Acknowledgments
Today it feels like the violent conflicts of the 1960s, that escalated each year as the decade progressed, have deepened and emerged in twenty-first-century hyper-drive. It is impossible to ignore how the violence piling up in this contemporary moment brings with it so many echoes of the past.
As I write these acknowledgments, a pandemic has caused the whole world to stop. Sickness, death, isolation, and the visible and global signs of structural inequalities have been laid bare. In the United States, an election with unprecedented voter participation has revealed a nation horribly divided by antagonisms about race, immigration, the police, civil rights, gender identity and equity, climate change, education, and the very notion of democracy itself. People are marching in the streets – most are hoping for more justice in a world in which so many can’t breathe. And in this, there is hope. The people marching and voting and writing and making music, art, and poems recall a spirit of survival and resistance that can energize a new transition. Maybe this time, we will learn the lessons the past offers to us.
I offer my deepest thanks to the authors who contributed to the making of this book. It has been my honor to collaborate with them. They are all Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) – scholars, writers, teachers, and community members whose generosity and intellectual rigor are an inspiration. Alex Polish has been a kind and patient editor whose organizational brilliance has been essential to getting this project across the finish line. And Joycelyn Moody! As the General Editor of this ambitious series, her vision, her leadership, and her incredible commitment model how African American literature and culture is indeed central to U.S. self-understanding. As a scholar, teacher, and friend she has taught me so much about how to be an ethical person in this complicated world. Thank you, Joycelyn.
Many thanks to Cambridge University Press for its investment in this project, especially to Ray Ryan and Edgar Mendez.
