A long overdue account of the pioneering life and work of controversial African American Congressman Arthur Wergs Mitchell of Chicago

A Carpetbagger in Reverse offers a landmark reassessment of the life, career, and accomplishments of groundbreaking Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell, the first Black Democrat elected to Congress and the only Black member of Congress during his four terms of service from 1935 to 1943.

Born to former enslaved people in Alabama in 1883, Mitchell studied with Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute and later moved to Washington DC and became a lawyer. He continued his career in Chicago, where the Great Migration had helped transform the city's South Side into a vibrant, multiracial enclave.

As a congressman, Mitchell helped to create an enduring alliance between Black Americans and the Democratic party. Seeing his primary role as representing the South's disempowered Black population, his belief that solutions to the region's racial problems should arise from a new cadre of locally trained leaders brought him into frequent, vituperative conflict with the NAACP, the Republican Party, and the Black press. The first Black lawyer to argue successfully before the Supreme Court, his unanimous victory in Mitchell v. United States would have long-term consequences for the Civil Rights Movement.

A Carpetbagger in Reverse is the first publication significantly based on Mitchell's papers, an essential and often overlooked source of insights about the development of Black political and culture life in the 1930s and 1940s.

Southern Footprints celebrates more than fifty years of archaeological research along the Gulf Coast by the University of South Alabama and the Center for Archaeological Studies. Archaeologists Gregory A. Waselkov and Philip J. Carr, the former and current directors of the center, present the greatest hits that have transformed knowledge of human history on the Alabama and Mississippi Gulf Coast from the Ice Age until recently. Each archaeological site, from surface collections to premiere archaeological preserves, such as Old Mobile and Holy Ground, offers clues to the past.

The chapters in this collection are arranged chronologically and survey the history and archaeology of a wide range of significant sites, including the Gulf Shores canoe canal, Bottle Creek Mounds, Old Mobile, Fort Mims, Spanish Fort, Spring Hill College, and Mobile River Bridge.

Waselkov and Carr take care to acknowledge in these stories populations who have been historically underdocumented, now recognizing the contributions of Native Americans and African Americans that have been uncovered through archaeology. The authors reveal the dire impacts of climate change, environmental disasters, development, and neglect--and convey their urgency to protect these areas of shared history--as a result of the meticulous excavation, analysis, and preservation of artifacts from these sites. Color photographs showcase the archaeology as it unfolds, often with the help of dedicated volunteers. Southern Footprints will serve as an indispensable reference on the rich Gulf Coast heritage for all to appreciate.

Now Is the Time to Collect tells the fascinating story of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History's zoological expedition to Africa in 1896, the source of many of the museum's foundational collections and an astounding episode in nineteenth-century science. After the well-publicized extinction of the dodo and Carolina parakeet and the collapse of the American bison population, late nineteenth-century naturalists expected many more vulnerable species to die out with spread of Western-style industrialization. This triggered a race to collect rare species of animals expected soon to be lost forever.

Established in 1893, Chicago's ambitious Field Museum aimed to become a global center of study. Zoologist Daniel Giraud Elliot persuaded museum patrons to fund an immediate expedition to British Somaliland (contemporary Somalia). There, his team hunted and killed hundreds of animals for the growing collection. On the trip was groundbreaking taxonomist Carl Akeley. Back in Chicago, Akeley created captivating lifelike dioramas of rare animal groups that enhanced the museum's fame and remain popular to this day.

Enriched with illuminated passages from Elliot's journal, only recently rediscovered, Now Is the Time to Collect is the first book of its kind by an American museum and a case study in what author Paul D. Brinkman calls salvage zoology--the practice of aggressively collecting rare animal specimens for preservation just prior to the birth of the modern conservation movement. It is a riveting account of the expedition, the travelers' experiences in Somalia during its colonial period, and the astonishing origins of one of Chicago's classic museum experiences.

