Of Blood and Sweat
Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Ford’s overlap of past and present, narrative and commentary is masterful, and makes this volume all the more valuable to those readers wise enough to allow the past to inform the future. Of Blood and Sweat is a myth-busting work of genius that will stand as the last word on this vital subject for a long time to come.”—Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of A Slave in the White House and The Original Black Elite
In this, provocative, timely, and painstakingly researched book, the award-winning author of Think Black tells the story of how Black labor helped to create and sustain the wealth of the white one percent throughout American history.
Clyde W. Ford uses the lives of individual Black men and women as a lens to explore the role they have played in creating American institutions of power and wealth—in agriculture, politics, jurisprudence, law enforcement, culture, medicine, financial services, and many other fields—while not being allowed to fully participate or share in the rewards. Today, activists have taken the struggle for racial equity and justice to the streets. Of Blood and Sweat goes back through time to excavate the roots of this struggle, from pre-colonial Africa through post-Civil War America. As Ford reveals, in tracing the history of almost any major American institution of power and wealth you’ll find it was created by Black Americans, or created to control them.
Painstakingly researched and documented, Of Blood and Sweat is a compelling look at the past that holds broad implications for present-day calls for racial equity, racial justice, and the abolishment of systemic racism, and offers invaluable insight into our understanding of Black history and the story of America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist and psychotherapist Ford (Think Black) unearths in this fascinating history the inextricable links between America's "systems of power" and the horrors of slavery. From the arrival of enslaved Africans in 17th-century Virginia to the end of Reconstruction in 1877, Ford reveals how "Black lives created White wealth and power," and how African Americans have been met with "outright betrayal and brutality" when they asked for their fair share. He details how the slave trade spurred shipbuilding and other technological advancements, and notes that the modern-day stock and insurance markets were developed in Amsterdam, London, and other European capitals with ties to the slave trade. Ford also explains how enslaved laborers were essential to the tobacco and cotton industries in the U.S. and helped build the first railways in the South, and details how land redistributed to freed Blacks during the Civil War was returned to former slaveholders after President Lincoln's assassination. Throughout, Ford weaves in stories of resistance, noting, for instance, that a Black ship captain "helped foment the largest slave rebellion in South Carolina history"; explains complex financial instruments in lucid terms; and paints vivid scenes of Black life in the U.S. The result is an essential reckoning with the roots of the racial wealth gap in America. Adam Chromy, Movable Type Management.