New Releases
“P. Gabrielle Foreman's Praise Songs for Dave the Potter is a glorious exploration and reclamation of the work of a poet and master artisan whose influence can be measured, not only in the beauty and richness of his own pieces, but as a present and vibrant ancestor inspiring new work.”
— Natasha Trethewey, nineteenth Poet Laureate of the United States
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“With its historical heft and excellent prose, this book deserves to be the reference book for all things related to nineteenth-century Black activism.”
— Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of Never Caught and A Fragile Freedom
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Praise Songs for Dave the Potter: Art and Poetry for David Drake
The artistic legacy of one of the most innovative and creative Black artists of the nineteenth century.
"Through the glorious and brilliant words of the artists who came after him, Dave the Potter is remembered. Praise Songs for Dave the Potter is a long overdue love letter to one of the few enslaved folks whose art made it into this moment in time. It is a calling to the ones whose work got lost in the plunder of Black bodies. It is an ode. A 'because of you, we are.' A nod to Black genius. A prayer.”
— Jacqueline Woodson, author of the National Book Award-winning Brown Girl Dreaming
Edited and with an introduction by P. Gabrielle Foreman; Foreword by Kwame Dawes; Afterword by Evie Shockley
David Drake is recognized as one of the United States' most accomplished nineteenth-century potters. Born in South Carolina at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Drake produced hundreds of pieces while under the surveillance of the enslavers who claimed him and his work as their property. However, while his pots — many inscribed with original verse — sit in museums across the nation, he is too often passed over when considering the early foundations of African American poetry.
This volume presents the artistic legacy of one of the most well-known Black potters, and one of the most innovative and under-appreciated enslaved poets, of the nineteenth century. (University of Georgia Press, 2022.)
Colored Conventions: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century
"This collection of essays offers an exciting, original rethinking of nineteenth-century Black political thought that resonates with the justice movements of our own time."
—Sharla Fett, Occidental College
Edited by P. Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey, Sarah Lynn Patterson
This volume of essays is the first to focus on the Colored Conventions movement, the nineteenth century's longest campaign for Black civil rights. Well before the founding of the NAACP and other twentieth-century pillars of the civil rights movement, tens of thousands of Black leaders organized state and national conventions across North America. Over seven decades, they advocated for social justice and against slavery, protesting state-sanctioned and mob violence while demanding voting, legal, labor, and educational rights.
While Black-led activism in this era is often overshadowed by the attention paid to the abolition movement, this collection centers Black activist networks, influence, and institution building. Collectively, these essays highlight the vital role of the Colored Conventions in the lives of thousands of early organizers, including many of the most famous writers, ministers, politicians, and entrepreneurs in the long history of Black activism. (University of North Carolina Press, 2021.)
Contributors: Erica L. Ball, Kabria Baumgartner, Daina Ramey Berry, Joan L. Bryant, Jim Casey, Benjamin Fagan, P. Gabrielle Foreman, Eric Gardner, Andre E. Johnson, Cheryl Janifer LaRoche, Sarah Lynn Patterson, Carla L. Peterson, Jean Pfaelzer, Selena R. Sanderfer, Derrick R. Spires, Jermaine Thibodeaux, Psyche Williams-Forson, and Jewon Woo.
Explore accompanying exhibits and historical records at The Colored Conventions Project website: https://coloredconventions.org/
Activist Sentiments: Reading Black Women in the Nineteenth Century
"Activist Sentiments reevaluates with a savvy, critical eye the nexus of sex, sentiment, and reform that distinguishes classic nineteenth-century African American women's narratives. Always informative, consistently revealing, and invitingly written, Foreman's book belongs in the company of the major studies in this field by Frances Smith Foster, Hazel Carby, Claudia Tate, and Carla L. Peterson."
— William L. Andrews, Professor emeritus and author of The Oxford Companion to African American Literature and The Norton Anthology of African American Literature
Activist Sentiments takes as its subject women who in fewer than fifty years moved from near literary invisibility to prolific productivity. Grounded in primary research and paying close attention to the historical archive, this book offers against-the-grain readings of the literary and activist work of Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Wilson, Frances E. W. Harper, Victoria Earle Matthews, and Amelia E. Johnson.
Part literary criticism and part cultural history, Activist Sentiments examines nineteenth-century social, political, and representational literacies and reading practices. In it, Foreman reveals how Black women's complex and confrontational commentary — often expressed directly in their journalistic prose and organizational involvement — emerges in their sentimental, and simultaneously political, literary production. (University of Illinois, 2009.)
Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black
By Harriet E. Wilson, Edited and with a new introduction by P. Gabrielle Foreman
“The landmark research and skillful criticism done by Foreman and Pitts should shape discussion of Our Nig for years to come.”
– African American Review
For the 150th anniversary of its first publication, a new edition of the pioneering African-American classic reflecting groundbreaking discoveries by editor P. Gabrielle Foreman.
First published in 1859, Our Nig is an autobiographical narrative that stands as one of the most important accounts of the life of a black woman in the antebellum North. In the story of Frado, a spirited Black girl who is abused and overworked as the indentured servant to a New England family, Harriet E. Wilson tells a heartbreaking story about the resilience of the human spirit.
This edition incorporates new research by P. Gabrielle Foreman showing that Wilson was not only a pioneering African-American literary figure but also an entrepreneur in the black women’s hair care market fifty years before Madame C. J. Walker’s hair care empire made her the country’s first woman millionaire. (Penguin Random House, 2009.)