August 2014

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    Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba

    Analyzing the triumphs and failures of race relations within the Castro regime, this book challenges arguments that the regime eliminated racial inequality or that it was profoundly racist. Through interviews, historical materials, and survey research, it provides a balanced view that demonstrates how much of Cuban racial ideology was actually left unchanged by the revolution. Finally, the book maintains that despite these shortcomings, the regime remains popular among the black minorities because they perceive their alternatives in the U.S. within the Miami Exile community to be far worse. [Mark_Q._Sawyer]_Racial_Politics_in_Post-Revolutio_bookos-z1.org_

    Between Slavery and Capitalism: The Legacy of Emancipation in the American South

    At the center of the upheavals brought by emancipation in the American South was the economic and social transition from slavery to modern capitalism. In Between Slavery and Capitalism, Martin Ruef examines how this institutional change affected individuals, organizations, and communities in the late nineteenth century, as blacks and whites alike learned to navigate the shoals between two different economic worlds. Analyzing trajectories among average Southerners, this is perhaps the most extensive sociological treatment of the transition from slavery since W.E.B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction in America. In the aftermath of the Civil War, uncertainty was a pervasive feature of life in the South, affecting the economic behavior and social status of former slaves, Freedmen's Bureau agents, planters, merchants, and politicians, among others. Emancipation brought fundamental questions: How should emancipated slaves be reimbursed in wage contracts? What occupations and class positions would be open to blacks and whites? What forms of agricultural tenure could persist? And what paths to economic growth would be viable? To understand the escalating uncertainty of the postbellum era, Ruef draws on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, including several thousand interviews with former slaves, letters, labor contracts, memoirs, survey responses, census records, and credit reports. Through a resolutely comparative approach, Between Slavery and Capitalism identifies profound changes between the economic institutions of the Old and New South and sheds new light on how the legacy of emancipation continues to affect political discourse and race and class relations today. 0691162778

    A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida

    Many people characterize urban renewal projects and the power of eminent domain as two of the most widely despised and often racist tools for reshaping American cities in the postwar period. In A World More Concrete, N. D. B. Connolly uses the history of South Florida to unearth an older and far more complex story. Connolly captures nearly eighty years of political and land transactions to reveal how real estate and redevelopment created and preserved metropolitan growth and racial peace under white supremacy. Using a materialist approach, he offers a long view of capitalism and the color line, following much of the money that made land-taking and Jim Crow segregation profitable and preferred approaches to governing cities throughout the twentieth-century. A World More Concrete argues that black and white landlords, entrepreneurs, and even liberal community leaders used tenements and repeated land dispossession to take advantage of the poor and generate remarkable wealth. Through a political culture built on real estate, South Florida’s landlords and homeowners advanced property rights and white property rights, especially, at the expense of more inclusive visions of equality. For black people and many of their white allies, uses of eminent domain helped to harden class and color lines. Yet, for many reformers, confiscating certain kinds of real estate through eminent domain also promised to help improve housing conditions, to undermine the neighborhood influence of powerful slumlords, and to open new opportunities for suburban life for black Floridians. Concerned more with winners and losers than with heroes and villains, A World More Concrete offers a sober assessment of money and power in Jim Crow America. It shows how negotiations between powerful real estate interests on both sides of the color line gave racial segregation a remarkable capacity to evolve, revealing property owners’ power to reshape American cities in ways that can still be seen and felt today. 0226115143Concret

    Academically Gifted African American Male College Students

    At a time when so many studies of African American students focus on the factors of failure, Academically Gifted African American Male College Students fills a conspicuous void in the research literature on post-secondary education by focusing on success. Like no other work before it, this remarkable study goes deep inside the experiences of academically gifted African American men who successfully navigate their way through rigorous college-level programs. At the heart of the unique and long overdue work are two real-life stories of African American male students: one at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and the other at a Traditionally White Institution (TWI). In presenting, comparing, and contrasting these two cases, the book identifies a number of personal characteristics and institutional approaches driving their notable achievements. The result is a guidebook both for gifted African American male students and for the institutions looking to strengthen their support for them—particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. [Fred_A._Bonner_II]_Academically_Gifted_African_Am_bookos-z1.org_

