This monumental biography--eight years in the research and writing--treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.

    Today, the book is considered a classic in African American and feminist circles.In Sisters of the Yam, hooks examines how the emotional health of black women is wounded by daily assaults of racism and sexism. Exploring such central life issues as work, beauty, trauma, addiction, eroticism and estrangement from nature, hooks shares numerous strategies for self-recovery and healing. She also shows how black women can empower themselves and effectively struggle against racism, sexism and consumer capitalism.As hooks’ first book on psychological concerns, Sisters of the Yam paved the way for her more recent and popular writing on love, relationships and community. This South End Press Classics Edition will include a new introduction.Praise for Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery:“By confronting topics avoided in polite company—including progressive black folks—hooks helps us tackle our deepest fears, those we harbor about our self-worth as African Americans, and get on with the business of becoming.”—Village Voice Literary Supplement“hooks continues to produce some of the most challenging, insightful, and provocative writing on race and gender in the United States today.”—Library Journal“[bell hooks] draws more effectively on her own experiences and sense of identity than . . . most other writers.”—Publishers Weekly

    In a lively account filled with the stories and voices of people previously left out of the historical canon, Ronald Takaki offers a fresh perspective - a re-visioning - of our nation's past.

    These topics are all timely yet timeless in that they represent the continuing struggle to include African Americans in mainstream American political, economic & social life without destroying their unique culture. The essays have the feel of a fine sermon, with thought-provoking ideas & new ways of looking at the same old problems. They can be quickly read yet take a long time to digest because of West's unique slant on life. Already well known in scholarly circles, he's increasingly becoming more visible to the general public. This book should make his essays more accessible to a greater number of people.--Library JournalPrefaceIntroduction: Race mattersNihilism in Black America The pitfalls of racial reasoningThe crisis of Black leadership Demystifying the new Black conservatismBeyond affirmative action: equality and identityOn Black-Jewish relations Black sexuality: the taboo subjectMalcolm X and Black rage Epilogue to the Vintage edition

    African slave, homeless exile, surrogate mother, Hagar's story provides an image of survival and defiance appropriate to black women today. Exploring all the themes inherent in Hagar's story -- poverty and slavery, ethnicity and sexual exploitation, exile and encounters with God -- Sisters in the Wilderness traces parallels in the history of African-American women from slavery to the present. A particular theology -- a womanist theology -- emerges from this shared experience; specifically, from the interplay of oppressions on account of race, sex, and class. In Part I, Williams shows how reading Hagar's story exemplifies the issues and problems black women face. The "forced motherhood," "single motherhood" and "surrogate motherhood" Hagar experienced have been part of black women's lives. Williams also explores the dismal reality of contemporary "racial narcissistic...consciousness" which finds its parallel in Hagar's travail as foreign servant and outcast. Finally, there is the religious resonance of Hagar's sojourns in the wilderness and her encounters with God. These themes Williams finds echoed in the cultural and literary traditions of African-American women. Part II considers the theological implications of the womanist understanding of Hagar's history. Williams explores the relationship between womanist and black liberation theology, and womanist theology and the black church. Through the combination of social history, political theology, and literary criticism, Williams demonstrates how approaching theology consciously informed by the awareness of the identity of black women results in a rich and vibrant knowledge of the sacred. Sisters in the Wilderness provides a reconstruction of "God-talk"

    It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation."The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities.As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.

    A third-generation black nationalist feminist, Pearl Cleage recognizes the pure power of telling the truth — about African-American life and about the fate of the race in racist America. This book will incite any and all thinking people to ponder, argue, rage, reflect, and maybe even riot . . . ."Uncompromising . . . Blistering." — San Francisco Chronicle

    "Riveting. Provides a history that helps us to understand the choices made by so many black men and women of Hamer's generation, who somehow found the courage to join a movement in which they risked everything." —New York Times Book Review "One is forced to pause and consider that this black daughter of the Old South might have been braver than King and Malcolm." —Washington Post Book World "An epic that nurtures us as we confront today's challenges and helps us Keep Hope Alive.'" —Jesse L. Jackson "Not only does This Little Light of Mine recount a vital part of America"s history, but it lights our future as readers are inspired anew by Mrs. Hamer's spirit, courage, and commitment." —Marian Wright Edelman "This book is the essence of raw courage. It must be read." —Rep. John Lewis

    Through the stories and experiences of eight successful teacher-transmitters, The Dreamkeepers keeps hope alive for educating young African Americans. --ReverAnd Jesse L. Jackson, president and founder, National Rainbow Coalition In this beautifully written book Ladson-Billings illustrates the inspiring influence of a select group of teachers who keep the dreams alive for African American students. ?Henry M. Levin, David Jacks professor of Higher Education, Stanford University Ladson-Billing's portraits, interwoven with personal reflections, challenge readers to envision intellectually rigorous and culturally relevant classrooms that have the power to improve the lives of not just African American students but all children.

