Ibram X. Kendi Books
Ibram X. Kendi is an American historian, author, and scholar of race and discrimination.
Known for: Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019, How to Be an Antiracist, Malcolm Lives!, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Books by Ibram X. Kendi
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019
Four Hundred Souls is not a conventional history book. Edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, it is a sweeping, collaborative account of African American history told across four centuries by n...
How to Be an Antiracist
In How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi challenges one of the most comforting myths in modern public life: that it is enough to simply avoid being racist. He argues that neutrality does not exist. ...
Malcolm Lives!
Malcolm Lives! is Ibram X. Kendi’s powerful reflection on why Malcolm X remains one of the most urgent political voices in American life. More than a historical tribute, this essay argues that Malcolm...
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
In this groundbreaking work, Ibram X. Kendi traces the entire history of racist ideas in the United States, from their origins in the 15th century to the present day. Through the lives of five major A...
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1619–1624: The First Rupture in America
Some beginnings are not merely dates; they are wounds that keep shaping the future. In Four Hundred Souls, the years 1619 to 1624 mark the arrival of the first captive Africans at Point Comfort, Virginia, a moment often treated as an isolated fact but here presented as a foundational turning point i...
From Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019
1625–1675: Law Learns the Language of Race
Oppression becomes durable when custom turns into law. The period from 1625 to 1675 shows how colonial authorities transformed African bondage from a set of practices into a racial order with legal force. In these decades, the colonies increasingly defined Blackness as inheritable servitude and whit...
From Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019
1676–1725: Rebellion and Racial Order Evolve
Ruling classes often respond to unrest not by reducing injustice, but by redesigning it. In the years following colonial upheavals such as Bacon’s Rebellion, Four Hundred Souls shows how elites sharpened racial divisions to prevent solidarity among poor Europeans, Africans, and Indigenous people. Th...
From Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019
1726–1775: Liberty’s Promise, Slavery’s Reality
A nation can speak the language of freedom while expanding unfreedom. In the decades leading to the American Revolution, Four Hundred Souls exposes the deep contradiction at the heart of colonial political thought: demands for liberty from British rule coexisted with the violent entrenchment of slav...
From Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019
1776–1825: Black Freedom Beyond the Revolution
Emancipation is never a single event; it is a long struggle over what freedom will actually mean. The years after the American Revolution did not deliver broad liberation for African Americans, but they did open new spaces for Black institution-building, political imagination, and self-definition. F...
From Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019
1826–1875: Abolition, War, and Reconstruction
When unjust systems crack, societies face a defining question: will they transform or merely rearrange power? In Four Hundred Souls, the period from 1826 to 1875 captures one of the most explosive and consequential eras in African American history. Abolitionist organizing intensified, Black activist...
From Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019
About Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi is an American historian, author, and scholar of race and discrimination. He is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a National Book Award winner and one of the...
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Ibram X. Kendi is an American historian, author, and scholar of race and discrimination. He is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a National Book Award winner and one of the...
Ibram X. Kendi is an American historian, author, and scholar of race and discrimination. He is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a National Book Award winner and one of the leading voices in contemporary discussions on race and equity.
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Ibram X. Kendi is an American historian, author, and scholar of race and discrimination.
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