These essays explore and illuminate the roots of Lorde's intellectual development and her deep-seated and longstanding concerns about ways of increasing empowerment among minority women writers and the absolute necessity to explicate the concept of difference—difference according to sex, race, and economic status. The title Sister Outsider finds its source in her poetry collection The Black Unicorn (1978). These poems and the essays in Sister Outsider stress Lorde's oft-stated theme of continuity, particularly of the geographical and intellectual link between Dahomey, Africa, and her emerging self.

    Continuing the debates surrounding her controversial first book, Ain't I A Woman, bell hooks suggests that feminists have not succeeded in creating a mass movement against sexist oppression because the very foundation of women's liberation has, until now, not accounted for the complexity and diversity of female experience. In order to fulfill its revolutionary potential, feminist theory must begin by consciously transforming its own definition to encompass the lives and ideas of women on the margin. Hooks' work is a challenge to the women's movement and will have profound impact on all whose lives have been touched by feminism and its insights.

    Drawing on speeches, diaries, letters, and other original documents, Paula Giddings powerfully portrays how black women have transcended racist and sexist attitudes--often confronting white feminists and black male leaders alike--to initiate social and political reform. From the open disregard for the rights of slave women to examples of today's more covert racism and sexism in civil rights and women'sorganizations, Giddings illuminates the black woman's crusade for equality. In the process, she paints unforgettable portraits of black female leaders, such as anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells, educator and FDR adviser Mary McLeod Bethune, and the heroic civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, among others, who fought both overt and institutionalized oppression.When and Where I Enter reveals the immense moral power black women possessed and sought to wield throughout their history--the same power that prompted Anna Julia Cooper in 1892 to tell a group of black clergymen, "Only the black woman can say 'when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole . . . race enters with me.'"

    Board of Education. Thomas Sowell takes a tough, factual look at what has actually happened over these decades -- as distinguished from the hopes with which they began or the rhetoric with which they continue, Who has gained and who has lost? Which of the assumptions behind the civil rights revolution have stood the test of time and which have proven to be mistaken or even catastrophic to those who were supposed to be helped?

    Winner of the American Book Award.Sonia Sanchez is a poet, activist, and scholar and one of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement. She is the author of sixteen books and lives in Philadelphia.

    Martin Luther King, Jr., this essential volume includes more than 120 quotations from the greatest civil rights leader's speeches, sermons, and writings. Selected and introduced by Coretta Scott King, this book helps keep the dream alive by focusing on seven areas of the Nobel Peace Prize winner's concern: the community of man, racism, civil rights, justice and freedom, faith and religion, nonviolence, and peace.

    An oral history unlike any other, BLOODS features twenty black men who tell the story of how members of their race were sent off in disproportionate numbers and the special test of patriotism they faced. Told in voices no reader will soon forget, BLOODS is a must-read for anyone who wants to put the Vietnam experience in historical, cultural, and political perspective.Cited by THE NEW YORK TIMES as One of the Notable Books of the Year"Superb."TIME

    More than 2000 slave narratives are now housed in the Library of Congress. More than 170 interviews were conducted in North Carolina. Belinda Hurmence pored over each of the North Carolina narratives, compiling and editing 21 of the first-person accounts for this collection. These narratives, though artless in many ways, speak compellingly of the joys and sorrows, the hopes and dreams, of the countless people who endured human bondage in the land of the free.

    In a comprehensive account, Peter Fryer reveals how Africans, Asians and their descendants, previously hidden from history, have profoundly influenced and shaped events in Britain over the course of the last two thousand years.

    Originally Published in Essence Magazine in 1984 the conversation about shared and divergent racial history between Black men and women remains relevant today.The interview can be read here: http://mocada-museum.tumblr.com/post/...

    It reflected two perspectives, the thoughts of the social historian, and the commentary of the political theorist and social activist among African-Americans in the post-1975 period. This book elaborates and expands these theories in light of the developments that have occurred in the 1980s.

