It Was All a Dream: A New Generation Confronts the Broken Promise to Black America
Reniqua Allen - 2019
Now, a new generation is pursuing success, happiness, and freedom -- on their own terms. In It Was All a Dream, Reniqua Allen tells the stories of Black millennials searching for a better future in spite of racist policies that have closed off traditional versions of success. Many watched their parents and grandparents play by the rules, only to sink deeper and deeper into debt. They witnessed their elders fight to escape cycles of oppression for more promising prospects, largely to no avail. Today, in this post-Obama era, they face a critical turning point. Interweaving her own experience with those of young Black Americans in cities and towns from New York to Los Angeles and Bluefield, West Virginia to Chicago, Allen shares surprising stories of hope and ingenuity. Instead of accepting downward mobility, Black millennials are flipping the script and rejecting White America's standards. Whether it means moving away from cities and heading South, hustling in the entertainment industry, challenging ideas about gender and sexuality, or building activist networks, they are determined to forge their own path. Compassionate and deeply reported, It Was All a Dream is a celebration of a generation's doggedness against all odds, as they fight for a country in which their dreams can become a reality.
Unbreak My Heart (Second Chances #2)
Rhonda McKnight - 2014
show career is spiraling into an abyss. She’s desperate enough to do almost anything to keep a roof over her head and provide the financial support that’s needed for her daughter and ailing grandmother. When her estranged husband, Jacob Gray, reenters her life offering a lifeline she realizes she still loves him. Cameron has kept a painful secret that continues to be at the root of the unspoken words between them. She’s a woman of great faith, but regaining trust requires telling all and healing old wounds that she believes would destroy any chance for happiness they could have. Jacob Gray believed he’d spend the rest of his life loving his wife, that is until he discovered she was pregnant and there was no way it could be his child. He tried to put Cameron out of his mind and heart, but five years have passed and he still loves her. Jacob risks everything, including his fortune, in hopes of getting a second chance at love. Though he quickly discovers Cameron’s not interested in rekindling what they had years ago. Will Jacob convince her to forgive the mistakes in their past and allow each other to heal their broken hearts?
Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America
Beryl Satter - 2009
In this powerful book, Beryl Satter identifies the true causes of the city's black slums and the ruin of urban neighborhoods throughout the country: not, as some have argued, black pathology, the culture of poverty, or white flight, but a widespread and institutionalized system of legal and financial exploitation.
In Satter's riveting account of a city in crisis, unscrupulous lawyers, slumlords, and speculators are pitched against religious reformers, community organizers, and an impassioned attorney who launched a crusade against the profiteers—the author's father, Mark J. Satter. At the heart of the struggle stand the black migrants who, having left the South with its legacy of sharecropping, suddenly find themselves caught in a new kind of debt peonage. Satter shows the interlocking forces at work in their oppression: the discriminatory practices of the banking industry; the federal policies that created the country's shameful "dual housing market"; the economic anxieties that fueled white violence; and the tempting profits to be made by preying on the city's most vulnerable population.
A monumental work of history, this tale of racism and real estate, politics and finance, will forever change our understanding of the forces that transformed urban America.
Take Me As I Am
Bianca - 2018
With their marriage facing rocky waters, Avian Linzy decides that what her and her husband, Marcellus, need is a trip to Mexico to set their union right again. However, on the day that they are set to leave, Marcellus announces to Avian that he wants a divorce. Broken hearted, Avian isn’t sure that she should go through with the vacation, but with the urging of her best friend, Lakeisha, she boards the plane to Mexico, alone. Lakeisha believes this trip can help Avian heal, but Avian remains skeptic until she unexpectedly meets the handsome Casyrius Knowlton.
Casyrius Knowlton is a man of means and has no problem getting what he wants, including his current position as a sports agent. In Mexico, Casyrius is planning to marry his high school sweetheart, Kiami Green. Casyrius’s love for Kiami runs deep, but that doesn’t stop him from having doubts when it comes to their upcoming nuptials. The ties to their relationship are hanging on by a slim thread, but completely snap when a would-be tragic event lands Avian in Casyrius’s arms. Literally.
Over the course of a week, Casyrius grows closer to Avian, but after his reason for being in Mexico is revealed, Avian disappears without a trace, and he’s determined to find the woman he’s unknowingly given a piece of his heart to. It won’t be easy, but Casyrius learns that anything worth having, rarely is.
After getting her heart broken twice within a week, will Avian be able to find love again, or will she hold on to what could have been between her and Casyrius? If Casyrius finds her, will he be able to handle the secrets that she was hiding from him for so long?
