But this notorious corner's 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter, and Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the urban drug war, tell the chilling story of this desolate crossroad.Through the eyes of one broken family--two drug-addicted adults and their smart, vulnerable 15-year-old son, DeAndre McCollough, Simon and Burns examine the sinister realities of inner cities across the country and unflinchingly assess why law enforcement policies, moral crusades, and the welfare system have accomplished so little. This extraordinary book is a crucial look at the price of the drug culture and the poignant scenes of hope, caring, and love that astonishingly rise in the midst of a place America has abandoned.

    This is a no-holds-barred response to the liberal and conservative retreat from an assertive, activist, and socially transformative civil rights agenda of recent years--using a black feminist lens and the issue of  the impact of recent legislation, social policy, and welfare "reform" on black women's--especially poor black women's--control over their bodies' autonomy and their freedom to bear and raise children with respect and dignity in a society whose white mainstream is determined to demonize, even criminalize their lives.   It gives its readers a cogent legal and historical argument for a radically new , and socially transformative, definition of  "liberty" and "equality" for the American polity from a black feminist perspective.The author is able to combine the most innovative and radical thinking on several fronts--racial theory, feminist, and legal--to produce a work that is at once history and political treatise.  By using the history of how American law--beginning with slavery--has treated the issue of the state's right  to interfere with the black woman's body, the author explosively and effectively makes the case for the legal redress to the racist implications of current policy with regards to 1) access to and coercive dispensing of birth control to poor black women 2) the criminalization of parenting by poor black women who have used drugs 3) the stigmatization and devaluation of poor black mothers under the new welfare provisions, and 4) the differential access to and disproportionate spending of social resources on the new reproductive technologies used by wealthy white couples to insure genetically related offspring.The legal redress of the racism inherent in current  American law and policy in these matters, the author argues in her last chapter, demands and should lead us to adopt a new standard and definition of the liberal theory of "liberty" and "equality" based on the need for, and the positive role of government in fostering, social as well as individual justice.

    Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America.

    Wells housing project.Set against the stunning photographs of a talented young photographer from the projects, Our America evokes the unforgiving world of these two amazing young men, and their struggle to survive unrelenting tragedy. With a gift for clear-eyed journalism, they tell their own stories and others, including that of the death of Eric Morse, a five-year-old who was dropped to his death from the fourteenth floor of an Ida B. Wells apartment building by two other little boys. Sometimes funny, often painful, but always charged with their dream of Our America, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman reach out to grab your attention and break your heart.

    "Joothan" refers to scraps of food left on a plate, destined for the garbage or animals. India's untouchables have been forced to accept and eat joothan for centuries, and the word encapsulates the pain, humiliation, and poverty of a community forced to live at the bottom of India's social pyramid.Although untouchability was abolished in 1949, Dalits continued to face discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, and ridicule. Valmiki shares his heroic struggle to survive a preordained life of perpetual physical and mental persecution and his transformation into a speaking subject under the influence of the great Dalit political leader, B. R. Ambedkar. A document of the long-silenced and long-denied sufferings of the Dalits, Joothan is a major contribution to the archives of Dalit history and a manifesto for the revolutionary transformation of society and human consciousness.

    Photographer, filmmaker, novelist, poet, and composer, Gordon Parks is one of the most inspiring success stories of our time. Now in a trade paperback edition, Half Past Autumn gives us the first complete retrospective of his photographic career, along with his own account of his amazing life. Half Past Autumn chronicles Parks's remarkable documentary images for the Farm Security Administration, his hard-hitting work for Life magazine, elegant fashion photos for Vogue, insightful portraits of notables, and his more recent abstract color images. With engaging anecdotal text that gives us the stories behind the images, this is an inspiring memoir of Parks's life and his struggle against racism.

    Odessa, supporting an extended family, exhibits almost superhuman strength and resolve. Cheri, a single mother, is a tireless advocate for the homeless. Zucchino beautifully portrays them as figures of profound courage and quiet perseverance, systematically shattering all misconceptions and stereotypes about these women and so many others like them.

