TRAILBLAZERS Volume 1 Available for Pre-Order with a 30% Discount

TRAILBLAZERS | VOL. 1 | $34.99 | Pub. Date: November 1, 2021

30% Discount Exclusively from our distributor
University of Chicago Press | Discount Code: TBSALE

TRAILBLAZERS, BLACK WOMEN WHO HELPED MAKE AMERICA GREAT, AMERICAN FIRSTS/AMERICAN ICONS by Gabrielle David is a six-volume series that examines the lives and careers of over 400 brilliant women from the eighteenth century to the present who blazed uncharted paths in every conceivable way. Each TRAILBLAZERS volume is organized into three to four sections. Besides providing biographical information written in a warm and welcoming tone, replete with powerful photographs, David provides a historical timeline for each section written from the viewpoint of Black women that maps out the significance of the featured women that follow. The TRAILBLAZERS team consists of editor Carolina Fung Feng, contributors Chandra D.L. Waring who wrote the Introduction, Lyah Beth LeFlore, who wrote the Foreword, along with additional copy editing by Phyllis Huang, Ben Lafferty, Kathryn Siddell, Nicole Catarino and Elaine Sholomicky.

Volume 1 features an assortment of seventy activists, dancers, and athletes. We learn about the significance of activists like Ella Baker, Pauli Murray, Rosina Correothers  Tucker, and Clara Day, who represent the hundreds of unnamed women who participated in the civil rights and labor movements, and the women who are following their path, like Peggy Shepard, Michelle Alexander, Glynda C.  Carr, Leah Penniman, and LaSaia Wade. We re-discover dancers Jeni Legon and Margot Webb, who are honored alongside dance legends Josephine Baker, Katherine Dunham, Janet Collins, and a newer generation of dancers including Cynthia Oliver, Dormeshia, Camille A. Brown, and Misty Copeland. And then there are the Black women athletes who disrupted the world of sports, including the nearly forgotten tennis champion Ora Washington, and Alice Coachman, the first to compete and win in the Olympics, to Olympic medalist firsts like Debi Thomas, Maritza Correia McClendon, and Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in Olympic history. Throughout the series, as David re-introduces many of these women into the public sphere, they are not always in predictable ways. For example, Debbie Allen makes a brief appearance in this volume, not for her acting or as a director, but rather as the dancer she initially trained to be, reminding us that Black women are multifaceted, multitalented, and complex. What binds these women together is that as they struggled on the front lines, they also challenged and shook-up the status quo of Black people and women in America.

With painstaking research, David has created an affordable and visually appealing accessible reference book. From the foremothers who blazed trails and broke barriers, to the women who follow in their footsteps, TRAILBLAZERS offers powerful and inspiring role models for women and girls from all cultural backgrounds. It is also a great reference book for people who are intellectually curious and want to learn more about Black women in America. TRAILBLAZERS is a clarion call for recognition of the transformative work Black women have done and continue to do. Written in accessible prose that contains personal reflections for a broad audience, TRAILBLAZERS also serves as a vital reference guide for use in schools, libraries, and homes.

This volume of TRAILBLAZERS received discretionary grants and sponsorship by the following foundations and organizations: