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The Justice Trilogy The Justice Trilogy, also called the Justice Cycle, was a series of young-adult science-fiction books written by Virginia Hamilton. Considered philosophically significant by critics within the field of young adult literature, the series is also notable as one of the first young-adult science fiction novels by a significant African American author. The series consists of three books:

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Push (novel) Push is the debut novel of American author Sapphire. Thirteen years after its release in 1996, the novel was made into the 2009 film "Precious", which won numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards. Plot. Claireece Precious Jones is an obese, illiterate 16-year-old girl who lives in Harlem with her abusive mother Mary. Precious is a few months pregnant with her second child, the product of her father raping her; he is also the father of her first child (who has Down syndrome). When her school discovers the pregnancy, it is decided that she should attend an alternative school. Precious is furious, but the counselor later visits her home and convinces her to enter an alternative school, located in the Hotel Theresa, called Higher Education Alternative Each One Teach One. Despite her mother's insistence that she apply for welfare, Precious enrolls in the school. She meets her teacher, Ms. Blu Rain, and fellow students Rhonda, Jermaine, Rita, Jo Ann, and Consuelo. All of the girls come from troubled backgrounds. Ms. Rain's class is a pre-GED class for young women who are below an eighth-grade level in reading and writing and therefore are unprepared for high school-level courses. They start off by learning the basics of phonics and vocabulary building. Despite their academic deficits, Ms. Rain ignites a passion in her students for literature and writing. She believes that the only way to learn to write is to write every day. Each girl is required to keep a journal. Ms. Rain reads their entries and provides feedback and advice. By the time the novel ends, the women have created an anthology of autobiographical stories called "LIFE STORIES – Our Class Book" appended to the book. The works of classic African-American writers such as Audre Lorde, Alice Walker and Langston Hughes are inspirational for the students. Precious is particularly moved by "The Color Purple". While in the hospital giving birth to son Abdul Jamal Louis Jones, Precious tells a social worker that her first child is living with her grandmother. The confession leads to Precious' mother having her welfare taken away. When Precious returns home with Abdul, her enraged mother chases her out of the house. Homeless and alone, she first passes a night at the armory, then turns to Ms. Rain, who uses all of her resources to get Precious into a halfway house with childcare. Her new environment provides her with the stability and support to continue with school. The narrative prose, told from Precious' voice, continually improves in terms of grammar and spelling, and is even peppered with imagery and similes. Precious has taken up poetry, and is eventually awarded the Mayor's office's literacy award for outstanding progress. The accomplishment boosts her spirits. As her attitude changes and her confidence grows, Precious thinks about having a boyfriend, and a real relationship with someone near her age who attracts her interest. Her only sexual experience thus far has been the rape and sexual abuse by her mother and father. As she's trying to move beyond her traumatic childhood and distance herself from her parents, her mother turns up to announce that her father has died from AIDS. Testing verifies that Precious is HIV positive, but her children are not. Her classmate Rita encourages Precious to join a support group, as well as an HIV-positive group. The meetings provide a source of support and friendship for Precious as well as the revelation that her color and socioeconomic background weren't necessarily the cause of her abuse. Women of all ages and backgrounds attend the meetings. The book concludes with no specific fate outlined for Precious; the author leaving her future undetermined. Style. Critics have gone in both directions as far as their opinions of the style in which "Push" is written. Some consider "the harrowing story line [to be] exaggerated," saying that it doesn't seem realistic to "saddle one fictional character with so many problems straight from today's headlines" (Glenn). Others have stated that while the dialect is problematic, Precious herself is believable because she "speaks in a darting stream of consciousness of her days in an unexpectedly evocative fashion" (Mahoney). Dialect/Voice. Precious begins the novel functionally illiterate. She spells words phonetically. She uses a "minimal English that defies the conventions of spelling and usage and dispenses all verbal decorum" (Mahoney). She employs variations such as "nuffin'" for "nothing", "git" for "get", "borned" for "born", "wif" for "with", and "chile" for "child". She also uses an array of profanity and harsh details that reflect the life she has experienced. Michiko Kakutani, a book reviewer for "The New York Times", states that Precious' "voice conjures up [her] gritty unforgiving world." As the book progresses and Precious learns to read and write, there is a stark change in her voice, though the dialect remains the same. Sequel. In 2011, Sapphire published a semi-sequel, "The Kid". It follows the life of Precious' son Abdul from the age of nine to 19. Precious herself has died following complications from HIV, but was accepted to college before her death.

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Where the Line Bleeds Where the Line Bleeds is the debut novel by American writer Jesmyn Ward. It was published in 2008 by Scribner. Background and publication history. Ward had difficulty finding a publisher for the novel. Between this and the low pay she received from her job as a composition instructor, Ward considered abandoning writing to pursue a career in nursing. But before she went gave up entirely, Doug Siebold of Agate Publishing accepted the novel, and the company published it in 2008. Shortly after, Ward was awarded a Stegner Fellowship which allowed her to continue writing. The book was reissued by Scribner in 2018. Characters from the novel have later appeared in other books by Ward. Plot. "Where the Line Bleeds" follows twin brothers who have just graduated from high school on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Poor and Black, they find few economic opportunities as they struggle to undertake their adult lives. Reception. Critical reception. The novel received positive reviews. Reviews from "Kirkus" and "Publishers Weekly" praised the novel as a strong debut. In the "Austin Chronicle," Elizabeth Jackson compared Ward’s style to William Faulkner and noted the potential in “a female, black author invoking the (white) father of Southern letters to explore the world of a poor, rural, black family”, calling it “an exciting proposition, with original and subversive implications”. Jackson expresses some reservation, saying Ward’s potential remains just that—potential, with some overwritten scenes that Jackson anticipates will improve in future work—but nevertheless says “this reviewer would rather read such a distinctive voice portraying an underexplored landscape than another white author talking about ivory-tower malaise, any day.” Honors. The novel was shortlisted for the First Novelist Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

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I, Tina I, Tina: My Life Story is a 1986 autobiography by Tina Turner, co-written by MTV news correspondent and music critic Kurt Loder. The book was reissued by Dey Street Books in 2010. Content. The book details Tina Turner's story from her childhood in Nutbush, Tennessee to her initial rise to fame in St. Louis under the leadership of blues musician Ike Turner which became an abusive marriage, leading up to her resurgence in the 1980s. Contributors. The book contains passages from many of Turner's family, friends and associates, among those are: Reception. The book became a worldwide best-seller when it was released and led to the film adaptation, "What's Love Got to Do with It", in 1993 starring Angela Bassett as Turner. In 1999, Ike Turner released his own autobiography, "Takin' Back My Name", which in part is a rebuttal of the image presented of him in Tina's book and the film.

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Such a Fun Age Such a Fun Age is a 2019 novel by American author Kiley Reid. It is her debut novel and was published by G. P. Putnam's Sons on December 31, 2019. It tells the story of a young black woman who is wrongly accused of kidnapping while babysitting a white child, and the events that follow the incident. The novel received favorable reviews and was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. Plot. Alix Chamberlain is a wealthy blogger and public speaker in her early thirties who has built a brand known as "LetHer Speak" around the practice of writing old-fashioned letters to businesses, often in exchange for free product samples, and encouraging women to be assertive. Alix's family has moved from New York City to her hometown of Philadelphia for her husband Peter's job as a television anchor, and her career is stalling as she raises two children and attempts to write her first book. Alix hires Emira Tucker, a 25-year-old African-American college graduate, as a babysitter to care for her three-year-old daughter Briar. Alix also has an infant daughter named Catherine. Alix and Peter's home is egged at night and a window is broken after Peter received backlash for making a racist remark on-air, though he insists the comment was thoughtless. Alix calls Emira, who is at a party with friends, to take Briar with her to a local, trendy supermarket while she and Peter speak with the police. At the store, Emira, her friend Zara, and Briar dance to Whitney Houston and are noticed by an older white woman. After Zara leaves, a security guard approaches Emira at the white woman's behest and questions why Emira is with Briar. Emira explains the situation but the guard refuses to believe she is a babysitter, and Emira is freed only once Peter shows up and corroborates her story. The incident is recorded by a white bystander, Kelley Copeland, who urges Emira to seek justice against the store. Emira is shaken but does not want attention; she has him email the video to her and delete it from his phone. Alix is shocked by the incident and tries to treat Emira better, offering her extra pay and gifts, and becomes intent on developing a friendship with her, though Emira simply regards Alix as her employer. Meanwhile, Emira runs into Kelley again on the train, and the two start dating. For Thanksgiving, Alix invites Emira and her boyfriend to the Chamberlain home. Upon meeting, they realize that Alix (formerly Alex Murphy) and Kelley dated at in high school and parted on bad terms. Later, Kelley tells Emira that she needs to quit her job because Alix is racist: in high school she called the police to a party at her mansion home, indirectly caused a Black student, Robbie to lose his scholarship when he was arrested with drugs, and has a history of surrounding herself with black employees. Emira, feeling Kelley is being inconsiderate of her anxiety about her employment status and lack of professional career, refuses to quit. Alix tells Emira that she should break up with Kelley because he fetishized black people in high school: he invited Robbie and the cool kids to the house to become friends with them and later broke up with Alix in favor of them. When Emira dismisses her advice, Alix gains access to Emira's email and leaks the video of the grocery store incident. To Emira's shock, it goes viral. Believing that Kelley leaked it, she breaks up with him. Alix comforts her and offers her a full-time job as Briar's nanny, which she accepts. Alix also arranges an interview with Emira and herself on local television. Minutes before the interview, Emira comes to know that it was in fact Alix who leaked the video. On air, Emira embarrasses Alix by quitting and using the same line that Kelley had used to break up with her in high school. When Alix confronts her, Emira urges Alix to be a better mother to Briar. After the interview airs, Kelley tries to contact Emira but she does not respond. Years pass and Emira begins working as administrative assistant. She sees Kelley with his black girlfriend and Mrs. Chamberlain with an older Briar but does not approach any of them. Well into her thirties, Emira wonders what she learned from her time at the Chamberlain house and what kind of person Briar will grow up to become. Background. Reid started writing the novel in 2015, while she was applying to graduate school, and finished it while pursuing her MFA at the University of Iowa. It was during this period that the deaths of Freddie Gray and Philando Castile took place, and Reid said she was "absolutely inspired by the everyday terror" but that, in the novel, she wanted to explore "instances of racial biases that don't end in violence as a way of highlighting those moments that we don't see on the news but still exist every day." Reid has also said that the novel was partly inspired by the years she spent in her 20s working as a babysitter. Publication. The novel was published in the United States in hardcover and paperback by G. P. Putnam's Sons on December 31, 2019. It was published in the United Kingdom in hardcover by Bloomsbury Circus, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, on January 7, 2020. The novel debuted at number three on "The New York Times" Hardcover Fiction best-sellers list. Themes. "Such a Fun Age" deals with the themes of interracial relations, privilege, millennial anxiety and wealth. Reid interrogates tropes of the white savior and unknowing racist in everyday life. Throughout the novel, the white characters assume they know what is best for the protagonist, without ever seeing anything from her perspective, and speak about her with a sense of ownership. The novel satirizes what has been described as "the white pursuit of wokeness", by having the two main white characters use their relationships with Emira as the battleground through which each intends to prove their racial virtue. Reid explained that she did not think of her characters as inherently bad, conversely, that they "were dying to help, but kind of going through mental gymnastics to ignore the broken systems that put people where they are to begin with." The novel also deals with millennial anxiety relating to job security and confusion over career choices. Over the course of the book, the main concern of Emira remains finding a secure job, as she will be removed from her parents' healthcare insurance cover upon turning 26. While she remains at her babysitting job, her group of friends start advancing in their careers, intensifying her desire for "a real adult job", which neither she nor her friends consider babysitting to be. In the context of Emira's job, the novel also explores emotional labour and transactional relationships. Reid stated in an interview that "the history of black women taking care of white children is at the forefront [of the book]. It's this job that is so important, with really high stakes and a very small margin of error—but also, a 13-year-old could do it." Reception. The novel was very well-received by critics, who described it as having timely themes, authentic dialogue and believable characters. Sara Collins of "The Guardian" gave the novel a rave review, calling it "the calling card of a virtuoso talent" and writing that it "skillfully interweaves race-related explorations with astute musings on friendship, motherhood, marriage, love and more." It also received praise from "Kirkus Reviews" and "Publishers Weekly", with the latter describing it as a "nuanced portrait of a young black woman struggling to define herself apart from the white people in her life who are all too ready to speak and act on her behalf." Hephzibah Anderson of "The Observer" criticized the character development of Alix Chamberlain as well as the novel's plot for "[pivoting] on an almighty coincidence" but nonetheless called it a "cracking debut" and wrote that "Reid writes with a confidence and verve that produce magnetic prose." "The Boston Globe" concurred, noting that the second half of the novel was based on a "contrived" coincidence but "once you buy into the path Reid chooses, she deftly ratchets up the tension and the characters always ring true." Lauren Christensen of "The New York Times Book Review" gave the novel a mixed review, criticizing the plot's "many lapses in credibility" as well as Reid's "cloying vernacular".

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The Other Side (Woodson book) The Other Side is a children's picture book written by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by E. B. Lewis, published in 2001 by G. P. Putnam's Sons. In 2012, the book was adapted into a film by Weston Woods Studios, Inc., narrated by the author's daughter, Toshi Widoff-Woodson. Summary. The narrator and protagonist of the story is Clover, a young African-American girl. She lives beside a fence which segregates her town. Her mother instructs her never to climb over to the other side. Then one summer, she notices a white girl on the other side of the fence. The girl seems to be very lonely and is even outside when it is raining. Clover decides to talk to the girl on the other side of the fence. Both girls are not allowed to cross the fence, so they simply decide to sit "on" the fence together. First, Clover's friends will not let Annie, the girl from the other side, play with them but then all of the girls realize that the fence (a symbol separating the whites and blacks) should not be there.

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Drylongso (Hamilton book) Drylongso is a 1992 children's book by Virginia Hamilton and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. It is about a farming family who is experiencing a drought and takes in a stranger. Reception. "School Library Journal", in a review of "Drylongso", wrote "As in many of her other works of fiction, Hamilton combines myth and realism to create a poignant, powerful tale. .. Pinkney's illustrations are exquisite, expressive, and perfectly in tune with the tone and spirit of the text." and concluded "Despite the occasional seams, this is a fine book." "Booklist" wrote "In an understated story of drought and hard times and longing for rain, a great writer and a great artist have pared down their rich, exuberant styles to something quieter but no less intense." and "Publishers Weekly" called it a "thoroughly captivating story firmly rooted in the folktale tradition." "Drylongso" has also been reviewed by "Kirkus Reviews", "The Horn Book Magazine", and the "Smithsonian".

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The Secret Lives of Church Ladies The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is a debut short story collection by Deesha Philyaw. The book contains nine stories about Black women, church, and sexuality and was released on September 1, 2020 by West Virginia University Press. It was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction and received The Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Plot. The collection consists of nine stories that explore the intersection of sexuality and Christianity. Black women protagonists appear in each story. Topics covered include infidelity, casual sex, and lesbian relationships. Background. The title refers to the catch-all term for church-going women that Philyaw learned growing up. These women were prim, conservatively dressed, "who makes sure not a hair is out of place, never speaks out of line, and does all the right Godly things." Philyaw stated in an interview for "Richmond Free Press", "I see the book as centering Black women in their own stories of the tug of war they experience between their desires and what they may have learned at church." Philyaw was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. She was raised attending church and attended services under the denominations of AME, Baptist, Pentecostal, COGIC, and Missionary Baptist Church. Philyaw drew on those experience to write about how the church space influences female sexuality. She no longer attends church services but has fond memories of that time. Reception. "The Secret Lives of Church Ladies" received critical acclaim. Marion Wink reviewed the book for "Star Tribune" and stated: "This collection marks the emergence of a bona fide literary treasure." Wendeline O. Wright further praised Philyaw in "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette": "“The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” is an unforgettable look inside the hearts of Black women as they evaluate their relationships — with God, their families, and themselves." "Kirkus" wrote in a starred review, "No saints exist in these pages, just full-throated, flesh-and-blood women who embrace and redefine love, and their own selves, in powerfully imperfect renditions. Tender, fierce, proudly Black and beautiful, these stories will sneak inside you and take root." In a similarly positive review, "Publisher's Weekly" wrote, "Philyaw’s stories inform and build on one another, turning her characters’ private struggles into a beautiful chorus." The nuanced characters were further praised by Jordan Snowden, who described Philyaw's writing in "Pittsburgh City Paper": "She shows these women, these Black women, in spaces they aren’t usually seen — having sex in a parking lot, in same-sex relationships, going to therapy, as a person filled with longing and desire." TV adaptation. In January 2021 it was announced that Tessa Thompson's newly formed production company, Viva Maude, had picked up the collection to be adapted for television. Philyaw is slated to write the adaptation and co-executive produce with Thompson.

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The House of Dies Drear The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton is a children's mystery novel, with sinister goings-on in a reputedly haunted house. It was published by Macmillan in 1968 with illustrations by Eros Keith. The novel received the 1969 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery. "The House of Dies Drear" is the first book in the Dies Drear Chronicles; the second is "The Mystery of Drear House" (1987). Synopsis. The story is set in Ohio, in 1968. Summary. Thomas Small is a 13-year old African American boy, who has moved with his family from North Carolina to Ohio. His father is a history professor who has leased the historic home of the abolitionist Dies Drear. The house has been mostly empty for years, and is riddled with hidden passageways that were used to hide escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad. An elderly caretaker, named Mr. Pluto, lives in a cave on the property, which he has converted into a home. There are rumors that the house is haunted by the ghosts of two escaped slaves who were captured and killed, and by the ghost of Dies Drear himself. After the Darrows are driven off, Mr. Small helps Mr. Pluto catalog the artifacts in the cavern. They agree to keep the secret, at least until the cataloging is done and the collection is ready to show to the historical society. Thomas looks forward to starting school and making friends, possibly including young Mac Darrow. Subjects. Library of Congress Subject Headings for "The House of Dies Drear" are: African Americans, Mystery and detective stories, Underground Railroad, and Ohio-History. Television adaptation. The film was adapted into the 1984 television film "The House of Dies Drear" directed by Allan A. Goldstein.

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Difficult Women (book) Difficult Women is a 2017 short story collection by Roxane Gay. Content. In "Vogue", Julia Fesenthal characterized "Difficult Women" as "a misogynist's taxonomy of the opposite sex. On the narrator's short list: loose women, frigid women, crazy women, mothers, and, finally, dead girls," depicted in stories "woven through with strands of magical realism." Development and publication. Gay has described being challenged by publishers in the development of the collection owing to the difficult material the book covers. Speaking at the "Los Angeles Times" Festival of Books, Gay recounted, "Editors said, 'we love ["Difficult Women"] but it makes me want to kill myself." Grove Press published the 272-page collection on January 3, 2017. Reception. "Difficult Women" received favorable reviews from critics. Reviewing the collection in "The Washington Post", Megan Mayhew Bergman said Gay's "real gift to readers in "Difficult Women" is her ability to marry her well-known intellectual concerns with good storytelling." In "USA Today", Jaleesa M. Jones gave "Difficult Women" four (of four) stars, noting Gay's "deft touch with how ... intersecting identities mold and shape women’s experiences."

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The Mothers (novel) The Mothers is a debut novel by Brit Bennett. The book follows Nadia, a young woman who left her Southern California hometown years ago after the suicide of her mother and is called back to attend to a family emergency. "The Mothers", released on October 11, 2016 by Riverhead Books, received critical acclaim and was a "New York Times" bestseller. A film adaptation is being produced by Kerry Washington's production company Simpson Street. Plot. Living in Southern California, 17-year-old Nadia, grieving her mother's suicide, becomes pregnant by her boyfriend Luke, a local pastor's son. She has an abortion and leaves her hometown to attend University of Michigan. Years later, her Christian friend Aubrey begins dating and then marries Luke. In her adulthood Nadia has to return to her hometown for a family emergency and reckon with her past. Themes. The book includes themes of Christianity in the context of the Black church, shame, and motherhood. Background. Bennett began writing the novel when she was 17 years old. She used many elements of her own life to craft the narrative; she and the protagonist, Nadia, were both high-achievers who maintained close ties to their families even after leaving home for college. Nadia's hometown is based on Bennett's hometown of Oceanside, California, an ethnically-diverse beach town. Bennett continued to work on the novel after leaving for college and while completing her MFA at University of Michigan. In 2014 Bennett published a viral essay on Jezebel.com called "I Don’t Know What to Do With Good White People", shortly after the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Literary agent Julia Kardon read the essay and contacted Bennett to offer her representation to write and sell a book, which became her manuscript, "The Mothers". Reception. The book generated buzz prior to its release, and received critical acclaim. In a positive review for "The New York Times Book Review" Mira Jacob wrote, "Despite Bennett’s thrumming plot, despite the snap of her pacing, it’s the always deepening complexity of her characters that provides the book’s urgency. Bennett’s ability to unwind them gently, offering insights both shocking and revelatory, has a striking effect." Reni Eddo-Lodge reviewed the book for "The Guardian": ""The Mothers" is a beautifully written, sad and lingering book – an impressive debut for such a young writer." Constance Grady praised Bennett's writing in Vox: "What elevates the book are the emotional underpinnings of each character, and Bennett’s lively, precise voice. Nadia may not have a surprising arc, but she feels every minute of it deeply and profoundly." Bethanne Patrick further praised the writing in "The Washington Post", "Bennett has written that rare combination: a book that feels alive on the page and rich for later consideration." "The Mothers" was a "New York Times" bestseller. Adaptations. In March 2017 it was announced that Kerry Washington was lead producer on a film adaptation for the novel, to be produced through her company Simpson Street for Warner Bros.

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This Bridge Called My Back This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. First published in 1981 by Persephone Press. The second edition was published in 1983 by . The book's third edition was published by Third Woman Press until 2008, when it went out of print. In 2015, the fourth edition was published by State University of New York Press, Albany. The book centers on the experiences of women of color and emphasizes the points of what is now called intersectionality within their multiple identities, challenging white feminists who made claims to solidarity based on sisterhood. Writings in the anthology, along with works by other prominent feminists of color, call for a greater prominence within feminism for race-related subjectivities, and ultimately laid the foundation for third wave feminism. It has become "one of "the most" cited books in feminist theorizing" (emphasis in original). Impact. Though other published writings by women of color existed at the time of "This Bridge"'s printing, many scholars and contributors to "This Bridge" agree that the bringing together of writing by women of color from diverse backgrounds in one anthology made "This Bridge" unique and influential. Barbara Smith, a contributor, wrote that Black, Native American, Asian American, and Latina women "were involved in autonomous organization at the same time that we [were] beginning to find each other. Certainly "This Bridge Called My Back" […] has been a document of and a catalyst for these coalitions." In addition to providing the framework for new activist-based coalitions, "This Bridge" has had a considerable impact upon the world of academia for its linking of feminism, race, class, and sexuality. It also brought "an intellectual framework" of identities based on race and ethnicity to lesbian and gay studies. In "this bridge we call home", the anthology published in 2002 to examine the impacts of "This Bridge" twenty years later, Australian anthropologist Helen Johnson details "This Bridge"'s effects on institutional teaching environments. She describes how the anthology "has allowed her to offer global perspectives on issues of race, gender, ethnicity, and power against the now antiquated white feminists' utopian ideal of universal sisterhood." "This Bridge" has been hailed for providing an "easily accessible discourse, plain speaking, a return to Third World storytelling, voicing a difference in the flesh, not a disembodied subjectivity but a subject location, a political and personal positioning." Though "This Bridge" is referenced in many essays and books regarding the development of Third World feminism, one of the most widely recognized explorations is Norma Alarcón's essay entitled "The Theoretical Subject(s) of "This Bridge Called My Back" and Anglo-American Feminism." In her essay, Alarcón discusses the importance of looking at relationships not just between gender groups but within gender groups, as highlighted in "This Bridge". Through questioning the existence of objective "truth" as separate from human construction, and through an analysis of language that acknowledges deep contextual and historical meanings, she highlights the intentions of "This Bridge" to challenge the forces that put all feminists into one category, as well as the oppositional thinking that makes differences hierarchical instead of inter-related and interdependent. Barbara Smith believed that these messages are made clear within the pages of "This Bridge", asserting that "more than any other single work, "This Bridge" has made the vision of Third World feminism real." However, even with these aforementioned impacts, many individuals contend that women of color feminisms still remain marginal within women's studies in the United States. Chela Sandoval, in her essay on third-world feminism, writes: "The publication of "This Bridge Called My Back" in 1981 made the presence of U.S. third world feminism impossible to ignore on the same terms as it had been throughout the 1970s. But soon the writings and theoretical challenges of U.S. third world feminists were marginalized into the category of what Allison Jaggar characterized in 1983 as mere 'description.'" "This Bridge" "offered a rich and diverse account of the experience and analyses of women of color; with its collective ethos, its politics of rage and regeneration, and its mix of poetry, critique, fiction and testimony, it challenged the boundaries of feminist and academic discourse." Anthologists Moraga and Anzaldúa stated in the preface that they expected the book to act as a catalyst, "not as a definitive statement on Third World Feminism" in the United States. They also expressed a desire to "express to all women, especially white, middle class women, the experiences which divide us as feminists ...we want to create a definition that expands what 'feminist' means." Teresa de Lauretis noted that "This Bridge" and "All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies" (1982) created a "shift in feminist consciousness" by making "available to all feminists the feelings, the analyses, and the political positions of feminists of color, and their critiques of white or mainstream feminism." Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, and Norma Alarcón adapted this anthology into the Spanish-language "Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados Unidos". Moraga and Castillo served as editors, and Castillo and Alarcón translated the text. In 2002, AnaLouise Keating and Gloria Anzaldúa edited an anthology ("this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation") that examined the impact of "This Bridge" twenty years later while trying to continue the discussion started by Anzaldúa and Moraga in 1981.

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No Disrespect No Disrespect is a 1994 American memoir written by Sister Souljah.

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I Put a Spell on You (book) I Put A Spell On You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone is the 1992 autobiography by Nina Simone (1933–2003), written with Stephen Cleary. Publication. The 192-page book was published February 1, 1992 by Pantheon. It was re-released in a 2003 Da Capo Press reprint edition following Simone's death on April 21, 2003; this edition included an introduction, "I Know How it Feels To Be Free: Nina Simone 1933–2003", written by Dave Marsh. Reception. The book received mixed reviews. Reviewing the book in "The Washington Post", Gerald Early felt, "The best part of this autobiography...is Simone's recollection of her childhood," but said "in the end, [the book] seems sketchy and self-defensive...She tells very little either about the times in which she lived, or about the people who were most instrumental to her growth after her childhood," noting his disappointment with this absence given she "occupied an influential and unusual place in American cultural history, attracting Cafe Society-type white audiences at the same time that she maintained her integrity with a politicized young black audience. There is much to be said about the period from 1958 to 1968, and Simone would have been a stunning witness to it." Discussing the latter part of the autobiography, Tom Piazza wrote in "The New York Times", "In the 1970s, through a series of stunningly bad choices (and some plain bad luck), [Simone] began a slide into personal and professional misfortune. If her eagerness to cast the blame in every direction except inward -- at lovers, husbands, managers, America itself -- is irritating, one can't help admiring her survivor's spirit."

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Hidden Figures (picture book) Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race is a 2018 picture book by Margot Lee Shetterly with Winifred Conkling, illustrated by Laura Freeman. The picture book is adapted from Shetterly's 2016 non-fiction book "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race". Summary. "Hidden Figures" tells the story of four African-American women mathematicians and the work they did at NASA from the 1940s to the 1960s. Reception. "Kirkus Reviews" called the "Hidden Figures" "an important story to tell about four heroines." Writing for "School Library Journal," Megan Kilgallen said "Freeman’s full-color illustrations are stunning and chock-full of details, incorporating diagrams, mathematical formulas, and space motifs throughout . . . enhancing the whole book." "Hidden Figures" was named a Coretta Scott King Award honor book for illustration.

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Surpassing Certainty Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me is a 2017 memoir by Janet Mock. Publication. Published June 13, 2017 by the Atria imprint of Simon & Schuster, "Surpassing Certainty" is Mock's second memoir, following her 2014 "New York Times" bestseller "Redefining Realness". The book's title is an allusion to Audre Lorde, who wrote, "And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking." Content. Following on the discussion of her childhood and adolescence in "Redefining Realness", in "Surpassing Certainty", Mock describes life in her twenties. Reception. Writing in "The New York Times", Jennifer Finney Boylan described "Surpassing Certainty" as "position[ing] its story within a larger history of a struggle for human rights. But Mock’s book is also a work of the heart, much of it focusing on the dissolution of her first marriage, and her journey from a Honolulu strip club to an editor at "People" magazine." "Cosmopolitan" said the book "should be required reading for your 20s." "Elle" named to a list of three "must-read" books for June 2017.

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Coal (book) Coal is a collection of poetry by Audre Lorde, published in 1976. It was Lorde's first collection to be released by a major publisher. Lorde's poetry in "Coal" explored themes related to the several layers of her identity as a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." Summary. "Coal" consists of five sections. While Audre Lorde presents poems that express each part of her identity, race undoubtedly plays a significant role in "Coal". A major theme within the volume is Lorde's angry reaction towards racism. For Lorde, expressing anger was not destructive. Instead, Lorde transforms "rage at racism into triumphant self-assertion." She specifically dedicates the book "To the People of Sun, That We May All Better Understand." In addition, another significant part of the volume explores her existence as a lesbian, friend, and a former lover, specifically in the fourth section that consists of one long poem titled "Martha" that outlines the recovery of Lorde's former lover after a car accident. Origin of the title. The volume's namesake comes from a poem in the first section titled "Coal". It is written in free-verse and first-person. The idea of an identity consisting of several layers is exemplified in this poem. One's true identity is often hidden behind several muddled layers. Lorde alludes toward this concept by her recurrent use of the dual imagery of a piece of coal and a diamond. As the speaker of the poem, Lorde begins by equating herself with a piece of coal. Section I. The array of topics and nuances that are explored in Lorde's poems pertain to her own multifaceted-ness, signifying her status as "a self-styled "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." The poem "Rites of Passage" shows as having a preoccupation with the male principle and with power. In it, she laments "their fathers are dying / whose deaths will not free them." This poem, as well as "Father Son and Holy Ghost", "Rooming Houses Are Old Women", and "The Woman Thing" show "attempts to unify [women] in this patriarchal society." Poems such as "Coal" and "Generation" showcase Lorde's position "as a visionary of a better world." The poem "Coal" is both autobiographical and allegorical in effect, as "she not only wrote for herself, but for her children and women as well." In the poem, Lorde's personal self-acceptance of her African American identity is meant to coalesce with the self-acceptance and the unification among all African American women, who Lorde hopes can find the "place of power within each of [themselves]" and "celebrate this womanly well of passion and creativity." Coal is a metaphor for Lorde's African American heritage. However it is "also associated with Eros and with creativity; she celebrated this source as what she called 'woman's place of power within each of us.'" The metamorphosis from coal into diamond represents Lorde's embracing of her identity, creativity and imagination, as "I am Black because I come from the earth's inside now take my word for jewel in the open light". Section II. The second part of the collection appears to deal primarily with the theme of childhood. In "Now That I Am Forever With Child" Lorde uses nature as a descriptive metaphor of her pregnancy, giving it a pure and ethereal effect, as she describes the child as "blooming within [her]." In the poem Lorde hopes for her daughter to be a free and independent spirit, harkening back to Lorde's characteristic "as a visionary of a better world." In "What My Child Learns of the Sea" an association is further made between her child and the natural world. In "Story Books on a Kitchen Table", Lorde impressionistically recounts her own childhood and experiences with her negligent mother who "out of her womb of pain… spat me into her ill-fitting harness of despair." In "Poem for a Poet", the reader is given a glimpse of Lorde's own methods as a writer, and features a reference to poet Randall Jarrell. Section III. Part three of the anthology consists of eleven poems. The poems in this section predominantly discuss Lorde's experiences as both a wife and a mother. In the poem "A Child Shall Lead" Lorde uses sensory imagery to express her concerns about her son and what will become of him in the future. Another poem "Paperweight" describes her frustrations with her heterosexual marriage. Throughout the poem, Lorde likens paper to something that can console her, because she uses it to write her poetry. The poem takes a dramatic turn in tone in the last stanza stating "or fold them [paper] all into a paper fan / with which to cool my husband's dinner." Section IV. Part four contains a single poem in five sections entitled "Martha". The poem delves into the emotional torment Lorde experiences when her friend of many years was in the hospital, after experiencing severe brain trauma in a car accident. Although the poem is written entirely in Lorde's own voice, she also inserts some dialogue, including statements that Martha may or may not have said. Throughout the poem, Lorde offers her own views on life and death as she sits by Martha's side for what appears to be more than a couple of months. Audre remained a significant figure in Martha's family during her hospitalization, watching Martha's young children so Martha's husband could be with her at the hospital, and accompanying Martha's husband at their daughter's 6th grade graduation. The last line of the poem reads "You cannot get closer to death than this Martha / the nearest you've come to living yourself," leaving it unknown whether or not Martha actually dies. Martha did in fact survive the accident, and went on to lead a full, but diminished life with her family. Section V. The fifth and final section of Lorde's volume primarily revolves around loss, mourning and commemoration. Lorde's personal reaction to unrequited love is an overwhelming theme in this section. There is a tone of sadness in all the poems. In "The Songless Lark", one of Lorde's shortest poems in the volume, the speaker mourns the departure of a loved one, declaring, "Sun shines so brightly on the hill / before you went away." Lorde seems to end the volume in a bleak tone. The second to last poem of the book, "Second Spring" begins, "We have no passions left to love the spring / who have suffered autumn as we did, alone" and finishes the poem with "while we stood still / racked on the autumn's weeping / binding cold love to us." Lorde's use of seasonal imagery seems to insinuate the passing of time, but there is a lack of growth and development in the poem. The speaker begins declaring that they have no passions left and ends standing in the cold. Critical responses. "Coal" received generally positive reviews from critics, especially among her peers and other female poets.