    Integration Interrupted: Tracking, Black Students, and Acting White after Brown

    An all-too-popular explanation for why black students aren't doing better in school is their own use of the "acting white" slur to ridicule fellow blacks for taking advanced classes, doing schoolwork, and striving to earn high grades. Carefully reconsidering how and why black students have come to equate school success with whiteness, Integration Interrupted argues that when students understand race to be connected with achievement, it is a powerful lesson conveyed by schools, not their peers. Drawing on over ten years of ethnographic research, Karolyn Tyson shows how equating school success with "acting white" arose in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education through the practice of curriculum tracking, which separates students for instruction, ostensibly by ability and prior achievement. Only in very specific circumstances, when black students are drastically underrepresented in advanced and gifted classes, do anxieties about "the burden of acting white" emerge. Racialized tracking continues to define the typical American secondary school, but it goes unremarked, except by the young people who experience its costs and consequences daily. The rich narratives in Integration Interrupted throw light on the complex relationships underlying school behaviors and convincingly demonstrate that the problem lies not with students, but instead with how we organize our schools. [Karolyn_Tyson]_Integration_Interrupted_Tracking__bookos-z1.org_

    A Troubled Dream: The Promise and Failure of School Desegregation in Louisiana

    Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, the United States still has a long way to go to attain true integration of our educational system. Using extensive interviews and a wealth of statistical information, Bankston and Caldas examine the failed desegregation efforts in Louisiana as a case study to show how desegregation has followed the same unsuccessful pattern across the United States. Strong supporters of the dream of integration, Bankston and Caldas show that the practical difficulty with desegregation is that academic environments are created by all the students in a school from the backgrounds that all the students bring with them. Unfortunately, the disadvantages that minority children have to overcome affect schools more than schools can help remedy these disadvantages. [Carl_L._Bankston__Stephen_J._Caldas]_A_Troubled_D_bookos-z1.org_

    Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students

    This landmark book offers a new beginning on its often ignored subject: the effort to end underachievement among gifted black students and to increase the multicultural and multiracial representation of youth in gifted education. [donna_y._ford]_reversing_underachievement_among_g_bookos-z1.org_

    The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop

    Bud Powell was not only one of the greatest bebop pianists of all time, he stands as one of the twentieth century’s most dynamic and fiercely adventurous musical minds. His expansive musicianship, riveting performances, and inventive compositions expanded the bebop idiom and pushed jazz musicians of all stripes to higher standards of performance. Yet Powell remains one of American music’s most misunderstood figures, and the story of his exceptional talent is often overshadowed by his history of alcohol abuse, mental instability, and brutalization at the hands of white authorities. In this first extended study of the social significance of Powell’s place in the American musical landscape, Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. shows how the pianist expanded his own artistic horizons and moved his chosen idiom into new realms. Illuminating and multi-layered, The Amazing Bud Powell centralizes Powell’s contributions as it details the collision of two vibrant political economies: the discourses of art and the practice of blackness. 0520243919budpowell

    The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland

    Paradoxically, in the decades following the Revolution, slavery in Baltimore gained strength even as slaves were being freed in record numbers. The vigorous growth of the city required the exploitation of rural slaves with craft skills. To prevent them from escaping and to spur higher production, owners entered into arrangements with their slaves, promising eventual freedom in return for many years of hard work. This was a practical, not a philanthropic arrangement; following the release of one group of slaves, owners would simply purchase additional ones. This practice of "term slavery" created a labor force affordable to small craftsmen and manufacturers and directly contributed to the urban development of the country's third largest city. Newly freed slaves, driven by debts contracted in purchasing freedom, remained dependent upon their former masters for employment. The freeing of blacks in rural Maryland and their migrations to Baltimore to work and save in order to aid still-enslaved kin supplied the city with even more free black workers. [t._stephen_whitman]_the_price_of_freedom_slavery_bookos-z1.org_

    Education As My Agenda: Gertrude Williams, Race, and the Baltimore Public Schools

