An ebullient and trenchant look at a trailblazing campaign for president.
When a Black woman ran for president—more than half a century ago.
In 2022, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Chisholm’s historic campaign as the first woman and African American to run for president, Tolliver interviewed Chisholm’s close friend, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee. During the interview, Lee casually mentioned that Carroll had held a fundraiser for Chisholm at the actress’ Hollywood mansion—and that she had brought with her the Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton. Fascinated by this slice of “living, breathing Black history,” Tolliver dove into a research project about the party that uncovered surprising details about the event and its attendees. Among them was that Lee met future fellow House Rep. Maxine Waters at the party—Waters, then an activist, was answering the door for guests. The comedian Flip Wilson co-hosted the get-together, writing a check for $5,000. It wasn’t an astronomical sum—about $38,000 in today’s dollars—but it was the largest donation the campaign had received, and it paid for ads that helped Chisholm win roughly 5% of the vote in California. This was especially impressive since Chisholm had been excluded from televised debates. Tolliver writes that the fundraiser fueled a sense of optimism among traditionally marginalized groups. And she draws parallels between that long-ago campaign and current-day politics. 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.
An ebullient and trenchant look at a trailblazing campaign for president.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538770221
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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