Wayward lives, beautiful experiments: intimate histories of riotous black girls, troublesome women, and queer radicals

A note on method

Cast of characters

Book One. She makes an errant path through the city. The terrible beauty of the slum

A minor figure

An unloved woman

An intimate history of slavery and freedom

Manual for general housework

An atlas of the wayward

A chronicle of need and want

In a moment of tenderness the future seems possible

Book Two. The sexual geography of the Black Belt. 1900. The tenderloin. 241 West 41st Street

1909. 601 West 61st Street. A new colony of colored people, or Malindy in Little Africa

Mistah beauty, the autobiography of an ex-colored woman, select scenes from a film never cast by Oscar Micheaux, Harlem, 1920s

Family albums, aborted futures : a disillusioned wife becomes an artist, 1890 Seventh Avenue

Book Three. Beautiful experiments. Revolution in a minor key

Wayward : a short entry on the possible

The anarchy of colored girls assembled in a riotous manner

The arrested life of Eva Perkins

Riot and refrain

The socialist delivers a lecture on free love

The beauty of the chorus

The chorus opens the way