Book picks similar to
We Shall Not Be Moved by M.J. O'Brien
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english
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Approaching Ali: A Reclamation in Three Acts
Davis Miller - 2015
Now, all these years later, the two friends have an uncommon bond, the sort that can be fashioned only in serendipitous ways and fortified through shared experiences. Miller draws from his remarkable moments with The Champ to give us a beautifully written portrait of a great man physically devastated but spiritually young—playing mischievous tricks on unsuspecting guests, performing sleight of hand for any willing audience, and walking ten miles each way to grab an ice cream sundae. Informed by great literary journalists such as Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese, but in a timeless style that is distinctly his own, Miller gives us a series of extraordinary stories that coalesce into an unprecedentedly humanizing, intimate, and tenderly observed portrait of one of the world’s most loved men.
Flying Low
B.K. Bryans - 2012
Navy fighter/attack pilot from 1956 to 1980. (What it was like to fly jets off aircraft carriers in the days before smart bombs, GPS, and automated carrier landing systems.) After two years at the University of Arizona, the author entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in Pensacola, Florida, and became a carrier-qualified jet pilot at age twenty. As a naval aviator, he flew 3,669 hours in thirteen different types of aircraft, made 652 carrier landings (163 of them at night), and flew 183 combat missions during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and thirteen Air Medals. He went on to command Attack Squadron 35 aboard USS Nimitz.This is the story.
Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad
Ann Hagedorn - 2003
You can see the hills of northern Kentucky and the rooftops of Ripley’s riverfront houses. And you can see what the abolitionist John Rankin saw from his house at the top of that hill, where for nearly forty years he placed a lantern each night to guide fugitive slaves to freedom beyond the river. In Beyond the River, Ann Hagedorn tells the remarkable story of the participants in the Ripley line of the Underground Railroad, bringing to life the struggles of the men and women, black and white, who fought “the war before the war” along the Ohio River. Determined in their cause, Rankin, his family, and his fellow abolitionists—some of them former slaves themselves—risked their lives to guide thousands of runaways safely across the river into the free state of Ohio, even when a sensational trial in Kentucky threatened to expose the Ripley “conductors.” Rankin, the leader of the Ripley line and one of the early leaders of the antislavery movement, became nationally renowned after the publication of his Letters on American Slavery, a collection of letters he wrote to persuade his brother in Virginia to renounce slavery. A vivid narrative about memorable people, Beyond the River is an inspiring story of courage and heroism that transports us to another era and deepens our understanding of the great social movement known as the Underground Railroad.
Something Beautiful Happened: A Story of Survival and Courage in the Face of Evil
Yvette Manessis Corporon - 2017
Nearly 2,000 Jews from that area died in the concentration camps, but even though everyone on Erikousa knew Savvas and his family were hiding on the island, no one ever gave them up, and the family survived the war.Years later, Yvette couldn’t get the story of the Jewish tailor out of her head. She decided to track down the man’s descendants—and eventually found them in Israel. Their tearful reunion was proof to her that evil doesn’t always win. But just days after she made the connection, her cousin’s child was gunned down in a parking lot in Kansas, a victim of a Neo-Nazi out to inflict as much harm as he could. Despite her best hopes, she was forced to confront the fact that seventy years after the Nazis were defeated, it was still happening today.As Yvette and her family wrestled with the tragedy in their own lives, the lessons she learned from the survivors of the Holocaust helped her confront and make sense of the present.In beautifully told interweaving storylines, the past and present come together in a nuanced, heartfelt story about the power of faith, the importance of kindness, and the courage to stand up for what’s right in the face of great evil.
Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret
Catherine Coleman Flowers - 2020
Once the epicenter of the voting rights struggle, today it's Ground Zero for a new movement that is Flowers's life's work. It's a fight to ensure human dignity through a right most Americans take for granted: basic sanitation. Too many people, especially the rural poor, lack an affordable means of disposing cleanly of the waste from their toilets, and, as a consequence, live amid filth.Flowers calls this America's dirty secret. In this powerful book she tells the story of systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that foster Third World conditions, not just in Alabama, but across America, in Appalachia, Central California, coastal Florida, Alaska, the urban Midwest, and on Native American reservations in the West.Flowers's book is the inspiring story of the evolution of an activist, from country girl to student civil rights organizer to environmental justice champion at Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative. It shows how sanitation is becoming too big a problem to ignore as climate change brings sewage to more backyards, and not only those of poor minorities.
Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy
Bruce Watson - 2010
But by the time their first night in the state had ended, three volunteers were dead, black churches had burned, and America had a new definition of freedom. This remarkable chapter in American history, the basis for the controversial film Mississippi Burning, is now the subject of Bruce Watson's thoughtful and riveting historical narrative. Using in- depth interviews with participants and residents, Watson brilliantly captures the tottering legacy of Jim Crow in Mississippi and the chaos that brought such national figures as Martin Luther King Jr. and Pete Seeger to the state. Freedom Summer presents finely rendered portraits of the courageous black citizens-and Northern volunteers-who refused to be intimidated in their struggle for justice, and the white Mississippians who would kill to protect a dying way of life. Few books have provided such an intimate look at race relations during the deadliest days of the Civil Rights movement, and Freedom Summer will appeal to readers of Taylor Branch and Doug Blackmon.
Elementary: The Explosive File On Scott Watson And The Disappearance Of Ben & Olivia: What Haven't They Told You?
Ian Wishart - 2016
The book that finally cracks the case. Ben Smart. Olivia Hope. Scott Watson. Unmissable. Undeniable. Unprecedented. Unexpected. Note from author: "This book contains quotes from original police witness statements. No two witnesses ever see the crime from exactly the same angle, so differences between statements are expected. Sometimes one statement can have a crucial detail that others have missed. That's why I included what appear to be 'repetitive' statements by a number of witnesses. So you can see the overall similarities and weight of evidence, but also any unique details. Sometimes witness statements are relevant to different parts of the story, so just as in a murder trial, readers may find a statement being referred to more than once.In a crime story, the devil can be in the detail. The statements are quoted in the authentic spelling of the witness - as important legal records they don't get 'proofed'. The court trial lasted 12 weeks and involved 30,000 pages of documents. I have distilled that down to 372 pages but it is still a complex story. Think of yourself as a juror, sifting the evidence."Previous books on this case have concentrated on picking apart the police version of events given in Court. That's a legalistic technique of creating 'doubt'. I ask a different question: Forget about the court case, do the original witness statements including ones never used in court show us what happened? The answer, I suggest, is "Yes", and you are about to find out for yourself..."
Stranger to the Game: 2the Autobiography of Bob Gibson
Bob Gibson - 1994
From Gibson's early days in the Jim Crow South to his glory days as a World Series-winning pitcher, Stranger to the Game is the candid memoir of one of the game's greatest pitchers and most outspoken black players.
The Fall of the Roman Umpire
Ron Luciano - 1986
Illustrated with 16 pages of photographs.
I Am Not Your Negro
James Baldwin - 2017
Weaving these texts together, Peck brilliantly imagines the book that Baldwin never wrote. In his final years, Baldwin had envisioned a book about his three assassinated friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. His deeply personal notes for the project have never been published before. Peck s film uses them to jump through time, juxtaposing Baldwin s private words with his public statements, in a blazing examination of the tragic history of race in America.
