In the Media

Prof. Joshua Bennett speaks with NPR host Michel Martin about his new book “The People Can Fly: American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time.” The book “weaves together folklore, history and memoir to sort through what it means to be a prodigy, especially a Black prodigy,” explains Martin. Bennett cites fatherhood and his mother’s ideals as his inspiration for the book: “In becoming a father who's raising my children in a very different context in suburban Massachusetts and not in the Bronx and in South Yonkers and having very different experiences than my parents did… I just started to think, what's the full breadth of what I've inherited around this idea of what it means to pursue an education? And that's really what inspired it.”