BLACK APPLE: A History of Malcolm X and Black Power in New York, 1954-1974
His fiery speeches, striking analogies, advocacy of Black solidarity, self-determination, self-defense, and cultural pride; his constant and forceful ridiculing of assimilationists and non-violent civil rights activists stimulated a generation of Black power activists across the nation during the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, before Malcolm X and his ideas went on the road, helping to formulate a national Black power movement, Malcolm helped formulate a local movement at home. Malcolm X helped birth Black power in life, not in death as is commonly told, and through his influence, the New York City Black power movement became one of the most inventive, impactful, and celebrated around the nation.
Amazingly though, there is still not a single general history of the Black power movement in NYC. Despite the prominence of NYC Black power, despite scholars’ careful documentation of the impact of Malcolm X on the movement, despite the rush of urban studies of Black power in recent years, there is still not a single urban history on Black power in NYC. Black Apple will be the first wide-ranging history of the Black power movement in NYC. Black Apple will also be the first history to principally chronicle Malcolm X’s local activism and the NYC activists he inspired in life and death. Black Apple will chronicle the NYC Black power movement from the unique manifestation of Black power in NYC—from New York conditions, from New York organizations, from New York protests, from New York ideas, and most of all New York’s history.
Ibram X. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News correspondent. He is the author of many books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and three #1 New York Times bestsellers, How to Be an Antiracist; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds; and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky.