Black Arms to Hold You Up

[Passmore] offers a rollicking survey course in a history that has often been reduced to slogans or erased altogether. As a friend of Black Liberation Army activist Assata Shakur says, ‘The whole white world doesn’t want us to know we ever fought slavery.’ The cartoonish art has a daring quality that leavens the text’s treatment of more heady topics. Passmore’s sharp humor and refusal to blindly parrot any prescribed narrative make for a necessary reckoning. * Publishers Weekly *
Ben Passmore has entered a realm where personal creative brilliance intersects the historically profound, and in doing so he’s created a masterpiece. – David F. Walker, author of THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY: A GRAPHIC NOVEL HISTORY
A mordant and highly original graphic novel that has readers reconsider Black resistance. – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
In the western cannon, the political cartoons that came before merely interpreted the world in various ways; it is clear that with Black Arms to Hold You Up, Ben intends to change it. – Ronald Wimberly
Black Arms to Hold You Up is an unnerving visual text. Ben Passmore’s loving, instructive, and abrasive book educates about Black resistance against racist state violence and Black compradors. Its critique of Black leaders will spark debates and arguments. However, as we awkwardly hold ourselves together, we can lean into Passmore’s call to arms—of various types—to scrutinize history and heal our communities. – Joy James, author of NEW BONES ABOLITION
Long overdue, Black Arms to Hold You Up brings the history of Black resistance to the comics community. Part primer, part deep dive, with a bit of memoir, I learned about lesser-known revolutionaries and revisited my most revered. Ben’s personal story—as a lost mixed-race kid imagining a Black father who might teach him who he is—hit home. Black Arms to Hold You Up is a thoughtful mix of the personal and political, humor and heartbreak—just like America itself. – James Spooner, author of THE HIGH DESERT and founder of AFROPUNK
Passmore’s wildly expressive visual storytelling makes every page bristle with urgency, perfectly matched to his narrative voice as he mixes careful research, biting humor, and an interrogation of generational struggle and personal responsibility. The result is as much a call to action as it is an unflinching record of individuals who refused to surrender their dignity or their lives… . This is an essential work of uncompromisingly political graphic nonfiction that is provocative, funny, devastating, and rich with historical insight. * Library Journal *

Ben Passmore is the author of the ongoing comic book series Daygloayhole, as well as the Eisner Award-nominated and Ignatz Award-winning comic collection Your Black Friend. He also wrote and illustrated Sports Is Hell (Koyama Press), collaborated with Ezra Claytan Daniels on BTTM FDRS (Fantagraphics), and contributes to publications such as The Nib and the New York Times. He lives in Philadelphia.

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