Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Stamped from the Beginning is a history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and became deeply rooted in American society. Ibram X. Kendi argues that racist thought remains alive in America, more sophisticated and insidious than ever, with a long history implicating nearly every major American thinker. Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas throughout American history, using the life stories of five major American intellectuals to structure the narrative: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and activist Angela Davis. He demonstrates that racist ideas were not born from ignorance or hatred, but were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. By examining this history, the book offers tools for exposing racist thinking. The work won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was named a New York Times Bestseller and Washington Post Bestseller.