    When Gertrude Williams retired in 1998, after forty-nine years in the Baltimore public schools, The Baltimore Sun called her "the most powerful of principals" who "tangled with two superintendents and beat them both." In this oral memoir, Williams identifies the essential elements of sound education and describes the battles she waged to secure those elements, first as teacher, then a counselor, and, for twenty-five years, as principal. She also described her own education - growing up black in largely white Germantown, Pennsylvania; studying black history and culture for the first time at Cheyney State Teachers College; and meeting the rigorous demands of the program which she graduated from in 1949. In retracing her career, Williams examines the highs and lows of urban public education since World War II. She is at once an outspoken critic and spirited advocate of the system to which she devoted her life. [Jo_Ann_Robinson]_Education_As_My_Agenda_Gertrude_bookos-z1.org_

    No Middle Ground: Eubank, Benn, Watson and the Last Golden era of British Boxing

    2014 will mark the 25th anniversary of Nigel Benn and Michael Watson stepping into a purpose built tent in Finsbury Park to contest the WBO Middleweight Championship, marking the start of an epic saga in British Boxing. No Middle Ground will do for this golden era of the sport what George Kimball's Four King's did for American boxing. Between 1989 and 1993, Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Michael Watson fought each other repeatedly for the World Middle-weight championship belt. The first fight took place a month after the Hillsborough disaster and each fight was screened live on TV. It was a time when boxing was seen in a brighter light than most other sports, when kids could stay up late to watch 12 rounds of hate-fuelled madness. It was also the last Golden Era of British Boxing. No Middle Ground is the story of the greatest, and last, rivalry between three of the most talented fighters Britain has ever produced. Rivalries exist in every sport, but put it in the ring, in the form of the prancing, gleaming Eubank or the heavy set of The Dark Destroyer (Nigel Benn) and suddenly it becomes something more, a war of wills. But this is what the British public tuned in for. And they certainly got it, with Michael Watson comatosed on the canvas at the end of one brutal fight. Sanjeev Shetty takes us back to when these three boxers graced the heavy bags and tells their story as well as that of Britain's love affair with the sport. He traces their journeys to center stage and tells the story of the dark side of Thatcher's nation - the blood, the sweat, and the dangerous hatred that fuelled these men before pantomime took over and revealed a new age of boxers crafted not from the salt of the earth, but from brand-managers flipcharts and the sport disappeared behind a curtain of advertisements forever. britishboxing

    Who Was Nelson Mandela?

    As a child he dreamt of changing South Africa; as a man he changed the world. Nelson Mandela spent his life battling apartheid and championing a peaceful revolution. He spent twenty-seven years in prison and emerged as the inspiring leader of the new South Africa. He became the country’s first black president and went on to live his dream of change. This is an important and exciting addition to the Who Was...? series nelsonmandela

    The Work of Recognition: Caribbean Colombia and the Postemancipation Struggle for Citizenship

    This book tells the compelling story of postemancipation Colombia, from the liberation of the slaves in the 1850s through the country's first general labor strikes in the 1910s. As Jason McGraw demonstrates, ending slavery fostered a new sense of citizenship, one shaped both by a model of universal rights and by the particular freedom struggles of African-descended people. Colombia's Caribbean coast was at the center of these transformations, in which women and men of color, the region's majority population, increasingly asserted the freedom to control their working conditions, fight in civil wars, and express their religious beliefs. The history of Afro-Colombians as principal social actors after emancipation, McGraw argues, opens up a new view on the practice and meaning of citizenship. Crucial to this conception of citizenship was the right of recognition. Indeed, attempts to deny the role of people of color in the republic occurred at key turning points exactly because they demanded public recognition as citizens. In connecting Afro-Colombians to national development, The Work of Recognition also places the story within the broader contexts of Latin American popular politics, culture, and the African diaspora. 1469617862Recognition

    The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus

    The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus. A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction. 0385479565_0385495226zon

    Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation

    Gone is the era of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, when news programs fought to gain the trust and respect of a wide spectrum of American viewers. Today, the fastest-growing news programs and media platforms are fighting hard for increasingly narrow segments of the public and playing on old prejudices and deep-rooted fears, coloring the conversation in the blogosphere and the cable news chatter to distract from the true issues at stake. Using the same tactics once used to mobilize political parties and committed voters, they send their fans coded messages and demonize opposing groups, in the process securing valuable audience share and website traffic. Race-baiter is a term born out of this tumultuous climate, coined by the conservative media to describe a person who uses racial tensions to arouse the passion and ire of a particular demographic. Even as the election of the first black president forces us all to reevaluate how we think about race, gender, culture, and class lines, some areas of modern media are working hard to push the same old buttons of conflict and division for new purposes. In Race-Baiter, veteran journalist and media critic Eric Deggans dissects the powerful ways modern media feeds fears, prejudices, and hate, while also tracing the history of the word and its consequences, intended or otherwise. 0230341829rb