    On Christmas Eve they take in a frail stranger who needs a place to keep warm, and the next morning Simon wakes early to find that the woman has vanished. Instead, he sees December, the angel from the picture, with her wings fanned out over their cardboard house. Could she be real?

    For she believes that the things we treasure, and the world we live in, can all be saved if only we will act. Beginning with an autobiographical essay about the roots of her own activism, Alice Walker then goes on to explore diverse public issues such as single parenthood, freedom of the press, civil rights and religion.

    With energy and passion, this anthology of writings documents the personal and collective political struggles of Chicana feminists.

    Just four years earlier, Bessie and Sadie, along with former "New York Times" reporter Amy Hill Hearth, co-wrote the bestselling "Having Our Say," which told the story of the sisters' remarkable lives as witnesses to a century. Here, Sadie reflects on the first year following Bessie's death. "Kirkus Reviews" called the book "a bracing reminder that life, a rare gift, must be savored in the living."

    At a pivotal moment of history when an enormous catastrophe was obviously inevitable, Bataille confronted the most intractable problems of human existence head-on. How to live an integrated existence in a ruthless, absurd and indifferent universe? How to oppose repressive social structures given the failure of the democracies, the political left, and with the rise of the Nazi ideology?The texts in this book comprise lectures given to the "College of Sociology" by Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris, and a large cache of the internal papers of the secret society of Acéphale founded by Bataille in 1937.The College of Sociology was a semi-public reading and discussion group attended by the cream of Parisian intelligentsia in the ominous atmosphere of the oncoming war. Bataille and Caillois produced some of their greatest texts for these sessions. Acéphale was its "dark", occulted side, a genuine secret society that conducted torch-lit rituals in a forest at night intended to confront death itself. Until the remarkable discovery a few years ago of its internal papers — which include theoretical texts, meditations, minutes of meetings, rules and interdictions and even a membership list — almost nothing was known of its activities. This book reveals the history of one of the strangest associations in "literary", or any other history.In these texts the narrative of a desperate adventure unfolds, of a wholly unreasonable quest: "What we are starting is a war." Bataille risked all in this undertaking, and death was not absent from it; with a few fellow travellers he undertook what he later described as a "journey out of this world".

    His class, comprised mostly of African-American students, knew little about the modern civil rights movement. Without a satisfactory text on the movement from which to teach, he decided that the kids should learn their history first hand. So, he sent them out to interview the people who were really there. The kids came back with truly wonderful stories -- many of the parents, grandparents, and friends interviewed had never before had the opportunity to share their stories with their children. THE BOOK:There are 31 interviews that cover three main areas of the movement: life under segregation, the nonviolent movement, and the black power movement. Everyone is here -- regular, ordinary people who dedicated themselves to the cause of freedom and the fight for equality, and even a few of the better known people whose names we hear and associate with Martin Luther King, or with the Freedom Rides, or with other familiar aspects of the movement. In her foreword, Rosa Parks writes, "I can't think of anything more important to teach young people today than this: that ordinary people working together can change history." Through warm, down-to-earth interviews with children, readers will meet people who lived in the segregated south, people who took part in sit-ins, people who were jailed for protesting, and people who found strength they never knew they had. They will meet a member of the Black Panthers, a woman who witnessed the assassination of Malcolm X, and a former Ku Klux Klansman. In addition, there are three introductory essays which provide background information to help kids to better understand the context of the interviews. Also included are portraits of the people in each interview and over 40 archival photographs of important moments during the movement.

    "Joothan" refers to scraps of food left on a plate, destined for the garbage or animals. India's untouchables have been forced to accept and eat joothan for centuries, and the word encapsulates the pain, humiliation, and poverty of a community forced to live at the bottom of India's social pyramid.Although untouchability was abolished in 1949, Dalits continued to face discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, and ridicule. Valmiki shares his heroic struggle to survive a preordained life of perpetual physical and mental persecution and his transformation into a speaking subject under the influence of the great Dalit political leader, B. R. Ambedkar. A document of the long-silenced and long-denied sufferings of the Dalits, Joothan is a major contribution to the archives of Dalit history and a manifesto for the revolutionary transformation of society and human consciousness.

