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Faith in the Valley: Lessons for Women on the Journey to Peace Review

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(More customer reviews)I first saw Iyanla Vanzant on Oprah (another truly inspiring woman) the more I watched this exceptional women the more I was astounded by her life and work. I looked up her books on the internet and read the excepts from each. These excepts were not lenghty but in that time I found a need in myself to discover more. The short excepts made real sense to me. So I went and purchased the book 'Faith in the Valley'. It made me wake up at night and listen to my thoughts that were deep in my stomach and not only to listen but to take notice of them, good and bad. To listen to faith that for so many years I had simply let into the fringes of my life and never into the core. Iyanla Vanzant is thought provoking, inspirational and gifted. I have all her books now. She is a writer and teacher that would inspire Mother Teresa.

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Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography--The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa Review

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(More customer reviews)Not much of an introduction needed here: the full title of the book accurately sums up the subject. This was a book that I bought in used paperback not certain whether I'd finish it, and found myself deeply engrossed in the story and in reflection upon Mathabane's descriptions of life under apartheid.
Mathabane shows a great many literary strengths here. His candid expression of his own feelings can't help but inspire the reader's respect and interest; the whole book feels 'spoken from the heart'. His prejudices, embarrassing moments, times of despair, moments of triumph, and peer relations are all here. Of particular interest to me (naturally, as a white non-South African) was the development of his views of white people--South Africans and foreigners--and how his understanding becomes broader as he meets a wider variety of people. I came away thinking that I'd probably really like Mark Mathabane in person.
His youth in fact makes a good story, one that builds nicely to a conclusion I won't spoil for you except to carefully mention that this is the story only of his youth, not of his whole life. And his descriptive talent, which painted such vivid and contrasting portraits of the life he led, is worthy of the great storytellers of the proud tribes of southern Africa from which he is descended. I would offer the caveat that the book contains explicit sexual and violent scenes that most people would consider inappropriate for children under 14 (and even then I'm assuming a pretty well-adjusted child). Mathabane is never himself vulgar, but some of his experiences certainly were, and he gets through them as quickly as possible but I see why he didn't omit them.
If you ever wondered what life was like for South African blacks under apartheid, particularly for a highly gifted member of that group striving upward against every barrier that several cultures could place before him, this'll be a revelation.

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Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City Review

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(More customer reviews)Elijah Anderson has done an outstanding job of explaining the sociological, economic, and geographical factors that contribute to the mentality commonly seen among young men in the inner city and the violence that can emerge as a result.
As a young black man that grew up in a two parent home in suburban Maryland, I was extremely confused when I left my small town for middle school. It was there that I was first exposed to black children with less fortunate financial backgrounds, single parent homes, and low value of education and order. As Anderson explains, even in the suburban regions of Maryland adjacent to D.C. inner city attitudes, styles, trends, and even volatility can be seen in young blacks as a result of 'cultural diffusion'. A phenomenon which has a peculiar property of moving up the socioeconomic ladder in the black community.
What I appreciate about Mr. Anderson's book most is that it has finally helped me to answer the question of 'WHY', which has tormented me for almost 15 years. Why have I found myself to be different than many of my black peers as a young man and an adult when all I wanted was a good education, a good job, and to live a decent life. EVERY person, Black or White who has found themself glaring at the low socioeconomic black community and wondering what is wrong, or quoting Bill Cosby Rhetoric while watching a group of hoodlums bully any and everyone off of the sidewalk, or turning up your nose at a pregnant 19 year old girl yelling at her toddler as she mopes down the sidewalk... YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK. Understanding is the beginning of dealing with what has become everyone's problem.

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Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs, and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a fantastic book of African-American Folk Songs. Bessie Jones includes not only the songs, but background information and games/motions to go along with it. I use it religiously in my lesson planning.

