{"id":2645,"date":"2016-01-20T17:52:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T17:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/?p=2645"},"modified":"2016-02-11T17:57:35","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T17:57:35","slug":"get-em-while-theyre-fresh-new-books-for-january-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/2016\/01\/20\/get-em-while-theyre-fresh-new-books-for-january-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Get \u2018Em While They\u2019re Fresh: New Books for January 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

At first glance, this month’s selection of books from the DePaul Library collection don’t appear to be thematically related: two are about cities, and the third\u00a0explores a little-known history of gun ownership in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0On closer reading, the common thread in all three books are the contributions of African Americans to the nation’s\u00a0cultural and economic history, and the long struggle for civil rights both in the rural South and industrial North.
\n\"unfathomable\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker, editors of Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0explain their choice of title in the book’s introduction. New Orleans is unfathomable, in both the historic and nautical sense, since much of the city rests barely above sea level .\u00a0 In Nathaniel Rich’s macabre essay\u00a0“Moves, Remains” (p. 34), even the dead find it difficult to remain on dry land. \u00a0High ground water makes it nearly impossible for murder victims to remain hidden, while flooding sometimes causes coffins to pop out of mausoleums and canoe down the street. \u00a0African American culture and music is an intrinsic part\u00a0of New Orleans history, and the wonderful map \u00a0“Repercussions: Rhythm and Resistance Across the Atlantic” (p. 98) traces the introduction of the poly-rhythmic music of African slaves to the new world and its influence on resistance movements on both sides of the ocean. Yoruban drumming begets\u00a0Jazz and Hip-hop, both\u00a0in turn inspiring new musical forms in post-colonial Africa. Available at the John T. Richardson Library, call number 912.76335 S688U<\/p>\n

In 1963, Detroit was on the top of the world.\u00a0 Executives\u00a0at Ford prepared to unveil a ground-breaking model, the Mustang. \u00a0The\u00a0Detroit Olympic Committee was confidently presenting their case for hosting the 1968 summer games. Berry<\/p>\n

\"once-in-a-great-city\"<\/a>Gordy\u2019s\u00a0 Motortown Revue<\/em>, featuring artists such as Little Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, had just completed\u00a0a highly successful tour.\u00a0 Despite these public triumphs, the city was rapidly losing residents. In a Wayne State University study, researchers predicted that Detroit would lose one-quarter of its\u00a01960 population by the year 1970.\u00a0 Most of those fleeing to suburban Wayne County were employed white taxpayers. \u00a0In Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story<\/a><\/em>, author David Maraniss muses on the year 1963: \u201cComposition and decomposition. Detroit dying and thriving at the same time.\u201d \u00a0His deft 18-month snapshot reveals portents\u00a0of the city’s collapse which\u00a0were largely ignored at the time. Available at the John T. Richardson Library, Haber Lounge, call number\u00a0977.434 M325O2015<\/p>\n

\"nonviolentstuff\"<\/a>An African American farmer once told the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., \u201cThis nonviolent stuff ain\u2019t no good. It\u2019ll get ya killed.\u201d (p.7) \u00a0He wasn’t\u00a0suggesting that Rev. King resort to\u00a0violent activism, but to instead be prepared for armed self-defense.\u00a0 According to Charles E. Cobb, author of\u00a0This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible<\/a><\/em>, many civil rights leaders and activists who publicly practiced nonviolence also kept firearms for self-protection.\u00a0 It was a pragmatic choice. In 1964, Ku Klux Klan membership soared to nearly 10,000 in Mississippi alone. In June of that year, three civil rights volunteers were kidnapped and murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Cobb traces the history of African American gun ownership from the late antebellum era (where a secret organization of free black firearm owners planned an armed invasion of the slave-holding territories) to the doctrine of armed resistance in the Black Power movement of the late 1960s. Available at the John T. Richardson Library, call number 323.1196073 C6531t2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At first glance, this month’s selection of books from the DePaul Library collection don’t appear to be thematically related: two are about cities, and the third\u00a0explores a little-known history of gun ownership in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0On closer reading, the common thread in all three books are the contributions of African Americans to the nation’s\u00a0cultural and <\/p>\n

continue reading<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":2650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GMS7-GF","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/01\/unfathomable.jpg?fit=232%2C398&ssl=1&wsr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2645"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2656,"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645\/revisions\/2656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}