Research Catalog

City of Islands : Caribbean Intellectuals in New York

Title: City of Islands : Caribbean Intellectuals in New York / Tammy L. Brown.
Author: Brown, Tammy L., 1976-
Publication: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2015]
Supplementary Content: Cover image

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	Sc E 15-1944	Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Description

xix, 273 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Tammy L. Brown uses the life stories of West Indian intellectuals to investigate the dynamic history of immigration to New York and the long battle for racial equality in modern America. The majority of the 40,000 black immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island during the first wave of Caribbean immigration to New York hailed from the English-speaking Caribbean--mainly Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad. Arriving at the height of the Industrial Revolution and a new era in black culture and progress, these black immigrants dreamed of a more prosperous future. However, northern-style Jim Crow hindered their upward social mobility. In response, Caribbean intellectuals delivered speeches and sermons, wrote poetry and novels, and created performance art pieces challenging the racism that impeded their success. Brown traces the influences of religion as revealed at Unitarian minister Ethelred Brown's Harlem Community Church and in Richard B. Moore's fiery speeches on Harlem street corners during the age of the 'New Negro.' She investigates the role of performance art and Pearl Primus's declaration that 'dance is a weapon for social change' during the long civil rights movement. Shirley Chisholm's advocacy for women and all working-class Americans in the House of Representatives and as a presidential candidate during the peak of the Feminist Movement moves the book into more overt politics. Novelist Paule Marshall's insistence that black immigrant women be seen and heard in the realm of American Arts and Letters at the advent of 'multiculturalism' reveals the power of literature. The wide-ranging styles of West Indian campaigns for social justice reflect the expansive imaginations and individual life stories of each intellectual Brown studies. In addition to deepening our understanding of the long battle for racial equality in America, these life stories reveal the powerful interplay between personal and public politics"--

Series Statement

Caribbean studies series

Uniform Title

Caribbean studies series (Jackson, Miss.)

Subjects

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-264) and index.

Contents

Prologue: An Autobiography of the Biographer -- The Personal Is Political : An Introduction -- Caribbean New York -- Ethelred Brown and the Character of New Negro Leadership -- Richard B. Moore and Pan-Caribbean Consciousness -- Pearl Primus and the Performance of African Diasporic Identities -- Shirley Chisholm and the Style of Multicultural Democracy -- Paule Marshall and the Voice of Black Immigrant Women -- Coda: "Garvey's Ghost" : Life after Death.

Call Number

Sc E 15-1944

ISBN

9781628462265
1628462264
9781626746398 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2015006780
40025242107

OCLC

893899236

Author

Brown, Tammy L., 1976- author.

Title

City of Islands : Caribbean Intellectuals in New York / Tammy L. Brown.

Publisher

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2015]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Caribbean studies series

Caribbean studies series (Jackson, Miss.)

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-264) and index.

Connect to:

Cover image

Other Standard Identifier

40025242107

Research Call Number

Sc E 15-1944

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