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The Fire This Time (book) The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race is an essay and poetry collection edited by American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Scribner in 2016. The title, "The Fire This Time" alludes to James Baldwin's seminal 1963 text, "The Fire Next Time". Publication history. The book was published by Scribner on August 2, 2016. Content. "The Fire This Time" is an anthology of 18 writers contributing essays and poetry to three movements entitled "Legacy", "Reckoning" and "Jubilee". The writers include, Carol Anderson, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Jericho Brown, Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Young, Claudia Rankine, and Honoree Jeffers. Reviewing the collection for "The New York Times", Jamil Smith described the anthology as, "deal[ing] with everything from the Charleston church shooting to OutKast’s influence to Rachel Dolezal’s chicanery, all through a black lens that is still too rare in literature and elsewhere. The pain of black life (and death) often inspires flowery verse, but every poem and essay in Ward’s volume remains grounded in a harsh reality that our nation, at large, refuses fully to confront. In the spirit of Baldwin’s centering of black experiences, they force everyone to see things our way." Reception. Writing for the "San Francisco Chronicle", Imani Perry described Ward's collection as, "a composition made by someone who is as careful a reader as she is a writer. Ward is attuned to the spirit of this moment and she is its conductor, gifting insight to us all." Dwight Garner particularly praised contributions by Ward, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Carol Anderson, Kevin Young, and Garnette Cadogan, saying their works are "[e]ach...so alive with purpose, conviction and intellect that, upon finishing their contributions, you feel you must put this volume down and go walk around for a while."

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What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day is the 1997 debut novel by Pearl Cleage. It was published by Avon on December 1, 1997 and was selected for the Oprah Winfrey Book Club in 1998 and was a New York Times Best Seller for nine straight weeks."What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day" marks Pearl Cleage's first published novel and it is followed by the 2001 novel "I Wish I Had a Red Dress". The novel depicts the life of a young African-American woman named Ava Johnson in the following months after being diagnosed with HIV; in addition to the realities of living with a retrovirus, Cleage's work addresses issues involving race, sexuality, gender, class, and ability in American society. Plot summary. The novel is separated into five parts: June, July, August, September, and November. June. Ava Johnson, a young black woman living in Atlanta, is diagnosed with HIV which she contracted from an unknown source through sexual intercourse. Upon her HIV-positive diagnosis, she is alienated by her community in Atlanta and loses her clients at her hair salon on the basis of people's fear of the virus and their association of it with AIDS. Ava decides to move to Idlewild, Michigan, her hometown, to live with her widowed sister Joyce before fulfilling her dream to start a new life in San Francisco, California. When Ava arrives at the Grand Rapids airport, Joyce's close friend Eddie Jefferson comes to pick her up because Joyce is busy taking care of a young woman in labor. At Ava's request, Eddie and Ava stop at a liquor store on the way home from the airport. While in the parking lot of the liquor store, Eddie and Ava witness a violent dispute between a young man, Frank, and his girlfriend who have a young son together. Eddie manages to deescalate the fight by punching Frank in the Adam's apple, a skill which is revealed he learned from serving in the Army. After witnessing the fight and dropping the woman and the baby back off at their house, Eddie reveals to Ava that there is a budding crack problem within Idlewild. Once Ava and Eddie arrive at Joyce's house, Ava discovers that Joyce redecorated the entire house with shades of blue because of a magazine article she read that claimed it was a healing color. Once Joyce returns home, she tells Ava that the woman she was assisting in labor was a crack addict and that the baby will be tested for HIV. The following day, Ava and Joyce, find out that the baby tested negative for HIV; however, the mother left the hospital without the baby. Since the baby is orphaned, Joyce decides that she wants to personally care for the baby; upon making this decision, her and Ava head to Mattie's house, the aunt of the baby, to receive permission. Once the two reach the house, they are met by siblings Mattie and Frank, who tell Joyce that they do not wish to keep the baby. Joyce decides that she wants to find the baby a temporary home; in the meantime, the baby is taken back to the hospital. Joyce reveals to Ava that she leads a group of young teenage mothers at the local church in a weekly group meeting called the Sewing Circus. While the group was initially formed in order to offer Sunday morning nursery care for the mothers, the group evolved into being a group discussion of any issue the girls are struggling with in their daily lives. As a social worker, Joyce uses the Sewing Circus as an opportunity to empower and especially educate young women. While the group is a positive outlet for young women in the community, the topics discussed in the group, such as birth control, do not sit well with the Reverend and the Reverend's wife, Gerry Anderson. The hospital decides that Joyce is allowed to take temporary custody of the baby; once Joyce brings the baby home, she decides to name the baby Imani meaning "faith" in Swahili. Eddie and Ava continue to deepen their friendship; however, Ava fears that any sort of romantic relationship is off-limits due to her HIV-positive diagnosis. July. Come July, Joyce is met with the news from Gerry Anderson that the Sewing Circus is not allowed to meet at the Church anymore because it does not align with their conservative values. Although upset by Gerry and the Reverend's decision, Joyce is unsurprised by its removal from the Church grounds. When Ava goes to the town pharmacy to pick-up her HIV medication, she finds out that the pharmacist revealed her diagnosis to some members of the town including Gerry. In turn, Ava is faced with ridicule and judgement from some of the community upon the news from the pharmacist. In response to the banning of the Sewing Circus from the Church, Joyce holds the meeting at her house and the turn-out is higher than it ever was at the Church leading Joyce to the idea that the group will need a larger meeting space. Later that night, Ava goes to Eddie's house where he tells her about his past serving in the army in Vietnam. The following night, Ava and Eddie begin to watch Menace II Society together until Eddie decides that he can't watch it anymore; upon telling Ava this, he reveals to her his violent past involving drugs and a ten year sentence to prison for murder. While shaken up by the news of Eddie's past, she maintains her relationship with him and decides to reveal her HIV-positive diagnosis to him a few nights later. Eddie is accepting of Ava's diagnosis and the two begin a romantic relationship together; however, they must take certain precautions during sex to protect Eddie from contracting HIV. August. With the news that an old man in Idlewild is putting his house up for sale for ten thousand dollars cash, Eddie proposes that the house would be a good relocation for the Sewing Circus meetings. From money she saved up at the salon, Ava pays for the house and her Joyce and Eddie begin renovations. However, Joyce receives a letter from the state government that the Sewing Circus will no longer receive funding. The state's decision to discontinue funding resulted from a letter Gerry Anderson sent the government with false information about the Sewing Circus. While Joyce heads to defend the right to funding for the Sewing Circus, Ava cares for Imani. One night while Joyce is away, Ava witnesses Frank and Tyrone pull into Joyce's driveway and have sex with Frank's girlfriend on top of the car. Before they drive away, Frank throws a beer bottle at Joyce's house, shattering her window. Although Eddie wants to put Frank and Tyrone in their place, Ava urges him to not do anything drastic. After Ava and Eddie file a complaint at the sheriff's office, Tyrone and Frank tell the sheriff that Ava intentionally tried to seduce them; the sheriff does not believe Ava's story. In an effort to resolve the issues between Joyce and the Anderson's, Ava and Joyce go to the Anderson's house to talk about their issues with the Sewing Circus; however, Ava and Joyce are only met by the Reverend who is unable to have a proper discussion due to his drunkenness. While painting the new house for the Sewing Circus, Eddie proposes to Ava unto which Ava decides to take a few days to process this possibility of a new life. When Mattie arrives to Joyce's house with a social worker, Joyce reluctantly agrees to give Imani back to Mattie for the weekend prior to a hearing on the following Monday to determine Imani's official home. September. While Imani is at Mattie's house for the weekend, Joyce convinces Ava to go with her to the house in case there are signs that Imani is in trouble. After hearing Imani's screams from outside the house, Ava and Joyce break in to find out that Frank twisted Imani's legs and broke them. After being rushed to the hospital, Imani's legs are put into casts and the doctors assure Joyce and Ava that she will be okay. Upon meeting a woman who was a member of the Anderson's old Church in Chicago, Ava finds out that Reverend Anderson fled the city after allegations of sexual interactions with young boys of the parish arose. With this information, Ava confronts Gerry Anderson and threatens to publicize the allegations in Idlewild; with this threat, both Gerry and the Reverend leave town. November/Epilogue. In the epilogue, Ava reveals that Imani's casts were removed and she's doing well. Frank and Mattie finally get caught by the police after committing several drug-related robberies. Since the Anderson's left town, the church inducts a new pastor, Sister Judith, who is received well by the community. With Sister Judith officiating, Eddie and Ava get married. Setting. The majority of the plot takes place in Idlewild, Michigan during the 1990s. The novel features social issues that were consistent with the time period and the type of story; these issues include violence, drug abuse, sexual abuse, teenage pregnancy, and an increased lack of access to education. Reception. Author Bryan Aubrey has noted that the novel showcases the empowerment of women in the face of undeniably difficult life challenges and that Cleage's focus on the challenges associated with AIDS, drug addiction, and domestic violence offer an intuitive look into the realities of social issues that are dealt with at surface level by traditional societal institutions. He has further noted that it could be seen as a self-help book as it depicts Ava steadily making positive life changes in her diet, exercise, spiritual presence, and substance use. Frances Henderson in turn felt that Cleage's portrayal of Ava taking part in a reverse migration, returning to one's homestead, had a connection to longstanding traditions in African American Literature of characters returning to their roots in order to sort out the challenges in their lives. Concerning Cleage's discussion of gender relations, Barbara Valle has highlighted the portrayal of "cosmic confusion" between men and women In the same vein, Loverlie and Erin King interpret the novel as a "healing romance" because of its insistence on the idea that the healing of the challenges faced by African-American people require the cooperation of both men and women. Authors, Erin King and Lovalerie King, praised Cleage's work for depicting a story about HIV/AIDS in a humorous way. Timothy Lyle commends Cleage's work for bringing awareness to HIV positive African-American women. In a feature in "Voice from the Gaps" at University of Minnesota, Cleage's work is praised for depicting an alternative representation of motherhood and the struggles that come along with it. The novel received some critical response by Bryan Aubrey on the basis of Ava's character transitioning from an outspoken, unpredictable character to one who makes predictable decisions based on political and spiritual correctness. Aubrey compares the representation of Ava's newfound happiness in life to the ideology of magazines like Cosmopolitan and Glamour which assert that people's lives will drastically improve once they start performing "anti-stress" activities. The novel has been critically compared to "Animal Dreams" (1990) for characterizing a male protagonist as having very little flaws. Aubrey Bryan argues that the portrayal of Eddie Jefferson as a near perfect individual lends the novel to be more instructional rather than realistic with multi-dimensional characters. Timothy Lyle critiques the novel's reliance on responding to adverse life situations with the response of heteronormative practices, "gender compliance," and "able-bodied productivity." Lyle also argues that Cleage's work reinforces problematic interpretations of blackness which set rigid expectations for what blackness is and what it is not; Lyle argues that Cleage controversially asserts that Ava's character, an HIV positive black woman, must show "signs of potential rehabilitation" and maintain a likable personality in order to regain acceptance in the black community. Themes. Coming-home. The novel closely associates rehabilitation with the idea of "coming-home" to one's place of origin in order to find love, community, and purpose amidst a threatening life situation. Adversity. The novel emphasizes finding happiness in the face of adversity. With Joyce experiencing the loss of a husband, Ava receiving an HIV positive diagnosis, Eartha's tragic loss of both her parents, and Eddie's struggle with violence and PTSD, the novel works to depict characters finding purpose and happiness in the face of adverse life situations. In order to find happiness in light of these situations, Cleage implies the importance of the use of "spiritual practices" in order to reform one's personal issues into acceptance and find peace in the practice of compassion for others. Depiction of HIV/AIDS. Cleage's portrayal of Ava's HIV diagnosis as well as its inclusion of sex-education has received some criticism for its inaccurate depiction of the realities of the disease as well as the logistics of preventing its contraction in HIV-discordant relationships, which are relationships where one partner is HIV-positive and one is not In an analysis of Cleage's work, Timothy Lyle proposes that Cleage takes part in cultural sanitizing, a practice in which an author problematically molds a taboo subject into a socially acceptable narrative. Lyle attributes the success of the novel to Cleage's depiction of a heterosexual African-American with HIV into a pleasurable narrative in which Ava's "threatening" diagnosis is ultimately accepted back into able-bodied heteronormativity. Cleage's depiction of an HIV inflicted African-American is criticized by Lyle as it alludes to the idea that an HIV inflicted individual must "soap up" and "scrub down" in order to regain acceptance in general society. Ayana Weekley argues that respectability politics, the phenomenon of dominant figures in marginalized groups aligning their values with the dominant values of the majority, mold the discourse of race, gender, and sexuality in relation to the interrogation of the HIV/AIDs epidemic in Cleage's work.

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The Meaning of Mariah Carey The Meaning of Mariah Carey is a memoir by Mariah Carey, released on September 29, 2020. It was written with Michaela Angela Davis and shared previously untold experiences. The book was published by Andy Cohen Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, and is also available in an audiobook format on Audible read by Carey herself. The memoir became a number one "New York Times" Best Seller after its first week of release. Background. Mariah Carey had considered writing a memoir since 2010 when she was pregnant with her twins Moroccan and Monroe. In the two years prior to "The Meaning of Mariah Carey"s release, she told stories to co-writer Michaela Angela Davis. The book was first rumored in April 2018, and Carey acknowledged she was working on it during promotional appearances for her fifteenth studio album "Caution" (2018). On July 9, 2020, she announced the memoir was complete. Contents. The book includes a preface and epilogue and is divided into four parts: "Wayward Child", "Sing. Sing.", "All That Glitters", and "Emancipation". It focuses on Carey's childhood, career, and personal and professional relationships, with less of a focus on events after 2001. Alongside the plot, the inspirations and meanings of many of Carey's songs are explained and are often accompanied by excerpts from them. Chapters occasionally begin or end with lyrics from Carey's songs as epigraphs, and Bible verses are incorporated. Media outlets noted that men associated with her such as Eminem and former fiancé James Packer are absent. Her role as a judge on "American Idol" and feud with Nicki Minaj is unrecognized. She explained: "If somebody or something didn't pertain to the actual meaning of Mariah Carey, as is the title, then they aren't in the book." Plot summary. Carey witnessed violence in her family at a young age; fights occurred between her older brother Morgan and parents Alfred and Patricia. She used music as an escape from such situations and sang herself lullabies. Patricia and a childhood friend recognized Carey's vocal talent; their validation was her raison d'être. Immersed in music as a profession before she was a teenager, Carey was "learning the craft, sitting in on jam sessions with accomplished jazz musicians with [Patricia] and developing the skills of scatting and improvisation". Their mother-daughter relationship deteriorated, however, after Patricia warned Carey "you should only hope that one day you become half the singer I am". Carey was neglected as a child and her safety was disregarded by Patricia. She felt inferior because of her unkempt matted hair and experiences with racism, including being called a "nigger" by a group of white girls. Her relationship with older sister Alison "was manipulation masquerading as love". She brought twelve-year-old Carey to a whorehouse and her pimp boyfriend kissed Carey at a drive-in theater. Alison also drugged Carey and gave her third-degree burns. After graduating from high school, Carey moved to New York City and began working with other musicians, including Brenda K. Starr, who introduced her to Tommy Mottola. Carey signed with his record label, and they entered a working relationship. Mottola began advancing romantic gestures, and she was attracted to him for the "sense of home" he provided. Mottola was determined to marry her, and Carey agreed in hoping he would loosen his grasp on her life. The marriage was strained as soon as their honeymoon, however, and "the control and imbalance of power ... accelerated." Mottola stifled her voice, removed blackness from her music and appearance, and prevented her from realizing she was appreciated by others. As she was monitored with security cameras and an intercom system inside of the house and secretly followed by Mottola's security when leaving it, Carey likens herself to a captive and their mansion a prison. While he "tried to destroy" her, she began a covert relationship with Derek Jeter, and their encounters deepened her music on "Butterfly". Coupled with Jeter, Carey separated from Mottola after he dragged a butter knife down her face. She later divorced him and left Sony Music for Virgin Records. Carey's first album on her new label would be the soundtrack to "Glitter". However, Mottola continued to exert control over her career by interfering with both the film and album. To spite her after leaving him, the script became reductive and two of the soundtrack's songs were used to create similar-sounding ones for Jennifer Lopez. Combined with her demanding schedule, Mottola's meddling, and a tabloid frenzy over her appearance on MTV's "Total Request Live", Carey was crippled with anxiety, fear, and exhaustion. Having almost no sleep in nearly a week, Morgan directed Carey to rest at their mother's house, only to be woken up by Patricia telling her to go back to work. Carey verbally lashed out at Patricia, who called the police on her. Morgan convinced Carey to enter two facilities, both of which were unsuited to her needs. She was released from the second after the September 11 attacks and went on to promote "Glitter". Carey entered therapy following these experiences and was diagnosed with somatization. She realized her family "watched and waited for [her] to fall, like scavengers, so that they might gain control over [her] fortune", and was advised to no longer have contact with her siblings. After departing Virgin for Universal Records, Carey recorded "Charmbracelet", "a place of shelter, healing, and growth that made it possible for [her] to bloom again". Prior to its release, she made peace with Alfred before he died and realized he was proud of her. She also reconnected with God by being rebaptized and beginning a three-year study of the Bible. Carey appreciated the commercial success of "The Emancipation of Mimi" and critical response to her role in "Precious" for their ability to make both the public and herself move on from "Glitter". After starting a relationship with Nick Cannon, they quickly married to have children. She gave birth to twins following a miscarriage and considers them living proof a "cycle of brokenness" can end. The couple later divorced because "making the necessary adjustments to being working parents in entertainment took its toll". Carey concludes by expressing her delight in "All I Want for Christmas Is You" reaching number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 for the first time in 2019 and how fulfilled she now feels as a person. Style and genre. Book reviewers felt Carey's experiences in her youth do not reflect her persona as a diva. While not only about hardship, Victoria Segal of "The Sunday Times" considered it more serious than gossip-oriented celebrity memoirs. Writing for "The Guardian", Alex Macpherson described the book as "not the glitzy, gossipy celebrity reminiscence some might expect, but instead a largely sombre dive into her past" due to the significant length about her traumatic childhood. "Time"s Cady Lang agreed, regarding the inclusion of Carey's relationship with Alison as "not a happy reminiscence on that time in her life, but instead a desire to heal from it". According to Véronique Hyland of "Elle", "the reality of living with a flawed past and coping with the present" is the central theme. Noting its title is "The Meaning of Mariah Carey"—not "The Making of Mariah Carey"—Emily Lordi stated in "The New Yorker" that the book covers Carey's troubled youth more than her efforts to become successful. Rich Juzwiak concurred in the "Los Angeles Times": "Much of the focus is not on what she has done but what was done to her." Despite the book's subject matter, critics thought it purposely plays up her diva image and contains humor. Writing for the "Irish Independent", Dónal Lynch said it "hams up Carey's reputation as the Marie Antoinette of pop". Aside from chapters before Carey's fame, Fiona Sturges of "The Guardian" thought it contains "a twinkling humour". Referring to the passage "I really don't want a lot for Christmas—particularly not the cops", Macpherson felt "Carey recounts many of the worst parts of her life with a deadpan, self-aware wit". The "Financial Times" Ludovic Hunter-Tilney described the book as "laced with dry wit", and Segal thought "she cracks enough jokes to suggest she would be great fun over an unguarded bottle of wine". Hannah Reich of ABC News thought Carey's humor was pronounced in the audiobook version as it is aided by her speaking voice. According to "Kirkus Reviews", the best parts of the memoir are those in which her personality is apparent. "Variety" wrote "you can ... hear every sentence perfectly in [Carey's] voice". Citing comments about getting her hair done after the September 11 attacks and referring to Jennifer Lopez as "another female entertainer ... (whom I don't know)", Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone" felt "every page is packed with her over-the-top personality". Readers are often addressed as "dahlings". Publication. "The Meaning of Mariah Carey" was published on September 29, 2020, as one of the first releases by Andy Cohen Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company. To promote the memoir, Carey discussed the book in several televised interviews on American morning and late-night talk shows. With Jane Pauley on "CBS News Sunday Morning", she talked about her troubled childhood, marriage to Mottola, and the events of "Glitter". On "CBS This Morning" with Gayle King, she focused on the strained relationship with her mother. Carey explained the purpose of writing the memoir and the process of recording the alternative rock album "Someone's Ugly Daughter" during an interview with Stephen Colbert on "The Late Show". On "Watch What Happens Live" with Andy Cohen and "The Daily Show" with Trevor Noah, she described early experiences with racism. During an episode of her Apple TV+ show "The Oprah Conversation", Carey spoke with Oprah Winfrey about the impact that her unique hair had as a young girl and her relationship with Derek Jeter. In an interview with Trevor Nelson on BBC Radio 2, Carey detailed relationships with her children and fans and addressed the pervasiveness of sexism in the music industry. She also participated in a conversation with Misty Copeland for Amazon Live. Following its publication, "The Meaning of Mariah Carey" appeared on weekly book sales charts in multiple countries. It debuted at number one on "The New York Times" Best Seller list in both the Hardcover Nonfiction and Combined Print & E-book Nonfiction categories. The memoir entered at number three on Hardcover Frontlist Nonfiction and number six overall on "Publishers Weekly" charts based on figures from NPD BookScan. It sold 62,557 units in its first three weeks of release in the United States. In Canada, the book debuted at number three on both "The Globe and Mail"s Hardcover Non Fiction and the "Toronto Star"s Original Non-Fiction bestseller lists, which are based on data from BookNet Canada. It entered at number seven on "The Sunday Times" General Hardbacks chart, selling about 6,940 copies in the United Kingdom according to Nielsen BookScan. In December 2020, Carey said she was exploring how to adapt the memoir into a limited series or film. "The Guardian" reported in February 2021 that Lee Daniels is working on a miniseries based on the book. Critical response. The book received positive reception from critics, general audiences, and Carey's fans alike. Based on 11 reviews, aggregation website Book Marks reported a "rave" response to the memoir. Numerous publications listed "The Meaning of Mariah Carey" in their rankings of the best music books or celebrity memoirs of 2020, including "The Atlantic", the "Financial Times", "The Globe and Mail", "The Guardian", the "Irish Independent", "NME", "Pitchfork", "Rolling Stone"/"Kirkus Reviews", "The San Diego Union-Tribune", "The Times", and "Variety". Critics reviewed the book's prose and structure. Writing for "The New Yorker", Emily Lordi described it as "impressively well-written". "The Atlantic"s Spencer Kornhaber cited Carey's childhood memory about Ritz crackers as one of several brief reminiscences that "elevate "The Meaning of Mariah Carey" from celebrity propaganda into impressive storytelling". In the "Los Angeles Times", Rich Juzwiak said short stories such as Carey's relationship with Jeter incorporate "tension and poignancy not typically seen in celebrity writing". According to "Entertainment Weekly" Mary Sollosi, the non-sequential chapters make the storytelling more powerful than if they were all in chronological order. In contrast, "The New Republic"s Jo Livingstone thought the writing style makes the book feel "pieced together from interviews". Aisha Harris of NPR complimented the narrative structure but felt details about the success of Carey's projects are excessive. Alex Macpherson concurred in "The Guardian", while "Kirkus Reviews" thought it contains no filler. Critics considered a paragraph that appears twice in different chapters as an editing error. Representations of Carey's artistry were highlighted in reviews. As the book explains her creative methods, Adriana Ramirez wrote in the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" that it stands out from a typical memoir. Macpherson considered songs' inspirations and Carey's experiences collaborating with others some of the "most rewarding sections"; Lordi deemed passages describing her musical inspirations and writing style the "greatest revelations". According to Juzwiak, Carey's songwriting process from experiences to music unfolds poetically. Lisa Henry predicted in the "Library Journal" "the stories behind her lyrics will undoubtedly create a new appreciation for her work". The memoir's depiction of race was also noted. Regarding the subject, Macpherson thought it was "particularly acute", and Kornhaber felt it included "sharp analysis". Hannah Reich of ABC News described Carey's experiences with racism both as a child and in the music industry "deftly and powerfully rendered". Reviewers thought the memoir omits Carey's experiences with other people. Writing for the "i", John Aizlewood criticized it for "concentrat[ing] on how unspeakably awful [Carey's] life was" with Mottola instead of mentioning more positive aspects of the relationship which he felt led to their marriage. As she and Eminem "volleyed diss tracks for years", Juzwiak thought the memoir does a disservice to readers by not acknowledging him, and "Variety"s Danielle Turchiano considered the choice odd because "there is still enough interest ... to warrant a chapter". Conversely, Cady Lang of "Time" and Michael Blackmon of "BuzzFeed News" viewed the exclusion as an effort to wrest control of her narrative. "Rolling Stone"s Rob Sheffield was surprised Whitney Houston is first recognized in 1998 despite being perceived as her rival since 1990, and Lordi remarked there is "no hint of competition" with other musicians. Lawsuits. Alison filed a lawsuit against Carey with the New York Supreme Court in February 2021 seeking $1.25 million for emotional distress caused by the memoir. She disputes her depiction and says it was used to generate book sales. In the same court the following month, Morgan filed a lawsuit against Carey, Davis, and the publishers for emotional distress and defamation for his portrayal. References. Works cited

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Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl is a 2003 picture book by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by James Ransome. It is a retelling by Hamilton, in the Gullah dialect, of the classic story of Bruh Rabbit outwitting Bruh Wolf. Reception. "Booklist", in a review of "Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl", wrote "In this version of the beloved Tar Baby trickster story, she drew on Gullah folklore from the Sea Islands of South Carolina. Her rhythmic, immediate version is well matched by Ransome's paintings, both cozy and exciting, which extend the fun with beautiful farmland scenes at dayclean (dawn) and daylean (evening) picturing the wily rabbit thief in human clothes repeatedly outwitting the wolf." and the "School Library Journal" described it as "meticulously paced, lyrical, hilarious, and a joy to read aloud." with "lush watercolors [that] suit the story perfectly". "Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl" has also been reviewed by "The Horn Book Magazine", "Kirkus Reviews", and "Publishers Weekly", and the "Florida Media Quarterly". It is a 2004 ALA Notable Book for children, and a 2004 CCBC Choices book.

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Happiness Becomes You (book) Happiness Becomes You is a memoir published by singer Tina Turner in 2020. Described by the author as "a very personal book that focuses on the core themes of my life: hope, happiness, and faith," it explores details of Turner's life including how she overcame obstacles to achieve happiness and success, and offers Turner's advice on how readers can realize their own dreams. Turner co-authoerd the book with American writer Taro Gold. Turner described "Happiness Becomes You" as a parallel behind-the-scenes story to the HBO documentary film "Tina" (2021). The book is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats. It was published in North America by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, by Droemer Knaur in Germany, and in the UK and Commonwealth nations by HarperCollins. Synopsis. "Happiness Becomes You" contains eight chapters, plus an introduction and afterword, that span the entirety of Turner's life, beginning with stories about her hometown before her birth, then continues through the adversities she faced in her life and career as she worked her way up to eventually become a world-class performer, and concluding with stories about the author's daily life at the time of the book's completion when she was eighty years of age in 2020. The book's eight chapters roughly coincide with the eight decades of Turner's life. Throughout the book, Turner provides inspirational advice and spiritual tools for the reader's self-empowerment and fulfillment, and she shares how her favorite Buddhist principles helped her overcome poverty, prejudice, illness, loss, and other personal and professional challenges. A glossy photo insert is also contained in the book, with sixteen rare and/or never-before-published images of Turner dating from the late 1970s through 2020. Reception. "Happiness Becomes You" was selected as one of the best nonfiction books of the year by Amazon's editors, and chosen as a recommended gift book by the Amazon Book Review during the holiday season after its release on December 1, 2020. The book became a global best seller upon its publication, including eight weeks on the Top 20 of the Spiegel best seller list for Germany, Austria, Holland, and Switzerland. It also reached the No. 1 best selling spot in the spiritual-themed book category. The book received positive reviews from "Publishers Weekly", "USA Today", "Variety", "People", "Library Journal", "Vanity Fair", the "San Francisco Chronicle", and received a starred review from the American Library Association's "Booklist". Soundtrack. Turner curated a twenty-two-song playlist soundtrack for the launch of the book called "Come Up Smiling", that was published by Graydon Carter's "Air Mail" digital magazine and on Spotify. In the accompanying "Air Mail" article, she offered her thoughts on the power of music to lift one's spirits. The playlist consists of tracks from eighteen artists, including Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Andra Day, Jill Scott, Olivia Newton-John, Herbie Hancock, Taro Gold, Marvin Gaye, Janelle Monae and two songs by Turner herself.

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Brown Girl Dreaming Brown Girl Dreaming is a 2014 adolescent novel told in verse by author Jacqueline Woodson. It discusses the author's childhood as an African American growing up in the 1960s in South Carolina and New York. It was awarded the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Coretta Scott King Book Award, and an NAACP Image Award for outstanding literary work. Plot. Jacqueline is born on February 12, 1963, in the city of Columbus, Ohio, and named after her father, Jack. While Jackie’s first year is spent in the North, several trips are made to the South for Mary Ann (her mother) to visit her parents, Grandpa Gunnar and Grandma Georgiana, who live in the Nicholtown area of Greenville, South Carolina. The region is segregated and Jackie doesn't understand why she always goes. Her parents' very different feelings about the South cause arguments between them. Eventually, Jack and Mary Ann split up, and Mary Ann and her three children, Hope, Odella, and Jackie, move south to live with Grandpa Gunnar and Grandma Georgiana. Jackie comes to love Greenville. While racism and segregation exist there, the place is still home to her and her grandparents. They believe in peaceful marches for civil rights. They know that God will bless them for doing the right thing. Despite the widespread animosity, there are white people in Greenville who are respectful and treat Jackie and her family like actual human beings, rather than dirt. One such woman is the owner of the local laundromat store, who has known Grandma Georgiana for years. Mary Ann, however, wants to move back North. So, she travels to New York City to get settled. Jackie and her siblings stay on with their grandparents, relishing the time they have with them until Mary Ann comes to retrieve her children, with a brand new baby boy named Roman in tow. They move in with Mary Ann's sister Caroline Irby (Aunt Kay), but Aunt Kay dies and the family of five is left alone. In New York, Jackie becomes best friends with a girl from Puerto Rico named Maria. She also decides that she wants to become a writer after encouragement from her teacher. Each summer, Jackie and her siblings return to South Carolina to visit their grandparents. However, each time they find Grandpa Gunnar, a heavy smoker, sicker and sicker. Mary Ann's brother gets sent to prison after getting in trouble with the police, during which time he converts to Islam. About the same time, Jackie and Maria start to love Angela Davis of the Black Panther movement. They imitate Angela, though they have no real idea about the revolution in which she is involved. Not long after, Grandpa Gunnar dies of cancer, and Grandma Georgiana moves up to New York to be with Mary Ann and the grandchildren.

