Black Genius: Essays on an American Legacy

Cultural critic Johnson debuts with an astute and deeply felt essay collection on how Black Americans “leverage what might typically be seen as disadvantages—our marginalized, ‘low’ placement in society; our Blackness; our communities—and flip them into a series of superpowers.” In “Streemal: Navigating America’s Education,” Johnson traces his uncle Alan’s life from his youth in “Black Trenton” to college at UPenn in 1977 when the school only had 350 Black students. “The Fifth Dimension, Celebration in America’s Face” is a memorable account of Philadelphia’s “picturesque” Odunde festival, a yearly street fair in June replete with “Black cowboys strutting down South Philly blocks, a soundstage with throw-back R&B acts, the long bins of food, Black people fanning themselves,” and more. Johnson deftly balances the celebratory, as in his account of the BlackStar Film Festival, which “transforms Philly’s cultural spaces into an ephemeral Chocolate City,” with harsh cultural realities, including the racial profiling that drives what he calls “Black Paranoia™,” or “the historical and cultural state of having been relentlessly surveilled.” Each essay is finely crafted as a standalone piece, and the thematic threads that run through the collection make it all the stronger when taken as a whole. It’s an auspicious first outing from an unflinching voice. Agent: Sabrina Taitz, WME. (July)