God, Trump, and the 2020 Election: Why He Must Win and What's at Stake for Christians if He Loses
Stephen E. Strang - 2020
Evangelicals who recognized this backed him more than any other presidential candidate in history. Heading into 2020, the stakes in his reelection are even higher. This election, nine months after this book releases, is a new fight for the soul of America. Stephen E. Strang makes the case that God wants America to be great because God has raised up America—beginning with our Founding Fathers—to be a beacon of light and hope for the world. We’ve been the nation with religious liberty that has supported those who have spread the gospel around the world.In this book Strang looks at the election, Trump, and America from a spiritual perspective and helps Christians (and others) see God’s hand at work. This book is as much about God and His purposes as about Donald Trump. But it is also an articulate, impassioned apologetic about why all Christians must support this imperfect president, because he has God’s blessing and because the destiny of America is riding on his reelection. This book also explores why he might lose, if his base is overconfident and doesn’t vote or if his opponents are dishonest enough to steal the election.God, Trump, and the 2020 Election is an inside look at how the political climate is affected by spiritual warfare—an important subject for Bible-believing Christians. The satanic schemes are so brazen on key issues that the book was written to explain what’s at stake. Strang believes that the intersection of faith and politics needs to be part of the national discussion about the division in our country.Other Books By Stephen E. Strang:God and Donald Trump (2017) ISBN-13: 978-1629994864Trump Aftershock (2018)ISBN-13: 978-1629995557
Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution
Laurie Penny - 2014
Unspeakable Things is a book that is eye-opening not only in the critique it provides, but also in the revolutionary alternatives it imagines.
The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes and Racism in America's Law Enforcement and the Search for Change
Matthew Horace - 2018
Yet it was after seven years of service when Horace found himself face-down on the ground with a gun pointed at his head by a fellow white officer, that he fully understood the racism seething within America's police departments.Using heart-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts garnered by interviews with police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider's critical examination of police bias and tactics in what he concludes is an "archaic system" built on "toxic brotherhood." He dissects some of the nation's most highly publicized police shootings to explain how the bias' that black and white police harbor bring detrimental outcomes to the people they serve. Horace shares fresh analysis on communities experiencing the harm of racist policing such as Ferguson, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Chicago to uncover what has sown the seeds of violence.Timely and provocative, The Black and The Blue sheds light on what truly goes on behind the blue line.
Cripple Creek Days
Mabel Barbee Lee - 1958
She speaks with authority because she arrived there as a child in 1892, and with wide-eyed wonder saw the whole place turn to gold.With his divining rod, Mabel's father tapped gold ore on Beacon Hill but missed becoming a millionaire by selling his claim short. Nonetheless, life was rich for young Mabel in a booming town with points of interest like Poverty Gulch, the Continental Hotel, and a fantastic house called Finn's Folly; with characters around like the promoter Windy Joe and (seen from a distance) the madam Pearl De Vere; with something always going on, whether a celebration or a disastrous fire or train wreck or a no-nonsense miners' strike.Mabel Lee's book brings back a time and place with affection. The foreword is by Lowell Thomas, who was her pupil when she was a young schoolmarm in Cripple Creek.
A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom
Brittany K. Barnett - 2020
Barnett was only a law student when she came across the case that would change her life forever--that of Sharanda Jones, single mother, business owner and, like Brittany, black daughter of the rural South. A victim of America's ruthless and devastating war on drugs, Sharanda had been torn from the arms of her young daughter and was serving a life sentence without parole--all for a first-time drug offense. In Sharanda, Brittany saw haunting echoes of own life, both as the daughter of a formerly incarcerated mother and the one-time girlfriend of an abusive drug dealer. As she studied Sharanda's case, a system slowly came into focus: one where widespread racial injustice forms the core of our country's addiction to incarceration. Moved by Sharanda's plight, Brittany began to work towards her freedom.This had never been the plan. Bright and ambitious, Brittany was already a successful accountant with her sights set on a high-powered future in corporate law. But Sharanda's case opened the door to a harrowing journey through the criminal justice system, in which people could be locked up for life under misguided appeals for law and order. Driven by the realization that her clients' fates could have easily been her own, Brittany soon found herself on a quest to unlock the human potential of those our society has forgotten how to see. Living a double life, she moved billion dollar corporate deals by day, and by night worked pro bono to free Sharanda and others in near-impossible legal battles. Ultimately, her journey transformed her understanding of injustice in the courts, of genius languishing behind bars, and the very definition of freedom itself. A Knock at Midnight is Brittany's riveting, inspirational memoir, at once a coming-of-age story and a powerful evocation of what it takes to bring hope and justice to a system built to resist both at every turn.