In 1981, decades before mainstream America elected Barack Obama, James Chase became the first African American mayor of Spokane, Washington, with the overwhelming support of a majority-white electorate. Chase’s win failed to capture the attention of historians—as had the century-long evolution of the black community in Spokane. In Black Spokane: The Civil Rights Struggle in the Inland Northwest, Dwayne A. Mack corrects this oversight—and recovers a crucial chapter in the history o...

There is a reason why people claim great respect for officers of the law: the job, by description, is hard—if not deadly. It takes a certain kind of person to accept the consequences of the job— seeing the very worst situations, on a regular basis, and knowing that one’s life is on the line every hour of every day. Working in law enforcement is emotionally and psychologically draining. It affects these public servants both on and off the job. Said plainly, shaking an officers’ hand when yo...

Multidisciplinary anthology on teaching issues of race and racism in US college classrooms.The college classroom is inevitably influenced by, and in turn influences, the world around it. In the United States, this means the complex topic of race can come into play in ways that are both explicit and implicit. Teaching Race in Perilous Times highlights and confronts the challenges of teaching race in the United States-from syllabus development and pedagogica...

Between 1940 and 2010, the black population of the American West grew from 710,400 to 7 million. With that explosive growth has come a burgeoning interest in the history of the African American West—an interest reflected in the remarkable range and depth of the works collected in Freedom’s Racial Frontier. Editors Herbert G. Ruffin II and Dwayne A. Mack have gathered established and emerging scholars in the field to create an anthology that links past, current, and future generati...

Violence Against Black Bodies argues that black deaths at the hands of police are just one form of violence that black and brown people face daily in the western world. Through the voices of scholars from different academic disciplines, this book gives readers an opportunity to put the cases together and see that violent deaths in police custody are just one tentacle of the racial order—a hierarchy which is designed to produce trauma and discrimination according to one’s perceived...

This practical guide prepares graduate students of color for their first job in academia and offers strategies for succeeding in the early years of a tenure-track position. Through the voices of faculty who have experienced the rigors of the job search and a career in academia, Beginning a Career in Academia offers advice for graduate students of color on how to transition from graduate school to an academic position. This inclusive volume shares perspectives that vary based on ge...

The college classroom is inevitably influenced by, and in turn influences, the world around it. In the United States, this means the complex topic of race can come into play in ways that are both explicit and implicit. Teaching Race in Perilous Times highlights and confronts the challenges of teaching race in the United States—from syllabus development and pedagogical strategies to accreditation and curricular reform. Across fifteen original essays, contributors draw on their expe...