In Pursuit of Joi
Olivia Renee Wallace - 2013
She is the mother of the perfect daughter. She has her own thriving business and seems to be living the perfect life. But she has secrets... Secrets that haunt her dreams.Along comes Latoya Bradshaw. She's beautiful, successful, and edgy.She awakens feelings in Joi that have lain dormant for years. She reminds Joi of her past.Joi must decide on whether she wants to continue living the life of the woman that she has become or risk it all to become the woman that she once thought that she was meant to be.
How to Live in the City
Hugo Macdonald - 2016
How to Live in the City is a book for navigating and nurturing this important relationship.Hugo Macdonald believes you need to feel a city to understand it. He won't tell you how wide the perfect pavement should be but he will show you how to walk down a pavement with eyes wide open. This is a book to help you feel human in an inhuman environment.
Indebted: The Complete Series Boxset
Sadie Black - 2015
She has spent her entire young adult life determined to do better. In a few months, the lifetime of sacrifices will finally be worth it. She will be graduating at the top of her prestigious masters program at Columbia, and finally leave her job at the diner to venture into the world of business. The only thing that could make this moment sweeter would be if her mama was still here to watch her cross that stage and clutch that diploma she's given up everything for. When Matthew Blackwell, the infamous billionaire bad-boy bachelor, shows up out of the blue in her diner asking for a date, Kendra's world is lurched sideways. With girls lined up around the block to be his "next mistake", Matthew could have almost any woman in New York City, or possibly the world. However, Kendra isn't interested in being his flavor of the week, until he hits her in her soft spot... her ambition. Despite her best attempts to keep her distance, Matthew's stunning good-looks and mischievous flare keep pulling her toward him. Will she unlock the heart of the unbreakable bad-boy or will Kendra become another victim of Matthew Blackwell's reputation? Want to be the first to know about releases and freebies? Sign up for Sadie Black's newletter at: kinktimemedia.com/sadieblack
Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL
Jeff Benedict - 1998
Reprint. NYT.
Shenzhen Superstars: How China’s Smartest City is Challenging Silicon Valley
Johan Nylander - 2017
It’s the story about how a Chinese fishing village became a global economic powerhouse of innovation and technology. Just four decades ago Shenzhen was a backwater area, populated by fishermen and rice farmers. Today, it’s home to up to 20 million people and some of the world’s leading technology companies and most innovative tech startups. No other city better symbolizes the rise of modern China. And no other city challenges Silicon Valley more aggressively as the global hub for innovation and technology startups. In many ways, the Chinese city has already outsmarted the Valley. “Shenzhen has an energy of growth – the same energy I felt when I first came to Silicon Valley ten years ago. And it’s not just in technology. It’s this idea that whoever you are, whatever you’re into, you can come to China, and especially Shenzhen, and do it!” American entrepreneur Scotty Allen says in the book. Shenzhen Superstars is written for anyone who wants to be part of this raging growth story – no matter if you’re a tech buff, investor or just someone curious about knowing what’s driving the future. As a journalist for CNN, Forbes and other international media, Johan Nylander has witnessed the astonishing transformation of the south Chinese city. Its speed, energy and determination are just mind-blowing. His aim is to take you inside, to the very heart of what is shaping this vibrant city. KEY QUOTES FROM THE BOOK “In terms of hardware plus software innovation, Shenzhen is ahead of the curve.” – Jeffrey Towson, private equity investor and Peking University professor “The next ten years will be the era of robots and intelligent machines, and Shenzhen will play well to that.” – Jixun Foo, managing partner of GGV Capital “Shenzhen is just better than Silicon Valley in terms of hardware and software integration.” – Qin Li, CEO of startup Sennotech “If you’re not already in Shenzhen, you're crazy.” – Edith Yeung, general partner of 500 Startups
Reign of the White Phoenix
Jessica Cage - 2021
She would change the world.Hidden since birth from her own people, Elsfaer was born with a distinct marking that covered her entire body. Before she could walk, she was seen as a threat to their existence. But there were those who believed that she should be protected at all costs.With the call for a new Elite, the High Spirit chose Elsfaer as the next to lead the Phoenix people. The very people she’d been told to fear all her life. But unlike the rest of her people who burned either a blue or red flame, Elsfaer’s fire was the hottest of whites.Her white flame was a sign of change, of a new order for her people. Unfortunately, Phoenixes weren’t exactly open to change, but Elsfaer knows something they don’t. The balance of the Phoenix has been thrown off and if she doesn’t fix it, their flames will burn out for the last time.Reign of the White Phoenix is a part of the Rise of the Elites Shared World CollectionCollection includes titles by:USA Today Bestselling Author, Jessica CageDelizhia JenkinsUSA Today Bestselling Author, Jennifer LaslieUSA Today Bestselling Author, Mikel WilsonE. M. LaceyKish KnightUSA Today Bestselling Author, K. R. FajardoSeven Elites will Fall. Seven will Rise.Find out if they survive.