    Now these classic books have been resized and rewritten into intermediate-level readers that kids 6 and up can read themselves. While the text has been shortened and simplified, it retains the enduring Chicken Soup message of sincere and heartfelt virtue. The new reader series starts with two books: In The Best Night Out With Dad, Danny can't wait to go to the circus with his dad. It's going to be the best night ever! But the night has a surprise ending when Danny meets Victor in the ticket line. In The Greatest Gift of All, Izzy finds out that her parents won't let her go to Pine View Camp. Her summer is ruined! But things begin to change for Izzy when she starts to do Give-back Time with Grandpa Mike and meets the Braids Girl.With a lower price point, friendly format and the power of the Chicken Soup brand, these books will inspire children as they teach the joy of reading.Key Features The previous books were for parents to read to children; the new books have been shortened by approximately 25% and redesigned to make them appropriate for intermediate readers (ages 6 and up). The books contain 4-color illustrations throughout, including many full-page bleeds. The recognizable brand, along with the lower price point and smaller trim size, make this a perfect impulse purchase for busy parents.

    Vincent J. Felitti, a leading researcher in the field. When Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence was published in 1997, it was lauded for providing scientific evidence that violence can originate in the womb and become entrenched in a child’s brain by preschool. The authors’ groundbreaking conclusions became even more relevant following the wave of school shootings across the nation including the tragedy at Columbine High School and the shocking subsequent shootings culminating most recently in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Following each of these media coverage and public debate turned yet again to the usual suspects concerning the causes of violence: widespread availability of guns and lack of mental health services for late-stage treatment. Discussion of the impact of trauma on human life—especially early in life during chemical and structural formation of the brain—is missing from the equation. Karr-Morse and Wiley continue to shift the conversation among parents and policy makers toward more fundamental preventative measures against violence.

    As Tyler combs the stores looking for a black angel, he discovers there are none to be found. But sometimes Santa has a surprise or two in his sleigh . . . Beautifully written and illustrated, this appealing story tackles the serious issues of race and gender in a way that all children can understand.

    It provides an intimate look at the lives of the parents and children whose fate it decides. A must for social workers and social work students, attorneys, judges, foster parents, law students, child advocates, teachers, journalists and anyone who cares about our nation's children.

    He undermines widespread misunderstandings of black culture and shows how they have contributed to the failure of social policy to save our cities.

    In 1984, Thomas Cole discovered Eldrewey Stearns in a Galveston psychiatric hospital. Stearns, a fifty-two-year-old black man, complained that although he felt very important, no one understood him. Over the course of the next decade, Cole and Stearns, in a tumultuous and often painful collaboration, recovered Stearns' life before his slide into madness--as a young boy in Galveston and San Augustine and as a civil rights leader and lawyer who sparked Houston's desegregation movement between 1959 and 1963. While other southern cities rocked with violence, Houston integrated its public accommodations peacefully. In these pages appear figures such as Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., Leon Jaworski, and Dan Rather, all of whom--along with Stearns--maneuvered and conspired to integrate the city quickly and calmly. Weaving the tragic story of a charismatic and deeply troubled leader into the record of a major historic event, Cole also explores his emotionally charged collaboration with Stearns. Their poignant relationship sheds powerful and healing light on contemporary race relations in America, and especially on issues of power, authority, and mental illness.

    What she didn't expect to find is the reality of the devastated landscape that makes up the north woods--massive cut-overs, land that has been logged and used beyond any easily recognizable loveliness.However, Grover's extraordinary imagination sees similarities between this ravished landscape and the ravished bodies of her dying friends. Refusing to sentimentalize, she nevertheless finds surprising consolation in loss. From landfills that have become prime wildlife feeding areas, to the unexpected joys of fly-fishing without a hook, Grover again bears witness to something she first began to articulate in San Francisco: the "difficult beauties of deformity."

    Carl Sagan. His presentation evoked the sane tenets and mysteries offered in his immensely popular PBS series, "Cosmos", and his bestselling book, "The Dragons of Eden". These cassettes also include many of the world's leading religious and political leaders. Posthumously, Dr. Sagan's novel, "Contact", is now a major motion picture starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConnaugh.