Ibram X. Kendi: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

KPFA Radio 94.1FM and St. John's Presbyterian Church present

IBRAM X. KENDI
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Hosted by Kevin Cartwright

advance tickets: $12: T: 800-838-3006 or independent bookstores, $15 door, KPFA benefit kpfa.org/events, FREE PARKING & WHEELCHAIR ACCESS

As National Book Award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi states in his brilliant new book, Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, if we have any hope of grappling successfully with the stark reality of racism, we must first understand how racist ideas were born, developed, disseminated and enshrined in American life.

Kendi offers a deeply researched, provocative narrative that is a comprehensive history of anti-Black racist ideas-their origins in fifteenth century Portugal, their arrival in England in the mid-sixteenth century, their blossoming in the United States, where they became founding principles in our nation's institutions and guarantors of its power. Contrary to popular conceptions, these ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Instead, they were devised and honed by some of the most brilliant minds of each era, including John Locke and Thomas Jefferson.

Kendi narrates this history through the lives of five major characters in American history: early America's most prolific and influential intellectual, Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. President, fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, and the brilliant anti-prison activist Angela Davis.

In illuminating the long, dark history of racism, Kendi offers us the tools we need to overcome all the hatred and injustice. He gives us authentic reason to hope.

Ibram X. Kendi is an assistant professor of African American history at the University of Florida.

$12 advance, $15 door.