ontheshelf Racing While Black: How An African American Stock Car Team Made Its Mark On NASCAR BY LEONARD T. MILLER ’83 PUBLISHED BY SEVEN STORIES PRESS, 2010 THE WORLD OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for Stock Car Racing (NASCAR)—played out on huge racetracks in front of thousands of people—has largely been a tightly closed community of predominantly white fans and participants. Lenny Miller ’83 and his father Leonard W. Miller have been part of the ongoing effort to diversify NASCAR. The Morehouse alum talks about the experience in his book Racing While Black: How an African American Stock Car Team Made Its Mark on NASCAR. “We found that in the industry, a lot of black history and efforts are either swept under the rug or forgotten because the few efforts that were out there, most of those folks didn’t take the time to write a book,” Miller said during a C-Span2 Book TV interview in 2010. “I wrote the book to voice my opinion on our experience and give it a real hardcore perspective on what my dad and I went through in the Carolinas at the grass roots level in NASCAR.” Miller talks candidly about the steps the Miller Racing Group took to put a car and driver on the track, get sponsors and gain acceptance from the people around them. Those experiences ranged from the open arms the owners of a small track in Concord, N.C., gave the Millers to the N-word being hurled at them from fellow race teams and fans to the difficulty in getting corporate America to sponsor a black racing team. Despite a rocky relationship with NASCAR brass, the Millers fielded a winning team from 2005 to 2007, including a Late Model series championship in 2005. But Miller said that calling their effort a success depends on the perspective. “After one Saturday night of racing, [a race official] motioned for my dad to join her behind our trailer and said, ‘Mr. Miller, the teams around here say you’re not a nigger, but a real man,’” Miller said in the book. “I’m not sure I’d call the sentiment a victory – yet,” he added. “Maybe, one day, as an African American driver revs up his or her engine at the beginning of the Daytona 500, we will be able to call it a start.” ■
From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, Haiti, and Pan Americanism, 1870-1964 BY MILLERY POLYNE ’96 PUBLISHED BY UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA, 2010 THE UNITED STATES WAS one of the first nations to come to the aid of Haiti after a devastating January 2010 earthquake rocked the Caribbean country. The response came not only because of the seriousness of the situation, but also because of a long history that connects the two countries. Millery Polyne ’96 looks at part of that history in his book From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, Haiti, and Pan Americanism, 1870-1964. Polyne, who is an assistant professor in New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, looked to Haitian and American journalists, artists and intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass to take a critical look at the way U.S. policies in the Caribbean shaped Pan Americanism in the region from the 19th century through the early 1960s during the term of Haitian ruler, Francois Duvalier. “Taking a historical look at U.S. African American and Haitian affairs within the framework of interAmerican relations, the book demonstrates the articulations, implementations and critiques of Pan Americanism,” Polyne said in the book’s introduction. “Additionally the reader will discover many instances of when persistent and insidious systems of white supremacy, economic dependence, paternalism and Haitian political instability compromised the actions of these two groups,” he said. ■
The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama: A Critical Analysis of a Racially Transcendent Strategy By DEWEY M. CLAYTON ’81 PUBLISHED BY ROUTLEDGE, 2010 THE WORLD WAS ABUZZ when Barack Obama made history by becoming the nation’s first African American president. But how did he do it? University of Louisville political science professor Dewey M. Clayton ’81 provides answers in his book, The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama: A Critical Analysis of a Racially Transcendent Strategy. Clayton examines the history of African Americans in the American political process, previous presidential campaigns of African Americans and the winning blueprint for success that propelled Obama into the White House. The majority of the book is dedicated to Obama’s campaign. Clayton not only looks at the Obama team, but also shines a light on, among other things, the media’s role in the 2008 race, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Republican candidate John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin. “Theoretically, this book causes us to reexamine how one runs a successful campaign for the presidency of the United States,” Clayton said in the book’s introduction. “Obama has created a whole new paradigm on how to campaign, how to organize, strategize, fund raise, get out the vote, build coalitions and use modern technology to connect with voters in the 21st century. It also forces us to reexamine the role of race in American politics and how changing demographics may make the traditional style of campaigning a thing of the past.” Lauded as a balanced and exhaustive look at the 2008 presidential campaign, the book is being used as a textbook at several college campuses. “His book is a must-read for teachers, students, and researchers with an interest in the role of race in American history and one African American candidate’s ability to overcome insurmountable odds,” said University of Florida political scientist Sharon Wright Austin. “I can’t wait to use this book in my classes.”■
Editor’s Note: This column is open to Morehouse alumni, faculty and staff who have recently published books. Please contact Add Seymour Jr. at aseymour@morehouse.edu to submit your work. S P R I N G
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