Of Blood and Sweat

"Ford's overlap of past and present, narrative and commentary is masterful, and makes this volume all the more valuable to those readers wise enough to allow the past to inform the future. Of Blood and Sweat is a myth-busting work of genius that will stand as the last word on this vital subject for a long time to come."Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of A Slave in the White House and The Original Black Elite

In this, provocative, timely, and painstakingly researched book, the award-winning author of Think Black tells the story of how Black labor helped to create and sustain the wealth of the white one percent throughout American history.

Clyde W. Ford uses the lives of individual Black men and women as a lens to explore the role they have played in creating American institutions of power and wealthin agriculture, politics, jurisprudence, law enforcement, culture, medicine, financial...