Freedom Dreams
The Black Radical Imagination
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Freedom Dreams
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
J. D. Jackson
About this listen
Kelley unearths freedom dreams in this exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora in the 20th century. Focusing on the visions of activists from C. L. R. James to Aime Cesaire and Malcolm X, Kelley writes of the hope that Communism offered, the mindscapes of Surrealism, the transformative potential of radical feminism, and of the 400-year-old dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. From "the preeminent historian of black popular culture" (Cornel West), an inspiring work on the power of imagination to transform society.
©2018 Robin D. G. Kelley (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Black Marxism
- The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, Third Edition
- By: Cedric J. Robinson, Robin D.G. Kelley - foreword, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard - preface, and others
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
In this ambitious work, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand Black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of Black people and Black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism, Robinson argues, must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of Blacks on Western continents, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
"Racial Capitalism"
- By Don Morris on 09-02-22
By: Cedric J. Robinson, and others
-
Let This Radicalize You
- Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care
- By: Kelly Hayes, Mariame Kaba
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 28
What fuels and sustains activism and organizing when it feels like our worlds are collapsing? Let This Radicalize You is a practical and imaginative resource for activists and organizers building power in an era of destabilization and catastrophe. Longtime organizers and movement educators Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes examine some of the political lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and consider what this confluence of power can teach us about a future that will require mass acts of care, rescue, and defense, in the face of both state violence and environmental disaster.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Radicalize
- By John H. on 01-25-25
By: Kelly Hayes, and others
-
Race Rebels
- Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class
- By: Robin D.G. Kelley
- Narrated by: L. Malaika Cooper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1
Many black strategies of daily resistance have been obscured—until now. Race rebels, argues Kelley, have created strategies of resistance, movements, and entire subcultures. Here, for the first time, everyday race rebels are given the historiographical attention they deserve, from the Jim Crow era to the present.
-
Black Skin, White Masks
- By: Frantz Fanon, Richard Philcox - translator
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. Fanon's masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of listeners. A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It was ok
- By Anne on 05-10-25
By: Frantz Fanon, and others
-
Elite Capture
- How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)
- By: Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
- Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smth
- Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom. But the “identity politics” so compulsively referenced bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, “identity politics” is now frequently weaponized as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An Essential Read
- By TheFrozenBiscuit on 04-22-23
-
Thelonious Monk
- The Life and Times of an American Original
- By: Robin DG Kelley
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 25 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 148
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Thelonious Monk is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist's struggle to "make it" without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the 20th century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of "bebop" and establishing Monk as one of America's greatest composers.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The definitive bio of Monk
- By ricardo on 12-27-17
By: Robin DG Kelley
-
Black Marxism
- The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, Third Edition
- By: Cedric J. Robinson, Robin D.G. Kelley - foreword, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard - preface, and others
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
In this ambitious work, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand Black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of Black people and Black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism, Robinson argues, must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of Blacks on Western continents, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
"Racial Capitalism"
- By Don Morris on 09-02-22
By: Cedric J. Robinson, and others
-
Let This Radicalize You
- Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care
- By: Kelly Hayes, Mariame Kaba
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 28
What fuels and sustains activism and organizing when it feels like our worlds are collapsing? Let This Radicalize You is a practical and imaginative resource for activists and organizers building power in an era of destabilization and catastrophe. Longtime organizers and movement educators Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes examine some of the political lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and consider what this confluence of power can teach us about a future that will require mass acts of care, rescue, and defense, in the face of both state violence and environmental disaster.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Radicalize
- By John H. on 01-25-25
By: Kelly Hayes, and others
-
Race Rebels
- Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class
- By: Robin D.G. Kelley
- Narrated by: L. Malaika Cooper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1
Many black strategies of daily resistance have been obscured—until now. Race rebels, argues Kelley, have created strategies of resistance, movements, and entire subcultures. Here, for the first time, everyday race rebels are given the historiographical attention they deserve, from the Jim Crow era to the present.
-
Black Skin, White Masks
- By: Frantz Fanon, Richard Philcox - translator
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. Fanon's masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of listeners. A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It was ok
- By Anne on 05-10-25
By: Frantz Fanon, and others
-
Elite Capture
- How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)
- By: Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
- Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smth
- Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom. But the “identity politics” so compulsively referenced bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, “identity politics” is now frequently weaponized as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An Essential Read
- By TheFrozenBiscuit on 04-22-23
-
Thelonious Monk
- The Life and Times of an American Original
- By: Robin DG Kelley
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 25 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 148
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Thelonious Monk is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist's struggle to "make it" without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the 20th century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of "bebop" and establishing Monk as one of America's greatest composers.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The definitive bio of Monk
- By ricardo on 12-27-17
By: Robin DG Kelley
-
Hammer and Hoe
- Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
- By: Robin D. G. Kelley
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 104
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate Black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of Whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. In this book, Robin D. G. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I should like this book more
- By bkpiper on 11-17-21
-
In the Wake
- On Blackness and Being
- By: Christina Sharpe
- Narrated by: Melanie Nicholls-King
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake". Activating multiple registers of "wake" - the path behind a ship, keeping watch with the dead, coming to consciousness - Sharpe illustrates how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and she delineates what survives despite such insistent violence and negation.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Necessary reading
- By Joe Wilson on 08-10-24
By: Christina Sharpe
-
An African American and Latinx History of the United States
- By: Paul Ortiz
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 472
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 417
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 412
Spanning more than 200 years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress, and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms American history into the story of the working class organizing against imperialism.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I had to return
- By Andrew Alvarez on 05-19-20
By: Paul Ortiz
-
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us
- Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice
- By: Mariame Kaba
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 109
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 95
What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
content is great, but audiobook is unlistenable
- By Lesley Bredell on 03-22-22
By: Mariame Kaba
-
Abolition. Feminism. Now.
