{"product_id":"the-black-box-writing-the-race-9780593299807","title":"The Black Box: Writing the Race","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Henry Louis Gates is a national treasure. Here, he returns with an intellectual and at times deeply personal meditation on the hard-fought evolution and the very meaning of African American identity, calling upon our country to transcend its manufactured divisions.\" -- Isabel Wilkerson, \u003cb\u003eauthor of \u003ci\u003eThe Warmth of Other Suns \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eCaste\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"This is a literary history of Black America, but it is also an argument that African American history is inextricable from the history of African American literature.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with one another, over the course of the country's history. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDistilled over many years from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s, legendary Harvard introductory course in African American studies, \u003ci\u003eThe Black Box: Writing the Race\u003c\/i\u003e, is the story of Black self-definition in America through the prism of the writers who have led the way. From Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, to Zora Neale Hurston and Rich­ard Wright, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison--these writers used words to create a livable world, a home, for Black people destined to live out their lives in a bitterly racist society. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is a book grounded in the beautiful irony that a group formed legally and conceptually by its oppressors to justify brutal subhuman bondage transformed itself \u003ci\u003ethrough the word \u003c\/i\u003einto a community joined in overcoming one of history's most pernicious lies. Out of that contested ground has flowered a resilient, creative, powerful, diverse culture of people who have often disagreed markedly about what it means to be Black, and about how best to use the past to create a more just and equitable future. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is the epic story of how, through essays and speeches, novels, plays, and poems, a long line of creative thinkers has unveiled the contours of--and resisted confinement in--the black box inside which this nation within a nation has been assigned, willy-nilly, from the nation's founding through to today. This is a book that records the compelling saga of the creation of a people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Henry Louis Gates\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Penguin Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/18\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.5lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.10h x 5.40w x 0.70d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780593299807","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43784559755401,"sku":"9780593299807","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_1b3c5b59-4bdd-4ed1-b77b-d7163e838691.jpg?v=1742274017","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/the-black-box-writing-the-race-9780593299807","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}