Black Samson : the untold story of an American icon Nyasha Junior. and Jeremy Schipper

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : What we talk about when we talk about Samson -- Black Samson in the Temple of Liberty -- Black Samson of Brandywine -- Samson and the making of American martyrs -- Black Samson and labor movements -- The Samson complex -- But some of us are strong believers in the Samson myth -- Visual representations of Black Samson.

"The United States has never existed without a Black Samson. Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King were identified with Moses, African Americans linked those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper investigate legal documents, narratives by enslaved persons, speeches, sermons, periodicals, poetry, fiction, and visual arts to tell the unlikely story of how a flawed biblical hero became an iconic figure in America's racial history. Along the way, Schipper and Junior engage the work of African-American luminaries, including Fredrick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, and many others. From stories of slave rebellions to the Harlem Renaissance to the civil rights era and the Black Power movement, invoking the biblical character of Samson became a powerful way for African American intellectuals, activists, and artists to voice strategies and opinions about many race-related issues, including slavery, education, patriotism, organized labor, civil rights, and gender equality. As this provocative book reveals, the story of Black Samson became a story of America's contested racial history"--