My first book (and an infrequent newsletter)

See the cover for "The Black Utopians," available in fall 2024

Hi,

If you’re getting this email, it’s not random! You may be a longtime friend or a new one, a relative or a beloved former teacher. A month or a decade ago, we had some meaningful exchange — in person or over email — that I haven’t forgotten.

At some point in the last few years, you may have sweetly asked me to let you know once my first book had a release date…

I’m not on social media, but I wanted a way to connect with a small group of people ahead of the publication of my debut, The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America, which comes out in the US on October 1, 2024 (for my friends in the UK: it will be released there sometime in spring 2025). You can pre-order now — it helps!

The book combines narrative history, reportage, and memoir. It’s about African-American intentional communities and utopian thought, spanning the period directly after the Civil War to the present. The book uses the story of one important institution of the Black Power era—a black nationalist church in Detroit (where I was born) called the Shrine of the Black Madonna—to tell a much bigger narrative about countercultural movements that envisioned better worlds for black people. Whether in 19th-century all-black towns, 20th-century communes, or 21st-century eco-villages, black utopians have always led radical, innovative experiments in education, housing, agriculture, art, religion, and all other aspects of life. I also write about my ancestral hometown, Promise Land, Tennessee, one of the oldest-known freedom colonies in the country.

Feel free, of course, to unsubscribe if you don’t want to receive a handful of these book-related newsletters over the next eight months. I’ll probably send 3-4 leading up to the publication.

If you want to stick around, I’d love to know what kinds of things you’d want to read about. In the meantime, please say hello! It would be great to hear from you. And you can get a sneak peek of the beautiful book cover below, which integrates my favorite portrait by the late artist Barkley Hendricks.

Warmly,
Aaron

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