For many, December 26 is more than the day after Christmas. Boxing Day is one of the world's most celebrated cultural holidays. As a legacy of British colonialism, Boxing Day is observed throughout Africa and parts of the African diaspora, but, unlike Trinidadian Carnival and Mardi Gras, fewer know of Bermuda's Gombey Dancers, Bahamian Junkanoo, Dangriga's Jankunu and Charikanari, St. Croix's Christmas Carnival Festival, and St. Kitts's Sugar Mas. One Grand Noise: Boxing Day in the Anglicized Caribbean World delivers a highly detailed, thought-provoking examination of the use of spectacular vernacular to metaphorically dramatize such tropes as ""one grand noise,"" ""foreday morning,"" and from ""back-o-town."" In cultural solidarity and an obvious critique of Western values and norms, revelers engage in celebratory sounds, often donning masks, cross-dressing, and dancing with abandon along thoroughfares usually deemed anathema to them. Folklorist Jerrilyn McGregory demonstrates how the cultural producers in various island locations ritualize Boxing Day as a part of their struggles over identity, class, and gender relations in accordance with time and space. Based on ethnographic study undertaken by McGregory, One Grand Noise explores Boxing Day as part of a creolization process from slavery into the twenty-first century. McGregory traces the holiday from its Egyptian origins to today and includes chapters on the Gombey Dancers of Bermuda, the evolution of Junkanoo/Jankunu in the Bahamas and Belize, and J'ouvert traditions in St. Croix and St. Kitts. Through her exploration of the holiday, McGregory negotiates the ways in which Boxing Day has expanded from small communal traditions into a common history of colonialism that keeps alive a collective spirit of resistance.

Microhistory unlocked new avenues of historical investigation and methodologies and helped uncover the past of individuals, an event, or a small community. Reclamation of "lost histories" of individuals and colonized communities of colonial South Africa falls within this category. This study provides historical narratives of indigenous Khoikhoi of modest status absorbed into Cape colonial society as farm servants during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on archival and other sources, the author illuminates the "everyday life" and "lived experience" of Khoikhoi characters in a unique way. The opening chapter recounts the love-loathe drama between a Khoikhoi woman, Griet, and Hendrik Eksteen, whose murder she later orchestrated with the aid of slaves and Khoikhoi servants. The malcontent Andries De Necker, arrested for the murder of his Khoikhoi servant, attracted much legal attention and resulted in a protracted trial. The book next features the Khoikhoi millenarian prophet-turned-Christian convert Jan Paerl, who persuaded believers to reassert the land of their birth and liberate themselves from Dutch colonial rule by October 25, 1788. The last two chapters examine the lives of four Khoikhoi converts immersed into the Moravian missionary world and how they were exhibited by missionaries and sketched by the colonial artist, George F. Angas.

Race and racism remain an inescapable part of the lives of black people. Daily slights, often rooted in fears and misperceptions of the 'other', still damage lives. But does race matter as much as it used to? Many argue that the post-racial society is upon us and racism is no longer a block on opportunity - Kurt Barling doubts whether things are really that simple.Ever since, at the age of four, he wished for 'blue eyes and blond hair', skin colour has featured prominently as he, like so many others, navigated through a childhood and adolescence in which 'blackness' de-fined and dominated so much of social discourse. But despite the progress that has been made, he argues, the 'R' word is stubbornly resilient.In this powerful polemic, Barling tackles the paradoxes at the heart of anti-racism and asks whether, by adopting the language of the oppressor to liberate the oppressed, we are in fact paralysing ourselves within the false mythologies inherited from raciology, race and racism. Can society escape this socalled 'race-thinking' and re-imagine a Britain that is no longer 'Black' and 'White'? Is it yet possible to step out of our skins and leave the colour behind?Provocations is a groundbreaking new series of short polemics composed by some of the most intriguing voices in contemporary culture. Never less than sharp, intelligent and controversial Provocations is a major new contribution to some of the most vital discussions in society today.

Black Culture Traditions: Visible and Invisible helps students better understand the bedrock beliefs of black culture in America. Through carefully selected articles, students read valuable and foundational theory, critically analyze popular and lesser known forms of black culture, and learn how appropriation and performance has rendered certain aspects of black culture invisible. The text underscores how the omission of relevant teachings about African Americans continues the injustices and racial inequality experienced in America. The anthology features four distinct parts. In Part I, selected articles by Molefe Asante, Melville Herskovits, and Amos Wilson discuss theories of Afrocentrism, culture, and psychology, and shed light on many of the misnomers, misconceptions, and misunderstandings in black culture. Part II focuses on the values that are part of the everyday lives and experiences of African Americans, including religious beliefs, ideas of right and wrong, spending practices, and class ideology. In Part III, students read about black culture traditions with emphasis on the family. The final part discusses ideas related to beauty, black creativity, and the expression of values, beliefs, and traditions as aesthetics of black culture. A powerful and enlightening collection, Black Culture Traditions is an ideal text for courses in African American studies and cultural and ethnic studies.

The Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq in the III/IX Century is the only full-length study on the revolt o f the Zanj. Scholars of slavery, the African diaspora and th e Middle East have lauded Popovic''s work. '

Hot chicken is on the list of "must-try" Southern foods in countless publications and websites. Restaurants in New York, Detroit, Cambridge, and even Australia advertise that they fry their chicken 'Nashville-style.' More than twelve thousand people showed up for the 2014 Fourth of July Music City Hot Chicken Festival. The James Beard Foundation recently gave Prince's Chicken Shack an American Classic Award for inventing the dish. But for almost seventy years, hot chicken was made and sold primarily in Nashville's black neighborhoods-and the story of hot chicken says something powerful about race relations in Nashville, especially as the city tries to figure out what it will be in the future. Hot, Hot Chicken recounts the history of Nashville's black communities through the story of its hot chicken scene from the Civil War, when Nashville became a segregated city, through the tornado that ripped through North Nashville in March 2020.