    Frederick Douglass in Ireland: The Black O'Connell

    Frederick Douglass arrived in Ireland in the summer of 1845, the start of a two-year lecture tour of Britain and Ireland to champion freedom from slavery. He was advised to leave America after the publication of his incendiary attack on slavery. Douglass's eloquent denunciations of slavery also caused controversy with graphic descriptions of slaves being tortured. He shared a stage with Daniel O'Connell and took the pledge from the `apostle of temperance' Fr Mathew. Douglass delighted in the openness with which he was received, but was shocked at the poverty he encountered. This compelling account of the celebrated escaped slave's tour of Ireland combines a unique insight into the formative years of one of the great figures of nineteenth-century America with a vivid portrait of a country on the brink of famine. Laurence-Fenton-Frederick-Douglass-in-Ireland-The-Black-OConnell-Collins-Press-2014

    Reforming Jim Crow: Southern Politics and State in the Age Before Brown

    Historians of the Civil Rights era typically treat the key events of the 1950s Brown v. Board of Education, sit-ins, bus boycotts, and marches--as a revolutionary social upheaval that upended a rigid caste system. While the 1950s was a watershed era in Southern and civil rights history, the tendency has been to paint the preceding Jim Crow era as a brutal system that featured none of the progressive reform impulses so apparent at the federal level and in the North. As Kimberley Johnson shows in this pathbreaking reappraisal of the Jim Crow era, this argument is too simplistic, and is true to neither the 1950s nor the long era of Jim Crow that finally solidified in 1910. Focusing on the political development of the South between 1910 and 1954, Johnson considers the genuine efforts by white and black progressives to reform the system without destroying it. These reformers assumed that the system was there to stay, and therefore felt that they had to work within it in order to modernize the South. Consequently, white progressives tried to install a better--meaning more equitable--separate-but-equal system, and elite black reformers focused on ameliorative (rather than confrontational) solutions that would improve the lives of African Americans. Johnson concentrates on local and state reform efforts throughout the South in areas like schooling, housing, and labor. Many of the reforms made a difference, but they had the ironic impact of generating more demand for social change among blacks. She is able to show how demands slowly rose over time, and how the system laid the seeds of its own destruction. The reformers' commitment to a system that was less unequal--albeit not truly equal--and more like the North led to significant policy changes over time. As Johnson powerfully demonstrates, our lack of knowledge about the cumulative policy transformations resulting from the Jim Crow reform impulse impoverishes our understanding of the Civil Rights revolution. Reforming Jim Crow rectifies that. [Kimberley_Johnson]_Reforming_Jim_Crow_bookos-z1.org_

    Representing Segregation: Toward an Aesthetics of Living Jim Crow, and Other Forms of Racial Division

    Examines racial segregation in literature and the cultural legacy of the Jim Crow era. As a touchstone issue in American history, segregation has had an immeasurable impact on the lives of most ethnic groups in the United States. Primarily associated with the Jim Crow South and the court cases Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. Board of Education (1954), segregation comprises a diverse set of cultural practices, ethnic experiences, historical conditions, political ideologies, municipal planning schemes, and de facto social systems. Representing Segregation traces the effects of these practices on the literary imagination and proposes a distinct literary tradition of representing segregation. Contributors engage a cross section of writers, literary movements, segregation practices, and related experiences of racial division in order to demonstrate the richness and scope of responses to segregation in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By taking up the cultural expression of the Jim Crow period and its legacies, this collection reorients literary analysis of an important body of African American literature in productive new directions. [Brian_Norman__Piper_Kendrix_Williams]_Representin_bookos-z1.org_