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Blanche on the Lam Blanche on the Lam is a mystery novel by author Barbara Neely. "Blanche on the Lam" is the first in a series by Barbara Neely. This novel brings to light the intelligence and power of an African-American domestic female worker in the midst of a racist and sexist society. The book won the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery. The series continues with "Blanche among the Talented Tenth" (1994), "Blanche Cleans Up" (1998), and "Blanche Passes Go" (2000). Background. Throughout European and American history, upper class and upper-middle-class families had a prevailing attitude of ignoring their servants until they were needed for labor. Servants were expected to be silent and they had little opportunity to report criminal behavior within their own living/work environment. The American system of slavery, even in the post-emancipation era, took expectations of invisibility and powerlessness of servants to the extreme. Enslaved Africans found themselves in a position in which they were left to deal, without support of the law or society, the immoral slavery in the United States. Thus, due to lack of food and no pay, servants would often resort to petty theft. After enslaved blacks were emancipated, they made efforts to move beyond domestic work and manual labor, but many came to the realization that the only work available to them was domestic work or manual labor (both positions paid very little). Barbara Neely draws upon these societal oppressions to be the foundation of "Blanche on the Lam". Plot summary. "Blanche on the Lam" opens in a court room with Blanche being accused of writing bad checks and being sentenced to thirty days in jail to teach her a lesson. She has a small panic attack at the thought of having to spend thirty days in a small jail cell and asks to use the rest room where she ends up fuming over what has become of her life in Farleigh, North Carolina since moving there from New York city. She gave up better pay for the safety of her children and ended being unable to cover the checks she wrote, being accused of writing more bad checks than she had, and being sentenced to time in jail because of it. There is a disturbance out in the hall and she takes her chance to escape by slipping out of the restroom and making her way to the exit and out into the underground parking lot. She walks quickly out of the area and finds herself in the neighborhood to a job she had got from the Ty-Dee Girls agency she cancelled for that week. Luckily for her the agency has yet to send her replacement and the woman who comes out of the house does not question her about her apparent lateness. She is then brought into the house, instructed to serve lunch, and then be ready to depart the house so they can head to the country. After lunch Blanche and the family of four drive out to the country house by the sea. That day she learns that one of the family members, Aunt Emmeline, is a drunk or at least that is what she assumes, and is a witness to her Will signing that hands over the control of her nephew, Mumsfield‘s, money to his cousins, Grace and Everett. After the signing she learns from Nate, who has worked for the family for many years, that something was not right with the Will signing situation. He does not explain his reasoning but she intends to find out, all the while planning her move to New York, later Boston, to escape the Sheriff and the jail sentence she is running from. Later, after returning from running errands with Mumsfield, she finds the Sheriff at the country house and thinks she has been caught, but it turns out that Sheriff is there to see Everett. After she has calmed herself she wonders why the Sheriff was there if not for her, and is even more curious when she realizes how much time he is spending at the property. Nate refuses to tell her but Blanche is determined to find out. Aside from that mystery she is sure that Grace and Everett are trying to get hold or at least control of Mumsfield’s money because they have gone through all of Grace’s money. Listening to the news one morning on the radio she hears of the Sheriff’s suicide. She is happy that she does not have to worry about him anymore and that she does not have to leave for Boston, but it strikes her after she remembers the conversation she eavesdropped on just the evening before that the Sheriff would not have committed suicide. The man had just been saying that he did not want to leave the place he lived and worked in and had no plans give up his job as the Sheriff of the county. Not only did she hear that declaration, she also heard Everett threaten the man right after it, and that night she was woken up by a sound out of place for a country night and witnessed Everett rolling the limousine silently down the driveway. However, Blanche cannot assume that she is living with a murderer based on what she overheard and witnessed. The same day Nate comes and tells her that he saw someone wearing a pink jacket walking the short-cut route to the place where the Sheriff died. It is obvious he thinks it was Everett. Later that day Everett confronts Blanche about the whereabouts of Nate, and the next day he ends being dead. Killed in a house fire during the night. Blanche finds clues here and there and eventually learns that the Aunt Emmeline she saw sign the will was an impostor and that the real woman had been killed. After going over the clues she had and looking at what evidence she had already uncovered and seeing Grace again, she realized that she had been suspecting the wrong person of murder all along. Who would have thought sweet, believable, weary, frightened Grace would have been a serial killer? Characters. Major characters. Blanche White. She is the central character on "Blanche on the Lam". She is a black woman, who is a housekeeper and cook, on the run from a jail term for a minor offense. She hides out as a domestic worker for a dysfunctional white family. According to Mildred Mickle, Blanche is "a domestic heroine, a very human, compassionate, and honest yet tricky figure.". Blanche recognizes as an adult that as a black women domestic, she is "invisible", however recalling her aunt's wisdom when she was a child, she recognizes the potential power of that invisibility. This power allows her to hide from the law and conduct and cover up her investigations on the Carter family. Mumsfield. He is the white and mentally retarded cousin of Grace. He holds a good amount of power in the novel because he is the designated heir to the family fortune and for that his family plots to cheat him out of the money. Although he is white, he cannot be understood or accepted by his family, "He exits in a liminal space, somewhere in between black and white." He relates more to Blanche than his own white family because they share a common reality of being misunderstood and denigrated. Additionally, they both see beyond the superficial and discover hidden truths. Grace. She plays the stereotypical white mistress role. She pays little attention to the people she trusts to run her home but hypocritically, it is because she does not see them as individuals. Blanche, however, takes advantage of Grace's ignorance by pretending to be a former employee so that she can get hired even though she has a warrant out for her arrest. She also uses her stereotype as a white gentle woman to deceive and manipulate everyone in the novel. Nate. He serves as a gardener for the Carter family, whom Blanche is working for while in hiding. He acts submissive and quiet in front of Grace, however he drops this stereotypical "Uncle Tom" act and reveals himself to be a sharp witted, humorous man. He owes his life to Grace, because he was about to be lynched (before the novel takes place) and twelve-year-old Grace intervenes and saves him. However, he reveals to Grace that this burden of servitude to the Carter family has angered him more than made him grateful. Additionally, Grace, merely sees him as an object to be worked. When Nate is mysteriously murdered, Blanche begins her detective work and works to avenge his death and bring his killer to justice. Everett. He is Grace's husband. He presents himself in the eyes of Blanche as the central villain and is conspicuous from the start of the novel. His former wife mysteriously died, leading him to an inheritance. Blanche suspects the Sheriff to be blackmailing (or as she calls it "white male") Everett so that he does not tell Grace he cheated on her. Minor characters. Archibald Symington. He is Mumsfield's cousin and the family lawyer. Blanche catches Symington calling in favors to keep Nate's murder committed by one of his family members out of court to avoid a scandal. He tries to bribe Blanche from revealing this scandal by telling her he will get her sentence repealed. Aunt Emmeline. She holds the inheritance in which she planned to pass to Mumsfield. Blanche notes in the novel about Aunt Emmeline that she "looked like a drunken Little Orphan Annie at eighty, with her frizzy yellow hair and blank, watery eyes." Blanche is asked to witness Aunt Emmeline sign over her will to Grace and Everett, striking suspicion in Blanche. It is revealed later in the novel that this woman is an imposter and the real Aunt Emmeline was murdered by Grace. Genre. This novel is a mystery/crime genre. According to Mildred Mickle, "Whether we like it or not, there is a complex relationship among the unglamorous domestic milieu, race, and the mystery/crime genre." In "The Blues Detective: A Study of African American Detective Fiction" (1996), Stephen F. Soitos noted that in African American and American crime and mystery fiction, black domestics frequently play the role of detectives and other crime fighters. Soitos claims that for African American writers, mystery and crime fiction serve many purposes. Using black detectives in their novels, the authors express levels of black reality: "the conflict of being caught between black and American self-identity; the ability to see more readily beneath the surface and find hidden truths; he restructuring of the detective into different, more three-dimensional roles; and the incorporation of black speech patterns into dialogue." Following the tradition of many black artist in the 20th century, Barbara Neely uses the mystery/crime genre to incorporate themes of deception and perception. With the use of Blanche's character as the detective, Neely asks who is the real criminal: master or slave, upper class or the working class, black or white? Themes. Invisibility. The issues of trust, deception, and perception have long flourished in racial and gender conflicts. Barbara Neely, exposes these issues through the web of mystery surrounding the murders and cheating that surrounds the characters in "Blanche on the Lam". Additionally, there is an overall theme of fear of the characters in the novel that is rooted in the distrust between employer and servant. Blanche grows to trust Mumsfield but ridicules this trust for a white employer by calling it "Darkies Disease" — "where blacks internalize the role of the servant and take on the personal problems of their employers to the detriment of themselves.". Blanche utilizes all three aspects that provide her with invisibility (being black, female, and a domestic servant) and relies on her identity as a "Night Girl"- a name a wise aunt gave her when she found Blanche crying because some kids teased her about having a dark, black complexion. Her aunt consoled her by saying: "They jealous 'cause you got the night in you. Some people got night in 'im, some got morning, others, like me and your mama, god dusk. But it's only them that's got night can become invisible. People what got night in 'em can step into the dark and poof...Go any old where they want. Do anything. Ride them stars up there, like as not. Shoot, girl, no wonder them kids teasing you. I'm a grown woman and I'm jealous, too!" Blanche's aunt gives her a positive conception of dark skin and instead of being ashamed, Blanche utilizes this concept of being invisible in to a powerful liberation. It allows her to move unseen, to discover the Carter family secrets, and ultimately turns her in to a crafty detective who solves all the crime in the novel. Her disguise is a socially constructed one based on her race, gender, and social class, however by turning these into positive tools, she proves to her oppressors that she is not confined or constructed by how others see (or do not see) her. The confined gender roles for females allow the strength of characters such as Grace and Blanche to remain hidden. Their manipulation, sneaking, and hiding from the law are only successful because they are women. Both are believed by the other characters in the novel to be too submissive, shallow, and dim-witted to get away with their goals. Blanche soon discovers that she can unravel more of Grace and Everett's treacherous plot to inherit Mumsfield's money because she is in the house, whereas Nate, as a man, is working outside. The biggest twist, that Grace is the mass murderer and plotter of cheating her family out of their fortune, exposes the sexist notions that the readers themselves have rooted into their culture. Throughout the plot, Everett seems to be the most likely suspect to the murders and manipulation of the will, all the while making it easier for Grace to get away with mass murdering anyone in her path. Even though, the heroine and the villain of this novel evoke different emotions from the readers, there is a larger feminist theme in play that is made possible by taking advantage of the cloak of invisibility that society has placed over women. Stereotypes of the black body. In "I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like: The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers", Rebecca Carroll interviews Barbara Neely, and she discusses how she formed Blanche White: "The character of Blanche initially came from a woman I knew in North Carolina who had a look that inspired me to create a heroine in her memory...I knew I wanted her to be representative of who black women are, presently and historically. Both my grandmothers did domestic work..." "A cleansing construction: Blanche White as domestic heroine in Barbara Neely's "Blanche on the Lam".". During the antebellum and postbellum periods in American slavery, the black body was made into a part of a mass marketing scheme. Stereotypes centered around the negative connotations of blacks having dark skin, nappy hair, and other physical attributes. The specific female and male stereotypes were generally known as: the Sambo, the Mammy, and the Uncle Tom. The Mammy is represented by the fat, nurturing, black female domestic worker. Uncle Tom, is the elderly, submissive, male servant. Blanche and Nate view their role as the Mammy and Uncle Tom separate from their true identities. "They view the stereotypical roles as their performance in a larger satire about misperception. They slip into and out of the Mammy and Uncle Tome stereotype as they see fit." "A cleansing construction: Blanche White as domestic heroine in Barbara Neely's "Blanche on the Lam"". Critical reception. According to Elsie Washington in a review for "Essence", the novel is considered "the first mystery by a black woman with a Black woman as the heroine". Neely scored major accolades with her first novel, winning the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards for "Blanche on the Lam". She also received an award from the Black Women’s Reading Club for the book.

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Liliane (novel) Liliane: Resurrection of The Daughter is a novel by Ntozake Shange. It was originally published by St. Martin's Press in 1994. The novel tells the coming-of-age story of a young Black woman, Liliane Parnell, through the numerous voices of childhood friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, conversations between Liliane and her psychoanalyst, and Liliane herself. Liliane is the daughter of a wealthy and prominent African-American judge, Lincoln Parnell, and his beautiful wife Sunday Bliss Parnell who is working towards reconciling her life as an artist in the present with both the secrets and the expectations of class ascendance from her family's past. Plot summary. The novel opens with a conversation between Liliane and her psychoanalyst. These conversations become regular interval points within and throughout the novel as the story unfolds. Liliane expresses concern about her current situation, professing that she cannot breath and that she is looking for somebody and it does not matter who, she says, "as long as he won't hurt me". As the novel continues, Liliane's character is developed through the lens of those around her with whom she is close. The reader learns that Liliane grew up within a wealthy and prominent Black family that was part of the Talented tenth. Liliane's father pushes her to pursue a husband who will "'...have the backbone to fight for what's never happened, or for dreams.'" These comments lead Liliane to eventually leave her first boyfriend, Danny, and pursue another man, named Granville, who better conforms to her father's ideal of a suitable match. As Liliane and her close friends grow older, however, they begin to face significant conflicts within their lives. One of Liliane's close friends, Hyacinthe, begins to have mental health troubles early in her adolescence and depends heavily on her brother, Sawyer Malveaux III for support. When he is unexpectedly shot, however, Hyacinthe's mental condition becomes worse and she eventually enters care in a mental health facility. For Liliane, a major hurdle is the disappearance of her mother from her life and the breakdown of her nuclear family. As Liliane transitions to adulthood, the pressures from her father to be the ideal Black woman and mate to a powerful Black leader begin to have less of an impact on her life decisions. While the relationships with the women that Liliane formed throughout her early childhood and adolescence remain deeply important to her (and are maintained throughout the novel), Liliane begins to make romantic, sexual, and platonic connections with men and women from all walks of life. The desires of her father, and the mysterious disappearance of her mother, however, are never far from her mind. Structure. The novel's form is seemingly unique as it is divided into chapters narrated by important persons in Liliane's life and conversations between Liliane and her psychoanalyst that occur in between each chapter. These chapters feature anecdotes about the narrating character's interactions with Liliane, usually providing illumination of the conversations Liliane has with her psychoanalyst that are featured prior to the chapter. Because of the multiplicity of narrators throughout the novel, the reader is often forced to make a decision about which narrator to believe. This unique episodic structure allows for the novel to cover a wide range in time periods. Major themes. Racial uplift. A central theme in the novel concerns the project of Racial Uplift within the African-American and Black community. Liliane's social standing within an upper middle class prominent Black family seemingly conforms to the model of racial uplift promoted by figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, who advocated for the instruction of Liberal Arts education to Black people in the United States in order to create a leadership elite often referred to as the Talented Tenth. Liliane's father, a prominent Black judge, is highly invested in maintaining the image of his family as a part of that leadership elite. However, Liliane's contact and social relations with Black individuals who are outside of her own class seemingly problematizes this philosophical project to a certain extent. Mother–daughter relationships. The broken relationship between Liliane and her mother, Sunday "S." Bliss operates in the novel as a point of deep internal conflict in Liliane's life. Early on in Liliane's life, Sunday Bliss serves as a role model to Liliane, however, after Sunday "S." Bliss has an affair and marries a white man, Liliane's father, ashamed of his wife's choice to pursue her own happiness over the project of racial uplift, lies to Liliane telling her that her mother is dead. Unable to reconcile her adoration of her mother with her mother's sudden and unexplained absence in her life, Liliane develops a sense of self that is fragmented and, at times, deeply conflicted. Once Liliane recognizes that her mother is, in fact, not dead, she is unable to make sense of the fact that her mother would abandon her to pursue a romantic relationship with a white man. Female sexuality. The exploration of Female Sexuality is featured heavily in the novel. Despite her father's attempts to instill Liliane with a sense of obligation to the project of Racial Uplift, and his encouragement of Liliane to become the wife of someone who has the potential to be a powerful leader in the Black community, Liliane's romantic and sexual relationships are varied, diverse, and bridge interpersonal gaps of both class and race throughout the novel. The novel portrays Liliane as a decisive agent in the context of her sexual relationships. Psychoanalysis. Liliane is very much emotionally conflicted as a result of her family's past secrets, her desires for herself, and her father's desires for her. Like her mother, Liliane struggles with choosing between honoring herself and the project of Racial Uplift that her father is heavily invested in. Additionally, Liliane is heavily affected by the existential pain of anti-black racism. As a result, Liliane's conversations with her psychoanalyst are often turbulent and disjointed as she struggles to build her sense of self in her transition to adulthood and her growth as a painter. Reception and literary criticism. Initial reviews of "Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter" were mostly positive. In her "New York Times" book review, Valerie Sayers characterized the novel as a work that is "moving and evocative" as well as "dense, ambitious" and "a worthy song". Other reviewers have described the novel as somewhat frustrating. In a "Booklist" review, Donna Seaman writes of "Liliane", "You admire it, learn from it, desire it, and resist it all at the same time." While little critical scholarship of "Liliane" exists, Ntozake Shange has spoken about the novel in interviews that have been featured in literary journals, including an interview published in "Black American Literature Forum", in which Shange remarks of Liliane's character as a woman who, "goes all over the world, and all over the world she is confronted with sexism".

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Starting Over (autobiography) Starting Over is a 2011 autobiography by American musician and recording artist La Toya Jackson. The book was published by Gallery Books and was released on June 21, 2011. It made "The New York Times" Best Seller list for the week ending July 2, 2011. Background. The title of the book is a reference to how Jackson "started over" after divorcing her abusive manager Jack Gordon. She stated, "I think it's important for everybody to start over in their life when it's not going properly or the way they think it should go or should be going, or if there's problems in their life." The title is shared with her comeback record, "Starting Over", which was released on the same day as the book. According to Jackson, the album's autobiographical songs inspired the book. Jackson told "Us Weekly" that she decided to write the book when women contacted her after seeing Jackson's 2005 interview on "20/20". "This book was written for people who have endured abuse. Women cannot allow men to rob their self-esteem and self-worth. I want them to know that they can use their voice to make a change." Jackson began working on the book in February 2008 and completed it in Spring 2011. Even though Jackson was pictured with her brother Michael on the hardcover edition, she stated that "the book is not about Michael. 85 percent of that book is about me starting over and encouraging [women]." "The company wanted me to incorporate Michael and I realized he is a part of my life and he just passed so people are going to think I was selfish if I didn't include him." Summary and themes. The book picks up from where her previous autobiography, "", left off. It details her abusive relationship with, and escape from, her manager Jack Gordon. The latter part of the book describes how her brother Michael Jackson confided in La Toya that he feared being killed for his music and publishing estate. In the book La Toya reveals that she feared for Michael's life in the months leading up to his death. Editions. The hardcover version was released on June 21, 2011. The mass market paperback was released on May 29, 2012. Reception. Jackson made "The New York Times" Best Seller list for the week ending July 2, 2011. This was her second book to make the list, the first being "", which peaked at number 2.

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The Women of Brewster Place (novel) The Women of Brewster Place (1982) is the debut novel of American author Gloria Naylor. It won the National Book Award in category First Novel. It was adapted as the 1989 miniseries "The Women of Brewster Place" and the 1990 television show "Brewster Place" by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions. "The Women" explores the lives of both men and women in an urban setting and examines relationships, both in terms of friendship and romantic love, including homosexual relationships. In each of the "Seven Stories" of its subtitle, one or more of the seven women are involved with the main character of that particular story, such as Mattie appearing in Etta Mae's story or Kiswana showing up in Cora Lee's. Plot summary. The women of Brewster Place are "hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased". Their names are Mattie Michael, Etta Mae Johnson, Lucielia "Ciel" Turner, Melanie "Kiswana" Browne, Cora Lee, Lorraine, and Theresa. Each of their lives are explored in several short stories. These short stories also chronicle the ups and downs many Black women face. Musical adaptation. A new musical adaptation of "The Women of Brewster Place" was commissioned for the stage. The musical premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, GA on September 12, 2007, the same theatre that also co-produced the show itself. It was directed by Molly Smith. "The Women of Brewster Place" toured several cities, opening to several positive reviews.

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For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf is Ntozake Shange's first work and most acclaimed theater piece, which premiered in 1976. It consists of a series of poetic monologues to be accompanied by dance movements and music, a form Shange coined as the choreopoem. "for colored girls..." tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society. As a choreopoem, the piece is a series of 20 separate poems choreographed to music that weaves interconnected stories of love, empowerment, struggle and loss into a complex representation of sisterhood. The cast consists of seven nameless African-American women only identified by the colors they are assigned. They are the lady in red, lady in orange, lady in yellow, lady in green, lady in blue, lady in brown, and lady in purple. Subjects from rape, abandonment, abortion and domestic violence are tackled. Shange originally wrote the monologues as separate poems in 1974. Her writing style is idiosyncratic and she often uses vernacular language, unique structure, and unorthodox punctuation to emphasize syncopation. Shange wanted to write "for colored girls..." in a way that mimicked how real women speak so she could draw her readers' focus to the experience of reading and listening. In December 1974, Shange performed the first incarnation of her choreopoem with four other artists at a women's bar outside Berkeley, California. After moving to New York City, she continued work on "for colored girls...", which went on to open at the Booth Theatre in 1976, becoming the second play by a black woman to reach Broadway, preceded by Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" in 1959. Shange updated the original choreopoem in 2010, by adding the poem "positive" and referencing the Iraq War and PTSD. "for colored girls..." has been performed Off-Broadway as well as on Broadway, and was adapted as a book (first published in 1976 by Shameless Hussy Press), a 1982 television film, and a 2010 theatrical film. The 1976 Broadway production was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Title. "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" is a piece of work inspired by events of Shange's own life. Shange admitted publicly to having attempted suicide on four occasions. In a phone interview conducted with CNN, she explained how she came to the title of her choreopoem: "I was driving the No. 1 Highway in northern California and I was overcome by the appearance of two parallel rainbows. I had a feeling of near death or near catastrophe. Then I drove through the rainbow and I went away. Then I put that together to form the title." The colors of the rainbow then became the essence of the women in the choreopoem. Shange also explains that she chose to use the word "colored" in the title of her choreopoem so that her grandmother would be able to understand it. Synopsis. Structurally, "for colored girls" is a series of 20-22 poems, depending on whether "my love is too" and "positive" are included in the list, collectively called a "choreopoem." Shange's poetry expresses many struggles and obstacles that African-American women may face throughout their lives and is a representation of sisterhood and coming of age as an African-American woman. The poems are choreographed to music that weaves together interconnected stories. The choreopoem is performed by a cast of seven nameless women only identified by the colors they are assigned. They are the lady in red, lady in orange, lady in yellow, lady in green, lady in blue, lady in brown, and lady in purple. Subjects from rape, abandonment, abortion, and domestic violence are tackled. By the end of the play these women come together in a circle, symbolizing the unity they have found sharing their stories. The prologue of the choreopoem "dark phrases" begins with the lady in brown describing the "dark phrases of womanhood". All she hears are screams and promises. Each woman states where she is from, by stating they are outside their respective cities. The lady in brown proclaims that this piece is all for "colored girls who have considered suicide / but moved to the ends of their own rainbows". The women then begin to sing children's nursery rhymes, "mama's little baby likes shortnin, shortnin". Then all the ladies start to dance to the song "Dancing in the Streets". The lady in yellow says it was graduation night and she was the only virgin. She was out driving around with her male friends who she has known since the seventh grade in a black Buick, laughing about graduation. After a fight breaks out, the lady in yellow and Bobby leave and end up having sex in the back of the Buick. The other ladies start talking about their sexual preferences. The lady in blue talks about how she used to participate in dance marathons frequently. One night she refused to dance with anyone that only spoke English. Throughout the monologue she intertwines English and Spanish. During this time she discovered blues clubs. She says she became possessed by the music. She ends her monologue by calling it her poem "thank-you for music," to which she states: "I love you more than poem". She repeats "te amo mas que," and the other women join her, softly chanting. The lady in red addresses an ambiguous "you" throughout the monologue. She has loved this "you" strongly and passionately "for 8 months, 2 wks, & a day" without any encouragement. She decides to end this affair and leaves a note attached to a plant that she has watered every day since she met this person. The lady in orange begins by saying she does not want to write in neither English nor Spanish, but she only wants to dance. She forgets all about words when she starts to dance. She says "we gotta dance to keep form cryin and dyin" and the other ladies repeat her words. The lady in orange then claims that she is a poet "who writes in english / come to share the worlds witchu". The lady in blue talks about how hard it is to press charges against a friend. The other women begin to ponder and ask questions. They say that maybe it was a misunderstanding, or the woman caused it, and they ask her if she was drinking. The lady in red states that society only believes someone is a rapist if they are a perverted stranger. The women talk about male friends of theirs who have nice smiles and buy them dinner but end up raping women. The women all share the experience of having been violated by a man they knew while being on the lookout for “the stranger we always thot it wd be” The lady in red states that the "nature of rape has changed." The lights change, the women react to an imaginary slap. The lady in blue sets the scene with tubes, tables, white washed windows, and her legs spread open. She couldn't bear to have people looking at her while she got an abortion so she is all alone. The lady in purple describes Sechita's life in the bayou, while lady in green dances out Sechita's life. She is dressed up for the Creole carnival celebration. She embodies the spirit of her namesake, Sechita, the Egyptian goddess of creativity, love, beauty and filth from the 2nd millennium. The lady in brown describes falling in love with Toussaint L'Ouverture finding Toussaint in the library near the train tracks. The lady in brown talks about entering a contest to see which "colored child" could read 15 books in three weeks and the lady in brown won, but she was disqualified because she went into the adult reading room and read about Toussaint instead of reading the children's books. The lady in brown became obsessed with Toussaint despite the fact that he was dead. He was her "secret lover at age 8". The lady in brown wanted to run away to go to Haiti with Toussaint. On her journey the lady in brown meets a young boy whose name is Toussaint Jones. The lady in brown feels likes she's met her real-life Toussaint and she leaves with him. The lady in red enters begins by describing a beautiful woman wearing orange butterflies, silk roses, and aqua sequins. This woman is deliberate in all her actions. Although she walked slowly to allow men to gaze at her, she never returned their interest with a smile or acknowledging their catcalls. She was "hot / a deliberate coquette". Her goal was to be unforgettable. She takes "those especially schemin/ tactful suitors" to go home with her. In the morning, she becomes her ordinary self by washing off the glitter and the grime from the night before. She asks her lovers to leave. The men would leave in a hurry, and then she cleaned up and put her roses away. She would write about her exploits in her diary and then, cry herself to sleep. The lady in blue begins her monologue by explaining that she used to live in the world but now only lives in Harlem, and her universe is only six blocks. She used to walk all over the world and now her world is small and dirty. The lady in blue says that when she used to live in the world where she was nice and sweet but now, now she cannot bring herself to be nice to anyone in this "six blocks of cruelty / piled up on itself". The lady in purple joins the ladies in blue, yellow, and orange. She starts by describing them as three friends who shared every aspect of their lives. They remember a time when they all were attracted to the same man, but he only could choose one of them. The one who he chose loved him, but worried if her friends could hold out. One day she found the rose she left on his pillow on her friend's desk. The friend said she did not know what was going on, because the man said he was free. The three friends did not want to hurt one another but they know how wonderful this man could be. The friends hug and cry and go to confront the man, whom they find with another woman. The women cry and comfort each other like sisters. The lady in orange discusses a relationship that left her heartbroken. She says that ever since she realized that someone would call a "colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag" (56) she has tried not to be that person. She tries to not only give joy, but to receive it as well. She finds herself in what she believes to be a real and honest relationship. Yet, the guy keeps going back to his ex-lover. The lady in orange tried to move on by finding another lover, but she wasn't satisfied. She tried to avoid sadness, but she found herself heartbroken by this man. She could not stand being "sorry & colored at the same time / it’s so redundant in the modern world". The lady in purple speaks about her relationship to dance and men. She deliberately chooses to dance with men who don't speak English, pops pills, and uses dance as an escape from reality. Then she meets a man who she gave everything: dance, fear, hope and scars. She admits she was ready to die, but now is ready to be herself and accept love. She pleads, "lemme love you just like i am / a colored girl/ i'm finally bein real". The lady in blue proclaims that they all deal with too much emotion and that it might be easier to be white. That way they could make everything "dry & abstract wit no rhythm & no / reelin for sheer sensual pleasure". The lady in blue states that they should try to control their feelings and she is going to take the first step by masturbating. However, she finds that this makes her feel lonely and doesn't know where to look to feel whole. The lady in yellow claims to have lost touch with reality because she used to think she was immune to emotional pain, but she realized she is not. She gave her dance, but her dance was not enough. She says "bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical / dilemma / i haven't conquered yet". The other women come and each repeats, "my love is too...delicate/beautiful/sanctified/magic/saturday nite/complicated/music to have thrown back in my face." The ladies begin dancing and chanting together. The lady in green says that someone has taken all of her "stuff". She feels that she is the only one that knows and can appreciate the value of her stuff. She describes her stuff as the way she sits with her legs open sometimes, her chewed up fingernails, her rhythm, her voice, her talk, her "delicate leg and whimsical kiss". The person who stole her stuff is a man. She made too much room for this man who has run off with her stuff, especially because he doesn't even know that he has it. By the end of the monologue she demands her stuff back from this man. The ladies start talking about all the apologies they've received from men. Some examples include: he is sorry because he does not know how she got your number, sorry because he was high, sorry because he is only human, and sorry because he thought she could handle it. The lady in blue then declares that she does not need any more apologies. She goes on to say that men should keep their apologies for themselves, because she does not need them to soothe her soul and she cannot use them. Rather than accepting apologies, she is going to do whatever she wants: yell, scream, and break things. And she will not apologize for any of it. Lady in yellow, purple, brown, red participate in reciting the next poem about contracting HIV/AIDS; they share the lines and all speak to one woman's experience. The ladies argue about suspicions of cheating in the relationship. The lady in yellow tells her friends how happy she is in her relationship and her friend tells her, they've seen her lover outside the gay bars. The lady in yellow protests, but her friend tells her to get tested. The lady in yellow goes to get tested to put the whole issue to bed. Two weeks later, the doctor calls the lady in yellow with her patient number (#7QYG9) to inform her that she is HIV positive. The lady in yellow confronts her lover who furiously tells her he is not gay and accuses her of cheating on him. She tells him to get tested but he gets angrier and violent. He throws her to the ground and when she wakes up he is gone and she says, "& i was positive / & not positive at all". The lady in orange begins the story of Willie Brown by saying there is no air. Beau Willie is all tied up in the sheets, wishing a friend would come over and bring him some blow or any other kind of drug. The lady in red continues the story, saying that Beau Willie claims there is nothing wrong with him. Beau Willie tried to get veterans' benefits but he cannot read, so he starts driving a cab around the city but the cops always give him a hard time and he is not making any money. The lady in orange and red say that Crystal is pregnant again and Beau beats Crystal almost to death when he hears about her pregnancy. Beau Willie has wanted to marry Crystal since she was 14, but now she laughs in his face saying she will never marry him. She has the baby and there are now two kids, Naomi and Kwame. Crystal ends up getting a court order to keep Beau away from her and the children. Beau Willie comes to the house despite the court order and while he is there he becomes apologetic saying he just wants to marry her and give her things. The two children run to their father as Crystal watches. Suddenly, he grabs the kids and pushes the screen out of the window. Beau Willie tells Crystal she has to agree to marry him. Naomi and Kwame scream and Crystal, at the moment, can only whisper. Beau Willie drops the kids out of the window and they die. The ladies begin the last poem saying that they are missing something: a "layin on of hands". The hands are strong, cool, moving, and make them whole and pure. The lady in blue says she feels the gods coming into her, laying her open to herself. She goes on to say that she knows about laying her body open for a man, but still she was missing something. Finally, all the ladies repeat the lines she says, "i found god in myself / & i loved her / I loved her fiercely". They sing to each other and then the audience, and close into a tight circle with each other. The choreopoem ends with lady in brown modifying her earlier statement: "& this is for colored girls who have considered suicide/ but are movin to the ends of their own rainbows." Production history. "for colored girls..." was first performed by Shange with four other artists at the Bacchanal, a women's bar, outside Berkeley, California. About six months after performing the work in California, Shange and her collaborator, Paula Moss, decided to move across the country determined to perform it in New York City's downtown alternative spaces. At the age of 27, Shange moved to New York, where, in July 1975, the reworked "for colored girls" was professionally produced in New York City at Studio Rivbea in 1975. East coast audiences were soon able to experience Shange’s performance piece at other venues including the Old Reliable, and DeMonte's beginning in July 1975 and then starting in March 1976 at the Henry Street Settlement’s New Federal Theatre. The show grew increasingly popular, especially among African-American and Latino audiences. As a result, "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" opened at The Public Theater in June 1976. Three months later, in September, the show was performed at the Booth Theater on Broadway, where it was continued until July 1978 and ran for 742 shows. Shange performed as the "lady in orange" at the Broadway opening. It was also published in book form in 1977 by Macmillan Publishing, followed by a Literary Guild edition in October 1977 and Bantam Books editions beginning in 1980. A cast recording was also released by Buddah Records. In 1982 "for colored girls..." was adapted for television on WNET-TV, PBS, as part of The American Playhouse series. Although "for colored girls" went from a play production to television one, this production was dubbed a "telefilm" instead of a teleplay as the performance on WNET-TV was seen as a serious departure from the Broadway production. In 2009 Tyler Perry announced that he would produce Shange's "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf". The film was the first project for 34th Street Films, Perry's new production company housed in Lionsgate The cast included Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashād, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington and Thandie Newton. Originally using the play's full title, the film's title was shortened to "For Colored Girls" in September 2010. In the fall of 2019, The Public Theater revived the play. The production was directed by Leah C. Gardiner, with choreography by Camille A. Brown and featured a Deaf actress in the role of "Lady in Purple." "American Playhouse" television adaptation. In 1982 the play was adapted for television on PBS station WNET-TV, as part of the "American Playhouse". The adaptation, directed by Oz Scott, was seen as a serious departure from the Broadway production. A review by "The New York Times" states: "What Miss Shange prefers to call a "choreopoem" has been expanded into realistic settings that too often resemble the sanitized atmosphere of an episode of "Good Times". The net result has been a considerable reduction in the work's emotional impact." As a result, the televised production is often seen as a diluted version of the original choreopoem. Film adaptation. On March 25, 2009, the film industry magazine "Variety" reported that Nzingha Stewart, a black female director, had acquired the feature film rights to "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" from Shange and that Lionsgate had signed Stewart to create a screenplay adaptation and direct the film version of the play. Stewart, at Lionsgate's direction, approached Tyler Perry about producing the film. However, Perry told Lionsgate that if he produced it, he also wanted to write and direct it. Perry then usurped the project from Stewart and scrapped her script. The shift prompted controversy over whether Perry had the skill and consciousness to properly depict an iconic feminist work. Stewart remained on in the token position of executive producer of the film. Among those critics were Oprah Winfrey, who expressed doubts over whether the book should be made into a film at all. Others had reservations based on Perry's position at the helm of such an important book in African American literature, particularly considering the controversies raised by "", a film he lent his name to. On September 3, 2009, Lionsgate announced it had acquired the distribution rights to Tyler Perry's 34th Street Films adaptation of the play, with principal photography originally scheduled to take place in Atlanta, Georgia, in November and December 2009. The film, which was retitled "For Colored Girls", was released on November 5, 2010, and was written, directed and produced by Perry. The cast includes Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Tessa Thompson, Michael Ealy, Macy Gray and Omari Hardwick. Mariah Carey had also been cast, but pulled out in May 2010, citing medical reasons. When asked if she held reservations about Perry's adaptation of her work, Shange responded: "I had a lot of qualms. I worried about his characterizations of women as plastic." In reference to the film post-production, she stated that "I think he did a very fine job, although I'm not sure I would call it a finished film." Awards and nominations. Sources: Off-Broadway. Awards Broadway. Awards Nominations In addition to receiving several accolades, the play has been described as a landmark piece in African American literature and black feminism. It has since become a cornerstone of black feminist writing and 20th-century drama. Legacy. The title of "For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Still Not Enough: Coming of Age, Coming Out, and Coming Home", a 2012 anthology of essays edited by Keith Boykin, was based on the title of Shange's play. Shange's work has also been transformed using different forms of media. It has been continually performed in colleges and universities, art spaces, and theaters throughout the world. It has been set in beauty shops, prisons, and other historical time periods. A Brazilian production dropped the word "color" in the title, and a group of women in Kentucky made it about class instead of race. In a Season Four episode of "A Different World", Freddie (Cree Summer) performs a segment from the play during an audition for the fictionalized Hillman College theater production, where show director Whitley (Jasmine Guy) rejects the piece, sarcastically commenting, "Now I know "why" colored girls consider suicide." Poster art and design. The poster for the play and book (as pictured above) are by the New York-based graphic artist, Paul Davis.

