Negroland: A Memoir Contributor(s): Jefferson, Margo (Author) |
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ISBN: 0307473430 ISBN-13: 9780307473431 Publisher: Vintage OUR PRICE: $17.10 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2016 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - General - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - History | United States - 20th Century |
Dewey: B |
Physical Information: 0.63" H x 5.25" W x 8" (0.50 lbs) 272 pages |
Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: An extraordinary look at privilege, discrimination, and the fallacy of post-racial America by Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic Margo Jefferson National Bestseller Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award A New York Times Notable Book Jefferson takes us into an insular and discerning society: "I call it Negroland," she writes, "because I still find 'Negro' a word of wonders, glorious and terrible." Margo Jefferson was born in 1947 into upper-crust black Chicago. Her father was head of pediatrics at Provident Hospital, while her mother was a socialite. Negroland's pedigree dates back generations, having originated with antebellum free blacks who made their fortunes among the plantations of the South. It evolved into a world of exclusive sororities, fraternities, networks, and clubs--a world in which skin color and hair texture were relentlessly evaluated alongside scholarly and professional achievements, where the Talented Tenth positioned themselves as a third race between whites and "the masses of Negros," and where the motto was "Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment." Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions, while reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments--the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the falsehood of post-racial America. |