    Neo–Segregation Narratives: Jim Crow in Post–Civil Rights American Literature

    This study of what Brian Norman terms a neo–segregation narrative tradition examines literary depictions of life under Jim Crow that were written well after the civil rights movement. From Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, to bestselling black fiction of the 1980s to a string of recent work by black and nonblack authors and artists, Jim Crow haunts the post–civil rights imagination. Norman traces a neo–segregation narrative tradition—one that developed in tandem with neo–slave narratives—by which writers return to a moment of stark de jure segregation to address contemporary concerns about national identity and the persistence of racial divides. These writers upset dominant national narratives of achieved equality, portraying what are often more elusive racial divisions in what some would call a postracial present. [Brian_Norman]_Neo-Segregation_Narratives_Jim_Cro_bookos-z1.org_

    Success Runs in Our Race: The Complete Guide to Effective Networking in the Black Community

    A completely updated and revised edition of a bestselling book that has helped tens of thousands of people learn how to network effectively, Success Runs in Our Race is more important than ever in this fluctuating economy. With scores of anecdotes taken from interviews with successful African Americans -- from Keith Clinkscales, founder and former CEO of Vanguarde Media, to Oprah Winfrey -- Fraser shows how to network for information, for influence, and for resources. Readers will learn, among other things, how to cultivate valuable listening skills, which conferences blacks are most likely to attend when looking to build their business network, and how to effectively circulate a résumé. More than a guide for personal achievement, this is an information-packed bible of networking that also seeks to inspire a social movement and a rebirth of the "Underground Railroad," in which successful African Americans share the lessons of self-determination and empowerment with those still struggling to scale the ladder of success. [George_C._Fraser]_Success_Runs_in_Our_Race_The_C_bookos-z1.org_

    Click: Ten Truths for Building Extraordinary Relationships by George Fraser

    One of America’s foremost authorities on networking reveals how you can connect with other people to realize business and life goals Personal growth guru Stephen Covey calls George Fraser a “masterful teacher.” TV host and journalist Tony Brown calls him a “visionary with the rare combination of leadership and management skills.” And each year, tens of thousands of people attend his seminars and conferences to learn how to move beyond networking and start truly connecting to take their relationships to the next level. Fraser shares the insider secrets that will help you to tap into the richest resource on the planet—other people—to achieve goals and share your talents in business and in life. [George_Fraser]_Click_Ten_Truths_for_Building_Ext_bookos-z1.org_

    Invisible Activists: Women of the Louisiana NAACP and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1915-1945

    Behind the historical accounts of the great men of the NAACP lies the almost forgotten story of the women who not only participated in the organization but actually helped it thrive in the early twentiethcentury South. In Invisible Activists, Lee Sartain examines attitudes toward gender, class, and citizenship of African American activists in Louisiana and women's roles in the campaign for civil rights in the state. In the end, he argues, it was women working behind the scenes in Louisiana’s branches of the NAACP who were the most crucial factor in the organization’s efficiency and survival. During the first half of the twentieth century—especially in the darkest days of the Depression, when membership waned and funds were scarce—a core group of women maintained Louisiana’s NAACP. Fighting on the front line, Sartain explains, women acted as grassroots organizers, running public relations campaigns and membership drives, mobilizing youth groups, and promoting general community involvement. Using case studies of several prominent female NAACP members in Louisiana, Sartain demonstrates how women combined their fundraising skills with an extensive network of community and family ties to fund the NAACP and, increasingly, to undertake the daytoday operations of the local organizations themselves. Still, these women also struggled against the double obstacles of racism and sexism that prevented them from attaining the highest positions within NAACP branch leadership. Sartain illustrates how the differences between the sexes were ultimately woven into the political battle for racial justice, where women were viewed as having inherent moral superiority and, hence, the potential to lift the black population as a whole. Sartain concludes that despite the societal traditions that kept women out of leadership positions, in the early stages of the civil rights movement, their skills and their contributions as community matriarchs provided the keys to the organization’s progress. [Lee_Sartain]_Invisible_Activists_Women_of_the_Lo_bookos-z1.org_

    Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400-1948

    Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400-1948 offers a newly inclusive vision of South Africa's past. Drawing largely from original sources, Paul Landau presents a history of the politics of the country's people, from the time of their early settlements in the elevated heartlands, through the colonial era, to the dawn of Apartheid. A practical tradition of mobilization, alliance, and amalgamation persisted, mutated, and occasionally vanished from view; it survived against the odds in several forms, in tribalisms, Christian assemblies, and other, seemingly hybrid movements; and it continues today. Landau treats southern Africa broadly, concentrating increasingly on the southern highveld and ultimately focusing on a transnational movement called the "Samuelites." He shows how people's politics in South Africa were suppressed and transformed, but never entirely eliminated. [Paul_S._Landau]_Popular_Politics_in_the_History_o_bookos-z1.org_

