Anthologies of African American Writing

Black Matters: African American and African College Students and Graduates Tell Their Life Stories

"Black Matters: African American and African College Students and Graduates Tell Their Life Stories". Ed. Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny. New York: Routledge, 2023. 186 pp.

• Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny / Preface
• About the Editors, Introduction Writer
• Chanté Mouton Kinyon / Introduction

PART I. LOST AND FOUND: COMING INTO INDEPENDENCE
• Tyler Malbreaux / Learning in Black and White
• Anthony Luckett / Multihued
• Deirdre Harris / Quest for Peace

PART II. BOTH IN AND OUTSIDE OF BLACKNESS
• Zane Williams / Outside and Between
• Tamara Russell / Growing into My Identity
• Samiir Bolsten / Finding Blackness
• Anise Vance / A Work in Progress

PART IV. FINDING LIBERTY: RENEWAL, REFLECTION, AND REGENERATION
• Deirdre Harris / Quest for Peace: Follow-up
• Samiir Bolsten / Finding Blackness: Follow-up
• Candice Jimerson-Johnson / Living, Learning, and Teaching Life Lessons in Middle Class Blackness: Follow-up to "Gotta Keep Climbin' All De Time"
• Anise Vance / Forever Home: Follow-up to "A Work in Progress"

• Index

"'Black Matters' presents an anthology of stories of African American and African undergraduate and graduate students’ experiences at college, offering lifespan perspectives on their formative relationships and influences, life-changing events, and the role their heritage has played in shaping their personal identities, values, and choices.
Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny bring together contributors who share personal memoirs reflecting on their experience of navigating life on campus as students of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. The ten brave authors, six Black men and four Black women, present thoughtful, often emotional, accounts of moments that transformed their academic, professional, and racial identities. Supplemented by follow-up accounts of four of the graduates, the text underlines developmental perspectives whilst examining what has remained the same about their lives and values, and what has changed over time. The collection explores the notion of hard work and "grit" in overcoming discrimination, racism, and adversity, and how in reality college students who are not part of the racial/cultural majority must contend with the normative identity challenges of late adolescence while carrying the extra burden of "two-ness". Featuring an introduction by Chanté Mouton Kinyon, this anthology examines crucial topics including classroom experience; intellectual stimulation and learning environment; interactions with African American and African students; friendships that crossed the lines of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation, and how collegiate life affects issues related to personal and racial identities.
The rich narratives in 'Black Matters' provide vital insight into the relationship between collegiate experiences and racial identities. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of psychology, education, cultural anthropology, sociology and creative writing, as well as for those responsible for campus climate and student experience." (publisher's website)

• Garrod, Andrew, Janie Victoria Ward, Tracy L. Robinson, and Robert Kilkenny, ed. "Souls Looking Back: Life Stories of Growing Up Black." New York: Routledge, 1999.
Although this volume includes autobiographical essays by 16 student autobiographers, it also includes various critical essays by scholars and the autobiographical essays function somewhat as case-study materials for this work of scholarship. As a result, this volume doesn't have a separate entry in this anthologies project, since it's not really what one typically understands by an anthology. But it contains material related to "Black Matters" and is referred to directly in "Black Matters."

• Garrod, Andrew, Robert Kilkenny, and Christina Gómez, ed. "Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories." Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2013.

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