Recognized as a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker.
Henry Holt and Company, Mar 21, 2023
Biography & Autobiography - 320 pages
Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family
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Available through all major retailers.
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“This excellent and thought-provoking book is on every level about unknowing rather than knowing — about pondering the mysteries of Banneker, who is often described as one of the first African American scientists, and the legacy of 11 generations of a multiracial American family that only now is coming into view.”
Jess Row, The New York Times Book Review
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“a stunning meditation on race, identity, and achievement.”
Publisher’s Weekly, starred review.
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“Webster has created an engrossing, multifaceted, profoundly thoughtful, and beautifully rendered inquiry that forms a clarifying lens on America’s ongoing struggles against racism and endemic injustice.”
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"Webster’s years of researching, imagining, and feeling her way into the histories of her ancestors and their descendants have culminated in her sweeping, frequently insightful, often speculative and sometimes extremely moving Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family.”
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"The conversations between Webster and her cousins are among the more compelling parts of the book, providing a platform for the cousins to share the implications of their ancestry as Black people."
NPR