- The Abolitionist Papers
- By: Gina Dent, Angela Y. Davis, Beth Richie, and others
- Narrated by: Gina Dent
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 88
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 88
As a politic and a practice, abolition increasingly shapes our political moment - halting the construction of new jails and propelling movements to divest from policing. Yet erased from this landscape are not only the central histories of feminist - usually queer, anti-capitalist, grassroots, and women of color - organizing that continue to cultivate abolition but a recognition of a stark reality: Abolition is our best response to endemic forms of state and interpersonal gender and sexual violence.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Direct
- By P. Donaldson on 12-30-24
By: Gina Dent, and others
-
Decolonial Marxism
- Essays from the Pan-African Revolution
- By: Walter Rodney
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 21
Early in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black diaspora. He was not only a witness of a Pan-African and socialist internationalism, but a prime actor in mass organization, catalyzing rebellious ferment, and theorizing an anti-colonial path to self-emancipation. This volume demonstrates the unbending consistency that unites his life and work: the ongoing reinvention of living conception of Marxism, and a respect for the still untapped potential of mass self-rule.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Another Rodney Classic
- By Amazon Customer on 03-26-24
By: Walter Rodney
-
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
- King Legacy Series #1
- By: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 533
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 483
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 483
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s account of the first successful large-scale application of nonviolent resistance in America is comprehensive, revelatory, and intimate. King described his book as "the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who, in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth."
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A look into the mind of Dr King
- By Georgia Burns on 02-06-16
-
Teaching to Transgress
- Education as the Practice of Freedom
- By: bell hooks
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 700
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 588
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 580
In Teaching to Transgress, Bell Hooks - writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual - writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for Hooks, the teacher's most important goal. Bell Hooks speakes to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom? Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines a practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world of emotions and feelings. This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Useful but not earthshaking
- By Lana Whited on 11-20-18
By: bell hooks
-
Punished for Dreaming
- How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal
- By: Bettina L. Love
- Narrated by: Bettina L. Love, Karen Chilton
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 55
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 46
In Punished for Dreaming Dr. Bettina Love argues forcefully that Reagan’s presidency ushered in a War on Black Children, pathologizing and penalizing them in concert with the War on Drugs. New policies punished schools with policing, closure, and loss of funding in the name of reform, as white savior, egalitarian efforts increasingly allowed private interests to infiltrate the system. These changes implicated children of color, and Black children in particular, as low performing, making it all too easy to turn a blind eye to their disproportionate conviction and incarceration.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wow!!!
- By TKL on 10-20-23
By: Bettina L. Love
-
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
- Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval
- By: Saidiya Hartman
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 133
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 133
In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the 20th century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Utterly beautiful!
- By L.A. on 12-27-19
By: Saidiya Hartman
-
Black and Blur
- Consent Not to Be a Single Being, Book 1
- By: Fred Moten
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 6
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 6
In Black and Blur - the first volume in his sublime and compelling trilogy Consent Not to Be a Single Being - Fred Moten engages in a capacious consideration of the place and force of Blackness in African diaspora arts, politics, and life. In these interrelated essays, Moten attends to entanglement, the blurring of borders, and other practices that trouble notions of self-determination and sovereignty within political and aesthetic realms.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fantastic
- By Chris Hall on 04-06-25
By: Fred Moten
-
Rest Is Resistance
- A Manifesto
- By: Tricia Hersey
- Narrated by: Tricia Hersey
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,021
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 936
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 932
What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace—feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit. In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
What an experience
- By makeba jones on 10-26-22
By: Tricia Hersey
Critic reviews
"A bold and provocative celebration of the black radical imagination in the 20th century." (Laura Ciolkowski, The New York Times Book Review)
"Based on Kelley’s belief that to make a better world we must first imagine it, this brilliantly conceived and written book recounts the accomplishments of black activists and thinkers over the past century who have been committed to remaking the world." (Library Journal)
"Through this masterful book of black radical history and philosophy, I can look past the dreariness of our unfree world with the binoculars of the imaginary, learning from those female and male 20th century activists Kelley chronicled, who refused to let any oppressor stop their movement dreams of a free life, of a free world." (Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning)
Sweet soul nourishing Black truths.
YES! Increases Black Women
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Informative, Eye-opening, Hopeful
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Audiobook missing pages
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.