Best of
Activism

2001

Freedom's Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970


Lynne Olson - 2001
    From the Montgomery bus boycott to the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides, Lynne Olson skillfully tells the long-overlooked story of the extraordinary women who were among the most fearless, resourceful, and tenacious leaders of the civil rights movement. Freedom's Daughters includes portraits of more than sixty women—many until now forgotten and some never before written about—from key figures like Ida B. Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ella Baker, and Septima Clark to some of the smaller players who represent the hundreds of women who each came forth to do her own small part and who together ultimately formed the mass movements that made the difference. Freedom's Daughters puts a human face on the civil rights struggle—and shows that that face was often female.

Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power


Alastair McIntosh - 2001
     In this powerful and provocative book, Scottish writer and campaigner Alastair McIntosh shows how it is still possible for individuals and communities to take on the might of corporate power and emerge victorious. As a founder of the Isle of Eigg Trust, McIntosh helped the beleaguered residents of Eigg to become the first Scottish community ever to clear their laird from his own estate. And plans to turn a majestic Hebridean mountain into a superquarry were overturned after McIntosh persuaded a Native American warrior chief to visit the Isle of Harris and testify at the government inquiry. This extraordinary book weaves together theology, mythology, economics, ecology, history, poetics and politics as the author journeys towards a radical new philosophy of community, spirit and place. His daring and imaginative responses to the destruction of the natural world make Soil and Soul an uplifting, inspirational and often richly humorous read.

Conscience Of A Liberal: Reclaiming The Compassionate Agenda


Paul Wellstone - 2001
    What emerges is an intriguing inside look at Wellstone's crusade to assert an unabashedly liberal agenda.From the moment he was elected, Wellstone has passionately articulated a path to economic and social justice for all citizens, justice not contingent on the size of a person's bank account or their political influence. A call for personal politics and deep commitment to beliefs, Wellstone's tenure as a U.S. senator has been a vigorous, at times outraged, and always active fight for support for farmers, working families, and other Minnesotans; for decent jobs, improved health care, a good education, and retirement security. At once responding to the conservative hijacking of compassion as a political yardstick and explaining his own political record, Wellstone engagingly elucidates what contrasts conservative and liberal interests and, as always, rouses progressives to influence the future of American politics.

Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement


Bettye Collier-Thomas - 2001
    Only recently have historians begun to recognize the central role women played in the battle for racial equality.In Sisters in the Struggle, we hear about the unsung heroes of the civil rights movements such as Ella Baker, who helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper who took on segregation in the Democratic party (and won), and Septima Clark, who created a network of "Citizenship Schools" to teach poor Black men and women to read and write and help them to register to vote. We learn of Black women's activism in the Black Panther Party where they fought the police, as well as the entrenched male leadership, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where the behind-the-scenes work of women kept the organization afloat when it was under siege. It also includes first-person testimonials from the women who made headlines with their courageous resistance to segregation--Rosa Parks, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and Dorothy Height.This collection represents the coming of age of African-American women's history and presents new stories that point the way to future study.Contributors: Bettye Collier-Thomas, Vicki Crawford, Cynthia Griggs Fleming, V. P. Franklin, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Duchess Harris, Sharon Harley, Dorothy I. Height, Chana Kai Lee, Tracye Matthews, Genna Rae McNeil, Rosa Parks, Barbara Ransby, Jacqueline A. Rouse, Elaine Moore Smith, and Linda Faye Williams.

Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins


Sandra Ingerman - 2001
    The ancient healing art of transmutation, in which toxic substances are transformed into "safe" substances, is mentioned in all the world's great spiritual traditions, including Hinduism and Taoism. And while many have tapped this body of work to heal the self, it has yet to be used to heal our  environment. For twenty years, Sandra Ingerman has studied alternative ways to reverse environmental pollution. In this book, Ingerman takes us on a remarkable journey through the history of transmutation, teaching us how we can use this forgotten technique to change ourselves and our environment. She provides us with creative visualizations, ceremonies, rituals, and chants derived from ancient healing practices that produce miraculous, scientifically proven results. In one dramatic illustration of what can be accomplished when consciousness and awareness fuel our actions, Ingerman describes her own success in transforming the nature of chemically polluted water.

Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios


Luz del Alba Acevedo - 2001
    Its contributors reflect varied class, religious, ethnic, racial, linguistic, sexual, and national backgrounds. Yet in one way or another they are all professional producers of testimonios—or life stories—whether as poets, oral historians, literary scholars, ethnographers, or psychologists. Through coalitional politics, these women have forged feminist political stances about generating knowledge through experience. Reclaiming testimonio as a tool for understanding the complexities of Latina identity, they compare how each made the journey to become credentialed creative thinkers and writers. Telling to Live unleashes the clarifying power of sharing these stories. The complex and rich tapestry of narratives that comprises this book introduces us to an intergenerational group of Latina women who negotiate their place in U.S. society at the cusp of the twenty-first century. These are the stories of women who struggled to reach the echelons of higher education, often against great odds, and constructed relationships of sustenance and creativity along the way. The stories, poetry, memoirs, and reflections of this diverse group of Puerto Rican, Chicana, Native American, Mexican, Cuban, Dominican, Sephardic, mixed-heritage, and Central American women provide new perspectives on feminist theorizing, perspectives located in the borderlands of Latino cultures. This often heart wrenching, sometimes playful, yet always insightful collection will interest those who wish to understand the challenges U.S. society poses for women of complex cultural heritages who strive to carve out their own spaces in the ivory tower.Contributors. Luz del Alba Acevedo, Norma Alarcón, Celia Alvarez, Ruth Behar, Rina Benmayor, Norma E. Cantú, Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Gloria Holguín Cuádraz, Liza Fiol-Matta, Yvette Flores-Ortiz, Inés Hernández-Avila, Aurora Levins Morales, Clara Lomas, Iris Ofelia López, Mirtha N. Quintanales, Eliana Rivero, Caridad Souza, Patricia Zavella