Sheyann Webb was eight years old and Rachel West was nine when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Selma, Alabama, on January 2, 1965. He came to organize non-violent demonstrations against discriminatory voting laws. Selma, Lord, Selma is their firsthand account of the events from that turbulent winter of 1965--events that changed not only the lives of these two little girls but the lives of all Alabamians and all Americans. From 1975 to 1979, award-winning journalist Frank Sikora conducted interviews with Webb and West, weaving their recollections into this luminous story of fear and courage, struggle and redemption that readers will discover is Selma, Lord, Selma.

Lisa McNair was born in 1964, one year after her older sister, Denise, was murdered in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Dear Denise is a collection of forty letters from Lisa addressed to the sister she never knew, but in whose shadow of sacrifice and lost youth she was raised. These letters offer an intimate look into the life of a family touched by one of the most heinous tragedies of the Civil Rights Movement.

Written in a genuine, accessible, familiar, and easy-to-read voice, Lisa's letters apprise her late sister of all that has come to pass in the years since her death. Lisa considers her own challenges and accomplishments as a student in remarkably different--and very racially complex--schools; the birth of their baby sister, Kim; their father's election to the Alabama legislature; her evolving sense of faith and place, and sometimes lack thereof, within the Black church; her college experiences; and her own sense of self as she's matured into adulthood. She reveals some of the family's difficulties and health challenges, and shares some of their joys and celebrations.

The letters are accompanied by 29 black-and-white photographs, most of them from the McNair family collection, many of them taken by her father, a professional photographer who documented the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama both before and after Denise's murder. An unswervingly candid, gentle, and nuanced book, Dear Denise is a testament to one singular life lived bravely and truthfully (if sometimes confusedly or awkwardly), during decades of bewildering social change and in the shadow of one life never fully lived.

Mobile and Havana: Sisters across the Gulf presents a beautifully written and illustrated survey of the many historic linkages between these exotic port cities. Through an effortless blending of word and image, John S. Sledge, Alicia García-Santana, Chip Cooper, and Julio A. Larramendi, historians and photographers from each side of the basin, share a colorful, complex, and sometimes difficult story never before fully told.

Over twenty years ago, Mobile's visionary municipal archivist Jay Higginbotham remarked, Mobile, Alabama, and Havana, Cuba, have only three things in common. The past, the present, and the future. This book demonstrates just how much that is the case.

The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells is an introduction and definitive guide to the self-taught quilter whose expansive body of work serves as testament to the sweeping tides of American life and Wells's significance as a major figure within the folk art and art world writ large.

Beginning when she was nearly 40 years old and without formal training, Wells created her first quilt for practical use but was soon hand stitching appliqué figures into bold, original designs that unleashed her voice as a storyteller. Incorporating a wide variety of symbolic materials and unconventional objects--anything I can stick a needle in--Wells's vivid story quilts reveal a fearless and encyclopedic vision ranging from the intimately autobiographical to iconic scenes from African American history, the Bible, Southern culture, and contemporary headlines.

The result of years of close collaboration between Stacy I. Morgan and Wells herself, The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells is richly illustrated with more than 100 quilts accompanied by narratives about each, told in the artist's own words, and interspersed with in-depth essays documenting Wells's unique artistic practice and creative journey during her five-decade art career.

Pinpoints the persuasive strategies that typified Wells's efforts to shape broader cultural conversations concerning the causes of racial, social, and gender inequity

Born into the brutal reality of slavery, Ida B. Wells rose to become an audacious journalist, teacher, and activist for racial and gender justice. In Radical Advocate, Mary E. Triece examines the rhetorical strategies employed by Wells to challenge deeply rooted systems of oppression, strategies that remain powerful and relevant today.

Triece introduces the concept of radical embodied advocacy to give an account of Wells's unique position as a Black woman whose personal encounters with white violence were palpable, experienced physically and mentally. White men lynched Wells's friends and threatened her own life, forcing her into exile after destroying the very press on which she wrote and edited. From this perspective, Wells understood lynching as linked to white economic and political control. Through a close analysis of Wells's speeches, writings, and journalism, Triece reveals how Wells pioneered a form of intersectional journalism that centered the voices of those marginalized by race, gender, and class.

