Books Editor for Essence magazine and Author of In Our Own Image: Treasured African-American Traditions, Journeys, and Icons

Program Title: In Our Own Image: Treasured African American Traditions, Journeys and Icons

Patrik Henry Bass is the books editor for Essence, the nation’s premier black women’s magazine, where he directs the Essence Book Club. Bass is the author of Like A Mighty Stream: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963 and of the national bestseller In Our Own Image: Treasures African American Traditions, Journeys and Icons. In a moving and provocative presentation, Bass takes the audience on journey through African American culture.

Bass is an award-winning journalist who has written and edited extensively about popular, social and cultural history for the New York Times, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Blacxk Issues Book Review, The Quarterly Black Review of Books, American Visions, Black Enterprise, Notorius, Time Out New York, YSB, BET Weekend, where he was founding editor.

Praise for Patrik Henry Bass:

"Down from the base of the soaring Washington Monument they flowed, with the deep inner rhythm of a sea surging to high tide. Never had so many Americans come to their Capital to lay their grievances before their government and their nation." - Newsweek

"On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people from all walks of life came together in Washington to demand justice in the struggle over civil rights. President Kennedy had just introduced his civil rights bills (signed into law by President Johnson in 1965), and the nation's most influential leaders had called for a rally to signal their support. Bass, the books editor at Essence and co-author of In Our Own Image, eschews dry, documented history in favor of interviewing people who participated in the event and writing from the heart. The result is a compelling, emotional narrative that brings to life the trials and tribulations of black Americans in the era, the struggles over organizing the march and its resounding success. Bass includes some discussion about the cancelled 1941 march on Washington, which President Roosevelt forestalled by issuing an executive order prohibiting discrimination in defense industries (Asa Randolph, who organized the 1941 event, was also instrumental in planning the 1963 march). Bass also brings to light some of the arguing behind the scenes, most importantly the disagreement over a speech planned by John Lewis, the chairman of the Southern NonViolent Coordinating Committee. And of course much coverage is given to Martin Luther King's brilliant address, which is printed in full in this slim book. Readers interested in the civil rights movement will find this an important overview of a critical event in America's often tortured history of race relations." - Publishers Weekly

"The March on Washington was a triumph." - Time

"Prodded by the idea that we were losing a good deal of our collective memory of the event, Bass, the books editor of Essence magazine and co-author of an earlier study of African-American folklore and material culture, In Our Image, set out to reconstruct both the remarkable magnitude and significance of the March, while supplying the broader historical backdrop that informed it." - Chris Lehmann, The Washington Post