Best of
Social-Justice

1969

A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches


Martin Luther King Jr. - 1969
    King's best-known oration, "I Have a Dream, " his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, and "Beyond Vietnam, " a compelling argument for ending the ongoing conflict. Each speech has an insightful introduction on the current relevance of Dr. King's words by such renowned defenders of civil rights as Rosa Parks, the Dalai Lama, and Ambassador Andrew Young, among others.

Black Theology and Black Power


James H. Cone - 1969
    Black Theology & Black Power is James H. Cone's initial attempt to identify liberation as the heart of the Christian gospel, and blackness as the primary mode of God's presence. As he explains in an introduction written for this edition, "I wanted to speak on behalf of the voiceless black masses in the name of Jesus whose gospel I believed had been greatly distorted by the preaching and theology of white churches."

On Lynchings


Ida B. Wells-Barnett - 1969
    The most virulent form of this ongoing persecution was the practice of lynching carried out by mob rule, often as local law enforcement officials looked the other way. During the 1880s and 1890s, more than 100 African Americans per year were lynched, and in 1892 alone the toll of murdered men and women reached a peak of 161.In that awful year, the twenty-three-year-old Ida B. Wells, the editor of a small newspaper for blacks in Memphis, Tennessee, raised one lone voice of protest. In her paper she charged that white businessmen had instigated three local lynchings against their black competitors. In retaliation for her outspoken courage a goon-squad of angry whites destroyed her editorial office and print shop, and she was forced to flee the South and move to New York City.So began a crusade against lynching which became the focus of her long, active, and very courageous life. In New York she began lecturing against the abhorrent vigilante practice and published her first pamphlet on the subject called Southern Horrors. After moving to Chicago and marrying lawyer Ferdinand Barnett, she continued her campaign, publishing A Red Record in 1895 and Mob Rule in New Orleans, about the race riots in that city, in 1900.All three of these documents are here collected in this work, a shocking testament to cruelty and the dark American legacy of racial prejudice. Anticipating possible accusations of distortion, Wells-Barnett was careful to present factually accurate evidence and she deliberately relied on southern white sources as well as statistics gathered by The Chicago Tribune. Using the words of white journalists, she created a damning indictment of unpunished crimes that was difficult to dispute since southern white men who had witnessed the appalling incidents had written the descriptions.Along with her husband she played an active role in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Due to her efforts, the NAACP launched an intensive campaign against lynching after World War I.Her work remains important to this day not only as a cry of protest against injustice but also as valuable historical documentation of terrible crimes that must never be forgotten. This new edition is enhanced by an introduction by Patricia Hill Collins, professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Black Misery


Langston Hughes - 1969
    After 25 years, it remains relevant in our own time. As you turn the pages you may say, I remember feeling like that! You may say, I feellike that now. As you look at Arouni's black and white illustrations and read the short but powerful one sentence captions, you feel the predicament of a black child adjusting to the new world of integration of the 1960s. You feel the mix of hope and dismay that characterized the decade. Langston Hughes was a writer who often made his readers ask hard questions about life. In Black Misery he wrote about prejudice and indifference, but he wrote with humor and compassion. Today--just as we did 25 years ago-we smile and even laugh, and we also understand that some things are more thanhard, are more than sad. They are pure misery. Black Misery was the last book that Langston Hughes wrote. He died in May 1967, while working on the manuscript.

Common Sense Not Needed: Bringing the Gospel to the Mentally Handicapped


Corrie ten Boom - 1969
    In this book, she recounts something of what she learned and experienced while carrying on this work. It will be of interest and encouragement to those working in similar circumstances.

The Revolt of the Black Athlete


Harry Edwards - 1969
    This Fiftieth Anniversary edition of Harry Edwards's classic of activist scholarship arrives even as a new generation engages with the issues he explored. Edwards's new introduction and afterword revisit the revolts by athletes like Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos. At the same time, he engages with the struggles of a present still rife with racism, double-standards, and economic injustice. Again relating the rebellion of black athletes to a larger spirit of revolt among black citizens, Edwards moves his story forward to our era of protests, boycotts, and the dramatic politicization of athletes by Black Lives Matter. Incisive yet ultimately hopeful, The Revolt of the Black Athlete is the still-essential study of the conflicts at the interface of sport, race, and society.

Companion to the Poor: Christ in the Urban Slums


Viv Grigg - 1969
    The need was obvious - to establish a Christian church among Asia's forgotten people, the impoverished slum dwellers of its vast megalopolises. The challenge was to find a way that did not treat people's spiritual needs in isolation from their poverty, without simply becoming another economic or social relief program with no evangelistic component. This book is the enthralling story of how the author met and solved this problem. But in a sense, it is an unfinished story. What has begun is but the beginning of the founding of a Christian community in a dark place. This is not Viv Grigg's story alone, but God's story. For it is God who is working in Tatalon and urban slums like it, and giving people a hope that affects all of life. Viv Grigg challenges us to reexamine our strategies and design new approaches that will build Christ's kingdom among the poor who comprise nearly half the world.

The Unjust Society


Harold Cardinal - 1969
    They were outraged when the White Paper introduced by Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Jean Chretien a year later amounted to an assimilation program: the repeal of the Indian Act, the transfer of Indian affairs to the provinces, and the elimination of separate legal status for Native people.The Unjust Society, Cree leader Harold Cardinal's stinging rebuttal, was an immediate best-seller, and it remains one of the most important books ever published in Canada.Possessed of a wicked gift for satire, Cardinal summed up the government's approach as "The only good Indian is a non-Indian". He coined the term "buckskin curtain" to describe the barriers that indifference, ignorance, and bigotry had placed in the way of his people. He insisted on his right to remain "a red tile in the Canadian mosaic". Above all, he called for radical changes in policy on aboriginal rights, education, social programs, and economic development.The Unjust Society heralded a profound change in the political landscape. Thirty years later, however, the buckskin curtain has still not disappeared. Canada's First Nations continue their fight for justice. And Harold Cardinal's vision is as compelling and powerful as ever.

Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto


Vine Deloria Jr. - 1969
    race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists. This book continues to be required reading for all Americans, whatever their special interest.