    Africa and Its Significant Others: Forty Years of Intercultural Entanglement

    When did the intimate dialogue between Africa, Europe, and the Americas begin? Looking back, it seems as if these three continents have always been each other’s significant others. Europe created its own modern identity by using Africa as a mirror, but Africans traveled to Europe and America long before the European age of discovery, and African cultures can be said to lie at the root of European culture. This intertwining has become ever more visible: Nowadays Africa emerges as a highly visible presence in the Americas, and African American styles capture Europe’s youth, many of whom are of (North-) African descent. This entanglement, however, remains both productive and destructive. The continental economies are intertwined in ways disastrous for Africa, and African knowledge is all too often exported and translated for US and European scholarly aims, which increases the intercontinental knowledge gap. This volume proposes a fresh look at the vigorous and painful, but inescapable, relationships between these significant others. It does so as a gesture of gratitude and respect to one of the pioneering figures in this field. Dutch Africanist and literary scholar Mineke Schipper, who is taking her leave from her chair in Intercultural Literary Studies at the University of Leiden. Where have the past four decades of African studies brought us? What is the present-day state of this intercontinental dialogue? [Isabel_Hoving__Frans-Willem_Korsten__Ernst_van_Al_bookos-z1.org_

    Africa Writes Back to Self: Metafiction, Gender, Sexuality

    Explores the metafictional strategies of contemporary African novels rather than characterizing them primarily as a response to colonialism. [Evan_Maina_Mwangi]_Africa_Writes_Back_to_Self_Me_bookos-z1.org_

    The History of Northern Africa (Britannica Guide to Africa)

    Examines the history of northern Africa, including an overview of each of the countries that comprise that area of the continent. [Amy_McKenna__editor_]_The_History_of_Northern_Afr_bookos-z1.org_

    The Altar of My Soul: The Living Traditions of Santeria

    Long cloaked in protective secrecy, demonized by Western society, and distorted by Hollywood, Santería is at last emerging from the shadows with an estimated 75 million orisha followers worldwide. In The Altar of My Soul, Marta Moreno Vega recounts the compelling true story of her journey from ignorance and skepticism to initiation as a Yoruba priestess in the Santería religion. This unforgettable spiritual memoir reveals the long-hidden roots and traditions of a centuries-old faith that originated on the shores of West Africa. As an Afro-Puerto Rican child in the New York barrio, Marta paid little heed to the storefront botanicas full of spiritual paraphernalia or to the Catholic saints with foreign names: Yemayá, Ellegua, Shangó. As an adult, in search of a religion that would reflect her racial and cultural heritage, Marta was led to the Way of the Saints. She came to know Santería intimately through its prayers and rituals, drumming and dancing, trances and divination that spark sacred healing energy for family, spiritual growth, and service to others. Written by one who is a professor and a santera priestess, The Altar of My Soul lays before us an electrifying and inspiring faith–one passed down from generation to generation that vitalizes the sacred energy necessary to build a family, a community, and a strong, loving society. altarsoul

    The History of Southern Africa (The Britannica Guide to Africa)

    This book examine the history of southern Africa, including an overview of each of the countries that comprise that area of the continent. 1615303987

    Stony the Road' to Change: Black Mississippians and the Culture of Social Relations

    This intra-group anthropological study examines the impact of history, memory, space, and the concept of belonging on the social structure of a Southern, small-town Black community. Using the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s as the point of departure for a critique of the culture of social relations among Blacks, it also proposes to provide an example of activist, native ethnographic research in a complex society. [Marilyn_M._Thomas-Houston]_'Stony_the_Road'_to_Ch_bookos-z1.org_

    The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present

    This definitive 8-volume reference is a comprehensive print resource covering the history of protest and revolution over the past 500 years – throughout the modern era of mass movements [Immanuel_Ness__Dario_Azzellini__Marcelline_Block__bookos-z1.org_

