An African American and Latinx History of the United States

By: Paul Ortiz

Narrated by: JD Jackson

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights

Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like “manifest destiny” and “Jacksonian democracy,” and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism.

Drawing on rich narratives and primary source documents, Ortiz links racial segregation in the Southwest and the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, known as International Workers’ Day, when migrant laborers—Chicana/os, Afrocubanos, and immigrants from every continent on earth—united in resistance on the first “Day Without Immigrants.” As African American civil rights activists fought Jim Crow laws and Mexican labor organizers warred against the suffocating grip of capitalism, Black and Spanish-language newspapers, abolitionists, and Latin American revolutionaries coalesced around movements built between people from the United States and people from Central America and the Caribbean. In stark contrast to the resurgence of “America First” rhetoric, Black and Latinx intellectuals and organizers today have historically urged the United States to build bridges of solidarity with the nations of the Americas.

Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and African Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights.

2018 Winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award

Adding to My Curricula!

I found this book exceptional, very well researched, and necessary for the future, my students.

Great read!!

Highly recommend it! Learn something, educate yourself on the history of this country!! Important read!!

A great blend of racial, social, and labor history

Labor struggles and race struggles are all the same fight. that is the key underlying point here and there are many examples of how people of color have been leading the way in labor relations. So many times people of color have been on the right side of History. No matter your race, this is a great text.

Knowledge is Power

The narrator narrated very well. Excellent book. My history knowledge has increased and the plight for freedom, civil rights, and human rights is the same for African Americans and Latin people. We are very much connected with rich history and we must not forget. The book was so informative that I finished it in one day…that’s how powerful it is. It held my attention. Well done!

United We Stand...

This book should be taught in high schools across the US. It showed me once again how scrubbed US history is.