In Transatlantic Liverpool: Shades of the Black Atlantic, Mark Christian presents a Black British study within the context of the transatlantic and Liverpool, England. Taking a semi-autoethnographic approach based on the author's Black Liverpool heritage, Christian interacts with Paul Gilroy's notion of the Black Atlantic. Yet, provides a fresh perspective that takes into account a famous British slave port's history that has been overlooked or under-utilized. The longevity of Black presence in the city involves a history of discrimination, stigma, and a population group known colloquially as Liverpool Born Blacks (LBBs). Crucially, this book provides the reader with a deeper insight of the transatlantic in regard to the movement of Black souls and their struggle for acceptance in a hostile environment. This book is an evocative, passionate, and revealing read.
Mark Christian is professor in the Department of Africana Studies at the City University of New York.
Acknowledgments Introduction Theorizing Transatlantic Liverpool and the Black Atlantic Paradigm Life and Times in a Liverpool Black Family - The Christians Schooling, L8 Community Football, Grassroots Education, and Mainstream Miseducation Anti-Black Riots, Resistance & Black Organization Demise: 1919-2000s A Tale of Two Freedoms: Contemporary Self-Reflexivity and the Memory of Frederick Douglass Appendices Liverpool City Council Slave Apology Minutes - from December 9, 1999 The Age of Slave Apologies: The Case of Liverpool, England - transcript of public lecture presented by Dr. Mark Christian, November 14, 2007 Front cover: CWCN Reports on Historic Slave Apology (Issue 26: December 1999) Consortium of Black Organisations - Liverpool- Response to LCC Slave Apology Front cover: CWCN Celebration of College Status (Issue 12: December 1992) CWCN Editorial denounces drastic cuts to funding by LCC (Issue 21: June 1997) Liverpool Echo (August 27, 1997) - Report praised CWC teaching Front cover: CWCN (Issue 1: June 1987) - Evidence of LCC fight to close CWC in 1987 Front cover: CWCN (Issue 25: June 1999) - Reports on Lawrence Inquiry and Racism CWCN (Issue 12: December 1992, p.13) - Proof of Jacqueline N. Brown visiting CWC. Front cover: CWCN (Issue 8: December 1990) - Dr. William E. Nelson Jr at CWC Dr Mark Christian Community Education Award from The Voice 1999 Bibliography Index About the Author
"Transatlantic Liverpool: Shades of the Black Atlantic, by Mark Christian, is one of the most remarkable contemporary intellectual auto-ethnographies. Christian, a brilliant and insightful scholar, has integrated his theoretical, biographical, and critical observations to produce the most, to date, profound book on race and culture in Britain. Using the backdrop of his ancestry as the tapestry of color, rhythm, and dance on which he placed the abiding issue of white racial supremacy, Christian makes the pitch for a more human and a more humane construction of culture. With this work, and its strong Afrocentric understanding, Mark Christian has asserted his dominance in the field of race and culture in Britain, with implications for the rest of the world." -- Molefi Kete Asante, author of The Precarious Center "Transatlantic Liverpool is a semi-autoethnography that draws on and analyzes the lived experiences of Mark Christian and connects those insights to an examination of Africana studies. Christian challenges Paul Gilroy's 'black Atlantic' which describes a cultural-political space that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but is a hybrid mix of all of these. Transatlantic Liverpool disagrees with this approach. Christian contends that traditional African culture is different from Eurocentrism. An African centered framework encourages the preservation of African American culture which is manifested in language, cuisine, music, dance, and clothing. Transatlantic Liverpool is an enlightening, well-written, and lively analysis of Africana critical studies." -- Leland Ware, University of Delaware