    "A work of art . . . Billy never lets up, not for one minute. . . . magnificent".--New York Daily News.

    It recounts the stories of Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur, all of whom were arrested and jailed during the COINTELPRO probe of the Black Panther Party.Dhoruba Bin Wahad, who organized chapters of the Black Panther Party in New York and along the Estern Seaboard and worked with tenants in Harlem and on drug rehabilitation in the Bronx, was accused of murdering two officers while still in his teens and imprisoned for 19 years. He always maintained his innocence and won his freedom by forcing the FBI to release thousands of classified documents proving that he had been framed. The justice department eventually rescinded Bin Wahad's conviction and he was released in 1990, seven months after the documentary premiered.Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist who headed the Black Panther free breakfast program for inner-city school children in Philadelphia, was also accused of the murder of an officer and sent on death-row, where he still is today.Assata Shakur was a college educated social worker in her twenties when she was accused of shooting a cop, then arrested and tortured and denied medical treatment. Her interview was conducted in Cuba where she has been exiled since her escape from a New Jersey women's prison in 1975.Bin Wahad, Shakur and Abu-Jamal offer a little-known history and an incisive analysis of the Black Panthers' original goals, which the U.S. Government has tried to distort and suppress. As one confidential, 1969, memo to J. Edgar Hoover put it, "The Negro youth and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."

    Rather, the law has established and protected an actual property interest in whiteness itself, which shares the critical characteristics of property and accords with the many and varied theoretical descriptions of property.Although by popular usage property describes "things" owned by persons, or the rights of persons with respect to a thing, the concept of property prevalent among most theorists, even prior to the twentieth century, is that property may "consist[] of rights in 'things' that are intangible, or whose existence is a matter of legal definition." Property is thus said to be a right, not a thing, characterized as metaphysical, not physical. The theoretical bases and conceptual descriptions of property rights are varied, ranging from first possessor rules, to creation of value, to Lockean labor theory, to personality theory, to utilitarian theory. However disparate, these formulations of property clearly illustrate the extent to which property rights and interests embrace much more than land and personalty. Thus, the fact that whiteness is not a "physical" entity does not remove it from the realm of property.Whiteness is not simply and solely a legally recognized property interest. It is simultaneously an aspect of self-identity and of personhood, and its relation to the law of property is complex. Whiteness has functioned as self- identity in the domain of the intrinsic, personal, and psychological; as reputation in the interstices between internal and external identity; and, as property in the extrinsic, public, and legal realms. According whiteness actual legal status converted an aspect of identity into an external object of property, moving whiteness from privileged identity to a vested interest. The law's construction of whiteness defined and affirmed critical aspects of identity (who is white); of privilege (what benefits accrue to that status); and, of property (what legal entitlements arise from that status). Whiteness at various times signifies and is deployed as identity, status, and property, sometimes singularly, sometimes in tandem.

    Winner of the 1992 Barnard New Women Poets Prize

    This collection of speeches covers an array of topics from the contributions of Nile Vally civilizations to the future of Pan-Africanism in the 21st century.

    Born of extreme racial and class conflicts, the blackface minstrel show sometimes usefully intensified them. Based on the appropriation of black dialect, music, and dance, minstrelsy at once applauded and lampooned black culture, ironically contributing to a "blackening of America." Drawing on recent research in cultural studies and social history, Eric Lott examines the role of the blackface minstrel show in the political struggles of the years leading up to the Civil War. Reading minstrel music, lyrics, jokes, burlesque skits, and illustrations in tandem with working-class racial ideologies and the sex/gender system, Love and Theft argues that blackface minstrelsy both embodied and disrupted the racial tendencies of its largely white, male, working-class audiences. Underwritten by envy as well as repulsion, sympathetic identification as well as fear--a dialectic of "love and theft"--the minstrel show continually transgressed the color line even as it enabled the formation of a self-consciously white working class. Lott exposes minstrelsy as a signifier for multiple breaches: the rift between high and low cultures, the commodification of the dispossessed by the empowered, the attraction mixed with guilt of whites caught in the act of cultural thievery.

    Amidst the current debates concerning multiculturalism and political correctness, this publication moves the discussion beyond the vagueness of ethnicity to the reality of African empowerment.

    Here is an illustrated history of the civil rights movement, written and designed for ages 10 to adult, that clearly and effectively brings the turbulent years of struggle to life, and gives a vivid and powerful experience of what it was like not so very long ago.

