Black Arms to Hold You Up
A History of Black Resistance
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Publishing:5th Feb '26
£22.00
This title is due to be published on 5th February, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A whirlwind graphic history of Black life in America, from the award-winning political cartoonist Ben Passmore
It’s the summer of 2020, and downtown Philly is up in flames. “You’re not out in the streets with everyone else?” Ronnie asks his ambivalent son, Ben, shambling in with arms full of used books: the works of Malcom X, Robert F. Williams, Assata and Sanyika Shakur, among others. “Black liberation is your fight, too.”
So begins Black Arms to Hold You Up, a boisterous, darkly funny, and sobering march through Black militant history. From Robert Charles’s shootout with the police in 1900, to the Black Power movement in the 1960s, to the Los Angeles and George Floyd uprisings of the 1990s and the aughts, readers will tumble through more than a century of armed resistance against the racist state alongside Ben—and meet firsthand the mothers and fathers of the movement, whose stories were as tragic as they were heroic.
What, after so many decades lost to state violence, is there left to fight for? Deeply researched, vibrantly drawn, and bracingly introspective, Black Arms to Hold You Up dares to find the answer.
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
ISBN: 9781787333567
Dimensions: 286mm x 219mm x 25mm
Weight: 500g
224 pages