3 Books Published by Georgetown University Press on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

A history of Black poets in Washington, DC, reveals how they have reflected and transformed American cultural discourse.

Washington, DC, has long been home to a dynamic and vibrant African American literary community, despite often being overshadowed by the literary worlds of New York and Chicago. In No More Worlds to Conquer, the local poet Brian Gilmore uncovers the buried legacy of Black poets in Washington. He traces the literary life and politics of Black poets in the nation’s capital since Paul Laurence Dunbar, showing how well-known American poets, such as Sterling Brown and Jean Toomer, were mentored in DC by poets like May Miller and Georgia Douglas Johnson and making the case for the city as a center of American literature.

Gilmore draws on meticulous research, personal interviews, and his own deep knowledge of the local literary community to connect generations of writers and document a poetic community that transcends Washington. He reveals the intricate intersections, networks, and influences that have shaped the city’s poets and how they have influenced American poetry for a century.

More than a historical account, No More Worlds to Conquer is a personal exploration that bridges the past and the present. Gilmore, who was born and raised in DC, illuminates this history and reflects on his own place in its literary tradition. This multigenerational account will resonate with poetry enthusiasts, local DC scholars, and anyone interested in the rich traditions of African American literature.

A Black-Jewish dialogue lifts a veil on these groups’ unspoken history, shedding light on the challenges and promises facing American democracy from its inception to the present.

In this uniquely structured conversational work, two scholars—one of African American politics and religion, and one of contemporary American Jewish culture—explore a mystery: Why aren’t Blacks and Jews presently united in their efforts to combat white supremacy? As alt-right rhetoric becomes increasingly normalized in public life, the time seems right for these one-time allies to rekindle the fires of the civil rights movement.

Blacks and Jews in America investigates why these two groups do not presently see each other as sharing a common enemy, let alone a political alliance. Authors Terrence L. Johnson and Jacques Berlinerblau consider a number of angles, including the disintegration of the “Grand Alliance” between Blacks and Jews during the civil rights era, the perspective of Black and Jewish millennials, the debate over Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Ultimately, this book shows how the deep roots of the Black-Jewish relationship began long before the mid-twentieth century, changing a narrative dominated by the Grand Alliance and its subsequent fracturing. By engaging this history from our country’s origins to its present moment, this dialogue models the honest and searching conversation needed for Blacks and Jews to forge a new understanding.

An original history of six generations of an African American family living in Washington, DC

Between Freedom and Equality begins with the life of Capt. George Pointer, an enslaved African who purchased his freedom in 1793 while working for George Washington’s Potomac Company. It follows the lives of six generations of his descendants as they lived and worked on the banks of the Potomac, in the port of Georgetown, and in a rural corner of the nation’s capital. By tracing the story of one family and their experiences, Between Freedom and Equality offers a moving and inspiring look at the challenges that free African Americans have faced in Washington, DC, since the district’s founding.

The story begins with an 1829 letter from Pointer that is preserved today in the National Archives. Inspired by Pointer’s letter, authors Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green began researching this remarkable man who was a boat captain and supervisory engineer for the Potomac canal system. What they discovered about the lives of Pointer and his family provides unique insight across two centuries of Washington, DC, history.

The Pointer family faced many challenges—the fragility of freedom in a slaveholding society, racism, wars, floods, and epidemics—but their refuge was the small farm they purchased in what is now Chevy Chase. However, in the early twentieth century, the DC government used eminent domain to force the sale of their farm and replaced it with an all-white school. Between Freedom and Equality grants Pointer and his descendants their long-overdue place in American history.

This book includes a foreword by historian Maurice Jackson exploring the significance of the Pointer family’s unique history in the capital. In another very personal foreword, James Fisher, an eighth-generation descendant of George Pointer, shares his complex emotions when he learned about his ancestors. Also featured in this important history is a facsimile and transcription of George Pointer’s original letter and a family tree.

Royalties from the sale of the book will go to Historic Chevy Chase DC (HCCDC), which has established a fund for promoting the legacy of George Pointer and his descendants.