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Longing to Tell Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality And Intimacy is a 2003 book by Tricia Rose. It comprises 20 oral histories by African-American women from different socio-economic backgrounds and ages telling their stories about various aspects of sexuality. Reception. The "New York Times" noted that it is "the first compilation of black women's oral histories about all aspects of sexuality" and that it has been applauded by scholars like Henry Louis Gates Jr., while, in a discussion about her book "The Politics & Passion", Gloria Wekker expressed disappointment with "Longing to Tell". "Longing to Tell" has also been reviewed by "Booklist", "Publishers Weekly", "Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society", "Women's Review of Books, Library Journal, Multicultural Review, and Essence."

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Nappy edges nappy edges is a collection of poetry and prose poetry written by Ntozake Shange and first published by St. Martin's Press in 1978. The poems, which vary in voice and style, explore themes of love, racism, sexism, and loneliness. Shange's third book of poetry, "nappy edges," was met with positive reviews and praise from critics, like Holly Prado of the "Los Angeles Times" who said of it that "this collection of poems, prose poems and poetic essays merges personal passion and heightened language." Structure. The collection is divided into five sections of poetry and prose. The first section, "things i wd say", contains an opening essay on the nature of poetry called "takin a solo/ a poetic possibility/ a poetic imperative", and is followed by four more sections: "love & other highways", "closets", "& she bleeds", and "whispers with the unicorn". Although each section of the volume is distinct, the poems are all in conversation with each other and cover similar themes. Themes. The subtitle of the collection is "the roots of your hair/what turns back when we sweat, run, make love, dance, get afraid, get happy: the tell-tale sign of living." The salient themes of the various writings within "nappy edges" all can be tied back to the multifaceted existence and complicated identities of black women. Like her plays, novels, and choreopoems, Shange's poems are as humorous as they are tragic, and explore a variety of themes. Poetry. Many of Shange's poems are about poetry itself—what it means to write it and what it means to read it. In "takin a solo/ a poetic possibility/ a poetic imperative", she implores black writers to cultivate the kinds of distinctive and original voices that we appreciate and expect from black musicians. Her fear is that black voices will fade into indistinction, and eventually their voices won't be recognizable at all. In "inquiry", Shange explains the importance that poems elicit a visceral reaction out of the reader in the same way that a kiss or cold water would. Following this expectation, Shange focusses some of her poems on the responsibility of the poet to the reader. Generally speaking, the poet is expected to speak on behalf of communities, and to transport the reader to places they've never even been, but Shange emphasizes the necessity of the poet showing you what they know personally. By placing importance on the personal rather than the universal, Shange is able to explore the interiority of her personas' minds. Shange also looks at what it means to be a black woman poet when the world of poetry is dominated by white men. Particularly during this historical moment in the late 1970s, not long after the Black Arts Movement which was a very male-dominated and patriarchal movement, Shange's position as a black woman poet is groundbreaking. She challenges the idea that words and poetry belong to men, and points to how unfair it is that when a woman does something, an 'ess' is added to the title (as in "poetess"). Love. Stories of love and relationships can be found in each section of "nappy edges". Shange explores how traditional gender dynamics can mistreat women. From manipulative men who take advantage of women sexually, to women who stand up for themselves, each poem tells a different story. Shange explores love and relationships as spaces where women should be able to seek their own pleasure, sexual or otherwise. By showing how sex and love can either torment or uplift women, Shange is able to Loneliness and self-care. Although the women in Shange's poems are self-sufficient, there is still an overarching theme of loneliness throughout "nappy edges". Rather than dwelling on this loneliness, Shange focusses on the theme of self-care as a woman and as a poet. It is clear from these poems that being a woman and being a poet in a patriarchal society is not easy, but Shange relies on herself and her creativity for survival. This self-care takes different forms, from talking to herself to writing poetry, but she insists that black women in particular take care of themselves, and claims that this is both a personal and political struggle. Black womanhood. Shange uses her poems to push back against the way in which black women have been allowed a single, monolithic voice and experience. She claims that there is such a profound ignorance about the lives of black women, that they themselves struggle to fully understand themselves, thus creating identity confusion. In the same way that she calls for linguistic specificity from black poets, she fights to carve out a space for subjectivity from black women—a space where they can at least try to articulate themselves more clearly and authentically. Shange returns to the idea of self-care consistently throughout her work, and often stresses its importance for black women in particular. In "nappy edges", self-care is a remedy for personal struggles, but it is also a necessary reality of being the kind of black woman that she writes about struggling with abusive men, sexism, racism, and the ways that they all overlap. Style. Shange's style remains just as integral a part of her poetry as the content. In keeping with her focus on the importance of cultivating a personal writerly voice, she uses language, spelling, grammar, and tone to emphasize her themes. As she does in most of her poetry, Shange uses slashes to demarcate clauses, rather than line breaks. She also chooses not to use standard punctuation like apostrophes, and removes the letters from certain words, choosing to write "wd" instead of "would" for example. This is all a part of her project to express herself the way that she chooses to, not the way that she is expected to by both the confines of standard English and also by those who associate poetry with a specific, formal way of expressing oneself. Shange is also incredibly influenced by music, particularly Jazz and Blues artists. Her poems are lyrical and sometimes reminiscent of the style of improvisation in jazz. "i live in music", for instance, is explicitly about Shange's love of music, and doesn't stick to a particular rhythm or meter (like most of her poems). Shange recorded a version of "i live in music" accompanied by the William Goffigan Ensemble, which demonstrates both the connection between her poems and music, and her poetry's innate musicality. Critical reception. Although "nappy edges" is not as widely read as "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" or some of Shange's other works, it was well received. Roxanne Brown of the New Pittsburgh Courier called "nappy edges" "a richly-textiled tapestry of cheeriness and pain, woven together by a musical lyric of women's tears and girlish laughter." The Los Angeles Times' review also said that "Poetry, at its most intense, promises revelation. We don't read poets for information, but for some gasp of insight. There's plenty of revelation in 'Nappy Edges'." "Kirkus Reviews" called this collection "an energetic, provocative book of poetry. Using the work as a vehicle for confronting life, Shange provides a sense of immediate contact with a volatile and expressive set of emotions. (...) Shange's concerns remain inseparably political and personal, her music distinctive, her method of expression emotional and tempered with enough objectivity to avoid rhetoric. A fine show."

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Luster (novel) Luster is a 2020 debut novel by Raven Leilani. The book follows a Black woman in her twenties who gets involved with a fortysomething white man in an open marriage. "Luster was" released on August 4, 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It received mainly positive critical reception and won the 2020 Kirkus Prize for fiction. In December 2020, the book was found in Literary Hub to have made 16 lists of the year's best books. Plot. "Luster" follows Edie, a Black woman in her twenties who lives in New York City and works as an editorial assistant. She meets Eric, a white man in his forties who is in an open marriage. Eric and his wife have a 12-year-old adoptive daughter, Akila, who is also Black. Edie begins a sexual relationship with Eric and moves to New Jersey to live with his family after she gets fired. Major themes. Critics noted that the character of Edie is a "flâneur", which is notable as it is typically a literary position occupied by white male characters. Critical reception. The book was recommended by various outlets prior to its publication. "Luster" received mostly positive reviews. "Kirkus Reviews" described the book in a starred review as "Sharp, strange, propellant—and a whole lot of fun." Mark Athitakis rated the book 3.5/4 stars and stated in "USA Today", ""Luster" isn’t just a sardonic book, but a powerful one about emotional transformation." "Publishers Weekly" reviewed the book and stated, "Edie’s ability to navigate the complicated relationships with the Walkers exhibits Leilani’s mastery of nuance, and the narration is perceptive, funny, and emotionally charged." Bookpage.com gave "Luster" a starred review and wrote: "Leilani’s writing is cerebral and raw, and this debut novel will establish her as a powerful new voice." Noting that the novel is a debut, Leah Greenblatt of "EW" wrote, "that newness sometimes shows; after a wildly beguiling start, the novel telescopes inward, often forsaking narrative momentum for mood and color. Sentence by sentence, though, she’s also a phenomenal writer, her dense, dazzling paragraphs shot through with self-effacing wit and psychological insight." Writing for "Virginia Quarterly Review", Kaitlyn Greenidge praised Leilani's "linguistic skill."

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Quicksand (Larsen novel) Quicksand is a novel by American author Nella Larsen, first published in 1928. This is her first novel and she completed the first draft quickly. The novel was out of print from the 1930s to the 1970s. "Quicksand" is a work that explores both cross-cultural and interracial themes. Larsen dedicated the novel to her husband. Discussing the novel, Jacquelyn Y. McLendon called it the more "obviously autobiographical" of Larsen's two novels. Larsen called the emotional experiences of the novel "the awful truth" in a letter to her friend Carl van Vechten. About The Author Nella Larsen. Nella Larsen was many things other than a writer, working also as a nurse and a librarian amongst other vocations. She was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 13, 1891. Her mother was Danish and her father was Black West Indian. They lived in the city of Chicago which was a rapidly growing city. By mostly appearance, her family seemed white, but Nella Larsen was somewhat different which had a great affect in her fiction. She studied at Fisk University, which was her first experience in a black community and university. Nella is very well known during her writing during the Harlem Renaissance time period, and she wrote Quicksand during an intense American cultural nationalism, where the nation shared one culture. This period had a variety of a release of books and essays just devoted to this large period of cultural nationalism going on and interpretations of African American modernism going on. Larsen herself worked on various orientations of her writing and was never quite consistent. She published two novels and various short stories, and people said she disappeared from public life and assimilated and passed for white. Many biographies published about Larsen contained information that was not correct, which is why George Hutchinson, wrote a research examination of her life and debunking some of the things falsely stated in previous biographies written about Larsen. In George Hutchinson's piece about the life of Nella Larsen called, "In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line""," he used things such as taxes and schools within Copenhagen, New York, and Chicago access aspects of Larsen's life such as things like her birth through adult life. Larsen was portrayed as a revolutionist writer in this piece written by Hutchinson, he analyzes her choices in life and personality. Most of her writings address heavy topics such as passing for white, relationships between black middle-class men and women, and even the suppression of female sexuality. There is a discussion of Quicksand and how it does not deal with race directly, but that the characters are driven by race. He goes into great depth of the strength and complexity of Nella Larsen herself. She longed to be welcomed among African Americans but was also proud of her Danish heritage. Larsen eventually won the Guggenheim Fellowship, and was the first African American woman to receive it. She eventually died of a heart attack at the age of seventy two on March 30, 1964. Historical Context and The Harlem Renaissance. The majority of Quicksand by Nella Larsen took place in Harlem, New York City. The story was written and published in 1928, meaning that the infamous 1920’s were almost completed by the time Nella Larsen had published this fictional autobiography. Many major events took place during the 1920’s. Right on Wall Street in 1920, America experienced a horrible terrorist attack that killed nearly 40 civilians, and injured hundreds. With more gruesome things happening, the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) was scaring the whole nation. On the more positive side of 1920, the “Lost Generation” began its transformation of American literature. The term was "coined from something Gertrude Stein witnessed the owner of a garage saying to his young employee, which Hemingway later used as an epigraph to his novel "The Sun Also Rises" (1926): "You are all a lost generation." This accusation referred to the lack of purpose or drive resulting from the horrific disillusionment felt by those who grew up and lived through the war, and were then in their twenties and thirties." Another positive note about the 1920’s was that the first ever licenced radio station was created. This was a huge hit for everyone during this time, it allowed for people to listen in real time about news, sports, or whatever else. By 1926, there were over 700 radio stations nationwide. The creation of radio stations sparked the formation of mass media. During 1910-1930’s Harlem was in the “golden period” or the "Roaring 20's" and was shaping the path for many African Americans to display their art of music, dance, literature, and much more. Many famous artists we still know today, were born in the Harlem Renaissance. For example, Langston Hughes and his writing, Countee Cullen and her poetry, Louis Armstrong and his jazz music, Josephine Baker and her musicals, and Aaron Douglas who was a sculptor. These are only just a few of the major names that resemble the Harlem Renaissance, many more African artists came forward as time went on. Plot summary. Nella Larsen introduces the educated mixed-race protagonist, Helga Crane who struggles to find her identity in a world of racialized crisis in the 1920s. The novel begins with Helga teaching at a southern black school in Naxos which is meant to be a fictional mirroring of the Tuskegee Institute. Helga is the Daughter of a Danish mother who died when she was an adolescent and West Indian father who is absent. Her early years were spent with her Danish mother and White step-father who loathed her and there began her torn relationship with her split identity. The novel gives us a glimpse into the dichotomy of being mixed raced and the divergence into two vastly different worlds as the protagonist travels through uniquely different cultural spaces from 1920’s Jazz Age Harlem, NY to Copenhagen, Denmark. In Naxos, where the novel begins Helga Crane is a teacher suffering from social angst as she is discontented with the social uplift philosophy delivered by a white preacher. The theme of mainstream white influence is developed throughout the novel, but makes it debut at the very beginning while she is in Naxos. She is repelled by the subjugate demeanor of her superiors with consideration to their attempts to white wash her black counterparts and she criticizes the Booker T. Washington inspired sermon that reinforces racial segregation and warns black students that striving for social equality will lead them to become avaricious. This incites her first endeavor of escapism where she quits her job and moves to chicago. There, her white maternal uncle, now married to a bigoted woman, shuns her. The inimical encounter instigates her move to Harlem. When in Harlem NY, Helga Crane becomes the secretary to a refined, but often hypocritical, black middle-class woman who is obsessed with the "race problem." She is then launched into her now third hankering to flee. Crane visits her maternal aunt in Copenhagen. Although she enjoys the lavishness of her new voyage, she is treated as a highly desirable racial exotic which forces her to return to New York City. Close to a mental breakdown, Crane happens onto a store-front revival and has a charismatic religious experience. After marrying the preacher who converted her, she moves with him to the rural Deep South. There she is disillusioned by the people's adherence to religion. In each of her moves, Crane fails to find fulfillment. She is looking for more than how to integrate her mixed ancestry. She expresses complex feelings about what she and her friends consider genetic differences between races. Throughout the development of the novel, though driven by the search for racial identity, Helga also rejects intimate relationships with every man she encounters at each destination. It isn’t until she fully indulges in an intimate relationship that she becomes forced to exist in a space (Deep South) and becomes stuck. Characters. Helga Crane. The story’s protagonist. Helga’s mother was born in Denmark and her father was of west-Indian descent. Helga is a young, biracial woman whose journey’s purpose is finding a place where she belongs. She struggles with insecurities. The story begins where she is a teacher at Naxos, a white-imposing school, where she then quits her job that prompts her to spend her time travelling for other jobs and visiting relatives. The story closes with the knowledge that Helga marries a man from the deep south where she ends up being a serial-mother. James Vayle. Helga’s fiancé when she is at Naxos. She ends their relationship when she moves away. James comes off as a serious and boring young man. Mrs. Hayes-Rore. Helga’s employer that enables Helga to move to Harlem after she leaves Naxos. The protagonist is hired to help Mrs. Hayes-Rore write a speech. Dr. Robert Anderson. A 35 year old handsome man with grey eyes. He is known as the principal of Naxos at the beginning of the story, but then becomes someone that Helga thinks of romantically. Anne Grey. Helga’s friend that ultimately influences her to the Harlem Culture. Is a socialite and widow that is utterly obsessed with the race problem brought up in the novel. Reverend Mr. Pleasant Green. When Helga returns to New York again in the story, she meets this southern reverend after bumping into him at church. The two then get married and move to Alabama where they have 5 children. Herr Axel Olsen. Danish artist that proposes to Helga and ultimately gets turned down because he objectifies her. Fru Dahl (Aunt Katrina). Helga’s white aunt in Copenhagen, her mother’s sister. Herr Dahl (Uncle Poul). Helga’s white uncle that lives in Copenhagen. His only wish is for Helga to be happy and get married. Racial Imposter Syndrome. Throughout Quicksand By Nella Larsen, You time and again recognize the leading character Helga Crane accepting a battle with Racial Imposter Syndrome. Racial Imposter Syndrome is when typically a biracial person or someone with multiple ethnicities feels like imposters. They do not experience a sense of belonging or identity because they don't fit perfectly into one of their races or ethnicities (Donnella, 2020). This frequently comes up within their everyday lifestyles. Whether they go visit extended family and realize they do not exactly have the same traditions, practices. Even having different features than them. Periodically this comes up in their lives in society. Meaning when society tries to sometimes put people into one box. For example when they ask what race you are in questionnaires and they have only Black, White, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Other. Many mixed-race people feel they can not just choose one because it will be denying another part of them. That if they choose just one they might question it because physically their features may resemble features you would see more in one race. They have a different skin complexion, so they feel obligated to decide on one that matches their skin color. Some people of our mixed-race identity but their parents themselves are not biracial often feel this is another strain on them. People's first sense of connection is within the family unit. For people struggling with racial imposter syndrome, this often can cause anxiety. They can not turn to their parents for advice. They do not know the experience of having two identities. Some people of our mixed-race identity but their parents themselves are not biracial often feel this is another strain on them. Biracial people frequently feel they have to adopt one identity and then have to try to gain a sense of belonging and inclusion within the racial community they use (Hall, 2019). Essentially meaning that to discover a place where they can fit in, connect with people, or even have people to go to merely for healthy human interaction. Many Biracial people tend to choose whichever race matches their visible features and go with it. Helga Crane throughout the book you can see battling this issue. Representing a Biracial woman having a white mother and black father, having beautiful brown skin. Yet often having people categorize her into one box. Only seeing her as one race often put a strain on her and her emotions. She constantly never felt she belonged when she was around her white family or counterparts because she physically did not look like them. Her hair, skin, and body features were different. When her mother dies, her uncle takes her in then sends her to an all-black school. She did feel more comfortable because on the outside she looked like them and didn’t have to necessarily deal with racial discrimination. She though still battled with still not feeling like she completely belonged with her black peers, and their experiences, and felt she was disowning part of her. She also had to deal with complexities around colorist views from women in the black community. She still did not perfectly fit into a stereotypical idea or look of a black woman. Oftentimes Helga in her adult life when she felt issues around her race, identity and complexities around it. She would tuck those emotions away, pack up and leave somewhere else. It was not until she went to Paris when she started having more confidence in who she was. Themes. Race, Segregation, and Society. Helga struggles with race are emphasized due to society’s attitude toward her. Helga’s mental and physical expedition is to find a place where she doesn’t draw attention to., or take away from her differences. However, society and social order play a role in which people are viewed, if they are culturally different. Helga’s racial identity has been constructed by others inability to accept her own differences.   Mixed Race Identity. Helga is a young biracial woman; a half white, half black woman. For Helga, identifying as a biracial woman means she has less restrictions when it comes to racial labels. Her struggles with her identity come from the reluctance of others and how they view themselves and others. Helga’s understanding of herself is constructed through cultural artifacts created by others. Helga follows a biracial identity by refusing to follow a strict racial lifestyle but she still acknowledges her black culture. Race and Gender. Helga’s future is determined by her sex and her race. Her fascination with clothing and color is a way for Helga to build a female identity for herself. Helga dressed in styles unique to herself and others as a way to stand out from the rest. The way she dressed also goes against the way Naxos wanted their teachers to look. She was meant to stand out.

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Hidden Figures (book) Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race is a 2016 nonfiction book written by Margot Lee Shetterly. Shetterly started working on the book in 2010. The book takes place from the 1930s through the 1960s when some viewed women as inferior to men. The biographical text follows the lives of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three mathematicians who worked as computers (then a job description) at NASA, during the space race. They overcame discrimination there, as women and as African Americans. Also featured is Christine Darden, who was the first African-American woman to be promoted into the Senior Executive Service for her work in researching supersonic flight and sonic booms. The book reached number one on "The New York Times" Non-Fiction Best Sellers list and got the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction in 2017. The book was adapted as a film by the same name, released in 2016, that was nominated for three Oscars. It received numerous other awards. Topic. "Hidden Figures" tells the story of three African-American women who worked as computers to solve problems for engineers and others at NASA. For the first years of their careers, the workplace was segregated and women were kept in the background as human computers. Author Margot Lee Shetterly's father was a research scientist at NASA who worked with many of the book's main characters. The book explains how these three historical women overcame discrimination and racial segregation to become three American achievers in mathematics, scientific and engineering history. The main character, Katherine Johnson, calculated rocket trajectories for the Mercury and Apollo missions. Johnson successfully "took matters into her own hands"; by being assertive with her supervisor; when her mathematical abilities were recognized, Katherine Johnson was allowed into all male meetings at NASA. Film. The book was adapted as a film of the same name, written by Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder, and directed by Melfi. It was released on December 25, 2016 to positive reviews from critics, and received a nomination for Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards. It received numerous other nominations and awards. Taraji P. Henson starred as mathematician Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer played Dorothy Vaughan, an African-American mathematician who worked for NASA in 1949, and Janelle Monáe played Mary Jackson, the first female African-American engineer to work for NASA. The movie made 231.3 million USD (United States Dollars). The budget of the film was 25 million USD. While the film is based on the book, author Margot Lee Shetterly agrees that there are differences between the two, and she finds that to be understandable. For better or for worse, there is history, there is the book and then there's the movie. Timelines had to be conflated and [there were] composite characters, and for most people [who have seen the movie] have already taken that as the literal fact. ... You might get the indication in the movie that these were the only people doing those jobs, when in reality we know they worked in teams, and those teams had other teams. There were sections, branches, divisions, and they all went up to a director. There were so many people required to make this happen. ... It would be great for people to understand that there were so many more people. Even though Katherine Johnson, in this role, was a hero, there were so many others that were required to do other kinds of tests and checks to make [Glenn's] mission come to fruition. But I understand you can't make a movie with 300 characters. It is simply not possible. Other adaptations. In 2016 a Young Reader's Edition was released for readers ages 8–12. A "Hidden Figures" picture book was released in January 2018. The book was co-written by Margot Lee Shetterly for children from four to eight years of age.

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The Planet of Junior Brown (novel) The Planet of Junior Brown is a 1971 young adult novel by Virginia Hamilton and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. It is about two boys, Junior Brown and Buddy, who with a school janitor, Mr. Pool, construct a mechanical solar system. Reception. Barbara Bader reviewing "The Planet of Junior Brown" in "Kirkus Reviews" wrote "This is not a story to be judged on grounds of probability, but one which makes its own insistent reality; it endures along with its promise long after the story ends." and revisiting the book in "Horn Book" 40 years later noted that children were not borrowing the book from libraries but wrote "the human drama will prevail and Junior Brown will continue to find susceptible readers, here and there, to whom it will mean a great deal." "The Planet of Junior Brown" has also been reviewed by "African American Review", and Literature Arts Medicine Database. Adaptations. In 1997 a film of the same name, adapted from the novel was released.

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The Inheritance Trilogy (Jemisin series) The Inheritance Trilogy is a fantasy trilogy written by American author N. K. Jemisin and published by Orbit Books. The trilogy consists of "The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms" that won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award; followed by "The Broken Kingdoms" and "The Kingdom of Gods". Characters. Yeine. Yeine is half-Arameri and half-Darr. She is small with curly hair, and can sometimes be taken for a boy. She's the chieftain, or "ennu", of the Darre, which is a matriarchal society of warriors (reminiscent of the Amazons), until she is made a potential heir to the Arameri throne and put in charge of three other countries, all of which are bigger than Darre. Because of her bluntness and Darre manners, she is called a barbarian by the Arameri. Yeine is a resilient, independent woman. She's learned to mask her emotions from the Darre people, but cannot fake friendliness and affection for those she does not like. She loathes the Arameri family, but will use Arameri tactics to protect those she loves. She treats the Enefadeh with respect unlike most of her kinsmen. Because Enefa's soul is within her body, she can hear the goddess' voice and see visions. Even though everyone, including Nahadoth, expects Enefa's soul to overtake her own, her soul defeats Enefa's and she replaces the goddess with Enefa's blessing. N.K. Jemisin's character study names her as impulsive and irrational (she obsesses over her mother's murder even when she has other things to worry about), and not above hurting herself to get what she needs. Nahadoth. Nahadoth is the Nightlord, otherwise known as the god of night, chaos, and change. He was the first of the gods to exist. When Itempas murdered Enefa, he led his children in revolt against him, and was forced into a mortal body as a punishment. By day, he is "Naha," a tortured human. By night, however, he is free to become something close to what he once was. Nahadoth is shaped by the thoughts and expectations of those around him. He is the father of Sieh, and loves Enefa, Itempas and later Yeine. Bright Itempas. The god of law, order, light, and rules, Bright Itempas came after Nahadoth and though at first they fought, they later became lovers. He kills Enefa and imprisons Nahadoth and his children, but offers the Nightlord a chance to be free and serve him every time a new Arameri ruler is chosen. He is worshipped as the Skyfather by the Arameri people, who imposed him on all the peoples they conquered and declared all who remembered Nahadoth and the others as heretics. Enefa. The goddess of twilight, dawn, balance, life, and death, she came third of the Three. She was the one who created life. Sieh was her firstborn. From the beginning, Nahadoth delighted in her creations, but Itempas didn't because he disliked change. She loves both Nahadoth and Bright Itempas, and Sieh obviously longs for her to love him like a mother. She seemingly has no choice but to love her children, but is also feared by them. When she is murdered, Itempas keeps a part of her soul, trapped in the Stone, and the rest is gathered and placed into Yeine by the Enefadeh. Sieh. The Trickster god, he is the firstborn of Nahadoth and Enefa. A perpetual child, with a child's cleverness and a child's cruelty, he has bright green eyes and a falsely innocent demeanor. Sieh has chosen the path of a child, and therefore despite his age he can't stop loving and longing for a mother. Yeine notices at one point that when he is intent on something, he doesn't blink. In Sky, the Arameri palace, he possesses a room full of multi-colored orbs that are actually a sun and planets stolen from various other solar systems. Kurue. The goddess of wisdom, she betrays the Enefadeh's plan to Itempas. She is described as very beautiful, with gold and silver wings, though she takes the form of a plump, old librarian when she first appears to Yeine. Yeine kills her after she replaces Enefa. Zhakkarn. The goddess of war and battle, she is huge, and described as taller kneeling than Sieh standing. Like Kurue and Sieh, she is another of Nahadoth's children, and the one to mark Yeine so that she'll be free from Arameri control. Yeine earns her respect after she kills Kurue. Dekarta. The ruler of the Arameri and Yeine's grandfather, he offered his wife to transfer the Stone to him, which killed her and alienated his daughter, Kinneth. Despite this he continues to love his daughter, and always hoped for her return. In N.K. Jemisin's character study, she reveals that Dekarta blames Yeine for taking Kinneth from him. Scimina. One of the potential heirs and a cousin once-removed from Yeine, Scimina is a cruel, half-mad woman with no conscience whatsoever. She sets Nahadoth on Yeine the first time she meets her and threatens to destroy Darre if she isn't named as heir. She sits at Dekarta's right hand at the Council, and is described as “a reedy Amn beauty of sable hair, patrician features, and regal grace.” Relad. Scimina's younger twin brother and the other potential heir, Relad surrounds himself with his vices. He knows if he aligns with Yeine his sister will kill him. T'vril. A half-blood like Yeine, he is the palace steward and a good man who takes care of the servants and cares for Yeine. He was part Amn and part Ken, and gets his red-colored hair from his Ken side. His Amn father was also Relad and Scimina's older brother. T'vril is said to be just as smart as Scimina or Relad. Yeine orders Dekarta to name him heir after she takes Enefa's place. Viraine. The palace Scrivener—or scholar of the gods—he claims to have been Kinneth's friend and offers to befriend Yeine. Yeine doesn't trust him, and later figures out that he was her mother's lover and that she used him to learn the truth about her mother's death. Geography. Darre. A matriarchal society, Darre is made of tribes and ruled by the "ennu", which happens to be Yeine. Darre publicly rescinded their faith in Nahadoth and the Enefadeh when they were conquered by the Arameri, but still worship them in secret. The men in Darre are trophies, and used basically to sire children, though many couples, such as Kinneth and Yeine's father, are deeply in love. The Darre have a brutal coming-of-age ceremony, in which the young woman has to survive in the forest for a month, and then return home to fight publicly with a man her sponsor has chosen. She will either win and control the sex that follows, or be brutally raped. Usually, the sponsor chooses a weak man, but because the Darre people don't trust Yeine's Amn blood, her grandmother chooses the strongest warrior. Yeine fights as best she can, fulfills the ceremony, and then kills her rapist with a rock afterwards, effectively claiming her right to rule. The Darre people are said to have dark skin, straight hair, and lush curves. Sky. The city of Sky is sprawled over a small mountain and completely white. The Palace, which is also called Sky and where the majority of the story takes place, was built by the gods and sits above the earth, floating in the sky. In Sky (the city), there is the Salon, a white-walled building where the Consortium (world council) meets to pretend that they aren't all just obeying the Arameri. Gateway Park. A park built around Sky and the World Tree's base. Sky in Shadow. Official name for the palace of the Arameri and the city beneath it. The Gray. The "Middle City" of sky in shadow, situated atop the World Trees roots. Includes, servants, suppliers, and crafters, and the mansions they serve (which encircle the Tree's trunk) by means of a network of steam-driven escalators. Antema. Capital of the largest province of the Teman Protectorate. Amn. The most populous and powerful race, ruled by the Arameri, who indirectly rule the Senmite races by "advising" the Nobles Consortium, (world council), and the Order of Itempas (Itempas priests). Though they possess many armies and are a powerful nation in their own right, the reason the Amn people rose to power was largely due to the priestess, Shahar Arameri, who helped Itempas kill Enefa and whose offspring were therefore granted the Enefadeh as weapons. The Amn people are said to be tall with sable hair. The Islands. To the east of Senm, a volcanic archipelago. Easternmost portions of the archipelago were close to the Maroland, and the people of those islands have a markedly different culture, darker skin, and curlier hair than those of the western islands. The Maroland. Lost continent, once to the southeast of High North. Smallest continent. Climate was subtropical-to-temperate. A place of great beauty and biodiversity; the first humans evolved here, then spread westward. The first Arameri home city was here, before the continent was destroyed by Nahadoth. For several centuries afterward the area where the Maroland had been was prone to underwater earthquakes/tsunami that made sea travel treacherous. Colloquially called “Maro”. Races/Clans. Godly Races. The Maelstrom. The origin of all things. The Maelstrom is the force, or entity, that gave birth to the Three. It has never communicated with any of its children, and not even the gods fully understand its nature. Yeine perceives it during her lovemaking with Nahadoth in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms as “a sound: a titanic, awful roar.” The gods describe it as a churning storm, not just of energy or matter but of concepts as well. Most godlings, demons, or mortals who approach too closely are torn apart by its raging power. Gods. The creator entities of the Inheritance Trilogy. Gods are equally at home as corporeal or incorporeal beings, are able to travel virtually anywhere in creation, and have complete power over all material and metaphysical objects and concepts. Only three gods exist at the beginning of the trilogy: Nahadoth, Itempas, and Enefa. Enefa was murdered by Itempas, and eventually replaced by Yeine. Individually the gods are extremely powerful, but not omnipotent or omniscient. Only the Three acting in concert have absolute power, rivaled only by the Maelstrom. Godlings. Godlings are immortal children of either the Three or other godlings, or some combination thereof. Each has an affinity and antithesis, and all possess the ability to travel anywhere and manipulate matter, including their own bodies. Beyond this, their powers vary widely per individual. Godlings exist in three rankings: niwwah, mnasat, and elontid. In The Kingdom of Gods, Sieh defines the demons as a fourth ranking, but notes that they are all (to his knowledge) dead. Elontid: The second ranking of godling. The Imbalancers, born of the inequality between gods and godlings or the instability of Nahadoth and Itempas.Sometimes as powerful as gods, sometimes weaker than godlings. Mnasat: The third ranking of godlings; godlings born of godlings. Generally weaker than godlings born of the Three. Niwwah: The first ranking of godlings, born of the Three; the Balancers. More stable but sometimes less powerful than the elontid. List of Godlings. Godlings named thus far include: Mortal Races. Or more specifically, human races. There are many sentient species in the universe, though only one matters for the Inheritance Trilogy. Below are the relevant subgroups of humankind: The Demon Race. Demons, in the world of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, are the offspring of a mating between gods and humans. They are mortal, like humans, and for the most part resemble humans, though there are some cases of demons bearing visible “deformities” as a marker of their inhuman heritage. (An example is Oree Shoth's eyes, which are specialized to see magic but incapable of seeing anything else.) Since nearly all mortal humans have gods somewhere in their lineage, the designation of “demon” refers to degree of godly heritage — generally only those who are 1/8th god or greater. Some mortals with more distant godly heritage are also deemed demons if they are throwbacks in some way. They must possess the three traits which mark a demon: The discovery of this last trait, the demons’ deadly blood, caused their downfall as the gods then turned on them and hunted them to near extinction. Only a few demon lineages now survive, in secret and sometimes unknown even to themselves. The only known demons at the time of the Inheritance Trilogy include Oree Shoth, her father (deceased), her daughter Glee Shoth, Itempan priest and scrivener Dateh Lorillalia, Shahar Arameri the younger, Dekarta Arameri the younger, and Remath Arameri. Sieh and Itempas also remember Shinda Arameri, Itempas’ first demon child (deceased). Little is known of the age before the Demon War — that period in which they lived and walked freely among the realms. There were possibly thousands of them at the height of this age. In many cultures demons were hailed as mortal gods due to their great magical abilities. They were generally regarded as more approachable than “pure” gods. In The Broken Kingdoms Appendix 2, Nemue Sarfith Enulai speaks of Yiho of the Shoth Clan — a daughter of Enefa, and likely an ancestor of Oree Shoth — who created salmonlike river fish to feed her countrymen during a famine. As a result of this and other boons provided by the demons, many mortals helped to hide their local demons when the gods turned on them. In the Maroland, demons became a special class of bodyguard-historians called enulai, who helped to guard and guide the royal family of the various Maro peoples until the Maroland's destruction. Most demons were the descendants of Nahadoth via hundreds of mortal men and women, though godlings parented many as well. The goddess Enefa bore comparatively few demon children, as carrying these children made her unwell (a warning of their deadly blood). The god Itempas is known to have fathered only two demons: Shinda Arameri, son of Shahar Arameri; and Glee Shoth, daughter of Oree Shoth. Adaptations. Film Adaptations. As of 2019 Paramount Pictures acquired the film rights to the book trilogy and plans on making 3 live action movies.

