{"product_id":"the-people-can-fly-american-promise-black-prodigies-and-the-greatest-miracle-of-all-time-hardcover","title":"The People Can Fly: American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJoshua Bennett\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat does it mean to be deemed promising in an unjust world? The award-winning poet and MIT Distinguished Chair of the Humanities interrogates this question--and offers a more expansive vision of giftedness--in this striking, original work.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe People Can Fly\u003c\/i\u003e will levitate your mind and enrich your soul.\" --Lena Waithe\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e What does promise cost in America? Especially when that promise is seen as grounds to separate us from the communities we cherish, and framed as the key to success, salvation, survival? In \u003ci\u003eThe People Can Fly\u003c\/i\u003e, Dr. Joshua Bennett explores the complex position of black prodigies in a society that has, all too often, defined blackness as absence, as lack of intellect or inner life. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Through this hybrid work of memoir and cultural history, Dr. Bennett shares how his own academic journey reflected the ebb and flow of being seen as both promising and \u003ci\u003eas a problem\u003c\/i\u003e. He turns to the childhood archives of Malcolm X, Stevie Wonder, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, and others to further explore this theme: highlighting the role of cultural institutions, and loving communities, in shaping the lives of leading lights within African American culture. What's more, Dr. Bennett clarifies how these spaces--these mentors, teachers, friends, and kin--helped defend young people from a world that sought to exclude them from its vision of promise and possibility. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e With stunning prose and grace, \u003ci\u003eThe People Can Fly\u003c\/i\u003e is an urgent reflection on what it means to be gifted, and to give one's gifts away, in the present day. It is a praise song for generations of black dreamers who dared to imagine another world--where miracles abound, and ascension is only the beginning.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDr. Joshua Bennett\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sobbing School\u003c\/i\u003e (Penguin, 2016)--which was a National Poetry Series selection and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He is also the author of \u003ci\u003eBeing Property Once Myself\u003c\/i\u003e (Harvard University Press, 2020), \u003ci\u003eOwed\u003c\/i\u003e (Penguin, 2020), \u003ci\u003eThe Study of Human Life\u003c\/i\u003e (Penguin, 2022), and \u003ci\u003eSpoken Word: A Cultural History\u003c\/i\u003e (Knopf, 2023). He has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. He is a Professor of Literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at MIT. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 272\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 9.3 x 6.3 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e February 03, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51978278338861,"sku":"9780316576024","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0938\/3185\/6429\/files\/I4DD_nVfp99780316576024.webp?v=1775801415","url":"https:\/\/ishookbooks.com\/products\/the-people-can-fly-american-promise-black-prodigies-and-the-greatest-miracle-of-all-time-hardcover","provider":"iShook Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}