African Americans are quite used to hearing pleas to get cancer-prevention screenings because we're more likely to develop the disease and/or die from it, but did you know that at one time, cancer was thought to be a "white disease" from which blacks were largely immune? This is one of the revelations to be found in Princeton professor Keith Wahloo's new book, How Cancer Crossed the Color Line.

Learn how the untimely death of R&B songbird Minnie Riperton (mother of actress Maya Rudolph) from breast cancer in 1979 helped usher in the age of cancer awareness among African Americans, as well as how racial and gender politics have shaped efforts to fight the disease in the U.S. over the past century.

Previous recommendation: Maya Angelou's Cookbook.

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