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City
St. Clair Drake - 1945
Based on a mass of research conducted by Works Progress Administration field workers in the late 1930s, it is a historical and sociological account of the people of Chicago's South Side, the classic urban ghetto. Drake and Cayton's findings not only offer a generalized analysis of black migration, settlement, community structure, and black-white race relations in the early part of the twentieth century, but also tell us what has changed in the last hundred years and what has not. This edition includes the original Introduction by Richard Wright and a new Foreword by William Julius Wilson."Black Metropolis is a rare combination of research and synthesis, a book to be deeply pondered. . . . No one who reads it intelligently can ever believe again that our racial dilemma can be solved by pushing buttons, or by gradual processes which may reach four or five hundred years into the future."—Bucklin Moon, The Nation"This volume makes a great contribution to the building of the future American and the free world."—Louis Wirth, New York Times"By virtue of its range, its labor and its insight, the book seems certain to become a landmark not only in race studies but in the broader field of social anthropology."—Thomas Sancton, New Republic
American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland
Robert O. Self - 2003
American Babylon tells this story through Oakland and its nearby suburbs, tracing both the history of civil rights and black power politics as well as the history of suburbanization and home-owner politics. Robert Self shows that racial inequities in both New Deal and Great Society liberalism precipitated local struggles over land, jobs, taxes, and race within postwar metropolitan development. Black power and the tax revolt evolved together, in tension.American Babylon demonstrates that the history of civil rights and black liberation politics in California did not follow a southern model, but represented a long-term struggle for economic rights that began during the World War II years and continued through the rise of the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. This struggle yielded a wide-ranging and profound critique of postwar metropolitan development and its foundation of class and racial segregation. Self traces the roots of the 1978 tax revolt to the 1940s, when home owners, real estate brokers, and the federal government used racial segregation and industrial property taxes to forge a middle-class lifestyle centered on property ownership.Using the East Bay as a starting point, Robert Self gives us a richly detailed, engaging narrative that uniquely integrates the most important racial liberation struggles and class politics of postwar America.
Midnight Mover: The True Story of the Greatest Soul Singer in the World
Bobby Womack - 2007
A protege of Sam Cooke, Womack wrote classics that include "Lookin' for a Love" and "It's All Over Now" (a smash-hit for the Rolling Stones). Their success helped make him a star, but ongoing battles with drugs and the record industry nearly destroyed him. Behind his music lies a life scorched by tragedy, beginning with his impoverished childhood in Cleveland, to his years touring and recording with the greats--including James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Eric Clapton, and Elvis Presley--and through the years of drugs, partying, and riotous abuse, this is the authentic voice of a major soul artist.
The Heart Of A Champion
Donnia Marie - 2019
Without a doubt, Zafirah is a daddy’s girl and in her eyes has the perfect role model as a father which makes it hard for any man to compare. Is her heart even capable of allowing another being to direct her steps? Does she even want to be handled? Her passion for designing clothes and opening a boutique is all she’s worried about until her heart takes a turn when she realizes the chemistry that she and Troy share. Mr. Champion, Zafirah’s father regards Troy as his son. Will the close-knit relationship they share be a stumbling block for Troy and Zafirah? Is Troy what Mr. Champion envisions for his daughter? Will Zafirah and Troy go against the grain to be with one another? Troy Cunningham is an example of a man that can overcome any obstacle and still succeed despite the statistics. He went from dealing in the streets to owning a successful business and his growth as an evolving individual shows daily. However, hardships later plague him and his heart is on the line. Will he continue to win in the game of life? “Please… When you have me all to yourself, you don’t know what to do.” ~Zafirah~ “I missed you too Zee, so stop flexin’ all the time.” ~Troy~ The Champion Sisters is a series spotlighting four sisters with very different personalities that are conquering their own world, in their own way, at their own pace. Join them on their journey as they navigate through family, careers, and life. Discover how they all end up coming out as champions.
Five Negro Presidents
J.A. Rogers - 1965
. .Historian Joel Augustus Rogers provides his evidence that there have been 19th-and 20th-century presidents of the United States who have partial black ancestry, including Harding, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln.RUNNING TIME ⇒ 24mins.©2020 J.A. Rogers (P)2020 J.A. Rogers