cover for Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps by Cherisse Jones-Branch
cover for Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Massacre of 1919, second edition by Grif Stockley, Brian K. Mithcell, and Guy Lancaster

To celebrate Black History Month, the University of Arkansas Press is offering 40% off two books that explore African-American History in Arkansas.

The first major study to consider Black women’s activism in rural Arkansas, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps foregrounds activists’ quest to improve Black communities through language and foodways as well as politics and community organizing. In reexamining these efforts, Cherisse Jones-Branch lifts many important figures out of obscurity, positioning them squarely within Arkansas’s agrarian history.

The first edition of Grif Stockley’s Blood in Their Eyes, published in 2001, brought renewed attention to the Elaine Massacre and sparked valuable new studies on racial violence and exploitation in Arkansas and beyond. With contributions from fellow historians Brian K. Mitchell and Guy Lancaster, this revised edition draws from recently uncovered source material and explores in greater detail the actions of the mob, the lives of those who survived the massacre, and the regime of fear and terror that prevailed under Jim Crow.

Blood in Their Eyes is now available, and Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps is available for preorder. To get the 40% discount, just click the links above and add the book to your cart.