Power: The Rise of Black Women in America (HC) (2022)

Like a shadow's distended, colorless depiction of reality, the truth about Black women has been contorted. In POWER: THE RISE OF BLACK WOMEN IN AMERICA, Charity C. Elder--award-winning journalist and digital media executive--makes the counterintuitive argument that there has never been a better time to be a Black woman in America. Expertly weaving historical and sociological frameworks with poignant personal narratives, Elder reframes pejorative stereotypes of Black women by reporting on the untold story of triumph and ascendance. An exclusive, new national survey, conducted in partnership with The Marist Poll, strengthens Elder's analysis, finding that most Black women (70 percent) say they have been successful in life and believe they have it in their power to succeed.

Since Angela, one of the first Africans forcibly transported to the American colonies in 1619, Black women have defied intersectional, structural oppressions. Four hundred years later, Black women continue to fight for freedom, while scaling the upper echelons of society: politics, arts, media, education, science, business and beyond. Achievements exemplified in Vice President Kamala Harris, ABC News President Kimberly Godwin, US Naval Academy Brigade Commander Sydney Barber, American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland, and the youngest inaugural poet in US history Amanda Gorman. Success is not an anomaly, but a defining characteristic. Black women have amassed power--now, Elder posits, they need to acknowledge it and then wield the hell out of it.