    The Book of Vodou

    Vodou is magic. But it's also much more! It's a religion of charms and rituals intended to empower life and bring good fortune to those who practice it. Vodou is a deeply spiritual and visually dazzling religion encompassing rituals, songs, and dances evoking spirits that believers recognize as part of nature. This engrossing account traces its origins in Africa to its full development in the West Indies island of Haiti. It also presents ways readers can use Vodou to enrich their own lives in terms of love, luck, and prosperity. The Book of Vodou covers all-important aspects of its intriguing subject, and brings many Vodou spirits fully alive with vivid, often humorous descriptions. Readers learn how to build their own magic altar and invoke Vodou spirits, how to make charms and amulets, and how to work spells and read signs of divination. More than 120 full-color illustrations. BookVodou

    Modern Politics by C. L. R. James

    Back in print for the first time in 30 years, this volume provides a brilliant and accessible summation of the ideas of left Marxist giant C. L. R. James. Originally delivered in 1960 as a series of lectures in his native Trinidad, James’s wide-ranging erudition and enduring relevance are powerfully displayed. From his analysis of revolutionary history and the role of literature, art, and culture in society to an interrogation of the ideas and philosophy of such thinkers as Rousseau, Lenin, and Trotsky, this is a magnificent tour de force from a critically engaged thinker at the height of his powers. Still relevant to politics today and an essential introduction to an important body of work, the ideas of C. L. R. James remain as necessary and illuminating for this century as they have for the last. 1604863110mp

    How Long Will They Mourn Me?: The Life and Legacy of Tupac Shakur

    Tupac Shakur was larger than life. A gifted rapper, actor, and poet, he was fearless, prolific, and controversial–and often said that he never expected to live past the age of thirty. He was right. On September 13, 1996, he died of gunshot wounds at age twenty-five. But even ten years after Tupac’s tragic passing, the impact of his life and talent continues to flourish. Lauded as one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time, Tupac has sold more than sixty-seven million records worldwide, making him the top-selling rapper ever. How Long Will They Mourn Me? celebrates Tupac’s unforgettable life–his rise to fame; his tumultuous dark side marked by sex, drugs, and violence; and the indelible legacy he left behind. Although Tupac’s murder remains unsolved, the spirit of this legendary artist is far from forgotten. How long will we mourn him? Fans worldwide will grieve his untimely death for a long time to come. How Long Will The Mourne Me- The Life And Legacy of Tupac Shakur _An Unauthorized Biography_

    Integration or Separation?: A Strategy for Racial Equality

    Integrated in principle, segregated in fact: is this the legacy of fifty years of "progress" in American racial policy? Is there hope for much better? Roy L. Brooks, a distinguished professor of law and a writer on matters of race and civil rights, says with frank clarity what few will admit--integration hasn't worked and possibly never will. Equally, he casts doubt on the solution that many African-Americans and mainstream whites have advocated: total separation of the races. This book presents Brooks's strategy for a middle way between the increasingly unworkable extremes of integration and separation. Limited separation, the approach Brooks proposes, shifts the focus of civil rights policy from the group to the individual. Defined as cultural and economic integration within African-American society, this policy would promote separate schooling, housing, and business enterprises where needed to bolster the self-sufficiency of the community, without trammeling the racial interests of individuals inside or outside of the group, and without endangering the idea of a shared Americanness. But all the while Brooks envisions African-American public schools, businesses, and communities redesigned to serve the enlightened self-interest of the individual. Unwilling to give up entirely on racial integration, he argues that limited separation may indeed lead to improved race relations and, ultimately, to healthy integration. This book appears at a crucial time, as Republicans dismantle past civil rights policies and Democrats search for new ones. With its alternative strategy and useful policy ideas for bringing individual African-Americans into mainstream society as first-class citizens, Integration or Separation? should influence debate and policymaking across the spectra of race, class, and political persuasion. [Roy_L._Brooks]_Integration_or_Separation_A_Stra_bookos-z1.org_

