There will likely be more than a million new books published worldwide in the year 2021, but perhaps none will carry the same import and power of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. Edited by two of the brightest minds in all of literature and historical studies today, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Dr. Keisha N. Blain, the massive tome takes a community approach to telling the stories of Black history for the past four hundred years. Not only is the book deserving of all the praise it will inevitably receive, but it is also absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about the incredible struggles and immense achievements of African America over the past four centuries.

Dr. Kendi is the best-selling author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to be an Anti-Racist; a National Book Award winner (for Stamped from the Beginning), and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020. Dr. Blain is the award-winning historian and author of Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom. Together, the seasoned editors have assembled an incredibly talented group of ninety Black writers, poets, and thinkers. From historians and essayists to novelists and poets, Four Hundred Souls features writing from Nikole Hannah-Jones, Kiese Laymon, Alicia Garza, Imani Perry, Chet’la Sebree, Isabel Wilkerson, Mahogany L. Browne, and many more, making it the must-read book of 2021.

As Kendi and Blain prepared to set out on a virtual book tour with many of the authors from Four Hundred Souls, Shondaland chatted with the editorial duo via Zoom to discuss their new book, the amazing community of Black writers they’ve brought together, an optimistic outlook on the future, and so much more.


SCOTT NEUMYER: I think that this book is going to become essential reading for many, many years. How did this project come together? How did you meld your superpowers together to create this book?

DR. IBRAM X KENDI: We were trying to think of a way to really capture 400 years of African American history while simultaneously commemorating this moment in time. And so I thought what better way to do that than by bringing together some of the most distinguished Black writers to not only write that history, but also to be that history, to really say to history what Black people were thinking at the 400 year mark. And I'm happy you mentioned superheroes because Professor Blain is a superhero, and there's no way in which this book would have been able to be put together with the quality and level it was without her. I had already known Professor Blain and saw the incredible work she had done and produced as an editor. And so, I asked her to be my partner on this work. And, lo and behold, of course she brought her superhero powers to bear.

SN: Which superpowers did you bring to the table, Dr. Blain?

DR. KEISHA N. BLAIN: Well, certainly organization. I have to say I've edited several volumes, but generally I've worked with maybe 10 or 12 authors. And when you have many authors, you have to be very organized. And you have to have a clear sense of what it is you expect from each author. And so I think one of the earliest things that we did was really map out a plan and, with every invitation, we explained to authors what we wanted them to write about, and how we wanted them to write, giving them some flexibility, but giving them clear guidelines, because, of course, that's the only way that you can ensure a cohesive narrative, and one that really comes together to advance the larger goals of the project.

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

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Credit: One World

SN: What was that process like setting out to find these Black writers and poets, in particular? What was that most important to you in finding the right people for the project?

IK: Well, I think, for me, there were a couple of things that were critically important. I think, first, it's hard to bring together any small group of Black folks and say that they are representative, but you can certainly try to build a writing community that is diverse, that really speaks to the diversity of the Black community. And so that was important to me, and also not only demographically diverse, but also conceptually, and even diverse from the standpoint of genre. So we have novelists and historians and sociologists and philosophers and lawyers. And so that allows for not only the cohesive narrative that Professor Blain talked about, but also just incredible individuality in the midst of that cohesiveness.

SN: I noticed that, at the end of the book, there are a few pages clearly showing that every writer and poet in this book still owns the copyright to their story. Why was it so important to you both to make sure that these Black writers and poets maintained ownership of their words, especially when it's fairly uncommon in publishing, at least on this scale with this many people?

KB: Wow, that's a good question. I would argue that it's in some ways tied to some of the larger themes of the book. We certainly wanted to capture the strength and the resiliency of the history. But we certainly wanted to acknowledge, I think, Black autonomy too. And this is a theme that comes through in many of the essays. And I think having this sort of arrangement meant that authors could contribute to the volume, but that we were not, in any way, impeding their ability to build upon the work or even repurpose the work in the future. I think we certainly had conversations about wanting to make sure that we were giving authors the freedom and the space. When you're dealing with so many remarkable writers who are constantly producing work, I think it's important to be mindful of copyright and to be mindful of, you know, really autonomy as Black writers in particular.

SN: It certainly felt like, to me, that it was a clear statement on Black ownership, and what you wanted to portray with this book as a whole.

IK: Definitely, and I think so much of African American history is Black folks being dispossessed of what's rightfully theirs. So that is a way that we're able to sort of share a story through that.

SN: The subtitle of this book is “A Community History of African America” for the past 400 years. What do you think a potential Eight Hundred Souls looks like? Or perhaps a better way to ask this question is: What do you hope you would see in an eventual Eight Hundred Souls book?

IK: I'm hoping that there'd be a little more freedom in the next 400 years than the previous 400 years. And I'm hoping that in the Eight Hundred Souls book there would be greater assertions of the power of Black folks — and particularly Black women and Black Queer folks. I also would hope that it would also be a reflection of this time in which there was still this freedom.

SN: Do you both feel a renewed sense of optimism that we can get there and make that a reality as a country, finally, with this new administration?