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They Were Her Property They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South is a nonfiction history book by Stephanie Jones-Rogers. "They Were Her Property" is "the first extensive study of the role of Southern white women in the plantation economy and slave-market system" and disputes conventional wisdom that white women played a passive or minimal role in slaveholding. It was published by Yale University Press and released on February 19, 2019. For the book Jones-Rogers received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Merle Curti Social History Award from the Organization of American Historians. Synopsis. "They Were Her Property" disputes the idea that white women did not play a significant role in slaveholding in the American south. Jones-Rogers uses primary source documents to illustrate the scope and conduct of white women slaveholders, including testimonials of formerly enslaved people archived by the Federal Writers' Project, and bills of sales for enslaved people bought and sold by white women. The author stated that around 40% of bills of sales from South Carolina in the 18th century included either a female buyer or seller. Jones-Rogers argues that white women were groomed to become plantation mistresses from girlhood through various social norms and often exacted cruelty and sexual violence onto enslaved people. The book addresses the widely-held belief that white women were gentler to enslaved people than white men, and dispels the notion of the "Jealous Mistress" who is angry that her husband has sex with enslaved women. Jones-Rogers contends that slaveholding was a key mechanism for white women to build wealth and maintain financial independence from their future husbands, and they skirted losing enslaved people to their husbands through various legal tools. Critical reception. The book received positive critical reception. In a review for "The Washington Post", Elizabeth R. Varon wrote, "In holding slave-owning women to account, Jones-Rogers has provided a brilliant, innovative analysis of American slavery, one that sets a new standard for scholarship on the subject." Parul Seghal stated for "The New York Times", "Jones-Rogers is a crisp and focused writer. She trains her gaze on the history and rarely considers slavery’s reverberations. They are felt on every page, however." Jeff Forret said in his review for "Southwestern Historical Quarterly": "Jones-Rogers offers a bold reinterpretation of the relationship between slavery and slave-owning women in the nineteenth-century South. The prose in "They Were Her Property" is strong and clear, containing no shortage of appalling stories of the violence and cruelty endemic to southern slavery."

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Vibration Cooking Vibration Cooking: Or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl is the 1970 debut book by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor and combines recipes with storytelling. It was published by Doubleday. A second edition was published in 1986, and a third edition was published in 1992. The University of Georgia published another edition in 2011. Smart-Grosvenor went on to publish more cookbooks after "Vibration Cooking". "Vibration Cooking" raised awareness about Gullah culture. Scholar Anne E. Goldman compared "Vibration Cooking" with Jessica Harris' "Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons", arguing that, in both books, "the model of the self... is historicized by being developed in the context of colonialism." Scholar Lewis V. Baldwin recommended "Vibration Cooking" for its "interesting and brilliant insights on the social significance of food and eating and their relationship to 'place' in a southern context." The book inspired filmmaker Julie Dash to make the film "Daughters of the Dust", which won awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

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Spell No. 7 spell #7, or "spell #7: geechee jibara quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people", is a choreopoem written for the stage by Ntozake Shange and first performed in 1979. The story is about a group of black friends who are actors, musicians, and performers. In a series of dreamlike vignettes and poetic monologues, they commiserate about the difficulties they face as black artists. The piece is framed by the narrator, lou, a magician who wants to use his magic to help the characters come to terms with their blackness and rejoice in their identities: "i'm fixin you up good/ fixin you up good & colored / & you gonna be colored all yr life / & you gonna love it/ bein colored/ all yr life/ colored & love it / love it/ bein colored. SPELL #7." The set design calls for a "huge black-face mask" to dominate the stage, and minstrel masks are worn in the opening. These images put frustrations of the characters in conversation with the history of racism in theater, as the images of "grotesque, larger than life misrepresentation" call forth minstrel shows and Blackface. "spell #7" culminates in a repetition of lou's refrain, with all the cast members singing together. Performance and publication history. "spell #7" was first produced It was also produced at Crossroads Theatre (New Jersey) under the direction of Dean Irby and choreography by Dyane Harvey-Salaam. In 1979 as part of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival it was restaged. It was directed by Oz Scott and choreographed by Dianne McIntyre, with original music by David Murray and Butch Morris. The cast included Mary Alice, Avery Brooks, LaTanya Richardson, Reyno, Dyane Harvey-Salaam, Larry Marshall, Laurie Carlos and Ellis E. Williams. During the play's run Samuel L. Jackson and Jack Landron also made appearances. It first opened as a free workshop, under the title "Spell #7: A Geechee Quick Magic Trance Manual." After receiving good reviews the production was moved up to the Anspacher Stage at The Public Theater. natalie's sharp monologue in the final act about her hypothetical life as a white woman was cut from this revised version, and Shange herself acted in a scene as sue-jean, a conflicted and violent mother. Her performance had "an unforgettable quality of coming from inside." After the New York run, "spell #7" went on to be performed by other companies. Some productions include one in 1982 at Clark College, another in 1982 during the Philadelphia Black Theater Festival, one in 1986 from the Avante Theater Company in Philadelphia, a 1991 performance at the Studio Theatre (Washington, D.C.), and a 1996 production at Spelman College. The choreopoem was published in 1981 in "Three Pieces", a collection of Shange's theater works. In addition to "spell #7", the book contains "a photograph: lovers in motion" and "boogie woogie landscapes", and a foreword written by Shange. "spell #7" was also printed in the 1986 anthology "9 Plays by Black Women," alongside works by Beah Richards, Lorraine Hansberry, and Alice Childress, among others. Both of these versions restore the natalie monologue that was cut from the Anspacher performance. Style. Like Shange's more well known choreopoem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf", "spell #7" makes use of non-standard grammar and eschews generally accepted rules of capitalization and punctuation. The most recent editions of "Three Pieces" do not capitalize the title of the choreopoem or any of the names of the characters. Though the piece follows the structure of a three-act play, it utilizes elements that are uncommon in most modern traditional dramas, such as extended monologues. The story takes place in a bar, and the setting does not change. Most of the action unfolds indirectly, when the characters narrate stories about themselves and their friends, and occasionally they take on multiple personas at once. In the foreword to "Three Pieces" Shange explains why she avoids more traditional methods of playwriting, citing motivations related to her Black identity. "For too long now" she says "Afro-Americans have been duped by the same artificial aesthetics that plague our white counterparts/ "the perfect play," as we know it to be/ a truly European framework for European psychology/ cannot function efficiently for those of us from this hemisphere." Characters. In order of appearance, the characters are: Critical reception. Many responses to "spell #7" praise its poetic language and emotional depth. One reviewer called Shange's words "lyrical, wry, painful, and comically prosaic by turn." Another reviewer wrote that Shange is "incredible in her uncanny ability to capture the precision and intensity of the moment," but then went on to criticize her style for being "distracting and predictable." In a 1980 addition to the foreword, Shange writes about one reviewer, who criticized her for writing "with intentions of outdoing the white man in the acrobatic distortions of English." In reply, Shange says that he "waz absolutely correct," she, in writing "spell #7" aimed to "attack deform n maim the language that i waz taught to hate myself in...i haveta fix my tool to my needs/ i have to take it apart to the bone/ so that the malignancies/ fall away/ leaving us a space to literally create our own image." External links. Ntozake Shange Papers, 1966-2016; Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library, Barnard College.

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Homegoing (Gyasi novel) Homegoing is the debut historical fiction novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, published in 2016. Each chapter in the novel follows a different descendant of an Asante woman named Maame, starting with her two daughters, who are half-sisters, separated by circumstance: Effia marries James Collins, the British governor in charge of Cape Coast Castle, while her half-sister Esi is held captive in the dungeons below. Subsequent chapters follow their children and following generations. The novel was selected in 2016 for the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for best first book, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. It received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for 2017, an American Book Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature. Plot. Effia's line. Effia is raised by her mother, Baaba, who is cruel to her. Nevertheless she works hard to please her mother. Known as a beauty, Effia is intended to be married to the future chief of her village, but when her mother tells her to hide her menstrual cycle, rumours spread that she is barren. As a result she married a British man, James Collins, the governor of Cape Coast Castle. He and Effia have a happy marriage. She returns to her family village one time, when her father dies, where her brother tells her that Baaba is not Effia's mother and that Effia is the daughter of an unknown slave. Effia and James have a son called Quey who is raised in the Cape Coast Castle. His parents, worrying that he is friendless, eventually have him befriend a local boy named Cudjo. When they are teenagers Quey and Cudjo realize that they are attracted to one another. In fear of their relationship James sends Quey to England for awhile. When he returns, Quey is assigned to help to strengthen the ties between his familial village, who sell slaves, and the British. He is frustrated by his uncle Fiifi, who seems evasive about trade relations. Eventually Fiifi along with Cudjo, raid the village of the Asante people and bring back the daughter of an Asante chief. Realizing that to marry her would join his people, the Fantes, with the Asantes, Quey resolves to forget Cudjo and marry the Asante girl. Quey's son, James, learns that his Asante grandfather died and returns to Asante land where he meets a farmer woman, Akosua Mensah. Growing up with his parents dysfunctional political marriage, and promised since childhood to the daughter of the Fante chief, Amma, James longs to run away and marry Akosua. With help from Effia, James runs away from Amma and lives among the Efutu people until they are raided and killed by the Asantes. He is saved by a man who recognizes him though James makes him promise to tell everyone he has died. He then travels to reunite with Akosua. James's daughter Abena only knows her father as a rural farmer called Unlucky for his inability to grow crops. By the time she is twenty-five she is still unmarried. Her childhood best friend, Ohene promises to marry her after his next successful season and the two begin an affair which coincides with the start of a famine. The village elders, discovering the affair, tell them that if Abena conceives a child or the famine lasts more than seven years Abena will be cast out. In the sixth year Ohene successfully farms cocoa plants. Rather than marry Abena he tells her that he promised to marry the daughter of the farmer who gave him the seeds. Abena, now pregnant, decides to leave her village rather than wait for Ohene to marry her. Akua grows up among white missionaries after her mother dies early in her childhood. When an Asante man proposes, she accepts and marries him and the couple have several children. Before the birth of her third child Akua begins to have nightmares about a woman on fire with burning children. Her nightmares cause her to avoid sleep and enter a trance-like state while awake, and as a result her mother-in-law locks her in the hut to prevent other village people seeing her in her strange state. At the same time war breaks out and her husband goes to war. He, returns missing one leg, in time for the birth of their son, Yaw. The nightmares continue to haunt Akua and, while sleepwalking during a trance at night, she murders her daughters by setting a fire that consumes them. Her husband is able to save Yaw and successfully prevent Akua from being burned herself by the townspeople. Yaw grows up to be a schoolteacher who is highly educated but angry about his facial burn scars. His friends encourage him to marry even though he is near the age of fifty, as his self-consciousness has kept him alone until that point. After his friends go through a difficult pregnancy he decides to take on a house girl, Esther. The two of them speak Twi together; Esther is unfazed by Yaw's anger and asks him constant questions about his way of life, and he realizes he loves her. To please Esther he goes to see his mother, now known as the Crazy Woman, for the first time in over forty years in Edweso where they reconcile, and she tells him that there is evil in their line and that she regrets causing the fire that burned him. Marjorie grows up in Alabama, which she hates, and spends summers in Ghana visiting her grandmother, who has moved from Edweso to the Gold Coast. In her mostly-white high school she struggles to fit in as the black students mock her for acting white and the white students don't want to have anything to do with her. She feels left out as although she is black, she doesn't identify with the African American stereotype that all blacks in America are lumped into. While reading in the library she meets a German born army brat, Graham, and develops a crush on him hoping he will ask her to prom. Instead his father and the school ban them from attending together and he instead goes with a white girl. She reads a poem about her Ghanaian origin and ancestors during an African American cultural day at her high school, which her father attends. Her grandmother dies shortly after, before Marjorie is able to make it back to Ghana. Esi's line. Esi is the beloved and beautiful daughter of a Big Man and his wife, Maame. Her father is a renowned and successful warrior and he eventually captures a slave who asks Esi to send a message to her father about where she is. Esi complies out of pity as her mother was formerly enslaved. As a result her village is raided and her father and mother are killed. Before she leaves Esi learns that her mother had a child before her, while she was enslaved. She is then captured and imprisoned in the dungeon of the Cape Coast Castle where she is raped by a drunk British officer before being sent to America. Esi's daughter, Ness, is raised in America. Her mother teaches her some Twi but she and her mother are eventually beaten for it and separated. In her new, more lenient plantation, Ness is forbidden from becoming a house slave because of the deep scars on her back. Before arriving at the plantation Ness was forcibly married by her master to Sam, a Yoruba man and fellow slave on the same plantation. Although he spoke no English, they eventually came to love one another and have a child, whom she named Kojo. After a woman heard her speaking Twi, Ness was offered the opportunity to escape north. Ness, the woman, Sam, and Kojo escaped but in an effort to protect her son, she and her husband allowed themselves to be caught and then claimed their child died, allowing the woman to escape with Kojo. Ness was severely whipped, causing her brutal scars, and forced to watch as Sam's head was hanged. Kojo is raised in Baltimore where he goes by the name Jo Freeman and marries a freeborn black woman Anna. Kojo works on the ships in the Baltimore Harbor while Anna cleans for a white family, and the entire family lives with Ma, the woman who helped Kojo escape when he was a baby. When Anna is pregnant with their eighth child, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is passed. Jo is warned that he should go further North but he decides to stay. The white family Anna works for helps Kojo and Ma forge papers saying they were born free, but Kojo still worries he or his family will be kidnapped. His oldest daughter marries the pastor's son, and soon after Anna disappears while pregnant. Kojo looks for her for weeks but is unable to find her, only hearing that a white man asked her to enter a carriage with him at the last sighting. The kidnapping destroys Jo's family. H, the last son born to Anna and Kojo, is freed during the Reconstruction era, and has never known his parents, with Anna dying shortly after childbirth. Sometime after, as an adult man, he is arrested and wrongly accused of assaulting a white woman. Unable to pay the ten dollar fine he is sentenced to work in a coal mine for ten years. One day a white convict is assigned as his partner and he is unable to shovel any coal, so H shovels the twelve-ton daily quota for the both of them with two hands simultaneously, earning him the nickname "Two-Shovel H". When H is released from his sentence he settles in Pratt City in Birmingham, Alabama, made up of other convicts both black and white, and works in the coal mine as a free agent. Unable to read or write, he asks his friend's son Joecy to write a letter to his ex-girlfriend Ethe, whom he cheated on shortly before being arrested. She eventually comes to join him. Willie marries Robert, her childhood sweetheart who is light-skinned with light eyes, and they have a son named Carson. After her parents die Robert suggests they move away and Willie asks that they go to Harlem as she wants to start a career as a singer. As they look for work Willie realizes that her dark skin will prevent her from being a professional singer while Robert is able to pass for white. The two grow farther apart as Robert finds a job in white Manhattan while Willie cleans bars in Harlem. They begin keeping secrets from one another, and Robert returns home less and less. One night, Willie sees Robert vomiting in the men's bathroom during her job at a bar, and Robert's white co-workers find out their relationship. One of the co-workers have the two of them touch each other and he sexually pleasures himself, and then fires Robert. That night, Robert leaves her. Willie eventually begins a new relationship with Eli and has a daughter, Josephine. One day, when Carson is ten, Willie sees Robert in Manhattan with a white wife and their white child. The two make eye contact, but both continue walking in their own direction. Carson, who as an adult goes by the name Sonny, tries to find meaning in marching for civil rights and working for the NAACP but instead becomes demoralized by his work. Like his own father he becomes an absentee parent to three children by three different women, often dodging their requests for alimony. He meets a young singer named Amani and after she introduces him to drugs he becomes addicted to heroin as well. He spends all of his money on drugs and realizes he never loved Amani, but only wanted her. When Willie finally reveals details about his father and offers him a choice between her money or getting clean he chooses to stay with his mother and get clean. Sonny and Amani's son Marcus goes on to become an academic at Stanford University. At a party near campus, he meets Marjorie, also a graduate student at Stanford, and the two form an intimate bond. The two of them go to Pratt City so Marcus can research his African American history thesis, and Marcus realizes there is nothing there for him; Marjorie's parents have also both passed away. Marjorie suggests that they go to Ghana and while they are there visiting the villages of Marjorie's grandmother, they go to the Cape Coast Castle which Marjorie has never visited. While seeing the "Door of No Return" in the slave dungeon, Marcus has a panic attack and flees through the door to the beach. He and Marjorie swim in the water where she gives him Effia's stone, which has been passed to her through the generations, and which unbeknownst to both of them, was given to Effia by their mutual ancestor, Maame. Esi's stone remains unrecovered, buried in the dungeons of the Castle. Major themes. The novel touches on several notable historical events, from the introduction of cacao as a crop in Ghana and the Anglo-Asante wars in Ghana to slavery and segregation in America. Because of the novel's scope, which covers several hundred years of history and fourteen characters, it has been described as "a novel in short stories" where "each chapter is forced to stand on its own." Development history. In the summer of 2009, following her sophomore year at Stanford University, Gyasi took a trip to Ghana sponsored by a research grant. Although Gyasi was born in Ghana, she moved to the United States as an infant, and this was her first trip back. On a friend's prompting, they visited the Cape Coast Castle, where she found her inspiration in the contrast between the luxurious upper levels (for colonists and their local families) and the misery of the dungeons below, where slaves were kept. She relates: "I just found it really interesting to think about how there were people walking around upstairs who were unaware of what was to become of the people living downstairs." Gyasi says the family tree came first, and each chapter, which follows one descendant, is tied to a significant historical event, although she described the research as "wide but shallow." "The Door of No Return" by British historian William St Clair helped to form the descriptions of life in and around the Castle in the first few chapters. One of the final chapters, entitled "Marjorie", is inspired by Gyasi's experiences as part of an immigrant family living in Alabama. Reception. Before the official publication in June 2016, "Time"'s Sarah Begley called it "one of the summer’s most-anticipated novels". Critics have reviewed Gyasi's first novel with almost universally high acclaim. "The New York Times Book Review" listed it as an Editor's Choice, writing, "This wonderful debut by a Ghanaian-American novelist follows the shifting fortunes of the progeny of two half-sisters, unknown to each other, in West Africa and America." Jennifer Maloney of "The Wall Street Journal" noted the author received an advance of more than US$1,000,000 and praised the plot as "flecked with magic, evoking folk tales passed down from parent to child", also noting the novel has "structural and thematic similarities to Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1976 book, "Roots"". Christian Lorentzen of "New York Magazine" said, "Each chapter is tightly plotted, and there are suspenseful, even spectacular climaxes." Anita Felicelli of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said that Gyasi is "a young writer whose stellar instincts, sturdy craftsmanship and penetrating wisdom seem likely to continue apace — much to our good fortune as readers". Isabel Wilkerson of "The New York Times" described her as "a stirringly gifted young writer""." Wilkerson also commented on the difference between the lyrical language of the West African passages and the "coarser language and surface descriptions of life in America". Wilkerson expressed some disappointment: "It is dispiriting to encounter such a worn-out cliché — that African-Americans are hostile to reading and education — in a work of such beauty." Steph Cha, writing for the "Los Angeles Times", notes "the characters are, by necessity, representatives for entire eras of African and black American history [which] means some of them embody a few shortcuts" in advancing the narrative and themes, but overall, "the sum of "Homegoing"'s parts is remarkable, a panoramic portrait of the slave trade and its reverberations." Laura Miller, writing for "The New Yorker", said that while parts of "Homegoing" show "the unmistakable touch of a gifted writer, [the novel] is a specimen of what such a writer can do when she bites off more than she is ready to chew," noting the "form [of the novel] would daunt a far more practiced novelist" as the form, composed of short stories linked by ancestors and descendants, "[isn't] the ideal way to deliver the amount of exposition that historical fiction requires." Maureen Corrigan, reviewing for National Public Radio noted the plot was "pretty formulaic" and it "would have been a stronger novel if it had ended sooner," but "the feel of her novel is mostly sophisticated," and she concluded that "so many moments earlier on in this strong debut novel linger." Michiko Kakutani noted in her "New York Times" review the novel "often feels deliberate and earthbound: The reader is aware, especially in the American chapters, that significant historical events and issues ... have been shoehorned into the narrative, and that characters have been made to trudge through experiences ... meant, in some way, to be representative," but it also "makes us experience the horrors of slavery on an intimate, personal level; by its conclusion, the characters' tales of loss and resilience have acquired an inexorable and cumulative emotional weight." Other reviewers were not as critical of the novel's structure. Jean Zimmerman, also writing for National Public Radio, praised the novel as "a remarkable achievement," saying the "narrative [...] is earnest, well-crafted yet not overly self-conscious, marvelous without being precious." Leilani Clark at KQED Arts wrote: "Until every American embarks on a major soul-searching about the venal, sordid racial history of the United States, and their own position in relation to it, the bloodshed, tears, and anger will keep on. Let "Homegoing" be an inspiration to begin that process." In 2019, the book was listed in 'Paste' as the third-greatest novel of the 2010s. On November 5, 2019, the "BBC News" listed "Homegoing" on its list of the 100 most influential novels. Awards and nominations. Ta-Nehisi Coates selected "Homegoing" for the National Book Foundation's 2016 "5 under 35" award, announced in September 2016. "Homegoing" was shortlisted for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, which eventually went to "The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter" by Kia Corthron. The novel was subsequently awarded the John Leonard Award for publishing year 2016 by the National Book Critics Circle for outstanding debut novel in January 2017. In February 2017, Swansea University announced "Homegoing" had made the longlist for the 2017 Dylan Thomas Prize for the best published literary work in the English language written by an author aged 39 or younger. The novel was the runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction in 2017, a nominee for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and a nominee for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2018.

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Leaving Atlanta Leaving Atlanta is the first novel by the American author Tayari Jones. The book was published by Warner Books in 2002. Jones's experiences through the Atlanta child murders of 1979-1981 largely inspired the book. During the time of the murders, Jones attended Oglethorpe Elementary School, which is located in Athens, Georgia. The book focuses on the lives and experiences of three fictional fifth graders at Oglethorpe Elementary: Tasha Baxter", Rodney" "Green," and Octavia Fuller"." The book is dedicated to "twenty-nine and more," of the children who were kidnapped and killed before, during, and after the Atlanta Child Murders. Background. "Leaving Atlanta" focuses on three fictional students at Oglethorpe Elementary School: Tasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Fuller. Jones chose to use children's perspectives for her novel, "to make a record of how life was for those of us who were too young to understand the complicated social and political landscape of Atlanta, the 'city too busy to hate.'” "Leaving Atlanta" explores the interconnectedness of age, race, class, and politics in the proclaimed ‘Black Mecca’ during the Atlanta Child Murders. In her "Author's Note," Jones mentions she made some alterations to the historic chronology of the Atlanta Child Murders to suit the novel. Author. When the Child Murders began, Jones was nine years old, attending Oglethorpe Elementary School. She writes in the "Reader's Guide" for the book, "but the time had come for someone of my generation, to tell the tale from the vantage point of the playground. This novel is a memorial to twenty-nine (or more) who did not survive and it the testimony of the thousands who will never forget." While Jones is from Atlanta, writing about Atlanta is not intentional. Jones has noted that she writes what she knows, which is her hometown of Atlanta and the people in it. This has led her contemporaries to consider her a Southern writer, a label that she does not reject but recognizes it as one part of who she is as a writer. Point of view. Each part of the novel is written from a different narrative point of view. “Part One: Magic Words” is written in the third-person through LaTasha Baxter’s perspective; “Part Two: The Opposite Direction of Home” is written in the second-person through Rodney Green’s perspective; and “Part Three: Sweet Pea” is written in the first-person through Octavia Fuller’s perspective. Because the story is told through the perspective of children it focuses on the experience of humanity instead of humanity fighting against oppressive forces. The innocence of children is taken into perspective, and the reader sees the world through the eyes of pure-hearted children. Synopsis. Part One: Magic Words. LaTasha Baxter returns to school after summer vacation, having practiced jacks and jump rope, as she tries to fit into the social structure of her fifth grade classroom. At the same time, she is dealing with her parents' separation, and the reality that children are going missing and turning up dead. In the novel, the murders are initially introduced when nine photos of children are shown while Tasha Baxter and her family watch the news, which Monica Kaufman, the first black woman to anchor the Atlanta evening news, delivers. One night Tasha goes to the roller rink with her best friend. At the roller rink, she runs into her crush, Jashante. He buys her M&Ms and gives her a pine scented air freshener, which he usually sells for cash. When Jashante disappears, Tasha blames herself for his disappearance and subsequent death, since she cursed him after he pushed her on the playground, ripping the pink coat her father gave her. At the end of part one, Tasha gives her little sister, DeShaun, Jashante's air freshener, telling DeShaun it is a protective charm. In Part One, Octavia Fuller and Rodney Green are introduced as the social outcasts of Tasha's fifth grade classroom. Tasha briefly befriends Octavia but ultimately does not pursue their friendship because Tasha is afraid of becoming a social outcast through association with Octavia, who many of their classmates bully because of her dark skin. Part Two: The Opposite Direction of Home. Rodney Green, a fifth grader at Oglethorpe Elementary, is introduced with a scene highlighting Rodney's fear of his father. Throughout Part Two, Rodney and Octavia begin to develop a friendship, in part as a result of both being ignored or made fun of by the rest of their classmates. This section also shows Rodney's habit of stealing candy from a local gas station, which he shares with his little sister and Octavia. However, Rodney has a good relationship with Mrs. Lewis, the gas station owner. Mrs. Lewis is a parental figure for Rodney. Because of the events of Part One, Rodney's class receives a visit from a police officer named Officer Brown, to speak about "personal safety". Rodney expresses that, because of the visit, he's more nervous about the murders because Officer Brown is the only protection they have against being attacked and murdered. At the end of the visit, Officer Brown shows the class a genuine police badge, stating that a person pretending to be an officer will not have one, specifying that only genuine officers' badges have raised lettering. One day, Rodney gets caught stealing candy from Mrs. Lewis after trying to help his classmate Leon, and she tells him to be careful of who he hangs around with. The section ends with Rodney running away after his father beats him in front of his classmates for stealing candy. As he is running away, a man in a blue sedan stops him and claims to be a police officer. The police badge he shows to Rodney is an obvious fake because of its shape and smooth surface. Although Rodney states that he knows the man is not a real police officer, Rodney gets into the van anyway because he wants to go in the opposite direction of home and away from his abusive father. Part Three: Sweet Pea. Part Three of "Leaving Atlanta" focuses on Octavia Fuller, who is called Sweet Pea by her loved ones. In this section of the novel, Octavia deals with the grief of Rodney's kidnapping and assumed death. Octavia also deals with the guilt of feeling like it is her fault that her Uncle Kevin was kicked out of their house. Octavia's intentions were to "save" her uncle from the doctor turning away medical treatment, after her mother told her needles found on the ground and being picked up will result in a doctor refusing to help. Octavia innocently informs her mother that her uncle had needles in bag while he was living with them. Octavia is also trying to navigate her relationship with her mother. While walking to school one day, Octavia and her neighbors come across a Guardian Angel from New York that was acting as a neighborhood watch — guarding the children in the neighborhood. On their way to school, Delvis, Octavia's friend and neighbor asks the Guardian Angel, “They don’t have no black Angels in New York that they could have sent down here?” Octavia says, “Delvis, them Angels alright. When I saw them on the news they were with Miss Camille Bell. They work the evenings with the Bat Patrollers.” Ultimately, Octavia's mother sends her to away from Atlanta to live with her father, who works for a university, in South Carolina, step mother, and step baby sister. Octavia's mother, Yvonne, wants her daughter to have better life opportunities than she feels she can provide her daughter. Further, Yvonne wants Octavia to avoid the kidnappings and child murders happening in Atlanta, especially after Octavia gave scared her mother by deliberately going to a park close to home one day while her mother was at work. Octavia knew not to leave her house when her mother was working considering all the child disappearances that were occurring. Publishing history. "Leaving Atlanta" was first published by Warner Publishing on August 1, 2002. When Time Warner Book Group was sold to Hachette Book Group in 2006 the company became Grand Central Publishing under Hachette Book Group, which "Leaving Atlanta" is now published under. Genre. The publisher, Grand Central Publishing, describes "Leaving Atlanta" as fiction and coming-of-age. As the book was inspired by and focuses on the Atlanta child murders of 1979 - 1981, the novel is also historical fiction. Movie. In 2007, Aletha Spann of 30Nineteen Productions sought to renew the film rights for the novel. The film rights for the novel were officially bought by Spann in 2011. However, there is no known movie currently in production. Atlanta's racial history. Maurice J. Hobson analyzes the rise of the 'Black Mecca' and explores the reasoning behind the Atlanta Child Murders. In his analysis, Hobson discusses the racial disparity between white and black elites and the poor and working-class black communities. During the 1960s Atlanta's black population grew exponentially, landing Maynard Jackson the role of Atlanta's first Black Mayor. The first black Mayor excited black Atlantan's because they were ready to see a change in the black communities; however, this wasn't the case. Maynard Jackson becoming Mayor enlarged the pockets of white and black elites, leaving the poor and working-class black communities worse. The 'city too busy to hate' projected an image of equality and opportunity; unfortunately, this came at the cost of the most vulnerable people in society. The Atlanta Child Murders lasted from 1979 to 1982. Furthermore, the 'Black Mecca' exceeded expectations educationally, economically, and politically while simultaneously experiencing atrocities such as the Atlanta Child Murders. Analysis. Eric Gary Anderson, an English professor, analyzes "Leaving Atlanta" from an ecosocial perspective of the child murders. Anderson's analysis asserts that "Leaving Atlanta" is as much a story about the murders as it is about how Atlanta was a ripe ground for the murders. Comparing the factual locations of the victims bodies to how Jones uses landscape and aspects of the physical environment to evoke specific reactions to what the characters are experiencing, Anderson argues that the environment itself feels diseased with the complex social and political issues that were in Atlanta at the time. Jones creates this picture with specific scenes relating to the environment: Rodney breathing in the fumes of the car belonging to his kidnapper, Octavia breathing in her mother's perfume as she prepares to leave Atlanta, and the increasingly empty playground as both Jashante and Rodney go missing. Melanie Benson Taylor addresses the diasporic effect of the specific brand of racially motivated murder: leaving via death or leaving to escape death in the case of Octavia. Jones and Toni Cade Bambara through "Those Bones are Not My Child", create a fictional picture of the very real diaspora post and pre Child Murders. James Baldwin also explores this in his essay, "The Evidence of Things Not Seen". In GerShun Avilez’s analysis of "Leaving Atlanta", he highlights the premonition of doom that Rodney encounters domestically. Avilez analyzes Rodney and his family dynamics by delving into the terrors birthed from his abusive father. The narrative broadens how the lack of intimacy and warmth in Rodney’s family develops his fears and coerces him into succumbing to parental terror. Rodney’s fear of the ongoing abductions and murders in the city gets blurred by the constant thought that his father will kill him before the murderer ever reaches him. Avilez’s analysis explains that Rodney’s internalized fear of his father is why he chooses to get into the car of the fake police officer. Since his biggest threat was living in his house, Rodney chooses the possibility of getting murdered by being with the fake police officer and heading in the opposite direction of home. In Trudier Harris' analysis of "Leaving Atlanta", it is brought to attention how the novel’s point of view shifts in alignment with the personality of the chapter's respective child: LaTasha, Rodney, and Octavia. Readers are introduced to the narrative through Tasha’s section, by a traditional third person limited point of view. The third person limited point of view is representative of her comforting nuclear family dynamic and represents a well protected child during the period of the Atlanta Child Murders. The second chapter introduces Rodney’s section through a second person point of view which produces a distanced narration. His narrative is enhanced using second person narration and distances the reader in the same way Rodney distances himself from his own life, particularly his father (out of fear) and grade school tribulations. Lastly, we are introduced to Octavia, a child with a single mother, who narrates her own story in a first person point of view which emphasizes her independence, maturity, and sensitivity. These point of views are broken down as the chapters go on and present how a child's vulnerability changes with their familial structures and home life, especially within the context of the Atlanta Child Murders. Reception. "Leaving Atlanta" has received several awards and accolades including being chosen in 2013 by Brazos Valley Reads, an organization lead by Texas A&M University’s Department of English. The program provided Jones an opportunity to travel to College Station for a public reading and attend other literary events. After "Leaving Atlanta" was initially released, Bookpage acknowledged, as one of the best twenty-five debut novels of the decade in 2002. The Hurston/Wright Foundation also awarded the novel its award for Debut Fiction. Local to the events, "Leaving Atlanta" was named “Novel of the Year” by Atlanta Magazine and the “"Best Southern Novel of the Year" by Creative Loafing Atlanta. Reviews. Jane Dystel, describes the novel as a “strongly grounded tale” that “hums with the rhythms of schoolyard life” in her 2002 Publishers Weekly review. In 2002, Kirkus Reviews described the novel as “technically ambitious, but not a story otherwise out of the ordinary. Leslie Marmon Silko called the book, "[a] wonderful novel," adding: "I look forward to reading Jones's work for years to come." In a 2002 Book Page review Arlene McKanic accounts for Jones' writing by saying "but this powerful new novel isn’t what you might think. To her credit, Jones doesn’t present us with the point of view of the murderer," "What’s more remarkable is that she presents the voices of these children with rare precision." McKanic further goes on to say "The book’s ending is one of the most quietly devastating this reviewer has ever read. Leaving Atlanta, which deals with the effects of serial murder, is simply brilliant a gentle and beautiful book on a horrific subject. "

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Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (PTSS) is a 2005 theoretical work by Dr. Joy DeGruy (née Leary). The book describes the multi-generational trauma experienced by African Americans that leads to undiagnosed and untreated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in enslaved Africans and their descendants. The book was first published by Uptone Press in 2005, with later re-release by the author in 2017. DeGruy states that Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is not a disorder that can simply be treated and remedied clinically but rather requires profound social change in individuals, as well as in institutions, that continue to reify inequality and injustice toward the descendants of enslaved Africans. DeGruy spent 12 years developing the quantitative and qualitative research for this book. The theory has been generative of subsequent academic work in clinical psychology and black studies. In addition to forming the basis of public lectures and workshops offered by DeGruy and her contemporaries, the research described in "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome" inspired an eponymous play, which was staged at the Henry Street Settlement Experimental Theater, New York, in 2001.

