Race and the American Story

Abstract

Abstract Race and the American Story interrogates contemporary race relations in the United States through the lenses of history, politics, music, and diverse lived experiences. The book relates the joint efforts of two professors at the University of Missouri—a white, male political scientist and a Black, female ethnomusicologist—to heal a college campus torn apart by racism in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown in 2014. It explores the insights the authors gained through this experience into the personal and social effects of racism, as well as the means and prospects for successfully addressing racism in the future. Combining an open acknowledgment of the realities of racism with a hopeful approach to confronting it, Shonekan and Seagrave offer a perspective on issues of race that cuts across recent debates. In so doing, Race and the American Story offers a historically sensitive, culturally informed, and refreshingly novel treatment of race in the United States.