February 8, 2023
Chicago-Based Publishing Company to Offer Free Black History E-Books
A Chicago-based publishing house will offer free e-books focused on Black history after the College Board revised its Advanced Placement African American studies course earlier this month.
The College Board’s revisions came after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to allow the class in Florida high schools. In the revised course, the subjects of Black queer studies, intersectionality and activism, the reparations movement, and Black scholars associated with critical race theory have been removed. “Black conservatism” was added as a potential research topic.
Now, Haymarket Books, a “radical publisher of politics, culture, current events,” said DeSantis and the “complicit College Board” have forced its hand.
“The racist governor of Florida continues to escalate his attacks on the freedom to learn and teach history,” the publishing house said in a press release last week.
“We at Haymarket stand in solidarity with all those in Florida and across the country who are organizing to resist. We know that books can be dangerous to those in power, especially when they are in the hands of folks who are organizing to fight for liberation. That’s why we publish them. That’s why they’re trying to ban them,” the company added.
Haymarket Books will offer the following e-books for free to download: From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation by Keeanga Yamahtta, which explores why the Black Lives Matter movement is necessary; Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice, edited by Jesse Hagopian and Denisha Jones, which details how the Black Lives Matter movement has challenged institutional racism; and 1919 by Eve L. Ewing, a collection of poems depicting the Chicago race riots of 1919.