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From Black Power to Hip Hop From Black Power to Hip-Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism is a 2006 book by Patricia Hill Collins. Published by Temple University Press, the book is centered around Patricia Hill and her experiences with racism in America. The book also includes experiences from other Black men and women and their responses to it. In the end she offers her take on Black youth and how its changing along with how Black nationalism works today. Reception. In a review written by Publisher's Weekly, they write "sociologist Collins (Black Feminist Thought; Black Sexual Politics) turns her eye toward young African American women who have chosen to explore feminism through pop culture instead of academia in this sometimes rousing, sometimes plodding anthology of six essays". Afrikanlibrary.net says "Using the experiences of African American women and men as a touchstone for analysis, Patricia Hill Collins examines new forms of racism as well as political responses to it.In this incisive and stimulating book, renowned social theorist Patricia Hill Collins investigates how nationalism has operated and re-emerged in the wake of contemporary globalization and offers an interpretation of how black nationalism works today in the wake of changing black youth identity."

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The Vanishing Half The Vanishing Half is a historical fiction novel by American author Brit Bennett. It is her second novel and was published by Riverhead Books in 2020. It debuted at number one on "The New York Times" fiction best-seller list. HBO acquired the rights to develop a limited series with Bennett as executive producer. "The Vanishing Half" garnered acclaim from book critics, and was found by Emily Temple of Literary Hub to be the 2020 book most frequently listed among the year's best, making 25 lists. Synopsis. The novel is a multi-generational family saga set between the 1940s to the 1990s and centers on identical twin sisters Desiree and Stella Vignes. The two light-skinned black sisters were raised in Mallard, Louisiana, and witness the lynching of their father in the 1940s. In 1954, at the age of 16, the twins run away to New Orleans. However, Stella disappears shortly thereafter. In 1968, Desiree leaves an abusive marriage in Washington, D.C. and returns to Mallard with her eight-year-old dark-skinned daughter, Jude. Jude grows older and moves to Los Angeles through a track scholarship at University of California, Los Angeles. While working part time as a caterer in Beverly Hills, Jude sees a woman who appears to be her mother's doppelgänger. The woman is actually Stella, who has been passing as white. The novel has a nonlinear narrative structure. Reception. The novel debuted at number one on "The New York Times" fiction best-seller list. As of the week ending February 20, 2021, the novel has spent 38 weeks on the list. At the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the novel received a cumulative "Rave" rating based on 38 reviews, with only one "mixed" review. "Publishers Weekly" wrote, "Bennett renders her characters and their struggles with great compassion, and explores the complicated state of mind that Stella finds herself in while passing as white." In its starred review, "Kirkus Reviews" wrote, "The scene in which Stella adopts her white persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion." "The Washington Post" called "The Vanishing Half" a "fierce examination of contemporary passing and the price so many pay for a new identity". "The New York Times" wrote, "Bennett balances the literary demands of dynamic characterisation with the historical and social realities of her subject matter." It was selected for the "New York Times Book Review"s "10 Best Books of 2020" list. Television adaptation. Within a month of publication it was reported that HBO had acquired the rights for "low seven-figures" to develop a limited series with Brit Bennett as executive producer.

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Queen Sugar (novel) Queen Sugar is the debut novel of American writer Natalie Baszile, published by Penguin in 2014. Set in contemporary Louisiana, it tells the story of Charley Bordelon, a young African-American widow from Los Angeles, California, who moves to a rural town to manage a sugarcane farm she had unexpectedly inherited there from her father. Plot. Charley Bordelon is a young mother in Los Angeles, California, who has recently been widowed. After the death of her father, she learns that rather than inheriting his local rental properties, she has inherited a sugarcane farm in St. Joseph, Louisiana, where he was born and raised. Against her mother's wishes, Charley moves to St. Joseph, taking her 11-year-old daughter, Micah, with her and moving in with her paternal grandmother, Miss Honey. Shortly after arriving, Charley learns that her property manager has been neglecting the farm and is about to quit to work an oil rig. She is hard pressed to find another property manager so late in the season but Prosper Denton, a retired farmer recommended by Miss Honey, reluctantly agrees to come out of retirement to help her. Charley's estranged older half-brother Ralph Angel, a former drug addict and the child of their father's relationship with his high school sweetheart in St. Joseph, returns to town with his son, Blue. Angel is deeply embittered that his father left him nothing, and he also resents Charley for having been raised by a man who essentially abandoned him. Charley struggles to keep the farm going, quickly realizing that it takes more money than was earmarked for maintenance. She believes that wealthy white farmers in the area, such as Jacques Landry and Samuel T. Baron, are conspiring against her and ready to take over the land if she fails. She learns from Miss Honey that her father once worked as a cane cutter on the farm she now owns. In the days of segregation and Jim Crow, he was beaten by an overseer for drinking from a water pail first instead of giving way to the white workers. She renews her determination to keep the farm running, as a way of continuing her father's struggle. She and Denton hire a retired white farmer, Alison Delcambre, to help manage the farm. They recover from a hurricane that flattens the crops. Charley refuses to hire Angel. He finds low-paying menial labor in the rural community and slides back to drug abuse. Charley meets a white farmer, Remy Newell, a divorcé who seems attracted to her. Their courtship is short lived after Remy makes insensitive racial comments. But after some encouragement from her aunt Violet, Charley decides to give Remy another chance. He asks his goddaughter, elected as Queen Sugar for the annual festival, to invite her daughter Micah to be an honorary member of her court and ride on the parade float with her, and the young girl is thrilled. Miss Honey forces Charley to give Angel a job. He is resentful of the menial assignment and later tells Charley she should be ashamed of dating a white man. Charley fires him. To get revenge Angel steals the money Miss Honey keeps in her house and a statue. Charley's father had given her "The Cane Cutter", and she planned to sell it at auction to raise money to complete the cane harvest. On Micah's birthday, Charley discovers "The Cane Cutter" is gone, and believes that she faces financial ruin. The rest of the family immediately thinks that Angel stole the statue but Miss Honey denies it; nonetheless, she refuses to let anyone call the police. A few days later Angel returns and confesses he stole the piece. During an altercation with his cousin, John, a correctional officer, Angel shoots and wound him. He is soon caught by police who, seeing his gun, fatally shoot him. Charley is devastated by the loss of the artwork and the death of her brother. Preparing to meet with Landy and Baron to accept their offer for her farm, she happens to tell Hollywood, a former friend of Angel, her predicament. He offers to give her the $50,000 she needs to complete harvesting. He has saved a small fortune through mowing lawns for $5 an hour. Charley completes the harvest and prepares for the following season. She and Remy continue their relationship, and she starts the process of adopting her nephew Blue. She learns that Angel never sold "The Cane Cutter", and kept it in his trunk. After the statue is returned to Charley, she promises it to Blue when he grows up. Reception. "Queen Sugar" received mostly positive reviews. Critics praised its characters, conflict, use of its setting, and prose style, while some criticized its pacing. The novel was named one of the San Francisco Chronicle's best books of 2014. Adaptation. In 2014, the Oprah television network OWN negotiated a deal for the rights to adapt the book as a television series. It was created, directed, and executive produced by Ava DuVernay. Oprah Winfrey served as an executive producer. The series airs on Oprah Winfrey Network and premiered on September 6, 2016. It was still running in 2021. Biography. Baszile attended local schools. She initially studied finance and economics in college, as her father wanted her to go into his family business. She felt she most came alive in her English classes. She started working with her father in his business after college, but also continued her writing. Baszile eventually changed fields and graduated from UCLA with an M.A. in Afro-American Studies and a MFA in Writing from Warren Wilson College. She started writing what became "Queen Sugar" inn the 1990s, exploring an African-American-themed tale of endurance and hope in the American South. She worked on the text for ten years. She sent her manuscript to publishers in 2009 but without any success. After revising the book for two years, she resubmitted the text, and one agent agreed to represent her. Baszile attended a women writer's retreat in Hedgebrook. Her friend and novelist Sarah Manyika, who also attended, suggested that Baszile read part of a chapter from "Queen Sugar" to the group. Attendee Leigh Haber, book editor for "O, The Oprah Magazine", loved the novel and passed it to people at Harpo for their review. A few months after that, Harpo called Baszile to say they wanted to option the book for a project.

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Salvage the Bones Salvage the Bones is a novel by American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Bloomsbury in 2011. The novel explores the plight of a working-class African-American family in Mississippi as they prepare for Hurricane Katrina and follows them through the aftermath of the storm. Ward, who had lived through Katrina, wrote the novel, after being very "dissatisifed with the way Katrina had receded from public consciousness". The novel was the 2011 recipient of the National Book Award for Fiction. In an interview with the "Paris Review", Ward said she drew inspiration from "Medea" and the works of William Faulkner. Plot summary. The novel follows a working-class African-American family living in southern Mississippi in 2005. The family consists of Daddy, his daughter Esch (the narrator), and his sons Randall, Skeetah, and Junior. The mother died while giving birth to Junior. Skeetah has a close relationship with his dog China, who gives birth to a litter of puppies at the beginning of the novel. Esch finds out she is pregnant by Manny, a friend of the family's who is dating another girl. Skeetah and Manny have an altercation at one of Randall's basketball games, and they agree to resolve it with a dog fight. China prevails over Manny's cousin's dog after a vicious fight. Soon afterwards, Hurricane Katrina hits. The family is forced into the attic and eventually onto the roof as water begins to flood the house. As the water continues to rise, they make a desperate bid to swim to another house on a hill, but in the maelstrom China and her puppies are lost. After the end of the storm, the entire town has been leveled, Manny refuses to take responsibility for Esch's baby, and Skeetah still holds out hope that he will find China. Reception. As a winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, the novel received a largely positive reception. The "LA Times" described it as an "under-the-radar" second novel, which deserves the award. The reviewer described the book as a successful depiction of Southern life and culture and "an intense book, with powerful, direct prose that dips into poetic metaphor." Similarly the "New York Times Sunday Book Review" called the novel "a taut, wily novel, smartly plotted and voluptuously written." "The Washington Post" wrote that "it’ll be a long time before its magic wears off" and that the novel has the "aura of a classic about it."

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Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush is a 1982 children's novel by Virginia Hamilton. The novel deals with the paranormal, poverty, single motherhood, childhood illness, and child abuse. The novel, like many of Hamilton's works, is set in Ohio. Background. Hamilton wrote the novel in two locations — in Ohio during winter and spring, and on an island in the Caribbean. Hamilton included the metabolic disorder porphyria in the novel because a close friend suffered from it; the author noted that she had wanted to work the disorder into a novel for two decades before using it in "Sweet Whispers". Hamilton's opening paragraph format was inspired in part by Truman Capote's short story "Children on their Birthdays." Plot. Theresa "Tree" Pratt is a wise-beyond-her-years teenager in Ohio, caring for her developmentally disabled older brother, Dab, while their mother is often away working. Dab regularly suffers from a strange illness that leaves his incapacitated. One day, Tree sees a well-dressed man while she is leaving school and is immediately attracted to him. The next time she seems him, he is standing in the middle of a table in a closet in the family's apartment, holding an oval mirror. Tree realizes this is a ghost, Brother Rush. Through Brother Rush's mirror, Tree can see scenes from her family's past — including her mother's abuse of her brother. Once Tree's mother, M'Vy, arrives home, Tree confronts her about both Brother Rush's presence and the family's past, as Dab's illness worsens. Themes. "Sweet Whispers" contains magical realism elements — the ghost character of Brother Rush appears in an otherwise realistic setting. M'Vy tells Tree that she can see ghosts because of the family's African heritage. Hamilton explores questions of identity, the supernatural, the need to belong within a family, and encounters with death through a Black American point of view. The character of M'Vy showcases a complicated motherhood, as she is often away from the apartment (and engaged in abuse of Dab when he was younger.) "Hamilton has not created a traditional, stereotypic, idealized mother," wrote one critic. Hamilton included the ghost of Brother Rush as a literary device to represent the idea that people carry their pasts with them. Reception. "Kirkus Reviews", in reviewing "Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush", called it "One of Hamilton's deeply felt family stories" and wrote "like other Hamilton novels this has its rough edges, but they are outweighed here by the blazing scenes, the intensity of Tree's feelings, the glimpses of Dab through her eyes, and the rounded characterization of Vy." Author Katherine Paterson, reviewing the novel in "The New York Times", noted "the last time a first paragraph chilled my spine like this one, I was 16 years old, hunched over a copy of "Rebecca"." In the "Interracial Books for Children Bulletin", Geraldine Wilson wrote that the novel "is like a thoughtfully designed African American quilt. It is finely stitched, tightly constructed and rooted in cultural authenticity." "Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush" has also been reviewed by the "English Journal", and the "School Library Journal". Awards. "Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush" won the 1983 Coretta Scott King Author Award and the 1983 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. The novel was a finalist for the 1983 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and was also a Newberry honor winner.

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Movement in Black Movement In Black is a collection of poetry by Black lesbian feminist Pat Parker. Publication history. The collection was originally published by Diana Press in 1978. When Diana Press closed in 1979, "Movement In Black" went out of print. In 1983, Crossing Press issued a facsimile edition of the collection, though the title was once again unavailable by 1987. Shortly after Parker's death in 1989, Firebrand Books published its first edition of the collection, which included a foreword by Audre Lorde and an introduction by Judy Grahn. Ten years later, Firebrand released "An Expanded Edition of Movement In Black", which includes a new section of previously-unpublished work, an introduction by Cheryl Clarke, and "Celebrations, Remembrances, Tributes" by ten Black writers including Lorde, Angela Y. Davis, Pamela Sneed, and Barbara Smith. Summary. The poems featured in the collection center around Parker's experiences as a Black woman, lesbian, feminist, mother, writer, poet, and activist. In its first three pressings, "Movement In Black" had four sections: "Married", "Liberation Fronts", "Being Gay", and "Love Poems"; the expanded edition includes a fifth section, "New Work". As the titles suggest, the poetry in the original four sections explored Parker's two tempestuous marriages and divorces ("Sometimes My Husband Acts Like a Man"; "Exodus (to my husbands, lovers)"), her radical activism ("Don't Let the Fascists Speak", "For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend", "Movement in Black"), her queer identity ("My Lover Is a Woman", "For the Straight Folks Who Don't Mind Gays But Wish They Weren't So BLATANT"), and love ("Sunshine", "On Jealousy"). Critical analysis. According to Amy Washburn, "Movement In Black" "emblematizes intersectionality and simultaneity as forms of revolution in struggles of self and society." Focusing on "themes of time and space, marginalization and movement, difference and power, visibility and invisibility, and history and memory," Parker used autobiographical writing "to fuse personal and political sites of resistance." Jewelle Gomez states that throughout "Movement In Black", as Parker "was always doing", she used "plain language and ritual to valorize the ordinary life experiences of Black women. In doing so she gave others a glimmer of possibility for growth and change."

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Justice and Her Brothers Justice and Her Brothers is a 1978 science fiction novel for young adults by award-winning author Virginia Hamilton. The novel, like many by Hamilton, is set in Yellow Springs, Ohio — the author's birthplace. It is the first novel of The Justice Trilogy and is followed by "Dustland" (1980) and "The Gathering" (1981). Background. In an article for "The Horn Book Magazine", Hamilton explained that Blackness in her works is sometimes significant and sometimes not. In "Justice and Her Brothers," Hamilton noted:"race has nothing whatever to do with plot and the outcome for the characters. The powers of extrasensory perception, telepathy, and telekinesis the children have are not meant to be peculiarities. They represent a majestic change in the human race." Plot. The story is told over one week during a hot summer in Ohio. Protagonist Justice Douglass is dealing with the fact that her mother is attending college and has to spend time away from the home, leaving Justice to the care of her twin older brothers, Thomas and Levi. Levi clearly cares for Justice, both with domestic tasks and emotionally, while Thomas is antagonistic toward Justice. Thomas has established the Great Snake Race, a competition for the boys in the neighborhood, and Justice prepares by seeking out the snake that is both the largest and the fastest. Concurrently, Justice notices that Thomas seems to be able to mentally control his twin brother Levi. Fear of Thomas brings Justice to the home of Mrs. Leona Jefferson and her son Dorian Jefferson, mother and child. Mrs. Leona Jefferson teaches Justice about her own psychic abilities, both to protect Levi and to practice her own power. Justice learns that the object of the Great Snake Race is not to actually race snakes but to catch the most. Justice, thinking she will lose, ends up winning over Thomas, as her snake was pregnant and had offspring. After the Race, Thomas probes Justice's mind and tries to control her. Justice and neighbor Dorian battle against Thomas, defeating him. The children then link minds and Justice transports them to the future, briefly, where they learn that as a group, they are the "first unit," a new kind of human. Themes. The novel deals with ideas of loneliness in childhood, the family unit and its affect on children, and identity. Reception. In a review in "The New York Times", Jean Fritz wrote that "the book is like an expertly crafted, highly original painting over which a surrealistic film has been tacked." "School Library Journal" praised Hamilton's descriptions, noting "many rich details... are skillfully woven into a complex plot all the more chilling for being so firmly grounded in reality." In "The Junior Bookshelf", M. Hobbs noted "[Hamilton] is a Black novelist using racial characteristics in a new, altogether fascinating way." One critic debated the appropriate age of the novel's audience, due to the its complexity. In "The Christian Science Monitor", Clive Lawrence wrote "Is it suitable for 12-year-olds? I have to say no. The average child will find it boringly serious." Influence. At the time of its publishing, "Justice and Her Brothers" was one of few science-fiction young adult novels featuring Black characters. Awards. The novel was a Coretta Scott King Award honor book in 1979.

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Bad Feminist Bad Feminist: Essays is a 2014 collection of essays by cultural critic, novelist and professor Roxane Gay. "Bad Feminist" explores being a feminist while loving things that could seem at odds with feminist ideology. Gay's essays engage pop culture and her personal experiences, covering topics such as the "Sweet Valley High" series, "Django Unchained", and Gay's own upbringing as a Haitian-American. Publication history. "Bad Feminist" was one of two books published by Gay in 2014, the other being her novel "An Untamed State". Content. The essays in "Bad Feminist" address a wide variety of topics, both cultural and personal. The collection of essays is broken into five sections: Me; Gender & Sexuality; Race & Entertainment; Politics, Gender & Race; and Back to Me. In a 2014 interview with "Time", Gay explained her role as a feminist and how it has influenced her writing: "In each of these essays, I’m very much trying to show how feminism influences my life for better or worse. It just shows what it’s like to move through the world as a woman. It’s not even about feminism per se, it’s about humanity and empathy." Reception. "Bad Feminist" was widely reviewed. Gay drew praise for her "wry and delightful voice." "The" "Boston Globe" wrote that "there is much to admire," such as her "insightful" essay "What We Hunger For"; "Bad Feminist" "signals an important contribution to the complicated terrain of gender politics." "The" "Huffington Post" was more effusive in its praise, writing, "Gay's essays expertly weld her personal experiences with broader gender trends occurring politically and in popular culture," and gave it an 8/10 rating. The "Boston Review" wrote that ""Bad Feminist" surveys culture and politics from the perspective of one of the most astute critics writing today." In the United Kingdom's "The Guardian", critic Kira Cochrane wrote, "While online discourse is often characterised by extreme, polarised opinions, her writing is distinct for being subtle and discursive, with an ability to see around corners, to recognise other points of view while carefully advancing her own. In print, on Twitter and in person, Gay has the voice of the friend you call first for advice, calm and sane as well as funny, someone who has seen a lot and takes no prisoners." "Time" dubbed "Bad Feminist" "a manual on how to be human" and called Gay the "gift that keeps on giving." "The New York Times" Book Review wrote that Gay relied too heavily on an "unreasonable strawman" to make her point, and "The Independent" found that Gay's own contradictions within the book come off as "intellectually flimsy." "The Chicago Tribune" noted that while "Gay writes incisively, fearlessly, sometimes angrily, often wittily and always intelligently on an incredibly diverse array of issues: race, domestic violence, pop culture, food, social media, child sexual abuse, the Obamas and, of course, feminism" in her columns, "Bad Feminist" is somewhat lacking: "why, then, is there not more to admire in this collection of Gay's new and previously published essays? One problem is the aforementioned recapitulation of tried and true analyses, opinions and memes, any or all of which might bear reprising if Gay brought to them a new and original take." The book was noted for its popularity in feminist circles, with the satirical site "Reductress" publishing a story about how someone was a bad feminist because they hadn't yet read "Bad Feminist". A group of feminist scholars and activists analyzed Gay's "Bad Feminist" for "Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism," an initiative of the feminist journal "Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society".

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Children of Blood and Bone Children of Blood and Bone is a 2018 young adult fantasy novel by Nigerian-American novelist Tomi Adeyemi. The book, Adeyemi's debut novel and the first book in a planned trilogy, follows heroine Zélie Adebola as she attempts to restore magic to the kingdom of Orïsha, following the ruling class kosidáns' brutal suppression of the class of magic practitioners Zélie belongs to, the maji. Writing the book over 18 months and 45 drafts, Adeyemi drew inspiration from novels like "Harry Potter" and "An Ember in the Ashes" as well as West African mythology and the Yoruba culture and language. The hopelessness she felt at police shootings of black Americans also motivated her to develop the story of "Children of Blood and Bone". The book received one of the biggest young adult publishing deals ever, including preemptive sale of film rights to Fox 2000 Pictures. Debuting at number one on "The New York Times" best-seller list for young adult books, the novel received mostly positive reviews. Critics wrote about its examination of oppression, racism, and slavery, with the kosidán and maji serving as stand-ins for real-world groups. It is also a coming-of-age story as the characters discover their abilities to help shape the world through their actions. Development and inspiration. Tomi Adeyemi had worked unsuccessfully on a manuscript for three years before beginning "Children of Blood and Bone". The idea for the novel came after a trip to Brazil: "I was in a gift shop there and the African gods and goddesses were depicted in such a beautiful and sacred way ... it really made me think about all the beautiful images we never see featuring black people". Her desire to write an epic tale with roots in West Africa was matched by her desire to respond to police brutality. The spate of police violence against black Americans had a large impact on Adeyemi; she wanted to escape the helplessness and fear she felt: "What is the point if my life ends at the barrel of a police officer’s gun?" In the author's note at the end of the novel, Adeyemi makes a call to emotion, telling the reader that "if [they] cried for Zulaikha ... cry for innocent children like Jordan Edwards, Tamir Rice, and Aiyana Stanley-Jones." Adeyemi drew inspiration from Yoruba culture and Western fantasy fiction like "Harry Potter" and "" and from both West African mythology and the Black Lives Matter movement. She has also cited the books "Shadowshaper" and "An Ember in the Ashes" as primary inspirations. Finally, Adeyemi was also affected by the backlash against the black characters in the film "The Hunger Games": she wanted to write a story so good even racists would want to read it. Adeyemi worked as a creative writing coach while she wrote the novel. While her first draft had major sections of the story omitted, the second draft, which she was ultimately forced to complete in a month to enter it in a writing competition, was where she felt it needed to meet her expectations. For Adeyemi there was no option but for the book to be successful and perfect, given the pressures placed on black creators: "I’m not going to put Zélie’s face on the cover of this book and give you anything less than an incredible story, because for the kids who have never seen themselves, they need to see that, and they need to know that they are beautiful and that they are powerful". She wrote the book while bingeing the television show "The Good Wife" in the background. She became so exhausted through the non-stop work of the writing that she became disoriented, even at one point thinking she was a lawyer. The entire editing process took eighteen months to complete, going through 45 drafts. As in the J.K. Rowlings' "Harry Potter" series, Adeyemi wanted to build a complete world, though she did not like when she was called the "black J.K. Rowling", preferring instead phrases like "the new J.K. Rowling". She worked hard to map the distances between cities and the time it would take a horse and lion to travel between them, as well as reasoning through the logical implications of her creative choices, such as having characters ride big cats. She also had to figure out parallels in her imagined world to issues like skin bleaching, which would not exist in a world without white people. She got help from her Nigerian mother at times for things like naming the spells that involved use of the Yoruba language. Publication history. Adeyemi entered Pitch Wars, a competition that matches emerging writers with mentor editors and authors to revise their work before submitting them to literary agents. She came to be represented by Alexandra Machinist and Hillary Jacobson of ICM Partners. In 2017, publishing rights to "The Children of Blood and Bone" sold as a trilogy to include two more books, and rights to the film adaptation sold to Fox 2000. Reportedly these deals came to seven figures, with "Deadline" describing it as "one of the biggest YA debut novel publishing deals ever." Adeyemi was 23 at the time. "Children of Blood and Bone" was published on March 6, 2018, by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers after being called "the biggest fantasy debut novel of 2018" and one of the most anticipated books of the year. A sequel, "Children of Virtue and Vengeance," was published in December 2019. Plot. The novel takes place in the fictional land of Orïsha, inhabited by two distinct people: divîners, who have the capability to become magical maji and are marked by white hair, and non-magical kosidán. Eleven years prior to the events of the book, King Saran figured out how to switch off magic and ordered the slaying of many defenseless divîners, including the mother of Zélie Adebola. Since that time, divîners have been severely oppressed. After visiting the capital city, Lagos, to make enough money to pay off an increased tax on divîners, Zélie and her brother Tzain help a noble girl flee the clutches of local guards. This girl, who turns out to be Princess Amari, the daughter of King Saran, has stolen a magical scroll that can restore the magical powers of any divîner who touches it. The reason Amari stole the scroll was that after her servant and best friend, Binta, touched it and her powers came to life, King Saran killed her. Like her mother before her, Zélie is able to awaken her magical powers as a Reaper, giving her the power to command undead spirits. Pursued by a contingent of guards led by Amari's brother Prince Inan and Admiral Kaea, the three travel to the temple of the maji, Chândomblé. The temple's remaining priest, Lekan, tells them that they must use the scroll, the bone dagger (which he gives them), and an artifact called the sunstone to perform a ritual to renew the connection between the maji and the gods, who are the source of all magic. He performs a rite on Zélie so she will be able to complete the connection, and then he sacrifices himself to hold off the guards as the trio escapes. Unknown to anyone else, contact with the scroll has given Prince Inan magical abilities to detect the feelings and memories of others. Kaea catches Inan using these abilities to track the trio and Inan accidentally uses his magic to kill her. The trio finds themselves in Ibeji, where the sunstone is used as a prize for deadly aquatic arena games. They agree to compete and Zélie uses her powers to win the sunstone. Now in possession of all three artifacts, the group continues on their way until Inan catches up to them. In the chaos that follows, Tzain and Amari are captured in the forest by an unknown group. Inan agrees to help Zélie rescue their siblings. During the rescue, they learn that the group is really a settlement of divîners, some of whom have had their powers reawakened when they were exposed to the scroll before it was taken by the King's forces. Upon hearing of the group's mission, they divîners decide to hold a festival for the Sky Mother where the remaining divîners will be able to touch the scroll. By this time, Inan, who has developed romantic feelings for Zélie, has agreed to help restore magic. However, Saran and his guards find and destroy the camp, also capturing Zélie. During the fight between the guards and the divîners, Kwame, a maji able to control fire, uses his magic to self-immolate and takes out guards with him. This display of powerful magic scares Inan, who changes his mind again and wants to repress his magic, knowing that his father would kill him should he ever reveal that he is a maji. Saran tortures Zélie to learn how to destroy the scroll, removing her magical ability in the process. Tzain and Amari assemble a team and break Zélie out of prison. Zélie does not reveal her power loss and they hire a group of mercenaries, commanded by Roen, who allow them to infiltrate the secret island and temple to perform the ceremony. Once inside, however, they are ambushed by Saran and Inan, who are holding Zélie and Tzain's father. Feeling helpless, Zélie agrees to give the artifacts up in exchange for her and her father's life. As Zélie leaves the temple, Saran orders her father killed anyway. The spirit and blood magic of her father reawakens Zélie's magic and she uses her restored powers to attack the kosidán. Inan uses her rage and magic to his advantage, as he provokes an attack that destroys the scroll. Without thinking, Inan then uses his magic to stop an attack on Saran. Saran then apparently kills his son for being a secret maji. Furious, Amari kills her father. Unable to repair the scroll, Zélie uses blood magic and an incantation of her own devising to complete the ritual, which apparently kills her in the process. Zélie is then able to speak with her mother, speaking on behalf of the gods in the afterlife, who praises her and sends her back. The book concludes as Zélie learns that Amari now has magic. Themes. The conflict between the kosidán and maji, with the kosidán possessing lighter skin and having enslaved segments of the maji, raises issues of race and class and how these can be used to divide a nation. Class ultimately becomes a stand-in for race in the book. The story does not shy from showing the way that power can be bound up with brutality. Saran feels that the only way to maintain control both personally as well as for his race is through oppression and enslavement of the minority. For Saran it is not enough to control the maji; he must also extinguish their hope and threaten genocide. Throughout the book, the maji respond to this oppression in different ways. Zélie, who has seen her mother killed, her father beaten, and her own freedom jeopardized at the hands of guards, or the police, offers one reaction with her determination to resist and overthrow the social order, offering a model for real life black activists. Inan, as both a maji and kosidán, has a different reaction, instead, wanting to see the two peoples united. The magic of the maji also serves as a connection between humanity and the gods. The novel also tells a more intimate story as children struggle to win their parents' approval. Inan wants to fulfill his duty to his father and kingdom in order to be a good prince, but is also a maji himself and has a personal connection to other maji through Zélie. The complexity of teenagers who are eager to jump into the adult world and adult problems is also present in the novel as adolescents attempt to discover themselves. While they struggle with the weight of these obligations, the point-of-view characters in the book are able to demonstrate wisdom, courage and compassion beyond that of the adults they are seeking to please. Ultimately, it's the female characters who survive trauma and show the way forward. While Zélie initially mistakes Amari as weak, it becomes clear Amari has learned other coping strategies while surviving under her abusive father. There is a great deal of loss in the book, with several characters, including Inan, dying, but Zélie and Amari continue in their efforts. Reception. "Children of Blood and Bone" has received generally positive reviews, debuting at number one on "The New York Times" best-seller list for young adult books and receiving praise from the newspaper for how "it storms the boundaries of the imagination. Yet it also confronts the conscience." A starred review from "Publishers Weekly" lauded the novel for its complex characters and kaleidoscopic narrative. "Kirkus," which gave the book a starred review and nominated it for the Kirkus Prize, called it, "Powerful, captivating, and raw." Charisse Jones of "USA Today" praised the novel, giving it four out of four stars: "While Tomi Adeyemi's Africa-inspired fantasy was written for young adults, readers of all ages will be captivated by this engrossing tale". David Canfield of "Entertainment Weekly" called the novel a "phenomenon" owing to the success of a first-time author. Author and poet Kiran Millwood Hargrave in "The Guardian" praised, "the hate-to-love romance [that] comes with high stakes, and the relationship is realistically and passionately realised. All of it is packaged in a tightly plotted, action-packed adventure." Less positively, The A.V. Club said the book failed to live up to its hype, criticising the way magic works in the novel and its length. In 2018, the viewers of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" selected "Children of Blood and Bone" as the first ever "Tonight Show Summer Read". Adeyemi later appeared as a guest on the "Tonight Show" on July 24, 2018 to discuss the book. Audiobook. An 18-hour audiobook narrated by Bahni Turpin was released in March 2018. The audiobook was well received. It won the 2019 Audie Award for best audiobook and was a runner-up for best Young Adult audiobook. "There's something magical about the timbre of Turpin’s voice that's perfectly tuned to the fantastical nature of this novel. I felt transported into the world of "Children of Blood and Bone,"" said Ron Charles, a judge for the award. In a starred review, Hayley Schommer writing for "Booklist" complemented how the "pacing of the novel is further complemented by Turpin’s own, appropriate adjustments in pace." Maggie Knapp in "School Library Journal" wrote of Turpin's ability to provide unique and distinguishable voices for both the main and supporting characters. "Publishers Weekly"s starred review also praised Turpin's work, "Turpin’s bold reading of Adeyemi’s Afro-futurist fantasy solidifies her reputation as one of the best voice actors working today." "AudioFile" magazine named it one of the best audiobooks of the year, praising Turpin's voices and her abilities to capture other elements of the novel, such as Yoruba incantations. Film adaptation. Prior to publication, "Children of Blood and Bone" was optioned for a film adaptation produced by Fox 2000 Pictures and Temple Hill Productions. Adeyemi had appreciated the work Fox 2000 and Temple Hill had done in producing "Love, Simon" and that they were the studios adapting "The Hate U Give" to film. In February 2019, Rick Famuyiwa was announced as the director. Adeyemi has said her dream cast would have Idris Elba in the role of Saran and Viola Davis playing Mama Agba. However, after Disney acquired a majority of 21st Century Fox, which resulted in shuttering Fox 2000, the project was transferred to Lucasfilm, marking the studio's first original live-action project since its acquisition by Disney in 2012. Kay Oyegun (known for her work on the NBC comedy-drama series, "This Is Us") is also attached to write the script for the film. In September 2019, while talking to "The Hollywood Reporter", Alan Horn revealed Kathleen Kennedy is in fact working with sister studio 20th Century Fox's chairman Emma Watts in developing the film. In December 2020, producer Kathleen Kennedy announced that Lucasfilm would co-produce the film with 20th Century Studios.

