The Long Emancipation Moving toward Black Freedom

"Essential reading. From its first paragraphs Rinaldo Walcott's The Long Emancipation shifts the axis of thought about Black freedom. The astonishing and devastating idea at the center of this book lays out the condition of Black being in the Americas as existing, still, in a state of juridical unfreedom. Once that idea's recalibrating weight and urgency strike you, you must think again where analysis and theory begin. You must begin again." - Dionne Brand, poet, novelist, essayist "In The Long Emancipation Rinaldo Walcott has opened up whole new avenues for thinking about the causes and conditions, the global logics of 'unfreedom' that continue to haunt and imperil Black lives. This rich collection of provocations challenges us to consider the terms and possibilities of living beyond the death zones and extractive economies of capitalism; it invites us to see and feel the audacious eruptions of a blackness exceeding these limits-moving and struggling toward freedom." - Deborah E. McDowell, University of Virginia "Engaging with the works of Sylvia Wynter and Frantz Fanon, Walcott issues a call to rethink the post-Enlightenment conception of the human. It is through this reworking that the book elucidates how we might be able to find real freedom. . . . in Black freedom lies the freedom of us all. Perhaps-if we heed Walcott's call and respond to his challenge to think again and again-then, maybe, freedom is coming, tomorrow." - Lwando Scott (Public Books) "A must-have of any Black reader's library. . . . [H]ighly recommended if you are in search of answers on how to explore oppression and articulate the depths of the Black experience." - Jordannah Elizabeth (Amsterdam News) "Rinaldo Walcott's The Long Emancipation gave me new tools to think with in Black studies." - Elias Rodriques (Bookforum) "Walcott argues that Black people today live in what he calls the "long emancipation," in which, though emancipated from slavery and colonization, they are still not free. . . . Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals."
- J. A. Kegley (Choice) "This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how race relations still affect much of everyday socio-economic and political life in North America, Europe, and the rest of the world." - Ibrahim Bahati (E3W Review of Books)