Melissa V. Harris-Perry— Eliza Gallie was a free black woman living in Petersburg, Virginia, before the Civil War. She was divorced, owned property, and had financial resources that made her unusual among free blacks in the Confederate South. In 1853 Gallie was arrested and charged with stealing cabbages from a
We have all heard the news, read the stories, watched the footage—America has reached a crossroads on racial injustice. The path forward may be challenging, but as a contributor to the global understanding of human affairs, we hope our books will help inform the public consciousness and promote tolerance for
February is Black History Month! It’s a time, as President Ford put it, to “honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Here are ten books to check out this month, each of which contributes to a fuller articulation of African American
Follow @MHarrisPerry Follow @MHPShow “Citizenship is more than an individual exchange of freedoms for rights,” writes Melissa V. Harris-Perry, professor, writer and television host, in Sister Citizen. “It is also membership in a body politic, a nation, and a community.” In Sister Citizen, now available in paperback, Harris-Perry looks at
Looking ahead to September’s Political Economy theme on the Yale Press Log, this month we celebrate the one-year publication anniversary of two powerful books from Yale University Press: Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen and Donna Hicks’s Dignity. On the surface, these authors have established themselves in very different niches of the
If you missed the debut of MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show this weekend, the network makes most of the episode available online. In her inaugural episode, Harris-Perry covers Mitt Romney and campaign psychology for candidates—including “Daddy Issues”, the GOP progress with Southern voters, union memberships and the middle class, women on
Every February in the United States is celebrated by honoring the past and current achievements of the African Diaspora and the history of African Americans in the shaping of a nation. Following her New York Times Book of the Year, Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and
Following the announcement of her new MSNBC show, starting in February, Melissa Harris-Perry appeared on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report this Monday to discuss her book, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, addressing the four common stereotyped characters that shape African American women’s identities and how they affect
Melissa Harris-Perry must be busy. A professor of political science at Tulane University, a columnist for The Nation, and frequent guest and host on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, she has spent the last few months giving interviews—on everything from her take on the new movie The Help to her politics—in
You’ve read her column in The Nation, seen her guest hosting the Rachel Maddow Show, even found her at our office; now, the week before the publication of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, we sit down with Melissa Harris-Perry to ask a few key questions about