By examining Wells's work through the lens of philosophy, rhetoric, and Black feminism, Triece underscores the epistemic challenges faced by marginalized advocates and the importance of their perspectives in shaping social change. Radical Advocate ultimately positions Wells as a prophetic figure whose insights into the systemic nature of racism remain profoundly relevant in today's world.

Asks who gets the right to call themselves a good person in a morally bankrupt world

In The Flat Woman, women exclusively are blamed for the climate crisis. Seagulls drop dead from the sky, and the government, instead of taking responsibility, scapegoats a group of female ecoterrorists. When a girl's mother is incarcerated for climate crimes, she is forced to raise herself alone. As a young woman, she begins a romance with an environmental activist whose passion makes her question her own role in the world. By turns hilarious, deadly serious, and completely absurd, The Flat Woman asks who gets the right to call themselves a good person in a world ripe with disaster.

Driven by complex academic and moral questions, The Flat Woman is certain to appeal to fans of feminist and experimental literature, as well as fans of Margaret Atwood, Renee Gladman, Bhanu Kapil, Maggie Nelson, Kelly Link, and Anne Carson.

A collection of 56 flash fictions, micro-essays, and contemporary fables about the burden on women and families

The Pillow Museum is a collection of 56 flash fictions, micro-essays, and contemporary fables set in various simulacra of our world. Claire Bateman's gorgeous prose captures the imagination with closely observed details of people and places that are startlingly familiar yet unreal, where nothing can be taken for granted, including narrative logic: It was snowing the night they had the fight about the glass piano whose music provided all the light in the house.

In an authoritative voice that offers no apologies or justifications, The Pillow Museum evokes a closely observed slipstream strangeness that refuses to take any moment or detail for granted--a fruitful, delirious disruption.

In this one-of-a-kind cookbook, foodie-scholar extraordinaire Ken Albala elevates the humble nosh to new heights of sumptuousness. With his signature élan and humor, Albala's Opulent Nosh: A Cookbook for Audacious Appetites takes readers on a culinary journey from the familiar to the exotic, transforming simple dishes into memorable feasts.

From decadent egg dishes to savory sandwiches, pizzas, and tacos, to stuffed pastries, pancakes, and waffles, Albala's recipes are a celebration of the world's culinary diversity. Each dish is infused with unexpected ingredients and techniques, resulting in flavor combinations that are daring and delicious. With more than 100 meticulously tested recipes and accompanying color photographs, Opulent Nosh is a must-have for anyone who loves to cook and eat. Gather the ingredients, don an apron, and revel in the audaciousness.

Illuminates how algorithms, intertwined with human biases, damage political discourse and civic engagement

Algorithmic Worldmaking is an urgent exploration of the dynamic relationship between algorithms that encode their human creators' assumptions and the humans whose choices are shaped by these algorithms in search engines, social media, and other digital spaces. Transcending discussions of one or the other, Jeremy David Johnson traces the corrupting political and social influences that arise from their mutual interaction.

Johnson uses the concept of kosmos in its sense of a dynamic order to frame the interplay between algorithms, humans, and their environments. He first shows how algorithms, far from being objective or unbiased, perpetuate human errors. Johnson then suggests a framework of four parts--navigation, exploration, maintenance, and monetization--to map the variety of political consequences to a society influenced by these four factors.

Citing controversies at major platforms such as Google, YouTube, and Facebook, Johnson demonstrates how algorithms limit and shape human thought. He makes several persuasive arguments. First, algorithms and humans share agency but humans have exceptional responsibility. Second, the algorithmic kosmos mirrors and shapes social oppression. Third, algorithms incentivize capitalist exploitation. Last, these influences damage democratic deliberation.

This landmark study is essential for scholars and students of political science, media studies, and those interested in the perilous implications of algorithmic systems on civic and political life.

