{"product_id":"dancing-down-the-barricades-sammy-davis-jr-and-the-long-civil-rights-era-paperback","title":"Dancing Down the Barricades: Sammy Davis Jr. and the Long Civil Rights Era - Paperback","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\u003eMatthew Frye Jacobson\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA deep dive into racial politics, Hollywood, and Black cultural struggles for liberation as reflected in the extraordinary life and times of Sammy Davis Jr.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Through the lens of Sammy Davis Jr.'s six-decade career in show business--from vaudeville to Vegas to Broadway, Hollywood, and network TV--\u003ci\u003eDancing Down the Barricades\u003c\/i\u003e examines the workings of race in American culture. The title phrase holds two contradictory meanings regarding Davis's cultural politics: Did he dance the barricades down, as he liked to think, or did he simply dance down them, as his more radical critics would have it? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Davis was at once a pioneering, barrier-busting, anti-Jim Crow activist and someone who was widely associated with accommodationism and wannabe whiteness. Historian Matthew Frye Jacobson attends to both threads, analyzing how industry norms, productions, scripts, roles, and audience expectations and responses were all framed by race against the backdrop of a changing America. In the spirit of better understanding Davis's life and career, \u003ci\u003eDancing Down the Barricades \u003c\/i\u003eexamines the complexities of his constraints, freedoms, and choices for what they reveal about Black history and American political culture. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDancing Down the Barricades \u003c\/i\u003ereintroduces readers to Sammy Davis Jr., showing how he fashioned his world-renowned star performances in dance, music, stage drama, film, and television within complex and painfully exclusionary racially defined circumstances not of his own making. Matthew Frye Jacobson brilliantly illuminates the shape-shifting meanings of Davis's multiple performance strategies over the course of the 'long civil rights era, ' from the desegregation 1940s to the Black Power 1970s. Davis deployed his extraordinary talents as a weapon, in tandem with his contradictory public stances--from 'donating' celebrity support to Martin Luther King Jr.'s hard-fought campaigns to standing with Richard Nixon at the 1972 Republican National Convention. This is twentieth-century cultural history of the highest order.--Judith E. Smith, author of \u003ci\u003eBecoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical \u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"With \u003ci\u003eDancing Down the Barricades\u003c\/i\u003e, Jacobson, one of our most astute historians, provides an extraordinary interpretation of the life and career of Sammy Davis Jr. In this extensive meditation on the cultural politics of the entertainment industry, Jacobson demonstrates how Davis's unparalleled talent and rise to stardom provide a lens through which to better understand twentieth-century American liberalism and its troubling relationship with race and racism. Jacobson's laser-sharp analysis yields new insight into the life of this complicated and compelling artist and public figure; in so doing, he makes Davis relevant to a whole new generation and some of the most urgent social and political challenges they face.\"--Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of \u003ci\u003eRead Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eDancing Down the Barricades\u003c\/i\u003e sheds new light on one of the most iconic twentieth-century American entertainers. Who but Jacobson could so adroitly and elegantly frame Sammy Davis Jr. within the 'contending forces' of American history while using this history to surface Davis's own human complexities? As Jacobson shows, we still have much to learn from Davis's redoubtable and confounding brilliance.\"--Gayle Wald, author of \u003ci\u003eIt's Been Beautiful: Soul! and Black Power Television \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"A rigorous, original, and bracing look at the complexities of Sammy Davis Jr.'s life and career. While Davis's legacy has often been maligned and misunderstood, Jacobson offers clear-eyed insights and correctives that reposition Davis as a key figure for understanding the racial fault lines and foundations of the US entertainment industry.\"--Josh Kun, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Autograph Book of L.A.: Improvements on the Page of the City \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eDancing Down the Barricades \u003c\/i\u003eis a virtuoso performance: a gimlet-eyed, wide-angled history of race, celebrity, and politics by one of the most talented historians of our day, focusing on one of the most enigmatic stars of stage and screen, on Hollywood and the entertainment industry, and on the tumultuous postwar era. This is the kind of big-hearted, ambitious history we should all be writing--and reading.\"--Matthew Pratt Guterl, author of \u003ci\u003eJosephine Baker and the Rainbow Tribe \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"Jacobson has taken a deep dive into the life and work, dreams and demons of the enigmatic Sammy Davis Jr. and surfaces with a political history of race and popular culture for our time. By following Davis from the brightest stages to the darkest places, \u003ci\u003e Dancing Down the Barricades\u003c\/i\u003e shifts the underbelly of American culture from sideshow to center stage, casting new light on its dancing, smiling star. Turns out Mr. Show Business was the spoonful of sugar who helped ground glass go down, but he went down too. Superb.\"--Robin D.G. Kelley, author of \u003ci\u003eThelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthor of seven books on race and US political culture, \u003cb\u003eMatthew Frye Jacobson\u003c\/b\u003e is Sterling Professor of American Studies and History at Yale University.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 344\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.77 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 26, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52635275624755,"sku":"9780520409668","price":60.91,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/b7sbDVOqAj9780520409668.webp?v=1762253642","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/dancing-down-the-barricades-sammy-davis-jr-and-the-long-civil-rights-era-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}