In the Sex and Race series, first published in the 1940s, historian Joel Augustus Rogers questioned the concept of race, the origins of racial differentiation, and the root of the “color problem.” Rogers surmised that a large percentage of ethnic differences are the result of sociological factors and in these volumes he gathered what he called “the bran of history”—the uncollected, unexamined history of black people—in the hope that these neglected parts of history would become part of the mainstream body of Western history. Drawing on a vast amount of research, Rogers was attempting to point out the absurdity of racial divisions. Indeed his belief in one race—humanity—precluded the idea of several different ethnic races. The series marshals the data he had collected as evidence to prove his underlying humanistic thesis: that people were one large family without racial boundaries. Self-trained and self-published, Rogers and his work were immensely popular and influential during his day, even cited by Malcolm X. The books are presented here in their original editions.

Race/Sex is the first forum for combined discussion of racial theory and gender theory. In sixteen articles, avant-garde scholars of African American philosophy and liberatory criticism explore and explode the categories of race, sex and gender into new trajectories that include sexuality, black masculinity and mixed-race identity.

Winner, 2009 Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History, The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Historical Association A microcosm of exaggerated societal extremes—poverty and wealth, vice and virtue, elitism and equality—New Orleans is a tangled web of race, cultural mores, and sexual identities. Jennifer M. Spear's examination of the dialectical relationship between politics and social practice unravels the city’s construction of race during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Spear brings together archival evidence from three different languages and the most recent and respected scholarship on racial formation and interracial sex to explain why free people of color became a significant population in the early days of New Orleans and to show how authorities attempted to use concepts of race and social hierarchy to impose order on a decidedly disorderly society. She recounts and analyzes the major conflicts that influenced New Orleanian culture: legal attempts to impose racial barriers and social order, political battles over propriety and freedom, and cultural clashes over place and progress. At each turn, Spear’s narrative challenges the prevailing academic assumptions and supports her efforts to move exploration of racial formation away from cultural and political discourses and toward social histories. Strikingly argued, richly researched, and methodologically sound, this wide-ranging look at how choices about sex triumphed over established class systems and artificial racial boundaries supplies a refreshing contribution to the history of early Louisiana.

In the Sex and Race series, first published in the 1940s, historian Joel Augustus Rogers questioned the concept of race, the origins of racial differentiation, and the root of the "color problem." Rogers surmised that a large percentage of ethnic differences are the result of sociological factors and in these volumes he gathered what he called "the bran of history"—the uncollected, unexamined history of black people—in the hope that these neglected parts of history would become part of the mainstream body of Western history. Drawing on a vast amount of research, Rogers was attempting to point out the absurdity of racial divisions. Indeed his belief in one race—humanity—precluded the idea of several different ethnic races. The series marshals the data he had collected as evidence to prove his underlying humanistic thesis: that people were one large family without racial boundaries. Self-trained and self-published, Rogers and his work were immensely popular and influential during his day, even cited by Malcolm X. The books are presented here in their original editions.

In the first book to explore the theory and practice of eugenics in the American South, Edward Larson shows how the quest for "strong bloodlines" expressed itself in specific state laws and public policies from the Progressive Era through World War II. Presenting new evidence of race-based and gender-based eugenic practices in the past, Larson also explores issues that remain controversial today - including state control over sexuality and reproduction, the rights of disabled persons and of ethnic minorities, and the moral and legal questions raised by new discoveries in genetics and medicine. Larson shows how the seemingly broad-based eugenics movement was in fact a series of distinct campaigns for legislation at the state level - campaigns that could often be traced to the efforts of a small group of determined individuals. Explaining how these efforts shaped state policies, he places them within a broader cultural context by describing the workings of Southern state legislatures, the role played by such organizations as women's clubs, and the distinctly Southern cultural forces that helped or hindered the implementation of eugenic reforms.

"Since the colonial era, North America has been defined and continually redefined by the intersections of sex, violence, and love across racial boundaries. Motivated by conquest, economics, desire, and romance, such crossings have profoundly affected American society by disturbing dominant ideas about race and sexuality. Sex, Love, Race provides a historical foundation for contemporary discussions of sex across racial lines, which, despite the numbers of interracial marriages and multi-racial children, remains a controversial issue today. The first historical anthology to focus solely and widely on the subject, Sex, Love, Race gathers new essays by both younger and well-known scholars which probe why and how sex across racial boundaries has so threatened Americans of all colors and classes. Traversing the whole of American history, from liaisons among Indians, Europeans, and Africans to twentieth-century social scientists' fascination with sex between Asian Americans and whits, the essays cover a range of regions, and of racial, ethnic, and sexual identities, in North America"--Back cover