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Iola Leroy Iola Leroy, "or Shadows Uplifted", an 1892 novel by Frances E. W. Harper, is one of the first novels published by an African-American woman. While following what has been termed the "sentimental" conventions of late nineteenth-century writing about women, it also deals with serious social issues of education for women, passing, miscegenation, abolition, reconstruction, temperance, and social responsibility. Characters. Iola Leroy and family. Iola Leroy, the principal character of the novel. Harriet Johnson, Iola Leroy's grandmother. While a slave of Nancy Johnson, she resists a whipping. As a punishment, she is sold. Robert Johnson. He is still a child when separated from his mother Harriet. His enslaver, Nancy Johnson, sees him as a "pet animal" and teaches him to read. As a young man, he becomes the leader of a group of slaves who decide to seek refuge with the Union army during the Civil War. He enlists in a colored regiment and is promoted to lieutenant. On account of his white skin, his superiors council him to change to a white regiment for better chances of promotion, but he refuses. After the war, he successfully runs a hardware store. Marie Leroy, Iola's mother. A small child when brutally separated from her mother Harriet Johnson, she finally becomes the slave of wealthy Eugene Leroy. When Eugene becomes seriously ill, she nurses him back to health. He sets her free, has her educated and marries her in a secret ceremony. Although she is so white that "no one would suspect that she has one drop of negro blood in her veins", the marriage results in the Leroy family becoming social outcasts. Harry Leroy, Iola's brother. Like Iola, he is educated in a North. The African ancestry of their mother is concealed from the children, and they are not allowed to pass their vacations at home, spending that time instead together with the parents in a northern holiday resort. When he learns that his father has died and his mother and sister are enslaved, he becomes seriously ill from the shock. When he recovers, the Civil War has begun and he decides to enlist in a colored regiment, making the recruiting officer wonder why a white man should want to do that. Dr. Frank Latimer, the man who Iola finally marries. He was born into slavery as the son of an enslaved mother of predominantly European ancestry and a white man. After emancipation, his mother invested her hard earnings to pay for his studies. He graduated as a medical doctor and afterwards met his white grandmother, the rich mother of his deceased father, who offered to "adopt him as her heir, if he would ignore his identity with the colored race". Although no trace of his African ancestry was visible in his appearance, he declined the offer. Lucille Delany, a black woman with apparently no European ancestry, the founder of a school for "future wives and mothers", and the woman who Harry finally marries. Other black characters. Tom Anderson, friend of Robert Johnson. He seeks refuge with the Union army together with Johnson, causes the commander to set Iola free, joins the army and dies in Iola's care from wounds he received while knowingly sacrificing himself in order to save his comrades. Aunt Linda, enslaved cook of Nancy Johnson who has a special liking for Robert. She is illiterate and speaks in black dialect, yet she is among the black female characters of the novel who are intelligent, loyal to each other and of central importance to their community. Uncle Daniel, elder friend of Robert Johnson. When Robert and his group seek refuge with the Union army, he stays behind because he doesn't want to break his promise to his absent master. White characters. Dr. Gresham, military physician. He falls in love with Iola while he still thinks that she is white. When informed that she is "colored", his love helps him to overcome his prejudice, and he proposes to Iola at two different points of the story. When rejected for the second time, "sympathy, love, and admiration were blended in the parting look he gave her". Dr. Latrobe, physician from the South. He is mentioned only in chapters 26, "Open Questions", and 28, "Dr. Latrobe's Mistake". In a discussion, he voices the view of southern white supremacists. Plot summary. In a North Carolina town which is only identified as "C—", a group of slaves led by Robert Johnson seek refuge with the Union army that is approaching in the course of the Civil War. Robert's friend Tom Anderson then informs the Union commander of a beautiful young woman held as slave in the neighborhood who is subsequently set free by the commander. In a retrospective, the narrative turns to the story of that woman, Iola Leroy. Her father, Eugene Leroy, was a wealthy slaveholder, who had survived a serious illness through the care of a young slave, Marie. He set Marie free, married her and had three children, whose African ancestry was not visible in their outward appearance. The elder children, Ioala and Harry, were educated in the North and their African ancestry (called "negro blood" in the book) was hidden from them. When Eugene suddenly died of yellow fever, his cousin, Alfred Lorraine, had a judge declare Marie's manumission illegal. Hence, Marie and her children were legally considered slaves and the heritage fell to Lorraine and other distant relatives. Lorraine sent his agent to the northern seminary where Iola was preparing for her graduation and defending the institution of slavery in discussions with her fellow students. Deceitfully being told that her father was dying, Iola followed the agent to her home, where she learned that she was a slave and was sold away from her mother. The narrative then returns to the events following Iola's rescue by the Union army: Robert Johnson and Tom Anderson join the army "to strike a blow for freedom", while Iola becomes a nurse in a military hospital. When Robert is entrusted to her care after being wounded, they tell each other their stories which indicate that Robert is the brother of Iola's mother. After the war, they return to "C—" to search for Robert's mother, who they recognize when she tells her story during a prayer meeting. The family is reunited when they locate Harry who had been fighting in the Union army and met with his and Iola's mother during the war. Themes. Much space is given to discussions in which the characters talk about themes such as temperance, religion, the position of women in society, alleged white superiority, racism and lynchings, and the color line. Temperance: The damaging effects of alcohol are often discussed in the book. For example, after the war the black characters tell each other of two former masters who took to drink and ended up in the "pore-house" (chapters 18, 19). After Robert Johnson has found his long-lost mother, Aunt Linda pours three glasses of her home-made wine so they can celebrate the event. Robert refuses the wine stating, "I'm a temperance man", causing the conversion of Aunt Linda to the temperance idea. Religion: Prayer plays an important role in the life of the black characters: Iola and Robert discover the first clue of their kinship when Iola sings a special hymn at the bedside of the wounded Robert, which he has learned from his mother (chapter 16). Both find Harriet, their lost grandmother and mother, during a prayer meeting (chapter 20). When Iola's brother Harry learns that his mother and sister have been reduced to slavery, he asks how such a thing is possible in a "Christian country". The principal of his school gives the answer: "Christian in name" (chapter 14). After the war and the abolition of slavery, in a discussion with her uncle Robert and Dr. Gresham, Iola states that a "fuller comprehension of the claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and their application to our national life" is the only "remedy by which our nation can recover from the evil entailed upon her by slavery", to which both Robert and Gresham agree (chapter 25). In the course of their discussions, the characters also mention Islam. The black pastor, "Rev. Carmicle", speaks of the "imperfect creed" of "Mohammedanism". In another discussion, "Prof. Gradnor", a black professor from North Carolina, sees Islamic countries as "civilized" and compares them favorably to the southern United States, referring to lynchings and stating, "I know of no civilized country on the globe, Catholic, Protestant, or Mohammedan, where life is less secure than it is in the South". Women in society: The female characters who exert strong influence on the men in their roles as "moral forces owe something to Stowe and the cult of true womanhood", but they are neither "patterned after the white model" nor are they silent or submissive. On the contrary, "Harper shows the necessity for women's voice". In a "conversazione" among educated blacks, Iola and Lucille, the only female participants "dominate the discussions. ... Their outspoken, sometimes feminist remarks are readily accepted by the men". After Iola and her uncle Robert have moved to the North, Iola tells her uncle that she wants to apply for a job as saleswoman. Robert earns enough so that she doesn't have "to go out to work", but she tells him, Alleged white superiority: In chapter 17, Iola is teaching black children, when a "gentleman" asks to address the class. He talks about the "achievements of the white race" and then asks "how they did it." Positive view of black history: In chapter 30, Lucille Delany says, "Instead of forgetting the past, I would have [our people] hold in everlasting remembrance our great deliverance." Historian David W. Blight quotes this as an example for Harper's work "to forge a positive view of black history", an aim she shared with fellow black writer Pauline Hopkins. Literary significance and criticism. "Iola Leroy" "may well have [been] influenced" by Harriet Jacobs's 1861 autobiography "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl". The novel was "awarded more blame than praise" by literary critics, but "initial readers responded positively", causing the novel to be reprinted until 1895. From then on, however, it was not re-published until 1971. "Iola Leroy" was for some time cited as the first novel written by an African-American woman. Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s 1982 discovery of Harriet Wilson's "Our Nig" (1859) displaced it from that spot. Still, it remains important as "the first black vision of black women's roles in reshaping post-Civil War America" and as a fictional work dealing with complex issues of race, class, and politics in the United States. Recent scholarship suggests that Harper's novel provides a sophisticated understanding of citizenship, gender, and community, particularly the way that African Americans developed hybrid forms of "gemeinschaft and gesellschaft" before, during, and after slavery. The African-American journalist Ida B. Wells took up the pen name "Iola" when she first started writing articles about racism in the South. According to J. F. Yellin, "Iola Leroy" "helped shape the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and other foremothers of black women writing today."

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The Stars and the Blackness Between Them The Stars and the Blackness Between Them is an American young adult fiction book by Junauda Petrus. It was released on September 17, 2019 by Dutton Books, and tells the story of two teenage girls who build a relationship, as one acclimates to life in Minneapolis after moving from Trinidad, and the other battles an illness. "The Stars and the Blackness Between Them" received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award. In February 2021, Junauda Petrus announced that a film adaptation is in development. Synopsis. 16-year-old Audre lives in Port of Spain, Trinidad. At the urging of her mother, she attends church, but forms a romantic relationship with the pastor's granddaughter, Neri. After they are caught engaging in sexual activity, Audre is sent to live with her father in Minneapolis, where she meets Mabel. Mabel is questioning her own sexuality, and the two become friends. As they prepare for the upcoming school year, Mabel finds out she has a life-threatening illness. Audre supports Mabel as she undergoes treatment, both emotionally and through healing practices she has learned from her grandmother. Publication. 2019, United States, Dutton Books, , 17 September 2019, Hardback. Critical reception. The book received positive critical reception. "Kirkus Reviews" described "The Stars and the Blackness Between Them" in a starred review: "Through a nonlinear storyline and two secondary characters, Afua and Queenie, the author beautifully interjects elements of magical realism while delving into the complexities of spirituality. Readers seeking a deep, uplifting love story will not be disappointed as the novel covers both flourishing feelings and bigger questions around belief and what happens when we face our own mortality." In a second starred review "Publishers Weekly" wrote, "Petrus’s earnest debut successfully, touchingly combines elements of fantasy, bittersweet realism, and potent, affecting spirituality to tell the coming-of-age story of two complex, beautifully drawn young black women whose friendship and love draw them together even as Mabel’s failing health pushes them apart."

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Sing, Unburied, Sing Sing, Unburied, Sing is a novel by American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Scribner in 2017. It is about a family's dynamics in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The novel received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and was named by "The New York Times" as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017. Publication history. Ward's third novel, "Sing, Unburied, Sing" was published on September 5, 2017, by Scribner. Characters. Joseph (Jojo) is one of the main characters, and also one of the three narrators of the book. He is the child of Michael who is White, and Leonie, who is Black. The story starts on his thirteenth birthday at his maternal grandparents' house in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. Jojo throughout the book is often acting like the parent to Kayla because his mother Leonie was not always there. Jojo looks up to his grandfather, and wishes to be like him. Throughout the book, Jojo has many conversations with spirits while helping them move on. Leonie is the daughter of River and Philomene, and mother to Jojo and Kayla. She is one of the three narrators of the story. Leonie got pregnant at a young age, not certain of wanting to be a mother, since then she has been a mentally absent mother who focused mostly on her love for Michael. Leonie becomes a drug addict, which the high allows her to see her dead brother, Given. Leonie is consumed by her love for Michael and is inattentive to the needs of her children. She is also jealous of her children's relationship because it reminds her of the brother she lost too early in life. River (Pop) is Jojo's and Kayla's maternal grandfather. He is the Father to Leonie and Given. He is the main parental figure in Jojo's life, which makes him the role model JoJo looks up to. He is quietly dignified and capable. Pop spent some time in Parchman prison when he was young and developed a "care giver" relationship with another inmate, Richie. Often shares stories about his time in Parchman with Jojo. Philomene (Mam) is Jojo and Kayla's maternal grandmother. She is the mother to Leonie and Given. She comes from a long line of women who have been able to heal and communicate with dead people. Mam steps up to look after Jojo and Kayla when she realizes Leonie does not care enough about her children. Mam is sick with cancer when the novel begins. This causes her to be stuck inside the bedroom from chemo treatments, ultimately forcing Leonie to try stepping up as a motherly figure. Misty who is Leonie's white friend from work. Misty and Leonie are bound to each other by their drug addiction. Misty joins Leonie on the road trip to Parchman to pick up Michael after his release. Michael is Leonie's boyfriend and the father of Jojo and Kayla. He is white and comes from a racist family that doesn’t accept his relationship with Leonie or their kids. Michael, however, is not racist. At the beginning of the novel, he is in the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, for drug trafficking. He then joins his family after Leonie and their children pick him up. Like Leonie, Michael is an absent parent who also does drugs. Michaela (Kayla) is Jojo's three-year-old little sister. She interacts with Jojo as a parental figure and prefers him to her mother, Leonie. Kayla, like Jojo, is able to see ghosts. Kayla is given the final word of "shh" to her brother. Kayla is emblematic of the future. Through Kayla's voice in the final scene, Ward ends this novel on an optimistic note. Given is Leonie's older brother who was shot on a hunting trip by Michael's cousin when he was a senior in high school. Leonie sees Given's ghost throughout the novel, especially after she uses drugs. It is not until the second to last chapter when Given's ghost is freed, and Leonie does not see him anymore. Richie knows River from their time spent together in Parchman. He was placed in Parchman at twelve years old for stealing food for his nine siblings. He tried to escape later with an inmate named Blue and both were killed. His ghost follows JoJo back to Pop after JoJo arrives to pick up his father from Parchman because he does not know how he died. Richie is one of the three narrators of the story and struggles to understand and accept his death. Big Joseph is Michael's father. He does not have a healthy relationship with his son and the rest of the family because Michael decided to be in a relationship with Leonie, an African-American woman. Big Joseph was present at the trial for his nephew shooting Leonie’s brother prior to her and Michael’s relationship which adds to Leonie’s discomfort with Big Joseph. When Michael, Leonie, Jojo, and Kayla visit him, it results in Big Joseph and Michael physically fighting. Maggie is Michael's mother. She, also, does not have a healthy relationship with her son. Unlike her husband, she is seen wanting to make an effort with her son. She inhospitably welcomes Michael, Leonie, Jojo, and Kayla into their home, in an effort to salvage her relationship with her son. Plot. It is Jojo's thirteenth birthday. To step into his new role as a man, Jojo tries to bravely help his grandfather, Pop, kill a goat. Jojo ends up throwing up at the sight although Pop is sympathetic. Pop uses the goat to make stew and while the food is cooking, he tells Jojo about his family. Pop tells Jojo about how he was sent to Parchman when he was 15. Pop's older brother, Stag, got into a bar fight with some white navy officers. The officers came after Stag and also took Pop, who was home at that time. They were both sent to Parchman prison. It was there that Pop met Richie, a 12-year-old inmate. But Leonie gets a call during the birthday celebration. It is Michael, Jojo and Kayla's father, informing Leonie that he is coming home from prison where he has been for three years. The next day, Leonie argues with Pop about whether she should take Jojo and Kayla with her on the trip. At Mam's suggestion, she invites her coworker Misty, whose boyfriend is also in Parchman. While she talks to her mom, Leonie realizes that Mam's cancer is getting worse. During the car ride, Jojo finds a gris-gris bag from Pop with instructions to keep it close. He also recalls Pop telling him about Kinnie Wagner, a white inmate who looked after the dogs at Parchman (based on the real-life Kenny Wagner). Because of Pop's affinity with animals, Kinnie chooses him to help look after the dogs. Leonie's party arrives at the house of a white woman, and Jojo walks around and finds a man cooking meth. Misty leaves the woman's house with a bag of meth which she tries to hide from Jojo and Kayla. Back in the car, Kayla starts to get sick and throw up. Leonie remembers Mam teaching her about plants that help with an upset stomach. Leonie needs wild strawberries but is only able to find wild blackberries. Jojo holds Kayla and tries to comfort her by telling her stories. Eventually, they pull over to Al, Michael's lawyer's house. Leonie cooks the blackberry leaves. Jojo doesn’t trust Leonie and doesn’t think the wild blackberries will help but he is afraid Leonie will hit him if he says anything. After Leonie, Misty, and Al leave the room, Jojo forces Kayla to throw up Leonie's mixture. Instead of sleeping, Jojo recalls Pop telling him about when Richie got whipped for breaking his hoe and Kinnie escaped from Parchman. In the morning they drive to Parchman and check Michael out of prison. When Michael comes out, he embraces Leonie. He tries to hold Kayla but she doesn’t recognize him. Kayla throws up again. Jojo looks outside the car and sees the ghost of a dark skinned boy, Richie. The next chapter is narrated by Richie. He recognizes Jojo as Pop's child. He recalls how Pop protected him while they were in Parchman. No one in the car but Jojo and Kayla can see Richie. On the drive back, they are pulled over by a police officer. There is no time to hide the meth Al gave them, so Leonie swallows it. Leonie, without thinking, tells the officer that they are coming back from Parchman. The officer handcuffs Leonie. He also handcuffs Michael. Jojo walks out of the car with Michael and the officer handcuffs him too. Jojo reaches into his pocket to grab the gris-gris bag Pop gave him and the officer pulls out his gun on him. Misty drops Kayla, who runs to Jojo and wraps herself around him. Kayla throws up on the officer and he lets them go. Back in the car, Leonie, who is high from the meth she swallowed, becomes sick. Michael pulls over at a gas station and gives Jojo money to buy milk and charcoal. Leonie drinks the mixture and throws up. Richie tells Jojo that he tried to run from Parchman but died in the process. He doesn’t remember what happened and he needs Pop to tell him so he can go home. Richie was only able to leave Parchman when Jojo showed up. When they arrive back at the house, they realize that Mam and Pop are not in the house. Michael wants to go to his parents' house but Leonie doesn’t want to. She eventually gives in. When they arrive at Michael's parents' house, at first Michael's mother, Maggie, is civil and urges Michael's dad, Big Joseph, to do the same. Big Joseph is unable to restrain himself and calls Leonie a slur. Michael head-butts Big Joseph and they start fighting. They drive back home where Pop and Mam have returned. Leonie goes and she tells Leonie to gather necessary items to perform a ritual to summon Maman Brigitte, a death loa in voodoo. Once they get back home, Richie sees Pop and tries to talk to him, but Pop can’t see him. Jojo asks Pop about what happened to Richie and Pop finally tells Jojo. A man named Blue raped one of the female inmates at Parchman. Richie catches Blue in the act and escapes Parchman with him. While they are running, Blue happens upon a white girl and rips her dress. Because of this, the local white population is looking for revenge through lynching. Pop knows that the white men won't make a distinction between Blue and Richie. When the white men catch up with Blue and Richie, they skin Blue alive and cut off parts of his body. To protect Richie from the same fate, Pop stabs him in the neck. Pop has been haunted by this action ever since. After he tells Jojo the story, he breaks down into tears and Jojo consoles him. Richie screams and disappears. Leonie enters Mam's room to find her in a terrible state. Her room smells like rot. Mam tells Leonie that it is too late. Mam sees Richie on the ceiling. He is vengeful. Richie shouts at Mam, urging her to come with him, but Given shouts at him that Mam is not his mother. Jojo and Pop run in and Leonie jumps into action and begins saying the litany to summon Maman Brigitte. Jojo tells Richie to leave because nobody owes him anything anymore. Richie leaves and Given takes Mam with him. Mam dies. Michael comes back and he and Leonie leave. In the final chapter, Jojo explains that he sleeps in Leonie's bed now. Leonie and Michael only come back for two days out of every week, and then they leave again. Pop sleeps in Mam's room now and he talks to himself at night, searching for Mam. Although he hoped he will, Jojo is not able to see Mam and Given, he only sees Richie. He also sees other ghosts who have all died through violent means. Kayla tells the ghosts to go home but they don’t listen to her. She begins to sing and they all smile with relief. Themes. "Sing, Unburied, Sing" is the first of Ward's novels to introduce a supernatural element. A dead boy, Ritchie, is one of the narrators, and other ghosts are found throughout the novel as they tie the past to the present and future. Likewise, Mam and Pop project the belief in spirituality through gris-gris bags, which contain objects of nature that are assumed to administer power for humans. In the novel, the spiritual connection between nature and man is prevalent through their African-based traditions. The novel demonstrates the afterlife of slavery in America. Songs and story-telling play a role in building resilience. Singing to the unresting spirits at the end of the story, Kayla represents hope for the future. Another theme is of family, for it offers differing insights into the roles of parenting. Though they care for Jojo and Kayla, Leonie and Michael are absent mother and father figures. They tend to dissociate themselves from their responsibilities through drug usage. Thus, Jojo looks to his Pop and Mam as the family's caretakers. Jojo also takes on the task of being Kayla's guardian, protecting her in any way he can. Racial relations is also discussed in this novel through the family's interracial dynamics. Though Michael appears to love Leonie despite their differing skin colors, his family sternly disapproves of the life he leads. The character of Michael's father, Big Joseph, showcases the lingering tensions of white supremacy in the South. He protects Michael's cousin after killing Given, since the cousin was upholding Southern ideals of Black inferiority. In the same manner, Big Joseph rejects his own son, Michael, for defying this tradition with his bi-racial children. Finally, the theme of water offers much significance in the novel. Water symbolizes the processes of nurturing and developing. Those with water, like River and Mam (who is referred to as the saltwater woman), are able to bloom. Meanwhile, those without water, like those in "Parchman," are withering away without such subsistence, unable to find peace and stability. Even the setting in the Mississippi Delta may suggest the importance of water in the novel. Reception. Reviewing the novel for "The Washington Post", Ron Charles compared it to George Saunders's "Lincoln in the Bardo" and Toni Morrison's "Beloved"; at NPR, Annalisa Quinn found it "reminiscent of "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. "Sing, Unburied, Sing" was the winner of the 2017 National Book Award for fiction. This was her second time winning this award. Ward is the first woman and first person of color to receive this honor twice. The novel was selected by "Time" magazine and "The New York Times" as one of the top ten novels of 2017. It is also acclaimed as one of the best novels of the year by the "New Statesman", the "Financial Times", and BBC, all of which are located in London. Former U.S. President Barack Obama included the novel in a list of the best books he read in 2017. It was ranked in Literary Hub as the second best book of the 2010s, behind only Claudia Rankine’s "" (2014). The novel also won Ainsfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction in 2018 and the Mark Twain American Voice In Literature Award in 2019.

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Kimani Press Kimani Press was formed by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd. in December 2005, with the purchase of the Arabesque, Sepia, and New Spirit Imprints from BET Books. Arabesque was the first line of original African-American romance novels from a major publishing house, and published two single-titles each month until it ceased publication in February 2015. The Sepia imprint featured commercial women’s fiction, and New Spirit served the growing African-American inspirational marketplace with both fiction and non-fiction releases. In July 2006, Harlequin launched Kimani Romance, the only African-American series imprint in the marketplace today, with four new releases each month. In May 2017, it was announced that Harlequin was no longer acquiring titles for the Kimani Romance imprint, with the final titles due to be released in 2018. In February 2007, Kimani TRU was launched targeting a young-adult, multi-cultural audience with one new release each month. This line ceased publication in October 2014. Since 2005, Kimani Press novels have been available in eBook format, a portable downloaded alternative to the standard paperback. Kimani Press imprints. The name 'KIMANI' is of Kikuyu Origin. Arabesque: The leading line of African-American romances. An-award-winning imprint of traditional and contemporary romance novels written by African-American authors. The last title was released in February 2015. Kimani Romance: Series romance. The last title will be released in 2018. Kimani Tru: Young-adult fiction featuring African-American youth. The last title was released in October 2014. Kimani Press Special Releases : Special Releases from favorite Kimani Press authors. The last title was released in January 2015.

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Show Way Show Way is a 2005 children's picture book by American author Jacqueline Woodson with illustrations by Hudson Talbott. The book was made into a film in 2012 by Weston Woods Studios, Inc., narrated by the author. It recounts the stories of seven generations of African-Americans and is based on the author's own family history. "Show Way" was a John Newbery Medal Honor Book in 2006. About the author. Woodson has received numerous awards for her middle-grade and young adult books, which include being a National Book Award Finalist and winning the Coretta Scott King Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Miracle's Boys. Plot. "Show Way" is a story about ancestry. The author is telling a story about her ancestors to her daughter. She tells her about their past and how they all had their own "Show Way." Every piece of quilt starting from Soonie's great grandmother had a significant meaning. When Soonie's great-grandmother made the quilts, the pieces signified roads, moons, and stars to follow, a way to escape their slavery. Soonie's grandmother was sold into slavery, and she made clothes for everyone in the big house, even for slaves. At night she sewed stars, and moons, and roads into quilts, each piece a picture signifying what to follow to find the north star; her own show way. Mathis Soonie's grandmother married a slave, who died before meeting his baby girl, a girl-child born free in 1863. Years later—Soonie came. Soonie and her mother grew up on a land where they’d pick cotton and got paid little and a piece of ground to farm on. They called this land home and they shared this land with other free people. On this land they worked hard, from pink day to blue-black nights, but it was a free life nevertheless; at the end of the day they could find a thing or two to smile about. Soonie made patch pieces with stars and moons and roads; sewed fields and rivers and trees. She patched these pieces together so her mother could sell them come market day. She called her creation "Trail to the North" she also called them "Show Way." They no longer needed the secret trial to the north, but rather they lived well off of the money those quilts brought in, her own show way. She married a man named Walter Scott who owned land in Anderson, South Carolina; she had a baby and named her Georgiana. Georgiana was born a reader, and they said about her that she always had a book in her hand; she grew up to teach a small school in Anderson. She had two daughters named Caroline and Ann, these two girls walked in a line to change the laws that kept black and white people living separate. They sometimes were scared but regained their confidence when they saw the show way patches that their grandmother Soonie had pinned inside their dresses. Ann grew up to be a poet, which sometimes she converted to song, and Caroline stitched those songs into art for people to buy and hang up on their walls. Ann Had The Author, Jacqueline Woodson, who grew up to read and write, but when she could not write she was sew stars and moons and roads because her mother told her that everything that happened before Jacqueline was born was her own kind of show way. She grew up to read and write, and her writing turned into books where she told stories of other people's show ways. A story which she enjoys repeating to her daughter. Critical Review. Critics have many good things to say about "Show Way". Barbara Z Kiefer and Dennis Price say that ""Show Way" is an exquisite patchwork of words and images." "Publishers Weekly" stated that "Show Way" is "Both historical and deeply personal." "Black Issues Book Review" said that "Show Way" was, "Beautifully written and a treat for the eyes." Mary N. Oluonye of "School Library Journal" stated that "Show Way" is "An outstanding tribute, perfectly executed in terms of text, design, and illustration." "Kirkus Reviews" says that "Show Way" "Takes a difficult subject and makes it accessible to young readers. One of the most remarkable books of the year." Awards. John Newbery Medal Honor Book 2006

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An American Marriage An American Marriage is a novel by the American author Tayari Jones. It is her fourth novel and was published by Algonquin Books on February 6, 2018. In February 2018, the novel was chosen for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. The novel also won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. The novel focuses on the marriage of a middle-class African-American couple, Celestial and Roy, who live in Atlanta, Georgia. Their lives are torn apart when Roy is wrongfully convicted of a rape he did not commit. In an interview with "The Paris Review" Jones revealed that she initially wrote the book solely from Celestial's point of view and decided to add multiple points of view after her initial readers reacted negatively to Celestial. Plot. Roy, a sales representative for a textbook company, and Celestial, an artist specializing in custom made baby dolls, are newlyweds who live in Atlanta. After their first year of marriage they travel to Eloe, Louisiana to visit Roy's parents. The newlyweds spend the night at the local Motel 6 where they feud after Roy tells Celestial that his father is not his biological father. In the middle of their fight they take 15 minutes to cool off during which Roy exits their room and meets a woman around his mother's age with a broken arm whom he helps to her room. Later that night the woman is raped and she calls the police, believing that Roy was the one who raped her. While Roy is in jail awaiting trial, Celestial discovers that she is pregnant and the two decide that she should have an abortion. When the case goes to trial Roy is given a sentence of 12 years. For the first few years Roy and Celestial keep an active correspondence, though Roy grows frustrated as Celestial's career as an artist begins to take off and the gaps between their letters and visits grows longer. During this period Roy discovers that his cellmate Walter is actually his biological father and shares the news with Celestial. Also during this time, Roy learns that his mother Olive has died. After three years Celestial tells Roy that she no longer wishes to be his wife, causing a rift between them. Roy refuses communication with Celestial for the following two years, however when his case is finally overturned on appeal and the local DA decides not to pursue the case, he optimistically reaches out to Celestial believing that there is still hope for their marriage as she has never divorced him. Celestial has, in the meantime, fallen in love with her childhood best friend, Andre. The night she learns that Roy is about to be set free, Andre proposes. Despite her guilt, Celestial decides to divorce Roy and marry Andre. Though the rest of her family accept her choice, the news causes a rift between Celestial and her father. Roy is released from prison early and is collected by his father, Roy Sr. Aware that Celestial plans to have Andre pick him up, Roy decides to leave for Atlanta just as Andre is leaving to collect him, ensuring that he will have time to spend alone with Celestial. Before he leaves, Roy runs into a former classmate of his, Davina, who invites him over for dinner. The two end up having sex which Roy feels is meaningful. He nevertheless decides to leave for Atlanta to pursue a relationship with his wife. In Atlanta, Roy is relieved to find that his key still works and surprises Celestial by being at home when she comes back from her doll shop. Roy tries to have sex with her but she asks him to use protection, knowing that he does not have any. The following day Andre arrives and in the ensuing argument about what happened when Roy was in jail Roy attacks and beats Andre on Celestial's lawn. Though the police are called Celestial manages to smooth things over. Celestial returns with Roy to her house and the following morning and tells Andre that she needs to be with Roy. That night however, when Roy confesses to having sex with Davina, Celestial has no reaction causing Roy to realize that Celestial truly no longer loves him romantically. Though she is willing to have sex with him he declines saying he has never been and will never be a rapist. In the epilogue Roy and Celestial exchange letters. Celestial informs Roy that though she and Andre are having a baby they have no plans to marry and Roy tells Celestial that he has reunited with Davina and the two plan to marry. Reception. The novel was widely praised upon its release. "The New York Times" praised it as a "wise and compassionate" novel. "The Globe and Mail" called the novel "sensational". The Washington Post commended Jones for her "daring creative choices" and "tender patience". "The Guardian" described the book as, "an immensely readable novel, packed with ideas and emotion". "The Atlantic" positively noted that, "with "An American Marriage", Jones joins this conversation in a quietly powerful way. Her writing illuminates the bits and pieces of a marriage: those almost imperceptible moments that make it, break it, and forcefully tear it apart."

