An urgent dispatch from a group of girls who will not–and must not–be ignored. Carroll allows her subjects to tell their own, unfiltered stories, and they do: joyfully, painfully, and always powerfully.

Peggy Orenstein, author of
School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap

“A stunning achievement.”

–Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

On the ninetieth anniversary of Booker T. Washington’s death comes a passionate, provocative dialogue on his complicated legacy, including the complete text of his classic autobiography, Up from Slavery.

Booker T. Washington was born a slave in 1858, yet roughly forty years later he had established the Tuskegee Institute. Befriended by a U.S. president and corporate titans, beloved and reviled by the black community, Washington was one of the most influential voices on the postslavery scene. But Washington’s message of gradual accommodation was accepted by some and rejected by others, and, almost a century after his death, he is still one of the most controversial and misunderstood characters in American history.

Uncle Tom or New Negro? does much more than provide yet another critical edition of Washington’s memoirs. Instead, Carroll has interviewed an outstanding array of African American luminaries including Julianne Malveaux, cultural critics Debra Dickerson and John McWhorter, and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and radio talk-show host Karen Hunter, among others. In a dazzling collection bursting with invigorating and varying perspectives, (e.g. What would Booker T. think of Sean Combs or Russell Simmons? Was Washington a “tragic buffoon” or “a giver of hope to those on the margins of the margins”?) this cutting-edge book allows you to reach your own conclusions about a controversial and perhaps ultimately enigmatic figure.

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W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk is one of the most influential books ever published in this country. In it, Du Bois wrote that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” a prophecy that is as fresh and poignant today as when it first appeared in print in 1903. Now, one hundred years after The Souls of Black Folk was first published, Saving the Race reexamines the legacy of Du Bois and his “color line” prophecy from a modern viewpoint. The author, Rebecca Carroll, a biracial woman who was reared by white parents, not only provides her own personal perspective, but she invites eighteen well-known African Americans to share their ideas and opinions about what Du Bois’s classic text means today.

The result is an insightful and illuminating collection of interviews both provocative and inspiring. Saving the Race paints a fascinating, complicated, and colorful portrait about the “souls of black folk” in twenty-first century America.

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Elizabeth Alexander, Poet and Writer

Derrick Bell, Professor of Law, New York University

Terence Blanchard, Jazz Musician, Film Composer

Julian Bond, Chairman of the board, NAACP

Cory Booker, Former New Jersey Councilman, Mayoral Candidate, Activist

A’Lelia Bundles, great-great-granddaughter of Madame C.J. Walker, Author

Kathleen Cleaver, Former Communications Secretary of the Black Panther Party

Stanley Crouch, Cultural Critic, Novelist

David Graham Du Bois, stepson of W.E.B. Du Bois, Writer, Teacher, Activist

Reverend Dr. James Forbes, Senior Ninister of Riverside Church, New York

Thelma Golden, Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs at the Studio Museum of Harlem

LeAlan Jones, Author

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Civil Rights leader and Lawyer

Jewell Jackson McCabe, Founder and President of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women

Clarence Major, Author, Poet, Artist

Patricia Smith, Poet

Lalita Tademy, Author

Touré, Novelist, Contributing Writer for Rolling Stone Magazine