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Growing up in the rural South, Bessie Jones sang her way through long hours of field work and child tending, entertaining her young companions with chants and riddles or joining them for a rousing evening of ring dances and singing plays. These songs and games, recorded in Step It Down by folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes, capture the shape and color of the crowded, impoverished, life-demanding, and life-loving days of the black family of sixty years ago, revealing the strength and vitality of African and slave traditions in black American life.
The power of music and motion to transform a world of scarcity and hardship into one of laughter and joy echoes throughout Bessie Jones's words:
"And the other childrens and I would go in the bottom and have a frolic, instead of going to bed. I was just up for that singing, and I remembered they used to say . . . 'Come on, Lizzie!' and we'd go down a way and we'd have a dance. Oh it was pretty. . . . You know, it was just as good as the blues--better, better in a way. When the old folks would go to work or go off or something, we'd put on them long dresses and, boy, we'd have a time."
Step It Down weaves together the lyrics, music, and description of traditional Afro-American children's songs as well as Jones's comments on their meaning and "feel." Whether reciting "Tom, Tom, Greedy Gut" or demonstrating the more complex steps of "Ranky Tank" and "Buzzard's Lope," Bessie Jones always viewed the amusements of the young as preparation for adult roles and relationships, and as a teacher, she developed her own philosophy of how a black child is socialized into the larger community. Grounded in the values of black society, her songs taught children about cooperative interaction and mutual concern, not about competition and individual achievement, showing them how to create fun out of nothing more than their hands, feet, voices, and imaginations.

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The New Negro : Voices of the Harlem Renaissance Review

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(More customer reviews)This anthology contains works by many of the most important contributers to the Harlem Renaissance. The best parts of the volume are the poetry selections by poets such as Hughes, Cullen, and McKay as well as the essays by Alain Locke. The works by Hurston and Toomer are also quite good. The essays by Locke (especially the New Negro) feature insight into many of the ideas and developments that took place in order to bring about this important historical and cultural movement. This book is a definite must read.

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An interpretative anthology that acted as a manifesto for the Harlem Renaissance defines the artistic and social goals of the New Negro Movement of the 1920s.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Revised 10th Anniv 2nd Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)Patricia Hill Collins exemplifies a practitioner's and theorist's point of view on black feminism as it relates to Africa American and our African sisters. She references critical and inspiring data and quotes from a varied repetoire of authors, historians, and philosophers. The author explains the context and format of her subject upon initial reading. This book also draws commonalities among the issues and concerns among African American women and our international sisterhood (i.e., African, Carribean, etc.,) It illustrates the social and cultural values among all groups, the commonalities among the values while focusing on the African American feminist aspect. This is a must read for any person, be it woman or not, African American or other. It brings about a social and cultural understanding that is pertinent to the "holonomy" of understanding and appreciating varied cultural, social and historical values and experiences while commencing to the building of community. Please add this title to your collection of literature. You won't be disappointed; if for nothing more than to open your world to receive another perspective.

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In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. The result is a superbly crafted book that provides the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.

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Black Power : The Politics of Liberation Review

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(More customer reviews)I first read this book in 1993, after reading this book again it gives a not only a revealing truth of the american black experience, but a foundation for these beliefs and clear logical thought which makes this book a MUST READ and not just angry rhetoric printed on paper.

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In 1967, this revolutionary work exposed the depths of systemic racism in this country and provided a radical political framework for reform: true and lasting social change would only be accomplished through unity among African-Americans and their independence from the preexisting order. An eloquent document of the civil rights movement that remains a work of profound social relevance 25 years after it was first published.

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Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives Review

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(More customer reviews)"...Oh freedom, Oh freedom, Oh freedom over me. And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free"
__Old Negro Spiritual
The words of the spiritual above must not have been uttered to these beautiful human beings who have graciously allowed interviewers from the 1930's Governments Works Progress Administration to chronicle their life stories. For if the words above had been uttered, the slave experience, from an intimate and painful point of view, would never have received the credence they due. Tales of slavery are still passed down from generation to generation, and traditions still are followed but to see a book like Unchained Memories is special. Quite simply, this is a beautiful book. I'm so thrilled to have been given the opportunity to read it and experience it and learn from it. I can treat the book as a textbook, a factual accounting of the lives of former slaves who have wonderful stories that they don't mind sharing with the world. For that reason alone, this book has earned a permanent place on my coffee table, for all who enter into my house to experience. Something about the actual words of former slaves bound in book form validates an agonizing time in American History.
Unchained Memories is well researched and magnificently laid out. At the beginning of every chapter is an introductory text that accounts for the tenure of the time, followed by a poignant quote and then brief narratives begin. My one regret is that the narratives are so short, when biographers obviously spent a great deal of time with these people. I am grateful that there is an extensive bibliography at the back so that I can, at some point, go and read the entire account by the former slave. Oh where will I find the time? If you read this book, I would highly suggest that you get a copy of the HBO documentary of the same name and watch it as well. There is nothing like "hearing" the words spoken by African American actors of today in the vernacular of the time.
I'm glad that Unchained Memories was published, and quite fittingly made its debut during Black History Month. These former slaves are the reason why Black History Month is perpetuated now and a fitting tribute for remembering from whence we as a nation have come.

