Black arms to hold you up A history of Black resistance

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Emblematic of the defiance, irreverence, and care that inform this graphic history by Ignatz winner Passmore (Sports Is Hell), the "arms" of the title refer to both weapons and an embrace. In 2020, a young man named Ben watches on his phone as Philando Castile is shot by police, despite disclosing that he has a firearm in the car. Ben's beret-and-dashiki-wearing father encourages him to study "the canon of the Black radical tradition," which he proceeds to do Quantum Leap--style when he is teleported to 1900s Louisiana and witnesses "Anarchistic Negro Desperado" Robert Charles shoot white police officers who are harassing him ("This triggerin," Ben says). Tracing a path from Marcus Garvey's Black Nationalism through the Black Power movement, Sanyika Shakur, and Black Lives Matter, Passmore pokes at the sanctity of civil rights icons, including Martin Luther King Jr. ("Cue the sad gospel music"), but he doesn't idealize radicals, either. Rather, he offers a rollicking survey course in a history that has often been reduced to slogans or erased altogether. As a friend of Black Liberation Army activist Assata Shakur says, "The whole white world doesn't want us to know we ever fought slavery." The cartoonish art has a daring quality that leavens the text's treatment of more heady topics. Passmore's sharp humor and refusal to blindly parrot any prescribed narrative make for a necessary reckoning. Agent: Chad Luibl, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Oct.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Award-winning political cartoonist Passmore (Your Black Friend and Other Strangers) delivers his most ambitious work to date in this searing, unforgettably triumphant graphic history of Black resistance throughout U.S. history. Beginning in the streets of Philadelphia in 2020, the narrative careens through time to chart a visceral journey spanning 125 years, from the New Orleans uprising of Robert Charles in 1900 to the revolutionary dreams and lasting legacy of the Black Panthers to the protests sparked by George Floyd's murder in 2020. Passmore's wildly expressive visual storytelling makes every page bristle with urgency, perfectly matched to his narrative voice as he mixes careful research, biting humor, and an interrogation of generational struggle and personal responsibility. The result is as much a call to action as it is an unflinching record of individuals who refused to surrender their dignity or their lives. VERDICT This is an essential work of uncompromisingly political graphic nonfiction that is provocative, funny, devastating, and rich with historical insight. A standout for fans of March, Wake, and David F. Walker's The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History and a must for all libraries' social justice collections.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Birth of a violent nation. In this trenchant graphic novel, the author is at home, lounging on a sofa in sweatpants, when his father walks in the door, having passed burning cars and a helicopter overhead. "You're not on the street like everyone else?" the old man asks, wondering why his son isn't protesting the police killing of a Black man. "Must think I have a death wish!" Passmore replies. "Get this cocoa butter condescension out of my house!" Beret-wearing Dad has his own powerful rejoinder: He slaps his son's head with a book on Black liberation. The wallop sends Passmore back in time, taking him on an involuntary odyssey in which he witnesses injustices meted out to Black people throughout history--brutality that is met with resistance. It's a shocking awakening for the young man, even if it takes time to sink in. "I've seen dudes get beat by cops already," Passmore says when transported to a scene of police confronting Black men in New Orleans in 1900. "Why'd you bring me to caveman times for this?" Passmore soon finds out: One of the men is Robert Charles, who, after being clubbed, shot an officer--and was shot himself. Passmore dodges gunfire in the ensuing conflict. "Yo dad, beam me up!" he screams. "I'm not getting killed byGone With the Wind bullets." On his journey, Passmore sits in on a trial, attends Emmett Till's funeral, and beholds violent clashes. In a meta turn, he addresses a TV audience's concerns that he left out this or that historical episode. The tone of the book--drawn in lively black and white and pink images--is alternately haunting and hilarious, as when Passmore, author of the comic book seriesDaygloayhole, imagines what Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech sounded like to terrified whites, the impassioned minister envisioning the South "transformed into a paradise of interracial whoopie!" A mordant and highly original graphic novel that has readers reconsider Black resistance. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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