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America’s Black Capital
February 18 @ 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm EST
The Baton Foundation will host a lecture about how African Americans remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
America’s Black Capital (Basic Books, 2023) tells the remarkable story of how African Americans transformed Atlanta, the former heart of the Confederacy, into today’s so-called Black mecca.
Atlanta is home to some of America’s most prominent Black politicians, artists, businesses, and HBCUs. Yet, in 1861, Atlanta was a final contender to be the capital of the Confederacy. Sixty years later, long after the Civil War, it was the Ku Klux Klan’s sacred “Imperial City.”
America’s Black Capital chronicles how a center of Black excellence emerged amid virulent expressions of white nationalism, as African Americans pushed back against Confederate ideology to create an extraordinary locus of achievement. What drove them, historian Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar shows, was the belief that Black uplift would be best advanced by forging Black institutions. America’s Black Capital is an inspiring story of Black achievement against all odds, with effects that reached far beyond Georgia, shaping the nation’s popular culture, public policy, and politics. Please use this link to purchase the book.
About the Author
Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar is Professor of History and the founding Director of the Center for the Study of Popular Music. He is the author or editor of several books, including Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas, 2007); and The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts and Letters, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). In 2018, he released Keywords for African American Studies (New York University Press), with co-editors Erica R. Edwards and Roderick A. Ferguson. Dr. Ogbar’s articles appear in the Journal of Religious Thought, Journal of Black Studies, Souls, Centro and Radical Society among other academic publications. He has been invited to write for The New York Times’ “Room for Debate” and The Daily Beast, among other publications. His newest book, America’s Black Capital: How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy, released in 2023 with Basic Books, was named on the “Best Books of 2023” list from Publishers Weekly. Raised in Los Angeles, California, Ogbar received his BA in history from Morehouse College and his MA and Ph.D. degrees in history from Indiana University.