BLACK PROFILES in COURAGE: A LEGACY of AFRICAN-AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Alan Steinberg







Originally published in 1996.

With Black Profiles in Courage, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar presents a look at American history through a different lens than you usually see. This book follows from even before the arrival of Columbus through Rosa Parks receiving her just accolades in the 1990's. His underlying theme, as explained in the title, is that African-Americans have been contributing in important ways the entire time, but they are often "whitewashed" from history.

Abdul-Jabbar is best known for his time as a top-level basketball player. But he is not just a jock (if you are a fan, you know he never was JUST a jock.) He is also an amateur historian - and quite a thoughtful one. Clearly, he was inspired by the book Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy but this book is not structured in any way like that classic.

The book starts with its weakest proposition from a historical perspective. There are historians that assert that African peoples were heavily involved in Mesoamerican history (Mayas, Aztecs, Olmecs) and Abdul-Jabbar agrees with them. While it is interesting to ponder, I think that, at best, it can be said that there maybe some influence there - or maybe not. We cannot be definitively sure, even if there are tantalizingly suggestive clues, due to the lack of historical records on both sides of the Atlantic and a genetic record that has been muddled by intermixing for the last 500+ years. 

But, the rest of the book is really quite strong. I very much enjoyed his biographical sketches of Crispus Attucks, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, especially Crispus Attucks. Abdul-Jabbar makes a solid case that the people he discusses should be part of everyone's history books, not just special themed history books.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: BLACK PROFILES in COURAGE: A LEGACY of AFRICAN-AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Alan Steinberg.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

THE PRICE YOU PAY (Peter Ash #8) (audiobook) by Nick Petrie

Image
Published in 2024 by Penguin Audio. Read by Stephen Mendel. Duration: 13 hours, 18 minutes, Unabridged. Almost every book of this series follows this model: 1) Peter Ash, a retired Marine travels the backroads of America in an effort to deal with his PTSD from his service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Peter is more than competent in a fight and he is much smarter than the average wandering do-gooder but he eventually runs into a person that needs so much help that even Peter can't take care of it.  2) At that point he calls his friend and business partner Lewis for backup.  Lewis is also a former soldier, but his post-Army life is much more checkered. The details have always been been kept shrouded in mystery, but everyone knows that it was a criminal enterprise.  3) Lewis shows up with a whole lot of guns and his special talents for mayhem and destruction and Peter and Lewis kick butt. ***** It's a formula, but I like the formula. It's time-honored and has been used in plenty...
Read more

WELCOMING the STRANGER: JUSTICE, COMPASSION, and TRUTH in the IMMIGRATION DEBATE by Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang

Image
Published in 2018 by IVP. A few years ago I was determined to learn a lot about immigration in the United States. I bought Welcoming the Stranger during that time, but I put it aside because the other books I had read were, to put it simply, not good.  So, this book went into the dreaded to-be-read pile, and it might have stayed there forever except for the reelection of President Trump. His actions to fight immigration of just about any sort prompted me to pick up this book and learn a little more about the immigration system. Even though this book was written in 2018, just 7 years ago, some parts of it felt hopelessly out of date thanks to Trump's relentless push against so many norms, rules, and laws in 2025 when it comes to immigration.  The basics are there, however, so the book does have value as a primer on immigration. But, the book is more than that - it is a Christian look at this issue because the authors work for World Relief , a Christian organization that works ...
Read more

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL by Kurt Vonnegut and Ryan North.

Image
Adapted by Ryan North. Illustrated by Albert Monteys. Graphic novel published in 2020 by Archaia.  Original novel published in 1969. This is my third review of Slaughterhouse-Five. I've reviewed the audiobook , the written novel , and now the graphic novel.  All are different, of course. I've given 5 out of 5 stars to every version, but the graphic novel is the weakest of the three. It's a good graphic novel, but it seemed a little thin when compared to the novel. It's good for its medium. I'm not going to review the plot of one of the most famous anti-war books of the last century - it's too well-known for that. Vonnegut can be weird, but he's always approachable. He writes in an friendly, easy to follow style, no matter if it is the audiobook, the written novel, or this graphic novel. But, if the very idea of reading this book intimidates you, read the graphic novel. It hits the main plot points and it would certainly support you if you went ahead and read...
Read more

THE CORROSION of CONSERVATISM: WHY I LEFT the RIGHT (kindle) by Max Boot

Image
Published in October of 2018 by Liveright. 2016 was a moment of reckoning for political writer Max Boot. Boot wrote for all of the well-known Conservative publications - The Weekly Standard , The Wall Street Journal , etc. He appeared on TV shows and radio shows and describes himself as a "movement conservative". But, the rise of Donald Trump and his subsequent election made him change his registration from Republican to Independent in protest. Why? In his own words: "In March 2016, I had written that Trump was a 'character test' for the GOP: 'Do you believe in the open and inclusive party of Ronald Reagan? Or do you want a bigoted and extremist party in the image of Donald Trump?' To my growing horror, most Republicans were failing the test." I picked up The Corrosion of Conservatism because I felt the same way. There is no point in laying out all of arguments against Trump - everyone has heard them. Like Boot, I was dismayed that "...most Rep...
Read more

