"Ambitious and captivating . . . Robertson paints a vivid and beguiling picture of the indomitable human yearning for a safe and nurturing home. It's a must-read." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This enticing mix of personal and general history of Black utopian safe spaces promises to engage readers interested in reckoning with the past and present of Black American experiences and milestones."
--Library Journal "At a time when signs of dystopia and despair abound,
The Black Utopians takes us on a journey to a place--as much inside as around us--where stubborn hopefulness pushes back against the sirens of impossibility. In these pages, utopia is not fanciful and fleeting escapism, but the sweat-soaked soil of freedom dreams and fugitive imagination--nowhere and everywhere at once."
--Ruha Benjamin, author of Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want and Imagination: A Manifesto "An entrancingly rich odyssey of observation and storytelling,
The Black Utopians returns us to forgotten and unknown histories of the ongoing search for a fairer, more equitable America. Aaron Robertson reminds us that integral to Black struggle has been an unbreakable sense of hope, resistance, and joy."
--John Keene, National Book Award-winning author of Punks: New & Selected Poems and Counternarratives "A richly braided and beautifully written account that combines history, personal memoir, and journalism to explore the search for a black utopia. Robertson's tone is elegiac and lyrical, his method grounded in colorfully detailed characters and painstakingly reconstructed examples. This wise and often moving book offers both a slice of a particular utopia as well as a more general portal onto the quest for a better world that has propelled so much human history. A deeply original and major contribution to the literature of utopia."
--Akash Kapur, author of Better to Have Gone: Love, Death and the Quest for Utopia "In this stunning narrative, Aaron Robertson beautifully unveils the hidden spirit of Black utopian yearnings. By telling the forgotten story of the important Detroit pastor, Albert B. Cleage, Jr. and the Shrine of the Black Madonna, which he led, and the 1960s Black freedom struggles, with which he was affiliated--
The Black Utopians deftly shifts from intellectual history to cultural critique to personal memoir. In doing this, Robertson answers a profound question: what does it mean to be free?
The Black Utopians is thus more than just a gripping story; it is an indispensable resource for all those who dream of horizons, and who imagine unimaginable worlds."
--Alex Zamalin, author of Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism "In
The Black Utopians, Aaron Robertson invites readers into a lyrical, rigorous, and deeply personal chronicle of the 'better worlds' that Black Americans have, against all odds, dreamed into being. Robertson's exploration is not merely a historical recounting of collective innovation, but an urgent philosophical quest for what is sacred about the Black utopian imagination in the face of brutal constraints. Robertson's voice is exquisitely clear-eyed, searching, and expansive, offering a perspective as wise as it is intimate. From the postbellum settlement of Promise Land, Tennessee, to the radical social movements of Detroit,
The Black Utopians unearths again and again crucial legacies of Black resistance."
--Adrian Shirk, author of Heaven is a Place on Earth: Searching for an American Utopia