    Black Liberation in the Midwest: The Struggle in St. Louis, Missouri, 1964-1970

    This book offers a response to the inadequate examination of the Midwest in Civil Rights Movement scholarship - scholarship that continues to ignore the city of St. Louis and the Black liberation struggle that took place there. Jolly examines this local movement and organizations such as the Black Liberators, Mid-City Congress, Jeff Vander Lou Community Action Group, DuBois Club, CORE, Zulu 1200s, and the Nation of Islam to illuminate the larger Black liberation struggle in the Midwest in the mid- and late 1960s. Furthermore, this work details the larger atmosphere and conditions in St. Louis, Missouri and the Midwest from which this local movement developed and operated. This work raises important questions about periodizing and locating Black liberation and Black Nationalism. As racial oppression in the United States was equated with neo-colonialism and internal-colonialism, this discussion reveals the global nature of white supremacy, race and class oppression and exploitation, as well as the material and ideological relationship between local and transnational liberation movements. [Kenneth_S._Jolly]_Black_Liberation_in_the_Midwest_bookos-z1.org_

    Rethinking Race, Politics, and Poetics: C.L.R. James' Critique of Modernity

    Rethinking Race, Politics, and Poetics offers a critical appraisal of C.L.R. James as a major twentieth-century activist-intellectual, exploring his prolific output spanning decades within genres as diverse as history, philosophy, sociology, literary and cultural criticism, prose fiction, and reportage. The book also analyzes some of the flaws and contradictions that surfaced within James’ writings as a consequence of the difficult circumstances in which he worked and lived as an itinerant migrant intellectual invariably involved with fringe political groups. Assessing James as a lifelong committed Marxist and humanist, the book argues that his core concern with racial, political, and cultural questions as central to human and social understanding led him to develop a distinctive critique of the modern world. [Brett_St_Louis]_Rethinking_Race__Politics_and_Poe_bookos-z1.org_

    The Anatomy of Racial Inequality

    Speaking wisely and provocatively about the political economy of race, Glenn Loury has become one of our most prominent black intellectuals--and, because of his challenges to the orthodoxies of both left and right, one of the most controversial. A major statement of a position developed over the past decade, this book both epitomizes and explains Loury's understanding of the depressed conditions of so much of black society today--and the origins, consequences, and implications for the future of these conditions. Using an economist's approach, Loury describes a vicious cycle of tainted social information that has resulted in a self-replicating pattern of racial stereotypes that rationalize and sustain discrimination. His analysis shows how the restrictions placed on black development by stereotypical and stigmatizing racial thinking deny a whole segment of the population the possibility of self-actualization that American society reveres--something that many contend would be undermined by remedies such as affirmative action. On the contrary, this book persuasively argues that the promise of fairness and individual freedom and dignity will remain unfulfilled without some forms of intervention based on race. Brilliant in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and how they resonate through the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic life of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives us a new way of seeing--and, perhaps, seeing beyond--the damning categorization of race in America. [Glenn_C._Loury]_The_Anatomy_of_Racial_Inequality_bookos-z1.org_

    The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War

    The Civil War revealed what united as well as what divided Americans in the nineteenth century—not only in its deadly military conflict, but also in the broader battle of ideas, dueling moral systems, and competing national visions that preceded and followed. This cultural civil war was the clash among North, South, and West, as their leaders sought to shape Manifest Destiny and slavery politics. No site embodied this struggle more completely than St. Louis, the largest city along the border of slavery and freedom. In this sweeping history, Adam Arenson reveals a city at the heart of the cultural civil war. St. Louisans heralded a new future, erasing old patterns as the United States stretched across the continent. They tried to reorient the nation’s political landscape, with westerners in the vanguard and St. Louis as the cultural, commercial, and national capital. John C. Calhoun, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, and John Brown tracked the progress of the cultural contest by monitoring events in St. Louis, observing how the city’s leaders tried yet ultimately failed to control the national destiny. The interplay of local ambitions and national meanings reveals the wider cultural transformation brought about by westward expansion, political strife, and emancipation in the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. This vibrant and beautifully written story enriches our understanding of America at a crossroads. [Adam_Arenson]_The_Great_Heart_of_the_Republic_St_bookos-z1.org_

    Power, Community, and Racial Killing in East St. Louis

    Malcolm McLaughlin's work presents a detailed analysis of the East St. Louis race riot in 1917, offering new insights into the construction of white identity and racism. He illuminates the "world of East St Louis", life in its factories and neighborhoods, its popular culture, and City Hall politics, to place the race riot in the context of the city's urban development. [Malcolm_McLaughlin]_Power__Community__and_Racial__bookos-z1.org_

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