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Damn Near White: An African American Family's Rise from Slavery to Bittersweet Success Review

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(More customer reviews)This poingnant inter-generational story is told with such honesty that the reader is compelled to feel compassion. One cannot help but gain insight as to the the complexity of the competing demands of these family members, including Ms.Wilkins, within each of their own historical contexts. The way Ms.Wilkins weaves her experience with that of her family's history makes for riviting reading. Those families who have an Aunt Marjory know how lucky they are. Ms. Wilkins brings forth the real truth and conflicts about color within the race from the presepctive of lighter African Americans,few have acknowledged. This is a must read for everyone who values African American history and appreciates the sophistical dynamics of African American families. Being a part of the "talented 10th" is as much of a responsibility, with diasspointments, as it has been a benefit. Ms. Wilkins reveals both sides of this truth. This is a wonderful addition to every library that includes African American history.

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Carolyn Wilkins grew up defending her racial identity. Because of her light complexion and wavy hair, she spent years struggling to convince others that she was black. Her family's prominence set Carolyn's experiences even further apart from those of the average African American. Her father and uncle were well-known lawyers who had graduated from Harvard Law School. Another uncle had been a child prodigy and protégé of Albert Einstein. And her grandfather had been America's first black assistant secretary of labor.

Carolyn's parents insisted she follow the color-conscious rituals of Chicago's elite black bourgeoisie—experiences Carolyn recalls as some of the most miserable of her entire life. Only in the company of her mischievous Aunt Marjory, a woman who refused to let the conventions of "proper" black society limit her, does Carolyn feel a true connection to her family's African American heritage.

When Aunt Marjory passes away, Carolyn inherits ten bulging scrapbooks filled with family history and memories. What she finds in these photo albums inspires her to discover the truth about her ancestors—a quest that will eventually involve years of research, thousands of miles of travel, and much soul-searching.

Carolyn learns that her great-grandfather John Bird Wilkins was born into slavery and went on to become a teacher, inventor, newspaperman, renegade Baptist minister, and a bigamist who abandoned five children. And when she discovers that her grandfather J. Ernest Wilkins may have been forced to resign from his labor department post by members of the Eisenhower administration, Carolyn must confront the bittersweet fruits of her family's generations-long quest for status and approval.

Damn Near White is an insider's portrait of an unusual American family. Readers will be drawn into Carolyn's journey as she struggles to redefine herself in light of the long-buried secrets she uncovers. Tackling issues of class, color, and caste, Wilkins reflects on the changes of African American life in U.S. history through her dedicated search to discover her family's powerful story.

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Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora Review

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(More customer reviews)Stephanie Smallwood has written a book entitled "Saltwater Slavery" that aims, as she says, to provide a linear analysis of the commodification process that transformed Africans into slaves. Her focus is on enslavement in the Gold Coast and trans-Atlantic trade during the 17th and early 18th centuries.
The book is broken into three sections - Capture and enslavement in the Gold Coast, transformation from human to commodity, and the African Diaspora in America. The first section is necessarily short and merely sets the tone for Smallwood's argument - that the enslavement process was a matter of commodifying humans into marketable objects.
The second section, the commodification of these people into objects, is well researched and eminently readable. Smallwood is especially powerful when evoking images of the horrors that individuals underwent during the process.
The third section, the African Diaspora, is also short and to the point, but does not benefit Smallwood's argument as much as the first two sections do.
Overall, this is a good book, but has some minor flaws - first, the Diaspora section is (as previously mentioned) a little weak, and the fact that Smallwood focuses on the Trans-Atlantic Commerce between the Gold Coast and the British Caribbean leaves something to be desired, since both Virginia & South Carolina were important colonies that had slaves during this period, but are largely omitted from the work.

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