THE BLACK GUY DIES FIRST

This is the first exploration of the history of black horror film, after the rising success of Get Out, Candyman, and Lovecraft Country.

THE BLACK GUY DIES FIRST explores the wild, wicked, waggish journey of Blacks in modern horror cinema, from the fodder epitomized by Spider Baby to the cinematic heights of Get Out and beyond. It discusses the themes, tropes, and traits that have come to characterize Black roles in horror since 1968, a year in which race made national headlines in iconic moments like: the Kerner Commission indicting "White racism" for U.S. social ills in February; enactment of the 1968 Civil Right Act and Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in April; Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their "Black Power" fists in October; and Star Trek airing American television's first interracial kiss in November.


Robin R. Means Coleman is Northwestern's vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion, chief diversity officer, and the Ida B. Wells. An internationally prominent and award-winning scholar, Dr. Coleman's work focuses on media studies and the cultural politics of Blackness. Dr. Coleman is the author of Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present (2011, Routledge) and African-American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor (2000, Routledge). She is co-author of Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life (2014, Wiley-Blackwell). She is the editor of Say It Loud! African American Audiences, Media, and Identity (2002, Routledge) and co-editor of Fight the Power! The Spike Lee Reader (2008, Peter Lang). She is also the author of a number of other academic and popular publications. Dr. Coleman is featured in, and executive produced, the critically acclaimed documentary film Horror Noire which is based on her book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present.

Mark H. Harris is an entertainment journalist who has written about cinema and pop culture for over 20 years for New York magazine, Vulture.com, RottenTomatoes.com, About.com, PopMatters, Salem Horror Fest, Napster, MadAtoms, Pretty-Scary.net, Ugly Planet and THEiNDI. A lifelong horror fan, he created the website BlackHorrorMovies.com in 2005 to fill the void in online representation of the African American presence in horror and has proceeded to chronicle the history of black achievement in the genre one movie at a time. As a result, he has been interviewed on NPR's News & Notes, podcasts like Scream Addicts and I Do Moves Badly, the French publication Trois Couleurs and GraveyardShiftSisters.com, in addition to being a featured commentator in the acclaimed documentary Horror Noire.