    Ben destroys what he says is the myth of a "white Jewish race" as he says that whites are descended from brutal thugs who lived in frigid climates, and the bigotry that has denied the existence of an African Jewish culture. He establishes the legitimacy of contemporary Black Jewish culture in Africa and the diaspora and predates its origin before ancient Nile Valley civilizations.

    In its origin, race was not a product of science but a folk ideology reflecting a new form of social stratification and a rationalization for inequality among the peoples of North America.This third edition incorporates recently published new source materials on the history of race ideology. Because “race” now has global manifestations, it also introduces the work of scholars who are examining the spread of race ideology cross-culturally.The new edition of Race in North America also looks more closely at the positions and arguments of contemporary race scientists. Although objective scientists have shown that any two humans are 99.9% alike genetically, race scientists maintain that the remaining difference of one-tenth of one percent is highly significant, accounting for many biological and behavioral differences that they assume to be hereditary. Race scientists contend, for example, that there are race differences in diseases and responses to medications, along with differences in intellect and in talent and ability in such fields as sports. Thus, they claim, race is a valid biological concept.Smedley argues that no amount of research into biological or genetic differences can help us understand the phenomenon of race in American society. Race can only be understood as a component of the sociocultural domain, not the domain of biology.

    this is no doctrinaire tract but rather a concerted attempt to look at important cultural problems from a fresh perspective.... Chow's book is an excellent example of its type."--Discourse & Society"I believe that Rey Chow has written a powerful set of essays which offer a critical strategy for approaching questions of otherness and other societies by forcing us to constantly reassess our position." --Harry HarootunianWriting Diaspora questions aspects of cultural politics, including the legacies of European imperialism and colonialism, the media, pedagogy, literature, literacy, sexuality, intellectual labor, the uses and abuses of theory, and popularized notions about "others."

    Book by Underwood, Paula

    Sharing intimate experiences from her own life, as well as stories of biblical women, Weems explores the significant relationships that mold readers from birth and the issues that complicate them.

    mission history pierces the romantic veil of most history writing and shows how four of the most noted Christian missionariesmen of the highest moral character, the best of intentions, and sincere commitment to the gospelconfused gospel values and European cultural values, often with lethal results.

    Committed to an integrated analysis of race, gender, and class, they also address the shortcomings of traditional, feminist, and Black theologies in dealing with evil. Taking Alice Walker's definition of "womanist" as a framework, in Part I, "Responsible, in Charge, " Clarice J. Martin explores "If God exists, why is there evil?"; Frances E. Wood shows how Christianity's idealization of suffering has harmed African-American women; and Jamie T. Phelps recounts the historic exclusion of African-American women - and men - in the Roman Catholic church. Part II, "It Wouldn't Be the First Time, " includes Marcia Y. Riggs on the 19th century Black club women's response to moral evil; Emilie M. Townes on a womanist ethic based on the example of Ida B. Wells-Barrett; and Rosita deAnn Mathews on the role of chaplain-clergyperson as priest, prophet, and employee. Part III, "Love's the Spirit, " includes M. Shawn Copeland on the narratives of enslaved and/or emancipated women of African descent; Delores S. Williams on sin and suffering in Black Christian theology; Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan on the spirituals as an Afrocentric Christian response to evil; and Karen Baker-Fletcher on the life of Dr. Anna Julia Cooper and the vitality of voice in womanist experience. In Part IV, "As Purple Is to Lavender, " Patricia L. Hunter exposes the cosmetics industry's impact on Black women's self-understanding as creations of God. There is also Jacquelyn Grant on how a theology of servanthood degenerates into an apologetics for exploitation; Katie Geneva Cannon on the African-America folk sermon as genre; and, finally, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes on how Alice Walker's observations that one "loves food, " "loves roundness, " and "loves oneself" stand in opposition to the dominant culture's dictum that one can never be too rich or too thin. Vigorous and forthright, A T

    A comprehensive collection from the challenging and fearless thinker, Cornel West.

    Kelton's award-winning writing perfectly complements the brilliantly executed, sensitive paintings of old-timers, contemporary cowboys, and rodeo riders. Full color throughout.

    In Cornel West's hands issues of race and freedom are inextricably tied to questions of philosophy and, above all, to a belief in the power of the human spirit.

    Ranging in style from Audre Lorde's classic polemic on eroticism to Miriam DeCosta Willis's deeply moving essay on her husband's last years, "every single one of these essays is terrific." -- The Washington Post

    Well assimilated within the white population, Jews had been diffident about voicing support of black civil rights. When violence erupted and Jewish voices began crying out for action, the Klan scapegoated Jews in a campaign of terror.Jack Nelson, himself a Mississippian and in the 1960s Atlanta bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, had lost no time in coming home to write page-one reports on the civil rights struggle. In Terror in the Night he re-creates the chilling experiences of investigating the Klan's campaign against the Jews. He reports on the bombing of a Jackson synagogue, the dynamiting of a rabbi's house, and the Klan's marking select Mississippi Jews for execution. He reports how law enforcement's clandestine investigations, bankrolled by Mississippi Jews, helped bag the terrorists in a nearly disastrous shootout.

