Stamped
A striking graphic novel edition of the National Book Award-winning history of how racist ideas have shaped American life—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist .
Racism has persisted throughout history—but so have antiracist efforts to dismantle it. Through deep research and a gripping narrative that illuminates the lives of five key American figures, preeminent historian Ibram X. Kendi reveals how understanding and improving the world cannot happen without identifying and facing the racist forces that shape it.
In collaboration with award-winning historian and comic artist Joel Christian Gill, this stunningly illustrated graphic-novel adaptation of Dr. Kendi’s groundbreaking Stamped from the Beginning explores, with vivid clarity and dimensionality, the living history of America, and how we can learn from the past to work toward a more equitable, antiracist future.
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Historical analysis of American racial policy and discrimination reached a major turning point with the publication of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, an exhaustive study tracing anti-Black thought from fifteenth-century Europe to modern society. Author Ibram X. Kendi became the youngest recipient of the National Book Award for Nonfiction for this landmark volume, which reexamined how discriminatory ideas are constructed to justify racist policies.
Born Ibram Henry Rogers in 1982, Kendi pursued a career in higher education and public scholarship, eventually serving as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He later joined Howard University as the Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History and inaugural director of the Howard University Institute for Advanced Study. Beyond his academic leadership, Kendi has served as a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a racial justice contributor for CBS News, writing across multiple genres for adults, young adults, and children.
Kendi's scholarship centers on the historical interplay between racist power, policy, and ideas. A foundational premise throughout his work is that self-interested political and economic policies generate racist ideas to rationalize inequality, rather than racist attitudes spontaneously driving policy creation. In adaptations aimed at younger audiences, such as Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You and Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You, Kendi utilizes accessible definitions, direct conversational engagement, and swift narrative pacing to help readers identify and challenge structural racism in historical and contemporary settings.
Stamped