THE FEARLESS BENJAMIN LAY: THE QUAKER DWARF WHO BECAME the FIRST REVOLUTIONARY ABOLITIONIST (audiobook) by Marcus Rediker

Image
Published in 2017 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Cornell Womack. Duration: 7 hours, 2 minutes. Unabridged. As the title states, Benjamin Lay (1682-1759) was indeed a Quaker and a dwarf. He grew up in the Quaker faith in England, learned how to spin cloth and sew gloves and then took those skills to see and became a sailor. Eventually, he settled in Barbados and became a merchant. Barbados was a plantation colony and Lay got to know several of the slaves and their owners and the experience turned him into an abolitionist, a concept that was nearly unknown in a world where slavery was commonplace. Lay moved to Philadelphia and naturally joined the local Quakers. Lay had always been an agitator back in England and was often in trouble with local church officials for questioning what they were teaching. Now, he ramped things up considerably in the hopes of convincing the Quakers that slavery was an evil that should not be tolerated in their midst. He published an anti-slavery book that was p...
Read more

THE ORIGINAL (audiobook) by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal

Image
  Published in September of 2020 by Recorded Books. Read by Julia Whelan. Duration: 3 hours, 30 minutes. Unabridged. Brandon Sanderson is one of the go-to names in science fiction and fantasy in the 21st Century. He has been nominated for or has won just about all of the major awards. Mary Robinette Kowal has similar credentials. Together, they created this audiobook-exclusive novella. This audiobook clocks in at 3 hours and 30 minutes, but it is an action-packed 3 hours and 30 minutes that takes the listener into an all-too-plausible (mostly) and creepy world. Mary Robinette Kowal The Original begins with Holly Winseed waking up in a hospital. She has no idea why she is there and gets very confusing answers from the staff. Soon, she realizes that she is a cloned copy of herself. Winseed lives in a future filled with nano-technology, including in the human bloodstream. The tiny robots keep people healthy and young.  It also allows the government to access your mind. Then, th...
Read more

Murder at the National Gallery (Capital Crime Mysteries) by Margaret Truman

Image
Published in 1997. Synopsis: Part of the series that features a murder in many prominent Washington, D.C. buildings, Murder at the National Gallery is all about the intrigues surrounding the opening of an art show featuring Renaissance artist Caravaggio and a "lost" piece of art that was found just in time for the show. Will the murderer be satisfied with just the murder of a member of the Italian diplomatic corps who had a reputation for stealing Italian masterpieces and selling them to foreign buyers? Are the rumors of forged paintings true? Did someone steal a priceless piece of art? My Review: Mrs. Truman knows her stuff when it comes to the Washington, D.C. social scene because yes, she is the daughter of Harry Truman. This is really a decent book. I've read others in this series and found them of varying quality. However, I found the topic interesting and I was introduced to the concept of 'Art Police.' Washington, D.C. has its very own squad to inv...
Read more

SUICIDE RUN: THREE HARRY BOSCH STORIES (kindle) by Michael Connelly

Image
Published by Little, Brown and Company in 2011. LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is back on the case in these three short stories. Fans of the series know that Harry has had a long career in print and he had already had a long career before he started showing up in Michael Connelly's books. These stories are at varied points in his career, he has various partners and co-workers from throughout the series show up and he has various degrees of success in them. Two of the stories are quite short - short enough that I was just starting to settle in for a good Harry Bosch story and they just...ended. The third is a pretty good story and just long enough that I found myself wishing that Connelly had fleshed it out a bit more into full book length. I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories .
Read more

THE BIG EMPTY (Elvis Cole/Joe Pike #20) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

Image
Published by Brilliance Audio in 2025. Read by Luke Daniels. Duration: 8 hours, 25 minutes. Unabridged. My synopsis: Elvis Cole is back on the case in The Big Empty . This time around he is working for a social media personality that specializes in making muffins and making people who watch the videos feel included, like they are talking to the girl next door.  This social media star wants to hire Cole to figure out why her dad went missing about 10 years before. She hired an quality Private Investigations firm earlier, but the results were inconclusive. Her handlers are not enthused about reopening old wounds, but she overrules them. Cole heads out to the small town (by L.A. standards) where her father disappeared and finds lots of stuff - including people who are determined to keep the secrets of the past buried in the past... My review: This was a complicated mystery with an ending that leaves a lot of moral questions about what is best for just a few people vs. what is best for...
Read more

The Pilots by James Spencer

Image
\ An excellent book of vignettes about World War II's Pacific Theater Published in 2003 by Putnam Adult The Pilots consists of a series of short stories, mostly about American pilots of B-24s in the Pacific Theater in World War II. The stories are all related to one another but any one of them is also a stand-alone story on its own (in fact, the author notes in the back note that 5 of the stories were previously published independent of one another in magazines). The dust jacket liner notes call it a novel-in-stories. Spencer's book consists of 15 vignettes about the lives of two pilots. The first one is about their childhood. It is by far the weakest of the stories. It has the least to do with the war, but it is a decent little story about the Great Depression. The rest of them give us a little taste of the action in the air over the Pacific but also a sense of life back on base and on the atmosphere of the pilots on leave in Australia. The book is a breeze to...
Read more