    Born in 1930, the mixed-race son of a hard-drinking black prostitute and a white cotton broker, Sample was raised in the Jim Crow South by an abusive mother who refused to let her son—who could pass for white—call her Mama. He watched for the police while she worked, whether as a prostitute, bootlegger, or running the best dice game in town. He loved his mother deeply but could no longer take her abuse and ran away from home at the age of twelve. In his early twenties, Sample was arrested for burglary, robbery, and robbery by assault and was sentenced to nearly twenty years in the Texas prison system in the 1950s and 60s. His light complexion made him stand out in the all-black prison plantation known as the “burnin’ hell,” where he and over four hundred prisoners picked cotton and worked the land while white shotgun-carrying guards followed on horseback. Sample earned the moniker “Racehoss” for his ability to hoe cotton faster than anyone else in his squad. A profound spiritual awakening in solitary confinement was a decisive moment for him, and he became determined to turn his life around. When he was finally released in 1972, he did just that. Though Sample was incarcerated in the twentieth century, his memoir reads like it came from the nineteenth. With new stories that had been edited out of the first edition, a foreword by Texas attorney and writer David R. Dow, and an afterword by Sample’s widow, Carol, this new edition of Racehoss: Big Emma’s Boy offers a more complete picture of this extraordinary time in America’s recent past.

    In this book you will learn how to break the chains of your mental slavery by ordering this new book by one of the world's outstanding experts on the African-American mind.

    In the essay "The Psychopathic Racial Personality," Dr. Bobby Wright contends that viewing white behavior towards nonwhites as psychopathic provides a new lens through which to analyze and combat the actions and aims of Europeans. The essay "Black Suicide: Lynching by Any Other Name" positions the phenomenon of Black suicide within the context of centuries of white genocide. In other essays Dr. Wright discusses ways in which to best educate Black children and sheds new light on the evolution of white supremacy.

    Howard Thurman (1900-1981) and his throught emerges in a message of hope, reconciliation, and love. An anthology of the most important and eloquent writings of Thurman, minister, philosopher, educator, and spiritual leader whose influence on leaders of the civil rights movement and on Americans at large has been likened to that of Martin Lurther King, Jr.

    Too many initiatives for reconciliation, fail to remove the weeds of injustice at the roots, and thus stop short of completing the work required. Such political arrangements usually favor the rich and powerful, but deprive the powerless of justice and dignity. This is a form of "political pietism," and when Christians refuse to name this situation for what it is, they are practicing "Christian quietism." True reconciliation is radical. In this book the authors a South African prominent in the struggle against apartheid, and a white U.S. theologian who has served in pastoral roles in multi-racial congregations offer a vision of reconciliation and social justice grounded in the biblical story and their own experience of activism. After re-examining the meaning of reconciliation in the biblical context, the authors examine Jesus' role as a radical reconciler and prophet of social justice. They go on to examine the role of reconciliation in religious communities and in the wider society.

    s/t: Black Theology and the Black Church

    Cultural Writing. New to SPD. The award-winning feminist and lesbian press Firebrand Books closed its doors last year after sixteen years in the business. The authors of YOURS IN STRUGGLE -- Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith -- have now made the 1988 Firebrand edition of their collaborative work available through SPD. They write, YOURS IN STRUGGLE happened because we were able to talk to each other in the fist place, despite our very different identities and backgrounds -- white Christian-raised Southerner, Afro-American, Ashkenazi Jew. Each of us speaks only for herself, and we do not necessarily agree with each other. Yet we believe our cooperation on this book indicates concrete possibilities for coalition work.

    He demonstrates that slavery, once regarded as a form of human progress, played a crucial part in the expansion of the Western world, and that not until the 18th and 19th centuries did views of slavery as a retrograde institution gain far-reaching acceptance.Illuminating this momentous historical shift from "progressive" slavery to "progressive" emancipation, Davis ranges over a wide array of important developments--from the transition from white to black slavery, to the impact of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, to 20th-century debates about slavery in the League of Nations and the U.N. He probes the intricate connections among slavery, emancipation, and the idea of progress, shedding new light on two crucial issues--the human capacity for dignifying acts of oppression and the problems of implementing social change--and placing the most recent international debate about freedom and human rights into much-needed perspective.