Animal Equality: Language and Liberation


Joan Dunayer - 2001
    Speciesism, the failure to accord other animals equal consideration and respect, survives through misunderstanding and ignorance.Contrasting evolutionary reality with popular notions of human uniqueness and superiority, Animal Equality discredits the term "lower animals." Compelling evidence of nonhuman thought and emotion debunks language that characterizes other animals as unreasoning or insensitive.Vivid exposes of hunting, sport-fishing, zoos, aquariums, vivisection, and "animal agriculture" reveal the cruelty that misleading words legitimize and conceal. Animal Equality leaves no doubt: speciesist abuse relies on euphemism, doublespeak, and other linguistic ploys.

Taking Back Our Lives: A Call to Action for the Feminist Movement


Ann Russo - 2001
    Russo provides a multi-oppression approach to understanding the violence that is done to women, incorporating issues of gender, race, class and sexuality in her analysis.

Is There No Other Way?: The Search for a Nonviolent Future


Michael N. Nagler - 2001
    Michael Nagler unveils a hidden worldwide history of leaders and common folks who successfully responded to violence with persuasion, inclusion, and peaceful actions rather than resorting to threats, hatred, and escalating violence. Michael Nagler definitively and eloquently shows that nonviolent action is a proven and effective force against violence and injustice when it is correctly understood and applied. Finally, he explores nonviolent principles in the context of an increasingly violent American society, from school shootings to the Oklahoma City bombing. After reading this book, you will never think of nonviolence in the same way; it's a strategic, effective tactic for creating positive change.

Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy: A Book of History & Strategies


Dean Ritz - 2001
    This collection, which Howard Zinn calls "powerfully persuasive," chronicles POCLAD's evolution among the twelve POCLADers and with thousands of activists. Here are hidden histories, crisp analyses and thoughtful responses to corporate apologists all in one provocative book."

Soul Talk: The New Spirituality of African American Women


Akasha Gloria Hull - 2001
    • Features illuminating insights from Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Lucille Clifton, Dolores Kendrick, Sonia Sanchez, Michele Gibbs, Geraldine McIntosh, Masani Alexis DeVeaux and Namonyah Soipan. • By a widely published scholar, poet, and activist who has been interviewed by the press, television, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered From the last part of the twentieth century through today, African-American women have experienced a revival of spirituality and creative force, fashioning a uniquely African-American way to connect with the divine. In Soul Talk, Akasha Gloria Hull examines this multifaceted spirituality that has both fostered personal healing and functioned as a formidable weapon against racism and social injustice. Through fascinating and heartfelt conversations with some of today's most creative and powerful women--women whose spirituality encompasses, among others, traditional Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, Native American teachings, meditation, the I Ching, and African-derived ancestral reverence--the author explores how this new spiritual consciousness is manifested, how it affects the women who practice it, and how its effects can be carried to others. Using a unique and readable blend of interviews, storytelling, literary critique, and practical suggestions of ways readers can incorporate similar renewal into their daily lives, Soul Talk shows how personal and social change are possible through reconnection with the spirit.

The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law


Françoise Bouchet-Saulnier - 2001
    This guide's aim is to provide precise meaning and content to terms such as refugee, genocide, and human rights - terms that the media have introduced into everyday conversation, yet whose legal and political meanings are often obscure.

The Jane Addams Reader


Jean Bethke Elshtain - 2001
    Her twelve books consist largely of published essays, but to appreciate her life work one must also read her previously uncollected speeches and editorials. This artfully compiled collection begins with Addams's youthful Junior Class Oration on women as "Breadgivers," features thoughtful examinations of topics as diverse as "Tolstoy and Gandhi" and "The Public School and the Immigrant Child," and even includes popular essays on "The Subtle Problems of Charity," from The Atlantic Monthly, and "Need a Woman Over Fifty Feel Old?" from Ladies' Home Journal. Along with the writings themselves, Elshtain's insightful commentary offers powerful evidence of Addams's remarkable ability to frame social problems in an ethical context, her unwillingness to succumb to ideological dogma, her political courage, and her lifelong devotion to civic and moral life.

The Whole World's Watching: Peace and Social Justice Movements of the 1960s & 1970s


Berkeley Art Center - 2001
    

The Peace Book: 108 Simple Ways to Create a More Peaceful World


Louise Diamond - 2001
    Resource Guide for Promoting Peace!