Pop, Folk & Blues' festival. Tickets are £1 each, enticing more than a thousand customers with the promise of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment - as well as free milk from his own Worthy Farm cows. Fast forward through five tumultuous decades and the Eavis's vision now encompasses a gigantic 'city in the fields', with a total annual population nearing a quarter of a million. Tickets sell out within minutes, the show is beamed live to more than 40 countries around the globe, and over 3 million people are registered to attend. Meanwhile, the bill has expanded to include big name performers, artists and designers from every branch of the creative arts. Glastonbury Festival is now the largest outdoor green fields event in the world. In their own words, Michael and Emily Eavis reveal the stories behind the headlines, and celebrate 50 years of history in the Vale of Avalon. They're joined by a host of big-name contributors from the world of music - among them Adele, JAY-Z, Dolly Parton, Chris Martin, Noel Gallagher, Lars Ulrich and Guy Garvey. They're joined by artists - Stanley Donwood, Kurt Jackson and many more. Writers - Caitlin Moran, Lauren Laverne, Billy Bragg - and by a host of photographers, from Seventies icon Brian Walker to rock and roll legends Jill Furmanovsky and Greg Williams. Together they bring you the magic that makes Glastonbury, Glastonbury.
Souvenir
Author: Michael Bracewell
Publisher: White Rabbit
ISBN: 1474622313
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 61
Book Description
'The best evocation I've read of London in the '80s' Neil Tennant 'I loved Souvenir . . . it rescued some things for me - a certain aesthetic, a philosophical engagement with time and poignant beauty and lived history that I have found myself looking for, and not finding, elsewhere in recent years . . . the book gave me new hope' John Burnside 'A suspended act of retrieval, a partisan recall; a sustained, subtle summary of our recent past, and an epitaph for a future we never had' Philip Hoare 'Michael Bracewell proves himself to be nothing less than the poet laureate of late capitalism' Jonathan Coe A vivid eulogy for London of the late 1970s and early 80s - the last years prior to the rise of the digital city. An elliptical, wildly atmospheric remembrance of the sites and soundtrack, at once aggressively modern and strangely elegiac, that accompanied the twilight of one era and the dawn of another. Haunted bedsits, post-punk entrepreneurs in the Soho Brasserie, occultists in Fitzrovia, Docklands before Canary Wharf, frozen suburbs in the winter of 1980...
Publisher: White Rabbit
ISBN: 1474622313
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 61
Book Description
'The best evocation I've read of London in the '80s' Neil Tennant 'I loved Souvenir . . . it rescued some things for me - a certain aesthetic, a philosophical engagement with time and poignant beauty and lived history that I have found myself looking for, and not finding, elsewhere in recent years . . . the book gave me new hope' John Burnside 'A suspended act of retrieval, a partisan recall; a sustained, subtle summary of our recent past, and an epitaph for a future we never had' Philip Hoare 'Michael Bracewell proves himself to be nothing less than the poet laureate of late capitalism' Jonathan Coe A vivid eulogy for London of the late 1970s and early 80s - the last years prior to the rise of the digital city. An elliptical, wildly atmospheric remembrance of the sites and soundtrack, at once aggressively modern and strangely elegiac, that accompanied the twilight of one era and the dawn of another. Haunted bedsits, post-punk entrepreneurs in the Soho Brasserie, occultists in Fitzrovia, Docklands before Canary Wharf, frozen suburbs in the winter of 1980...
Dude, Where's My Black Studies Department?
Author: Cecil Brown
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583943919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Book Description
***WINNER, 2008 PEN Oakland - Josephine Miles National Literary Award Blacks have been vanishing from college campuses in the United States and reappearing in prisons, videos, and movies. Cecil Brown tackles this unwitting "disappearing act" head on, paying special attention to the situation at UC Berkeley and the University of California system generally. Brown contends that educators have ignored the importance of the oral tradition in African American upbringing, an oversight mirrored by the media. When these students take exams, their abilities are not tested. Further, university officials, administrators, professors, and students are ignoring the phenomenon of the disappearing black student – in both their admissions and hiring policies. With black studies departments shifting the focus from African American and black community interests to black immigrant issues, says Brown, the situation is becoming dire. Dude, Where’s My Black Studies Department? offers both a scorching critique and a plan for rethinking and reform of a crucial but largely unacknowledged problem in contemporary society.
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583943919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Book Description
***WINNER, 2008 PEN Oakland - Josephine Miles National Literary Award Blacks have been vanishing from college campuses in the United States and reappearing in prisons, videos, and movies. Cecil Brown tackles this unwitting "disappearing act" head on, paying special attention to the situation at UC Berkeley and the University of California system generally. Brown contends that educators have ignored the importance of the oral tradition in African American upbringing, an oversight mirrored by the media. When these students take exams, their abilities are not tested. Further, university officials, administrators, professors, and students are ignoring the phenomenon of the disappearing black student – in both their admissions and hiring policies. With black studies departments shifting the focus from African American and black community interests to black immigrant issues, says Brown, the situation is becoming dire. Dude, Where’s My Black Studies Department? offers both a scorching critique and a plan for rethinking and reform of a crucial but largely unacknowledged problem in contemporary society.