    Mark Naison describes how the party won the early endorsement of such people as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and how its support of racial equality and integration impressed black intellectuals, including Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson.   This meticulously researched work, largely based on primary materials and interviews with leading black Communists from the 1930s, is the first to fully explore this provocative encounter between whites and blacks. It provides a detailed look at an exciting period of reform, as well as an intimate portrait of Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, at the high point of its influence and pride.

    From the early Labour movement's support for the Aliens Act 1905, the Left's inability to stem the influence of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the antisemitism that rears its ugly head in social justice organisations, the Labour Party and among anti-Zionists – he charts it all. He wrote, “It is intolerable that the socialist movement has never been prepared to look at its antisemitism in a self-critical way.” This one book changes that.The Left antisemitism which worried Cohen – which inspired him to write this polemic – was not just wrong but a threat to the political Left itself. He knew that it could go mainstream on the Left if it was not defeated on the fringes. He fought this battle within the socialist Left because he knew, even then, that it was important. Written in 1984, it still resonates today. The issue of antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party only increase its relevance and makes it a "must read" book for anyone wanting to learn more, and, maybe even, take action.

    From this collage a vivid picture emerges of the power, passion, and pride of black life.' --C. Notable Children's Books of 1984 (ALA)100 Favorite Paperbacks of 1989 (IRA/CBC)Notable 1984 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)Children's Books of 1984 (Library of Congress)

    Almost immediately, Genthe was attracted by Chinatown, or "Tangrenbu" — a teeming ten-block area of crowded buildings, narrow streets, and exotic sights and sounds in the shadow of Nob Hill.Fascinated by a living culture totally foreign to his experience, Genthe began to photograph Tangrenbu and its inhabitants. Today, these photographs (over 200 are known to exist) are the best visual documentary record of Chinatown at the turn of the century, offering priceless glimpses of the rich street life of the district before it was leveled by the great earthquake and fire of 1906.Rediscover the lost world of old Chinatown in serene and enduring images of cobbled streets and bustling shops, street vendors and merchants, fish and vegetable markets, Devil's Kitchen, the Street of the Gamblers, Portsmouth Square and more. But most of all, enjoy distinctive candid portraits of the people of old Chinatown: a pipe-bowl member, a paper gatherer, itinerant peddlers, toy merchants, boys playing shuttlecock, a fortune-teller, a sword dancer, women and children in ornate holiday finery, an aged opium smoker and many other unaffected and revealing images.Rich in detail and atmosphere, the photographs are complemented by historian John Tchen's informative and well-researched text, which outlines the turbulent history of Chinese-Americans in California, dispels numerous myths about Chinatown and its residents, and illuminates the role of Genthe's photographs in capturing the subtle flavor and texture of everyday life in the district before 1906.

    When the shooting stopped, three young men were dead and twenty-seven other students were seriously wounded. What had begun as an attempt by peaceful young people to use the facilities of a local bowling alley had become a violent confrontation between aroused students and the coercive power of the state. This tragedy was the first of its kind on any American college campus and became known as the Orangeburg Massacre.

    Rosa Parks, weary after a long day at work, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man…and ignited the explosion that was the civil rights movement in America. In this powerful saga, Morris tells the complete story behind the ten years that transformed America, tracing the essential role of the black community organizations that was the real power behind the civil rights movement. Drawing on interviews with more than fifty key leaders, original documents, and other moving firsthand material, he brings to life the people behind the scenes who led the fight to end segregation, providing a critical new understanding of the dynamics of social change. “An important addition to our knowledge of the strategies of social change for all oppressed peoples.” —Reverend Jesse Jackson“A benchmark study…setting the historical record straight.” —The New York Times Book Review