    Africans and Native Americans explores key issues relating to the evolution of racial terminology and European colonialists' perceptions of color, analyzing the development of color classification systems and the specific evolution of key terms such as black, mulatto, and mestizo, which no longer carry their original meanings. Jack Forbes presents strong evidence that Native American and African contacts began in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean and that Native Americans may have crossed the Atlantic long before Columbus.

    Before Rosa Parks could ignite a Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Supreme Court had to strike down the Alabama law which made segregated bus service required by law; before Martin Luther King could march on Selma to register voters, the Supreme Court had to find unconstitutional the Southern Democratic Party's exclusion of African-Americans; and before the March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Supreme Court had to strike down the laws allowing for the segregation of public graduate schools, colleges, high schools, and grade schools. Making Civil Rights Law provides a chronological narrative history of the legal struggle, led by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, that preceded the political battles for civil rights. Drawing on interviews with Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP lawyers, as well as new information about the private deliberations of the Supreme Court, Tushnet tells the dramatic story of how the NAACP Legal Defense Fund led the Court to use the Constitution as an instrument of liberty and justice for all African-Americans. He also offers new insights into how the justices argued among themselves about the historic changes they were to make in American society. Making Civil Rights Law provides an overall picture of the forces involved in civil rights litigation, bringing clarity to the legal reasoning that animated this Constitutional revolution, and showing how the slow development of doctrine and precedent reflected the overall legal strategy of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP.

    The editors are excellent, well-known scholars, and activists in the academy." --Darlene Clark Hine"After looking carefully at Traps' selections, I have to confess that I'm both excited and satisfied by what Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall have assembled here from the 19th century to the present. Educators genuinely need a text like this for opening their classroom to critical discussions on the well-worn subjects of race and gender."--Charles JohnsonTraps is the first anthology of writings by 19th- and 20th-century African American men on the overlapping categories of race, gender, and sexuality. The selections on gender in Sections I and II reveal what some may view as the unexpected commitment of African American men to feminism. Included here are critiques of the subordinate social, economic, and political position of black women. Sections III and IV analyze the taboos and myths in which black sexuality is enmeshed. These essays also stress the importance of rejecting homophobia and the need to contest the predominance of a heterosexual paradigm. Monolithic constructions of gender and sexuality, reinforced by sexism and historically sanctioned homophobia, are the "traps" that give this book its focus and its title.

    In The Coming Race Wars? he meticulously unpacked reasons why our nation--and the church--needed to come to terms with our complicity in America's racial transgressions before we face a more dire reckoning. With his blunt assessment of our social condition, Pannell's 1993 book sparked controversy. Critics dismissed him as alarmist. Back then, Pannell was among a scant number of Black evangelical leaders who called the evangelical church to account on issues of racial justice. Now, nearly thirty years later, his words are as timely as ever. Some would even argue that the "race war" has arrived. In The Coming Race Wars: A Cry for Justice, from Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter, Pannell revisits his provocative message with an expanded edition that connects its message to current events. With a new introduction by bestselling historian Jemar Tisby (The Color of Compromise) and a new afterword by Pannell, this compelling, heartfelt plea to the church will help today's readers take a deeper look at the complexities of institutional racism and the unjust systems that continue to confound us. Both pastoral and prophetic, Pannell doesn't hold back in truth-telling nor in his expression of deep love for the church. This new edition of The Coming Race Wars will inspire you to open your eyes wider, discover a more holistic view of Christ's gospel, and become an active participant in addressing America's racial injustices.

    This compelling portrait of who Jesus is for the black community surveys the history of the Black Christ from the early slave testimonies to the writings of prominent religious and literary figures through the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.

    

    

    T. Judy offers an alternative interpretation of literacy that challenges that claim of traditional Enlightenment discourse that literacy and reason are the privileged properties of Western culture. On the basis of his readings of autobiographical African-Arabic American slave narratives, Judy argues that through the production of the Arabic text, the African slave already had the necessary element that the West attributes to “reason” before his original introduction to Western culture: a literacy that mediated between Africa and Europe.Paying careful attention to the problems of translation and canon formation, (Dis)Forming the American Canon demonstrates how cultural values, the humanities, and Western figures of reason must be transformed, and in particular how national literary traditions must ultimately be reconstituted and globalized. In addition, (Dis)Forming the American Canon includes the first published translation of the longest Arabic-language slave narrative known to exist in North America, the purportedly autobiographical nineteenth-century Arabic slave narrative known as Ben Ali’s Diary.