Beyond the Shores

Informationen zum Autor Tamara J. Walker  is a historian and associate professor of Africana studies at Barnard College of Columbia University, where her research and teaching focus on the history of slavery and freedom in Latin America. Her first book, Exquisite Slaves: Race, Clothing, and Status in Colonial Lima,  won the Harriet Tubman Prize awarded by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her writing has appeared in Columbia Global Reports, The Guardian, Slate,  and The Root . Klappentext "An award-winning author charts the poignant journeys of African Americans abroad as she explores her own transatlantic family odyssey in this powerful global history of traveling while Black. Part historical exploration, part travel memoir, Beyond the Shores reveals poignant histories of a diverse group of African Americans who have left the United States over the course of the past century. Tying these tales together is Dr. Tamara J. Walker's personal account of her family's-and her own-experiences abroad, in France, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, and beyond. Together, the interwoven stories highlight African Americans' complicated relationship to the United States and world at large. Beyond the Shores is not just about where African Americans stayed or where they ate when they traveled, but about why they left in the first place and how they were treated once they reached their destinations. Drawing on years of research, Walker chronicles their experiences in atmospheric detail, taking readers from well-known capital cities to more unusual destinations like Yangiyol, Uzbekistan and Kabondo, Kenya. She follows Florence Mills, the would-be Josephine Baker of her day, in Paris, and Richard Wright, the author-turned-actor and filmmaker, in Buenos Aires. She relays tender stories of adventurous travelers, including a group of gifted Black crop scientists in the 1930s, a housewife searching for purpose in the 1950s, a Peace Corps volunteer discovering his identity in the 1970s, and her own grandfather who, after losing his eye fighting in World War II and returning to a country that showed no signs of honoring his sacrifice, set out with his wife and children on a circuitous journey that sent them back and forth across the Atlantic. By sharing the histories of those who escaped the racism of the United States to try their hands at life abroad, Beyond the Shores shines a light on the meaning of home and the search for a better life"--]cProvided by publisher. Leseprobe Chapter 1 The Transatlantic Sensation Florence Mills, Paris and London, 1920s By the time she faced out into the crowd for her Paris debut, Florence Mills was already a stage veteran. Though barely thirty years old, she had a lifetime of performances under her belt, from the neighborhood juke joints where she’d belted out ballads as a toddler to the Broadway theater where she first performed Blackbirds, a musical revue that made her a star. That same show had brought her to the Café des Ambassadeurs on the Champs-Élysées (a combination nightclub and restaurant with a large dance floor separating the stage and dining area) on this night in May 1926. Now the beautiful young woman with the face-framing spit curls was poised for something even bigger. She stood backed by a hundred-person chorus and orchestra and flashed a dazzling smile at the audience, awaiting the drumroll that was her cue. Then she took over with the song, dance, and comedy routines that were as familiar to her at this point as her own heartbeat. “Une artiste véritable,” one paper enthused the next day. The comparisons were inevitable. “Here is Florence Mills, who right away makes us think about Josephine Baker,” wrote the Parisian weekly Le plaisir de vivre. One reason for the association was the circumstances of both women’s arrival in Paris: Florence’s Blackbirds revue had opened in the city less than a...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Tamara Walker, Tamara J Walker, Tamara J. Walker
• Editore: Crown Publishing Group
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 20.06.2023
• EAN: 9780593139059
• ISBN: 978-0-593-13905-9
• Pagine: 352
• Dimensioni: 149 mm x 217 mm x 31 mm
• Categoria: Saggistica > Storia > Altro