In-Store Book Signing: Power: The Rise of Black Women in America

Before  sea to shining sea. Before spacious skies were pierced by purple  mountains. Before the uniting of one nation. Black women learned to  rise. In POWER: THE RISE OF BLACK WOMEN IN AMERICA, award-winning  journalist and digital media executive Charity C. Elder posits that  there has never been a better time to be a Black woman in the United  States.

POWER is an incisive disquisition on Black  womanhood weaving theoretical frameworks of history and sociology with  poignant interviews, ethnographic observation, and anecdotes gleaned  from history, social media, pop culture, and the author’s lived  experiences.

Using data, the author substantiates the triumph of  Black women. Original analysis of eighty years of US census data,  prepared by the University of Minnesota and analyzed by Dr. Constance F.  Citro, documents the remarkable ascension of Black women since the  early twentieth century. An exclusive national survey conducted in  partnership with the Marist Poll in 2021 not only reveals that 70  percent of Black women say they have been successful in life, but also  that most believe they have the power to succeed.

POWER  does not shy away from the realities of structural oppression identified  by the late Black feminist scholar bell hooks; rather it illuminates  how Black women exercise agency to create meaningful lives. Success is  not an anomaly, but a defining characteristic. Black women have amassed  power—now, Elder posits, they need to acknowledge it and then wield the  hell out of it.