Weaves the author's own four-month cross-country sojourn in a VW van with thoughts on travel narratives across the history of American literature

In Driving Lessons, Christopher B. Strain sets out on a quintessential American road trip, exploring not just the roads and byways of the country but the road trip's place in American culture. Strain dives into the well of American travel writing, illuminating fascinating aspects of the road trip, such as how race, class, and gender shape the experiences of road trippers.

In the summer of 1998, amid a professional crisis of confidence, Strain settled on a plan to reconnect with both himself and the country he studies. He purchased a 1972 Volkswagen Westfalia van and set off on his own cross-country odyssey. In the weeks that followed, he ruminated on his own ongoing journey alongside great journeys from the past and how they reveal the heart of the traveler as well as the landscape of the nation.

Visiting archives and landmarks across the United States, Strain's journey became a parallel to the stories he studied--an opportunity to see and experience the cities, national parks, and monuments that define US history. Driving Lessons is a compelling blend of literary analysis and memoir, offering readers an insightful and heartfelt reflection on the enduring power of the American road trip.

Otis and Joy, intrepid siblings, work with their family and friends to oppose a formidable adversary: The Owners. These cunning and ruthless old men, driven by insatiable greed, hold the town hostage, exploiting its resources and dividing its people. In this powerful #OwnVoices narrative, Tannery Bay is a captivating tale of Black Joy and Queer Joy and the ways in which family is both biological and chosen, where love transcends boundaries, and where art is a vehicle for change.

Examines the legacies of eight momentous US Supreme Court decisions that have their origins in Alabama legal disputes

Unknown to many, Alabama has played a remarkable role in a number of Supreme Court rulings that continue to touch the lives of every American. In Alabama Justice: The Cases and Faces That Changed a Nation, Steven P. Brown has identified eight landmark cases that deal with religion, voting rights, libel, gender discrimination, and other issues, all originating from legal disputes in Alabama.

Written in a concise and accessible manner, each case law chapter begins with the circumstances that created the dispute. Brown then provides historical and constitutional background for the issue followed by a review of the path of litigation. Excerpts from the Court's ruling in the case are also presented, along with a brief account of the aftermath and significance of the decision. The First Amendment (New York Times v. Sullivan), racial redistricting (Gomillion v. Lightfoot), the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Frontiero v. Richardson), and prayer in public schools (Wallace v. Jaffree) are among the pivotal issues stamped indelibly by disputes with their origins in Alabama legal, political, and cultural landscapes. By examining such landmark twentieth-century milestones and eras such as the Scottsboro Boys trial, the Civil Rights movement, and the fight for women's rights through a legal lens, Brown sheds new and unexpected light on the ways that events in Alabama have shaped the nation.

In addition to his analysis of cases, Brown discusses the three associate Supreme Court justices from Alabama to the Supreme Court: John McKinley, John Archibald Campbell, and Hugo Black. Their cumulative influence on constitutional interpretation, the institution of the Court, and the day-to-day rights and liberties enjoyed by every American is impossible to measure. A closing chapter examines the careers and contributions of these three Alabamians.

At the turn of the twentieth-century, there were hundreds of red-light districts in the United States, ranging in size from a discreet house or two in or near small towns and cities to block after bawdy block of brothels in larger cities such as Chicago and San Francisco. Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red Light District seeks to offer the reader a reasonably true-to-life impression of Storyville, the most famous of the large districts and the only such district in the United States that was legally established.

Storyville was an area, carefully defined by law, outside of which prostitutes or women notoriously abandoned to lewdness were not permitted to live or work. Prostitutes working within the District were considered to be engaged in legal enterprises so long as they confined themselves to prostitution and other related activities such as dispensing food and drink to their customers.

From the early days of the French colony of Louisiana, a great number of prostitutes, women from correctional centers, and those with so-called loose morals were transported to the New World, resulting in a large proportion of the earliest female residents in New Orleans engaging in prostitution. During the course of Storyville's legal existence from January 1, 1898 to November 12, 1917--it is evident that in establishing this district the New Orleans city council acted out of a sense of frustration after decades of attempting to deal rationally with a serious social problem. As the author says in the preface, You may see this as a disorderly book about disorderly houses--and so it may be. But I doubt you will find it dull.

