Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People – The National Book Award Winner's Cultural Meditation on Race, Blues, and Identity

A meditation on the color blue and its role in Black history and culture by National Book Award winner Imani Perry. Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been intertwined with blue. Blue evokes hope for conditions beyond the present, but also represents deep melancholy and heartache, as in Louis Armstrong's question, "What did I do to be so Black and blue?" Perry uses blue as a starting point for an examination of race and Blackness that draws from art, history, and her own life. Perry traces blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to contemporary culture, exploring the indigo-dyed cloths of West Africa traded for human life in the 16th century, the characterization of dark-skinned people as "Blue Black," blues music as an American art form sitting between pain and pleasure, and personal moments such as planting blue flowers to honor someone lost. The work examines both the harrowing and sublime aspects of human experience.