These Truly Are the Brave: An Anthology of African American Writings on War and Citizenship (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780813060224)

QBR Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Nonfiction - Finalilst

From enslaved people who joined Washington's Continental Army to Buffalo Soldiers in the Indian Wars, from the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II to black men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, African Americans have been an integral part of the country's armed forces--even while the nation questioned, challenged, and denied their rights, and oftentimes their humanity.

These Truly Are the Brave collects three centuries of poems, stories, plays, songs, essays, pamphlets, newspaper articles, speeches, oral histories, letters, and political commentaries, richly contextualizing them within their specific historical moments. This anthology offers perspectives on war, national loyalty, and freedom from a sweeping range of writers including Phillis Wheatley, James Weldon Johnson, Natasha Trethewey, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Lucille Clifton, Vievee Francis, Michael S. Harper, Ann Petry, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gwendolyn Brooks, and many more. Some selections reveal African Americans embracing wartime service as a way to express citizenship; others show black people remaining steadfast in quiet civilian work. Courageously wrestling with their disputed place in American democracy, these writers expose and reexamine the foundations of U.S. citizenship.

Author: A. Yęmisi Jimoh
ISBN-10: 0813060222
ISBN-13: 9780813060224
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Language: English
Published: 09/01/2015
Pages: 584
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.36lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 1.44d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 11/01/2015 pg. 103
Choice 02/01/2016