A timely and lively summary and analysis of the Supreme Court's justifications for overruling nearly 300 prior rulings in its history

The immense controversy surrounding the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022, which overruled Roe v. Wade and erased the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, has focused public attention on how and why the Supreme Court knocks down long-established precedents.

In his vivid and accessible style, scholar Clarke Rountree recounts the rhetorical pirouettes and linguistic acrobatics the court has deployed to explain its reversal of Dobbs and numerous other landmark decisions. He reviews strategies the court uses to undermine a previous court's standing without undermining its own. He analyzes overrulings across time, by type (constitutional cases versus statutory and common law cases), by the ages of the overturned precedents, with changes in the court's membership, and through other variables.

Rountree gives engrossing accounts of pivotal overrulings in the past, such as when Lincoln's Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase used the Legal Tender Act in 1862 to raise money for the Civil War then ruled the same law unconstitutional in 1870 when he served as chief justice. Rountree retells Thomas Edison's attempt to monopolize the burgeoning film industry, which was stopped only when the Supreme Court overturned an earlier patent-rights case in 1917. Finally, Rountree applies his myriad insights to the politically fraught Dobbs case.

Overturned makes a valuable contribution to law, rhetoric, politics, and history, and readers interested in the role and function of America's highest court will find Rountree's account fast-paced, lively, and engaging.

Sounds of Tohi: Cherokee Health and Well-Being in Southern Appalachia is the result of almost two decades of work by medical anthropologist Lisa J. Lefler and Cherokee elder and traditionalist Thomas N. Belt. The narrative consists of a dialogue between them that displays traditional Indigenous knowledge as well as the importance of place for two people from cultures and histories that intersect in the mountains of Southern Appalachia. Together, Lefler and Belt decolonize thinking about health, well-being, and environmental issues through the language and experiences of people whose identity is inextricably linked to the mountains and landscape of western North Carolina.

Lefler and Belt discuss several critical cultural concepts that explain the science of relationships with this world, with the spirit world, and with people. They explore tohi, the Cherokee concept of health, which offers a more pervasive understanding of relationships in life as balanced and moving forward in a good way. They converse about the importance of matrilineality, particularly in light of community healing, the epistemologies of Cherokee cosmography, and decolonizing counseling approaches.

The discussions here offer a different way of approaching the issues that face Americans in this difficult time of division. Lefler and Belt share their urgency to take action against the wholesale exploitation of public lands and the shared environment, to work to perpetuate tribal languages, to preserve the science that can make a difference in how people treat one another, and to create more forums that are inclusive of Native and marginalized voices and that promote respect and appreciation of one another and the protection of sacred places. Throughout, they rely on the preservation of traditional knowledge, or Native science, via Native language to provide insight as to why people should recognize a connection to the land.

To an American, oligarchy is something that happens somewhere else. In Oligarchy in America, Luke Winslow reveals oligarchy's deep intellectual roots and alarming growth in America. The book provides conceptual tools the lack of which have prevented Americans from recognizing oligarchy at home.

Winslow argues that generic labels like billionaires for a class of ultra-rich masks the pervasive structures that entrench their power. He introduces instead the concept of democratic oligarchy--an institutional arrangement in which the ultra-rich form a class consciously creating and leveraging state power to accumulate wealth.

Like a master class in political ideas, Winslow traces the intellectual lineage of oligarchy in the US. His lively and compulsively readable survey examines key rhetorical sources such as Herbert Spencer, Andrew Carnegie, Friedrich Hayek, Lewis Powell, Milton Friedman, Charles Koch, Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and others.

Oligarchy in America maps the connective web of oligarchic ideas uniting these disparate figures. By offering a lucid framework through which to view oligarchic ideas ambient in American culture, Winslow makes a vital contribution to readers and scholars of communication and rhetorical studies, public address, economics, and political science.