{"product_id":"the-people-can-fly-american-promise-black-prodigies-and-the-greatest-miracle-of-all-time","title":"The People Can Fly American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBy:\u003c\/strong\u003e Joshua Bennett\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePublished by Little Brown, 2026-02-03\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAward-winning poet and MIT Distinguished Chair of the Humanities Dr. Joshua Bennett combines personal narrative and history to offer a new, more expansive vision of giftedness.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e What does it mean--or cost--to be deemed promising in America? Especially when that promise is seen as grounds to separate us from the communities we cherish, and is framed as the key to success, salvation, and survival in an unfair world? In \u003ci\u003eThe People Can Fly,\u003c\/i\u003e Dr. Joshua Bennett explores the complex position of black prodigies in a society that has, all too often, defined blackness as absence, as lack of intellect or inner life.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Through this hybrid work of memoir and cultural history, Dr. Bennett shares how his own academic journey reflected the ebb and flow of being seen both as promising and \u003ci\u003eas a problem\u003c\/i\u003e. He turns to the archives of Malcolm X, Stevie Wonder, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, and others to further explore this theme, highlighting the role of cultural institutions, and loving communities, in shaping the lives of leading lights within African American culture. What's more, Dr. Bennett clarifies how these spaces--and these mentors, teachers, friends, and kin--helped defend young people from a world that sought to exclude them from its vision of promise and possibility. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e With stunning prose and grace, \u003ci\u003eThe People Can Fly\u003c\/i\u003e is an urgent reflection on what it means to be gifted, and to give one's gifts away, in the present day. It is a praise song for generations of black dreamers who dared to imagine another world--where ascension is only the beginning. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Joshua Bennett's astounding, dolorous, rejoicing voice is indispensable.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e--Tracy K. Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eTo Free the Captives\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Phoenix Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137484636329,"sku":"PHBK-9780316576024","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/9899\/1785\/files\/19243243482300.jpg?v=1780327870","url":"https:\/\/myti.com\/products\/the-people-can-fly-american-promise-black-prodigies-and-the-greatest-miracle-of-all-time","provider":"Myti","version":"1.0","type":"link"}