KB: I certainly think so. I mean, we're not oblivious to the challenges that are ahead. And I think we're optimistic, but recognize that it will require a lot of work. We know, because we're historians, that just because you have a certain person in office does not mean that you will necessarily have the kind of changes to policy or even the impactful policies, necessarily. Yes, there is optimism. But I don't want to suggest that there's optimism simply because now that we have a Democrat in the White House, we can just sit back and celebrate and say, “Great! Things are going to get easier.” I think what that means is that there are great possibilities. What that means is that we can be hopeful, because we would imagine that now there are a group of people who share many of our values, who will be encouraged to make steps in the right direction, but it still requires work from the ground up. And so, even as we're hopeful, I think the point here is that the struggle continues. And we have to continue to make sure that people do what they promise they will do.

IK: As Professor Blain rightly stated, there is more optimism for this administration. I mean, we have a President and Vice President who both spoke on the night they were named President-Elect and Vice President-Elect that they wanted to root out racism. They have both recognized the role that Black voters played — the decisive role Black voters played — in their election. And so we'll see. We're certainly going to continue to push. But we'll see, of course, how hard we're gonna have to push based on how hard they're gonna push themselves.

SN: In Nikole Hannah-Jones’s piece, the first of the book, she writes, “But while every American child learns about the Mayflower, virtually no American child learns about the White Lion.” I can tell you with 100 percent confidence that this white dude from Central New Jersey would never have learned of the White Lion, the first ship to bring enslaved Africans to America, when he was in school. Do you feel like, with books like Four Hundred Souls, Stamped, and Set the World on Fire you're both working to right that wrong? Are you working to, in a way, rewrite the educational history of Black America through your work?

KB: I think so. Similar to your story, I had not learned about the White Lion, actually, until very late in my career — I was trying to pinpoint the exact date, but I think it was certainly not in high school. It was most likely in college, and only because I majored in History and Africana Studies, and I was taking courses on Black history. Imagine the person who's not majoring in history, or the person who's not taking courses in African American history at all. It means that they're probably not being exposed to that aspect of history. And I think Ibram will agree that there are all these aspects to the history that we didn't even encounter until we pursued graduate study. And so there has to be, I think, re-education in many ways. And the work that we produce, I think, is important for introducing, to a general reader, aspects of the history that they probably didn't know before, but need to know to understand the depth and the richness of not solely Black history specifically, but I think U.S. history in general.

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SN: I love that you gave all of your writers the space to really be themselves while telling these stories. Some of them are more history-based, more educational, more direct, some of them are more lyrical, more personal essays, and then there's, of course, the poetry. How did you work with each writer to give them that space while also making sure that it was part of this work that you wanted to create?

IK: We wanted the reader to essentially be able to experience a seamless narrative in which each writer is wrestling with five years, and then, of course, the poetic sort of interludes. But at the same time, I think to really make the book special, each writer had to have the freedom to be creative. And so we essentially in a way created these guidelines and almost this box, for lack of a better term, and we were like, “Okay, you can do whatever you want to do within that box,” and I think that then allowed for a tremendous amount of creativity, but it was still cohesive.

SN: And then you have these poems that not only beautifully sum up the sections, but also provide a bit of a break, a little bit of a breather. It's quite beautiful. And it feels like it harkens back to that very rich tradition of song, dance, and lyricism within the African American and Black community. Obviously, we've all just seen the power of poetry with Amanda Gorman at the Presidential Inauguration, right? What did you hope to achieve with including those poems at the end of each section?

KB: I think exactly what you described is what we were hoping for. We certainly spoke about the poems as offering a sort of break for the reader, because, as you know, the book is large, and it covers so much history. And you know, once you've gotten through ten essays, even though the essays are short, you do need a moment to not only reflect on what you've just read, but also to, in some ways, prepare yourself for the next stage, the next section of the book. So the poems provided that break.

And the poems, I think, allow the space for the reader to reflect on everything that they have just read, synthesize everything they just read. It wasn't repeating what they read, but ultimately expressing what the reader just encountered in a completely different way in a different genre. And I think that, in and of itself, was a powerful strategy for us as certainly as editors, but we were particularly thinking about the reader and how they would receive the information.

SN: They are perhaps my favorite part of the book. One of the things I love seeing online is the amount of support you're getting for this book. You are touring (I mean, as much as you can “tour” during a global pandemic) and you're bringing along a lot of the writers with you. Was it important for you both to make sure that these writers could come along and read and talk about their work themselves?

IK: Yeah, I think this book was a product of this incredible community of writers that were able to assemble and so we thought it was just critical to feature them and feature their ideas and their pieces. Because, to me, they are who made this book, of course. And you know, their contributions were incredible.

KB: Yeah, and it really helps to convey the spirit of community that we've been talking about this whole time. We wanted everyone to experience a bit of that community feel of hearing from the two of us editors, but also hearing us in conversation with several writers. I think that's just the best way for everyone to feel that community even more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.


Scott Neumyer is a writer from New Jersey whose work has been published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN, GQ, Esquire, Parade Magazine, and many more publications. You can follow him on Twitter @scottneumyer.

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