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The Hate U Give The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old black girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting. "The Hate U Give" was published on February 28, 2017, by HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray, which had won a bidding war for the rights to the novel. The book was a commercial success, debuting at number one on "The New York Times" young adult best-seller list, where it remained for 50 weeks. It won several awards and received critical praise for Thomas's writing and timely subject matter. In writing the novel, Thomas attempted to expand readers' understanding of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as difficulties faced by black Americans who employ code switching. These themes, as well as the vulgar language, attracted some controversy and caused the book to be one of the most challenged books of 2017 and 2018 according to the American Library Association. The book was adapted into a film by Fox 2000 in October 2018, which received positive reviews. The novel was also adapted into an audiobook, won several awards and praise for its narrator, Bahni Turpin. Development and publication. Shaken by the 2009 police shooting of Oscar Grant, then-college student Angie Thomas began the project as a short story for her senior project in Belhaven University's creative writing program. While writing the short story, the project quickly expanded, though Thomas put it aside for a few years after graduation. Speaking to her hometown newspaper, Thomas said, "I wanted to make sure I approached it not just in anger, but with love even". The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland drew Thomas back to expand the project into a novel, which she titled after Tupac Shakur's "THUG LIFE" concept: "The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody". Events surrounding the killings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Michael Brown, and widespread ensuing protests against racism and police brutality, also informed moments in the book. Unsure whether publishers would be interested in the Black Lives Matter-inspired material, Thomas reached out to literary agent Brooks Sherman on Twitter in June 2015 to ask for advice. In February 2016, HarperCollins' imprint Balzer + Bray bought the rights to the novel in an auction, outbidding 13 other publishing houses, and signed a two-book deal with Thomas. Fox 2000 optioned the film rights the following month. The 464-page book was published on February 28, 2017, when the industry was attempting to address a decade-long stagnation in the number of children's books by African-American authors. Since its publication, Thomas has become an example of attempts by publishers to publish more young adult African-American novelists. Plot. Starr Carter is a 16-year-old black girl, who lives in the fictional mostly poor black neighborhood of Garden Heights, but attends an affluent predominantly white private school, Williamson Prep. After a shooting breaks up a party Starr is attending, she is driven home by her childhood best friend and sometimes crush Khalil. They are stopped by a white police officer. The officer instructs Khalil, who is black, to exit the car; while outside the car, Khalil leans into the driver-side window to check in on Starr. The officer then shoots Khalil three times, killing him. Starr agrees to an interview with police about the shooting after being encouraged by her Uncle Carlos, who is also a detective. Carlos was a father figure to Starr when her father, Maverick, spent three years in prison for gang activity. Following his release, Maverick left the gang and became the owner of the Garden Heights grocery store where Starr and her older half-brother Seven work. Maverick was only allowed to leave his gang, the King Lords, because he confessed to a crime to protect gang-leader King. Widely feared in the neighborhood, King now lives with Seven's mother, Seven's half-sister Kenya, who is friends with Starr, and Kenya's little sister, Lyric. Khalil's death becomes a national news story. The media portrays Khalil as a gang banger and drug dealer, while portraying the white officer who killed him more favorably. Starr's identity as the witness is initially kept secret from everyone outside Starr's family, including her younger brother Sekani. Keeping the secret from her white boyfriend Chris and her best friends Hailey Grant and Maya Yang – who all attend Williamson Prep – weighs on Starr, as does her need to keep her Williamson and Garden Heights personalities separate. Starr's struggles with her identity are further complicated after her mother gets a higher-paying job and the family moves out of Garden Heights. After a grand jury fails to indict the white officer, Garden Heights erupts into both peaceful protests and riots. The failure of the criminal justice system to hold the officer accountable pushes Starr to take an increasingly public role, first giving a television interview and then speaking out during the protests, which are met by police in riot gear. Her increasing identification with the people of Garden Heights causes tension with Starr's friends, especially with her boyfriend Chris. But by the end of the novel, Starr and Maya have started standing up to Hailey's racist comments while Chris offers support to Starr. The climax of the novel occurs during the riot following the grand jury decision. Starr, Chris, Seven, and DeVante – whom Maverick helped leave the King Lords – successfully defend Maverick's store from King. The neighborhood stands up to King and as a result of testimony by DeVante, King is arrested and expected to be imprisoned for a lengthy sentence. Starr promises to keep Khalil's memory alive and to continue her advocacy against injustice. Style. Vincent Haddad of Central State University reads "The Hate U Give" as an attempt to build empathy with the Black Lives Matter movement, as "the appeals for empathy figured by Starr's first-person account ultimately serve to discipline those who seek solutions deemed too 'un-realistic' to oppose the 'sustained violence against Black communities. By maintaining realism, and explicitly naming real-world victims of police brutality, Haddad contends that Thomas is able to spur action in her readers. However, he ultimately feels that there are limits to this approach because it is about the individual rather than the collective. By contrast, Vox's Constance Grady argues that this realism is what makes the novel ultimately work to larger purposes: "The specificity and whimsy of ideas like the anger scale of breakup songs is what keeps "The Hate U Give" moving so deftly through its heavy subject matter; it stays warm and focused and grounded in character even when it's dealing with big, amorphous ideas like systemic racism." Themes. Examining race relations is a core theme of the novel. Professor Khalil Muhammad of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government sees the novel as a way to have discussions among people who might not otherwise discuss Black Lives Matter: "The book – and to some degree the movie – has been read and will be read by students in all-white spaces, where otherwise the urgency of these issues has not affected them personally." At the same time, it could offer solace for black teens who have faced similar challenges to Starr. An example of this is Starr's ability to code switch between her private school and home, which Thomas demonstrates through the slang that Starr uses in each context's dialogue. Also helping Starr is her family who offer a variety of points of view, including her Uncle's thoughts as a police officer and her father teaching Starr and her siblings about the Black Panther Party. The novel also shows Starr's parents' struggles with remaining connected to their community while needing to protect and give opportunity to their children. "The Hate U Give" shows Starr's dual need to respond both to the trauma of witnessing Khalil's death and her need to do so politically. This dual need, combined with Thomas's ability to root these struggles in their historical context, helps give the book its power, according to Jonathan Alexander writing in the "Los Angeles Review of Books". "Los Angeles Times" critic Adriana Ramirez sees Starr as similar to the protagonists of fantasy dystopian novels like "Divergent" and "The Hunger Games" as she seeks to change an entrenched system of power, noting, "it is also a dystopian young adult novel that happens to be set in reality". Nick Smart, a professor at the College of New Rochelle, takes this further, stating, "In "The Hate U Give", there's also a girl – who happens to be a black girl – being sent out against the system, against the world, against an entrenched opposition", while Ramirez notes that Starr's blackness is a core element for some readers. Before its publication, exploring a female perspective on the isolation and need to be a model minority at an elite private school was something which had not been conducted in literature or film with the same frequency as for males. Thomas's ability to capture these feelings stemmed from her own experiences with the reactions of her white classmates following the death of Oscar Grant. The novel does not shy away from the realities of urban life, exemplified by the title's reference to the Tupac Shakur quote. Starr's feelings about Khalil evolve during the novel. The reader is first introduced to him at the party as a friend of Starr's and as a victim of a police shooting. This narrative is then complicated both for Starr and in the novel's world at large when it is learned that Khalil dealt drugs. However, Starr comes to disagree with the way the media is portraying Khalil. As Starr finds her own agency, she is able to challenge this narrative first for herself and then for others, recognizing that Khalil was forced into these circumstances by poverty, hunger, and a desire to care for his drug addict mother. She is able to show her courage speaking to the grand jury, and realizes that she needs to participate in the protests which follow its decision. How and where Khalil and Starr can find justice also drives Starr's decision to join in the protests. Reception. The book debuted at the top of "The New York Times" young adult (YA) best-seller list, and was on it for more than 80 weeks. The book had 100,000 copies in print in the first month, eventually selling more than 850,000 copies . The book was popular with readers, winning Goodreads annual awards vote in the categories of Best Young Adult Fiction and Debut Author. Critics also widely praised the book. In the "Christian Science Monitor", Katie Ward Beim-Esche wrote, "Believe the hype: "The Hate U Give," Angie Thomas's extraordinary and fearless debut, really is that good." Shannon Ozirny of "The Globe and Mail" also felt it would have wide appeal, "Ignore the YA label – this should be the one book everyone reads this year." On "Salon", Erin Keane wrote that the novel is "topical, urgent, necessary, and if that weren't enough, it's also a highly entertaining and engaging read." The book also earned starred reviews from multiple review journals. "Kirkus", which nominated the book for its Kirkus Prize, praised both its writing and timelines: "With smooth but powerful prose ... This story is necessary. This story is important." Young adult literature expert Michael Cart, writing in "Booklist", also praised Thomas's writing as Starr: "Beautifully written in Starr's authentic first-person voice, this is a marvel of verisimilitude." While praising the overall book in a starred review, "School Library Journal"s Mahnaz Dar criticized the writing of several characters as "slightly uneven". The "Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books", "Horn Book Magazine", and "VOYA" also gave the book their equivalents of starred reviews. Awards. "The Hate U Give" has received the following awards and accolades: Challenges. The American Library Association listed the book as one of the ten most-challenged books of 2017 (), 2018 (), and 2020 (10) "because it was considered 'pervasively vulgar,'" contained "drug use, profanity, and offensive language," as well as sexual references, and "was thought to promote an anti-police message." In July 2018, a South Carolina police union raised objections to the inclusion of the book, as well as the similarly themed "All American Boys" by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds, in the summer reading list for ninth-grade students of Wando High School. A representative of the police lodge described the inclusion of the books as "almost indoctrination of distrust of police" and asserted that "we've got to put a stop to that." The books remained on the list and Wando's principal was later recognized by the state school library association for her defense of the challenged books. The book was removed from the school libraries of the Katy Independent School District due to its explicit language. Thomas responded to these challenges by defending the book's message and saying that it is a spur for conversation. Adaptations. Film. Fox 2000 optioned "The Hate U Give" for a film adaption in March 2016, shortly after the book's auction. Director George Tillman Jr. and actress Amandla Stenberg were immediately attached to the project. The movie also features Issa Rae, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Algee Smith, KJ Apa, Lamar Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Common, and Sabrina Carpenter. The film is based on a screenplay by Audrey Wells, who died one day before it was released. Stenberg's casting received some criticism because of her lighter complexion as compared to the girl on the novel's cover. The movie was given a limited release on October 5, 2018, and a wide release on October 19, 2018. The film was favorably received, with a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 8.2 out of 10, and an A+ CinemaScore. the film had a worldwide box office gross of $34 million against a budget of $23 million. Audiobook. An audiobook was released by Harper Audio on the same day as the novel and featured narration by Bahni Turpin, whom Thomas had selected. Audiobook producer Caitlin Garing spoke of the importance of matching the material with the narrator and spoke of Turpin's skill, "you can trust her to get to the heart of a story and lead the listener there". It was well reviewed and won Audie Awards for best YA and best female narrator. In her acceptance speech, Turpin said it was "an important book for our time". It also won the 2018 Odyssey Award for best children's audiobook. Odyssey committee chair Joan Schroeder Kindig said, "Bahni Turpin's powerful narration of this timely novel will inspire listeners to find their own voices." Turpin downplayed the award saying, "I don't think the public is aware of most of our awards, though – in general, I think those who most appreciate the awards are ... the people in the business of books". "Publishers Weekly", in its starred review of the audiobook, praised Turpin's abilities to convey "the complexity of the 16-year-old protagonist who sounds both youthful and mature for her age, as she relies on code-switching to navigate two different social settings". Maggie Knapp in her starred review for "School Library Journal" and Lynette Pitrak in her starred review for "Booklist" also praised Turpin's ability to capture Starr's voice in her performance.

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Bury Me in a Free Land "Bury Me in a Free Land" is a poem by African-American writer and abolitionist Frances Harper, written for "The Anti-Slavery Bugle" newspaper in 1858. Analysis. The poem implies that the speaker is dying soon, which lends her request a sense of urgency. The message being presented as a sort of deathbed wish also gives the request stronger moral authority. The use of grave imagery to draw sympathy to the plight of enslaved people was popularized with Harriet Beecher Stowe's popular novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852), whose titular character is buried in an unmarked grave. Harper's poem seems to threaten that the narrator will haunt those who survive as she "could not rest" if she was buried in a land where people are enslaved. Legacy. Harper sent a copy of the poem to the widow of John Brown after his execution for his raid on Harpers Ferry. She also republished the poem after emancipation in the United States in the January 14, 1864, issue of "The Liberator". This poem was recited in the film "August 28: A Day in the Life of a People", which debuted at the opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016. An excerpt from the poem is on a wall of the Contemplative Court, a space for reflection in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The excerpt reads: "I ask no monument, proud and high to arrest the gaze of the passers-by; all that my yearning spirit craves is bury me not in a land of slaves."

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The People Could Fly The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales is a 1985 collection of twenty-four folktales retold by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. They encompass animal tales (including tricksters), fairy tales, supernatural tales,and tales of the enslaved Africans (including slave narratives). Reception. A review by the "School Library Journal", stated: "The well-known author here retells 24 black American folk tales in sure storytelling voice. ... All are beautifully readable." and concluded "With the added attraction of 40 bordered full- and half-page illustrations by the Dillons wonderfully expressive paintings reproduced in black and white this collection should be snapped up." "The New York Times" review by Ishmael Reed called "The People Could Fly" "extraordinary and wonderful", commended Hamilton for writing "these tales in the Black English of the slave storytellers" and found it "Handsomely illustrated". "The People Could Fly" has also been reviewed by "Publishers Weekly", "Booklist", Common Sense Media, It has been used in study. Awards. "The People Could Fly" has received a number of awards including:

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Middle Atlantic Writers Association The Middle-Atlantic Writers Association (MAWA) is a non-profit organization made up of creative writers, scholars, critics, and literature enthusiasts. Founded in 1982, MAWA aims to preserve, perpetuate and study the literary traditions of the Middle-Atlantic region, with a specific focus on the literature of African Americans, the Black Diaspora, women and the multicultural, global community. MAWA aims (1) to provide a forum and publishing outlet for blossoming and established writers from the region and (2) to generate scholarship about writers and subjects from the region, as well as other neglected aspects of literature.

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No Disrespect No Disrespect is a 1994 American memoir written by Sister Souljah.

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Drama High Drama High is an ongoing series of young adult fiction novels written by the American author L. Divine. The series comprises 19 novels and follows the main character, Jayd Jackson through her life in Los Angeles, California as she struggles to balance school, friendships, family, and all the drama that comes with them. The novels contain an element of speculative fiction as the main character comes from a long line of voodoo priestesses and is a priestess in training. The first fourteen books were published through Dafina, an imprint of Kensington Books. Starting in 2012 Divine began self-publishing the series under Ebb & Flow Publications/L. Divine Inc. Plot. The series is told in the voice of Jayd Jackson, a strong opinionated high school student from Compton, California who comes from a long line of Louisiana conjure women. Jayd is continuously presented with both supernatural and practical problems in which she must use the teachings of her maternal ancestors (the Williams women) to help her solve. The series takes place in modern-day Los Angeles, California and contains many references to real life places. The novels are stemmed in the teachings of the Yoruba religion and maintain the presence of both African American and Latin cultures. The characters attend South Bay High, a fictional high school where the majority of the student body and teaching staff are privileged and white, ultimately causing racial tension between the students and the teachers alike. The series is expected to contain forty-four novels which will follow its main character Jayd out of high school and into college in its extension Drama U.

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Black Silent Majority Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment is a non-fiction book written by Michael Javen Fortner. Overview. A look into the role of how America's drug policies impact African Americans and crime in their own neighborhoods. Critical reception. "The New York Times" said in a review of the book, "The history of black people’s ability to express and to act on their punitiveness — to be tough on crime — is at the heart of a fascinating though severely flawed new book by Michael Javen Fortner."

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Aaron Freeman Aaron Freeman (born June 8, 1956) is an American journalist, stand-up comedian, author, cartoonist, and blogger. Career. During the 1990s, Freeman was host of the weekly informational radio program "Metropolis" which was broadcast in the Midwest. He is also a commentator on NPR's flagship news program, "All Things Considered". Freeman co-wrote and directed the stage comedy "The Arab/Israeli Comedy Hour". As a stand up comedian, he is a member of the quartet the Israeli/Palestinian Comedy Tour. Freeman has performed with The Second City and performs with the Second City Theater. Along with long-time friend and collaborator Rob Kolson, he created the long-running political and financial comedy "Do the White Thing" and its sequel "Gentlemen Prefer Bonds". In 1983, Freeman created and performed the satire "Council Wars", which was based on the Chicago City Council when Harold Washington was mayor. For ten years, he hosted the television talk show "Talking with Aaron Freeman". He later hosted and was chief science correspondent for Chicago Public Television's science and technology program "Chicago Tomorrow". Freeman performs his one-man shows "News Today/Comedy Tonight" and "Kosher Chitterlings" for business groups, Jewish groups, colleges, and associations throughout the United States. Personal life. Freeman was born in Kankakee, Illinois, and is a longtime resident of the Chicago area. He is a convert to Judaism from Roman Catholicism. He is married to artist Sharon Rosenzweig, with whom he collaborates on projects including the comic strip "The Comic Torah". He has twin daughters, Artemis and Diana, who were featured with Aaron on "This American Life" episode 17 "Name Change / No Theme", recorded during a trip to Chicago's Navy Pier.

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Tritobia Hayes Benjamin Tritobia Hayes Benjamin (October 22, 1944 – June 21, 2014) was an American art historian and educator. She began teaching in 1970 as professor of Art History at Howard University, College of Fine Arts, specializing in African-American art History and American art. Benjamin became the Associate Dean of the Division of Fine Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, and had served as Gallery Director. Early life. She was born on October 22, 1944, in Brinkley, Arkansas, to mother Addie (née Murph) and father Wesley E. Hayes, Sr. She attended secondary school at Horace Mann High School, where she graduated with honors. She went on to attend Howard University, where she met her husband, Donald S. Benjamin, a graphic artist and community activist. Publications. Benjamin wrote the book "The Life and Art of Lois Mailou Jones", published by Pomegranate Artbooks, and had published over 20 articles and exhibition catalog essays including "Profiles of Eleven African-American Artists" and "The Image of Women in the Work of Charles White", "Three Generations of African American Women Sculptors: A Study in Paradox", an exhibition she also co-curated. Awards and honors. Benjamin received honors and awards for her scholarship including the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010; the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship-in-Residence award; and also from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a fellowship for Faculty of Historical Black Colleges.

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Alma Jean Billingslea Alma Jean Billingslea (born 1946) is an American scholar and teacher, and a veteran of the civil rights movement. Billingslea was born in Albany, Georgia, but grew up in Orange, New Jersey, where she was one of the first African American students to desegregate the Orange public school system. From 1967 to 1971, she worked as a field staff member for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization founded by Martin Luther King, Jr. She is professor emerita and co-founder of the program in African Diaspora Studies at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She received the A.B. degree from Rutgers University, the M.A. degree from Atlanta University, and the PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. Billingslea is the author of "Crossing Borders through Folklore: African American Women's Fiction and Art" (University of Missouri Press, 1999).

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Tracy Clayton Tracy Clayton (born c. 1982/1983) is an American writer known as the co-host of the BuzzFeed podcast "Another Round", which has been on hiatus since 2017. Her work has been recognized by "Fast Company", "Ebony", and "The Root," who described her as "a superstar at BuzzFeed, the millennial-driven media powerhouse where she writes big, funny things." Clayton was laid off from BuzzFeed in September 2018 amid company-wide downsizing. She hosts the Netflix podcast "Strong Black Legends", for which she interviews African Americans in the entertainment industry. Early life. Clayton was raised in Louisville, Kentucky and received her bachelor's degree from Transylvania University in Lexington. Career. Before joining BuzzFeed full-time in 2014, Clayton wrote for "Madame Noire", "Uptown Magazine", "The Urban Daily", "PostBourgie" and "The Root". She developed the popular Tumblr, "Little Known Black History Facts", now a feature on "Another Round". She was named the Ida B. Wells Media Expert-in-Residence at Wake Forest University's Anna Julia Cooper Center from 2016–2017. "Another Round". Clayton and her co-worker Heben Nigatu launched the first episode of "Another Round", produced by BuzzFeed, on March 25, 2015. The show received positive critical acclaim. "The A.V. Club" described Clayton and Nigatu as "passionate and sharp in their distinct points of view." It was named to "Best of 2015" lists by iTunes, "Slate", "Vulture", and "The Atlantic". An Okayplayer profile said, "known all over the digital world as one of the sharpest voices in the podcast game as well as Black Twitter, Tracy Clayton is consistently one of the smartest people in whatever room she occupies." "Elle" praised Clayton and co-host Heben Nigatu's ability to "serve up a blend of humor, politics, and frank observation that not even the most deft hosts can seem to replicate." Clayton made headlines in the fall when she pressed then-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to address the crime bill her husband passed as president: '[D]o you ever look at the state of black America and think, 'wow, we really fucked this up for black people?' " "The Guardian" praised their work as "witty, irreverent, intelligent." Also writing for "The Guardian", critic Sasha Frere-Jones called Clayton and Nigatu "leading American cultural critics." Clayton announced she had been laid off by BuzzFeed on September 19, 2018, along with most of the other staffers who had worked on BuzzFeed's original podcasts. Post-BuzzFeed. On February 11, 2019, Netflix's Strong Black Lead initiative announced it was launching a new podcast featuring interviews with legendary Black members of Hollywood, called "Strong Black Legends", to be hosted by Clayton. The first podcast premiered on February 12, 2019 and Lynn Whitfield was the guest. Clayton also hosts the interview podcast "Going Through It" launched by Mailchimp in July 2020, featuring 14 prominent Black women. In August 2020, "Back Issue" debuted, a podcast hosted by Clayton and Josh Gwynn. "Back Issue" is produced by Pineapple Street Studios and looks back at formative moments in pop culture. Clayton and Gwynn formerly worked together on the Netflix podcast, "Strong Black Legends". Personal life. As of at least March 2017, Clayton lives in Brooklyn.

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Marquetta Goodwine Marquetta L. Goodwine is an author, preservationist, and performance artist who serves as Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. Goodwine is a native of St. Helena Island, South Carolina. She attended Fordham College at Lincoln Center and double majored in computer science and mathematics. In 1996 she left Fordham and the founded of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition. In 1999 she became the first Gullah to speak before the United Nations, giving testimony at an April 1 hearing of the Commission on Human Rights in Switzerland. She participated in the United Nations Forum on Minority Rights which was first established in 2008. At the forum, Queen Quet recorded the human rights struggle of the Gullah/Geechee people for archival by the United Nations. On 2 July 2002 Goodwine was elected and enstooled as "Queen Quet, chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation." Goodwine also serves as the Chair of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor General Management Plan and Expert Commissioner for South Carolina. She is a member of the 15-person commission established by the United States Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Act which was passed by the United States Congress. Goodwine is a public advocate for the Gullah/Geechee Sea Islands in the face of increasing storm damage resulting from the climate crisis as well as ongoing flooding due to over-development and poor infrastructure maintenance. Her work includes advocating and the preservation of Gullah/Geechee cultural traditions and resources that are threatened due to gentrification and climate change. Goodwine served as a consultant for the 2000 Mel Gibson film "The Patriot", which featured scenes set on the South Carolina coast of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. She has been an advisor to several historic documentaries, including "This Far by Faith: The African American Religious Experience", "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow", "Slavery and the Making of America", "Reconstruction: The Second Civil War", and "The Will to Survive: The Story of the Gullah/Geechee Nation". She also lectures throughout the world. She is the founder of a historic presentation troupe "De Gullah Cunneckshun," which has recorded several CDs and been featured on films and film soundtracks.

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Marvelyn Brown Marvelyn Brown (born May 7, 1984) is an African-American author and AIDS activist. She is the founder of Marvelous Connections, an HIV/AIDS organization founded in 2006. She wrote the autobiography "The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive", which tells her story as a young heterosexual woman living with HIV. She has delivered public speeches and made public appearances in the United States, Bermuda, Canada, Jamaica, Mexico, the Virgin Islands, South Africa, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Early life. Brown was born on May 7, 1984, in Nashville, Tennessee. She describes in her autobiography that she had regular clashes with her mother, but the two have since reconciled. She has two half-siblings with whom she keeps in contact, but has not actually met them in person due to them living across the country from her. HIV diagnosis. Having little knowledge on HIV, Brown was unaware that the disease could be contracted through heterosexual sex. She was a healthy track and basketball athlete but began showing symptoms of an unknown illness that became critical enough to put her in an intensive-care unit. Doctors were unable to determine the cause of her illness, and Brown began to wonder if she had contracted HIV. She was diagnosed HIV-positive thereafter at the age of 19 in 2003, and discovered she had contracted the virus from her boyfriend at the time. In an interview with "The Body", Brown stated "How did I not know that the virus was sexually transmitted? I felt I had been robbed by my community, my school and my church. The mantras I had heard over and over again growing up — 'Don't do drugs; don't get pregnant; don't smoke' — suddenly seemed so worthless. Never had someone mentioned the possibility of me, Marvelyn Brown, contracting HIV from unprotected sex. I had seen it as something only Africans or gay men got." HIV/AIDS activism. Her humanitarian work earned her a 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding National PSA, and she won the Do Something Award in 2009. She was inducted into The Heroes In The Struggle Photo Exhibit by The Magic Johnson Foundation and The Black AIDS Institute in 2010 and named a Modern Day Black History month hero by BET and was honored by the New Jersey NETS in 2011. She has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "America's Next Top Model", CNN, MTV, BET, and "The Tavis Smiley Show". She has also appeared in "Newsweek", "Ebony Magazine", and "Real Health" magazines. Her public-service announcement for Think MTV won an Emmy Award. Brown was named one of the Top 25 Heroes of the past twenty-five years of the AIDS epidemic, alongside Alicia Keys, Magic Johnson and Phill Wilson. Her stories had been featured in British publications of "Cosmopolitan", "Glamour", "Pride", and "Fabulous Magazine" and has been featured on the covers "A&U", "POZ", and "The Ave". Accusations of HIV/AIDS glorification. On October 3, 2008, Brown posted to her blog that she had been accused of glorifying her illness. "I am constantly being accused of glamorizing AIDS. Really? There is nothing glamorous about taking 7 horse pills that still make me gage ["sic"] after 4 1⁄2 years taking them. I contracted a 100% PREVENTABLE disease, people, which that is my message, not how glamorous I look doing it!" Two days earlier, she elaborated on why she had written "The naked Truth", adding, "I wrote "The Naked Truth" because I wanted people to get the full story and not a sound bite or the one-hour preping speaking engagement. Most people can’t identify with who I am now because I am HIV-Positive but they can identify with who I was before. That is what makes me relate and shows people that I am just like them. This virus is real and just because you are ignorant or uneducated about HIV that does not make you immune. That is why I wrote "The Naked Truth". I can’t be everywhere but my story can." 2010 press conference. On September 23, 2010, Brown held a press conference at the City College of New York. She educated attendees on the dangers of unsafe sex and HIV, for which she was required to accommodate to a new lifestyle. She shared that her medications often cause her to experience side effects, and recalled having to take forty-two pills in one day. However, she stated her average intake is eight pills a day. She commented that her illness is like “having a baby” to her because there's no vacation while taking medication. She openly stated she had previously wished to die, but after surviving a car accident is glad to have been given a "second chance", and says she has found God, to whom she gives thanks every day for still being alive today. Personal life. Brown continues to write and has dedicated her life to HIV/AIDS awareness. She has joked in the past that she will produce a sequel to "The Naked Truth" in the future, titled “The Naked Truth: Wife, Mother, and Still HIV Positive.” She lives in New York City, New York.

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E. E. Cleveland Edward Earl Cleveland (March 11, 1921 – August 30, 2009) commonly known as E. E. Cleveland was an author, civil rights advocate and evangelist of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Biography. E. E. Cleveland was born in Huntsville, Alabama on March 11, 1921 and died at the Huntsville Hospital on August 30, 2009 following an illness. He was married to Celia Marie Abney Cleveland on May 29, 1943 until her death in 2003. They have one son, Earl Clifford Cleveland. He preached his first sermon at the age of 6. At the age of 13 he was the Sabbath School secretary at his local church in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In the course of his work he traveled extensively, visiting over 67 countries. Church ministry. E. E. Cleveland served the Seventh-day Adventist Church for over 67 years in active and post-retirement ministry. His positions included: Evangelism. E. E. Cleveland was a very successful evangelist holding over 60 campaigns in 6 continents and training over 1,000 pastors. He was a Seventh-day Adventist church pioneer of the concept of evangelism in large cities and held national campaigns before satellite technology become common. In what has been called one of the most successful evangelistic campaigns in Adventist history Cleveland was the first Seventh-day Adventist to baptize more than 1,000 people in a single campaign. Held in 1966 in Port of Spain, Trinidad the series was housed in two large tents pitched side by side and opened with 3,300 people in attendance, swelling to 7,000 by the final service. In his campaigns, Cleveland baptized approximately 16,000 persons, including George Juko, the Crown Prince of Uganda. Many churches have been founded as a result of his campaigns. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rosa Parks are said to have attended his services in Montgomery. Civil Rights Activist. E. E. Cleveland was a long-time civil rights activist. He organized the N.A.A.C.P chapter for students on the campus of Oakwood College. As a black evangelist, he encountered difficulties related to racism. In 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama police patrolled his tent meetings after being reported in violation of Alabama ordinances prohibiting whites and blacks to comingle in a public meeting. Cleveland had insisted that these ordinances need not be obeyed. He participated in the first March on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and secured an 18-wheel tractor-trailer that served as a supply base for blankets and clothing. He was a member of the Washington, D.C. branch of the Organizing Committee of the Poor People's Campaign of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference dating back to 1968. Cleveland was twice the speaker for the South Florida S.C.L.C. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebrations in 1986 and 1987 and was credited by the local Director of the S.C.L.C. with helping the branch get a street named for Dr. King in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has conducted Feed The Hungry programs in over 20 cities in the United States. Cleveland also helped to set up a feeding depot in Washington, D.C. for the relief of the hungry during the civil disturbance that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. E. E. Cleveland was a co-founder and member of the Human Relations Committee of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. He was a member of the Flying Squad, a special unit of the church to investigate racial injustices and recommend action. In 1968, he became the first black to receive an honorary doctorate from Andrews University, a Seventh-day Adventist institution. Cleveland was the first African American church leader sent to Asia (excluding India), Europe, South America and Australia. On February 25, 1993, Cleveland was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. collegium of preachers and scholars at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Bibliography. E. E. Cleveland authored 16 published books. Cleveland was an Associate Editor for "Ministry", a monthly religious journal; contributing editor to "Message" magazine; contributing writer to "Signs", "Adventist Review", "These Times" and was a columnist to "The North American Voice" a monthly religious journal. Awards and honors. Cleveland's life has been the subject of a biography "E. E. Cleveland: Evangelist Extraordinary" by Harold Lee with Monte Sahlin. His autobiography is titled "Let the Church Roll On". The Bradford-Cleveland-Brooks (BCB) Leadership Center at Oakwood University which opened in October 2007 is in part named for E. E. Cleveland. It houses a training center for evangelists and ministers as well as provides additional classroom space for the Department of Religion and Theology. This building is also home to the classes for the first master's degree program for the university (Master of Arts degree in Pastoral Studies). Donation of papers. In November 2007 Cleveland donated his collection of personal manuscripts, sermons and papers to the Center for Adventist Research at Andrews University. This collection of nearly 2000 sermon manuscripts, hundreds of pictures, personal books and audio-visual materials has been termed "priceless" and is available to researchers.

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Michael Beckwith Michael Bernard Beckwith is a New Thought minister, author, and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Beverly Hills, California, a New Thought church with a congregation estimated in excess of 8,000 members. Beckwith was ordained in Religious Science in 1985. Career. Beckwith is founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, co-founder of the Association for Global New Thought, and co-chair of the Season for Nonviolence along with Arun Gandhi. In 1986, he founded the Agape International Spiritual Center, a transdenominational community which today counts a membership of 9,000 individuals who study and practice New Thought–Ancient Wisdom. Agape's outreach programs feed the homeless, serve incarcerated individuals and their families, advocate the preservation of the planet's environmental resources, and globally build and support orphanages whose children have survived the ravages of war and AIDS. Beckwith was one of the featured teachers in "The Secret" (2006) movie and the bestselling book by the same name that followed the film. Beckwith teaches meditation, affirmative prayer, and speaks at conferences and seminars. He is the originator of the Life Visioning Process, a technique purporting to offer its practitioners a method for putting a stop to being a passive tourist in one's life. He is author of "Spiritual Liberation", which won the Gold Medal Nautilus Book Award, "Inspirations of the Heart", which was a Nautilus Book Award finalist; "Forty Day Mind Fast Soul Feast"; "A Manifesto of Peace"; and "Living from the Overflow". In 2011, Beckwith released TranscenDance, a collection of remixed lectures set to electronic dance music by Stephen Bray and John Potoker. Beckwith was named to Oprah's "SuperSoul100" list of visionaries and influential leaders in 2016. Beckwith briefly appears in episode 4 of the UK Channel 4 television series "How to Rob a Bank" with a segment of his stage show and interview, describing how his inspirational talk led former US Marine Cain Dyer to hand himself in after committing 100 bank robberies.

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Abdullah H. Abdur-Razzaq Abdullah H. Abdur-Razzaq (December 20, 1931 – November 21, 2014) was an African-American activist and Muslim known for being one of Malcolm X's most trusted associates. Born James Monroe King Warden, he was known as James 67X when he belonged to the Nation of Islam and James Shabazz in the years after he left the organization. Early life. James Monroe King Warden was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in the impoverished Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. He attended the Bronx High School of Science, from which he graduated with honors. He enrolled in the City College of New York but transferred to Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, after a year. He soon left that school as well to join the Army. Following his discharge, he returned to Lincoln and graduated with honors in English in 1958. He received a master's degree from Columbia University. His work. In 1958, Warden joined the Nation of Islam at Mosque No. 7, on 102 West 116th Street in New York City, under Minister Malcolm X. As was the custom among Nation of Islam members, he abandoned the surname of Warden as a vestige of chattel slavery and became the 67th James in Mosque No. 7. By 1960, he had been promoted to lieutenant in the Fruit of Islam, subordinate to Captain Joseph X. Gravitt (later known as Yusuf Shah). Subsequently, he was appointed circulation manager for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut of "Muhammad Speaks", and answered directly to Malcolm X. After the split between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X formed Muslim Mosque, Inc. and appointed James, then still known as James 67X, secretary of the organization, as well as captain of the men. Based on Malcolm X's instruction, he took the name James Shabazz. Brother James, as he was sometimes referred, was also responsible for the formation of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a secular organization that Malcolm X had also formed, patterned after Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's Organisation of African Unity, and through which Malcolm X intended to charge the United States with violating the human rights of its chattel slave descendants. Shabazz was a constant and willing aide to Malcolm X, in his capacity as head of Muslim Mosque, Inc. and as head of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He remained with, and vigorously assisted Malcolm X until the leader's murder on February 21, 1965. Post-Malcolm X days. Abdur-Razzaq spent the years following Malcolm X's murder raising a family and co-founding Al-Karim School (which would later become Brooklyn's famed Cush Campus Schools) with Ora Abdur-Razzaq. He later moved to Guyana, where he worked as a farmer. Returning to the U.S. in 1988, he earned a nursing degree, and he worked in as a nurse until his retirement in 2004. In his later years, Abdur-Razzaq's work as staff consultant for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was invaluable in cataloging rare photographs, letters and accounts of Malcolm X's life and times. Furthermore, his expertise was widely solicited by journalists, authors, film makers and educators. In addition to his contributions to a wide array of published works, such as Bruce Perry's "Malcolm X: The Last Speeches", Abdur-Razzaq was featured in several television interviews and films, including "" and Gil Noble's "Like It Is". The DVD version of Jack Baxter's documentary "Brother Minister: The Assassination of Malcolm X" includes an "Exclusive Interview with Abdullah Abdur-Razzaq, Malcolm X's closest associate". Final years and death. In April 2013, Abdur-Razzaq returned to Lincoln University to speak about his memories and experiences working with Malcolm X. Battling leukemia, Abdur-Razzaq was admitted to Harlem Hospital in late 2014. After several weeks, he was transferred to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he died on November 21, 2014, at the age of 82. He is survived by children, grandchildren, and a large extended family.

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Barbara Christian Barbara T. Christian (December 12, 1943 in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands – June 25, 2000 in Berkeley, California) was an American author and professor of African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Among several books, and over 100 published articles, Christian was most well known for the 1980 study "Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition". Early life. Barbara Christian was born on December 12, 1943 in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands to Ruth and Alphonso Christian. Her father was a judge in St. Thomas and both of her parents strongly encouraged their children in pursuing academic goals. Christian was an avid reader and questioned why there were no African-American or Afro-Caribbean women included in her education or the stories she read. At the age of fifteen, Christian moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to attend Marquette University, graduating in 1963 "cum laude". Though her parents urged her to pursue medicine, Christian enrolled in graduate studies for literature at Columbia University in New York City. The school did not offer black studies at that time, but Christian chose Columbia because it would give her access to the Harlem intellectual community. Becoming friends with Langston Hughes, she was introduced to the works of black writers. Zora Neale Hurston, overlooked at the time, was an influence, especially her work, "Their Eyes Were Watching God". During her graduate studies, Christian taught English briefly during 1963 and 1964 at both the College of the Virgin Islands and Hunter College. The following year, she became a lecturer at the City College of the City University of New York and worked in a program to promote higher education to minority and underprivileged scholars, known as Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK). Upon completion of her dissertation, "Spirit Bloom in Harlem: The Search for Black Aesthetic during the Harlem Renaissance: The Poetry of Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and Jean Toomer", Christian earned her PhD in American and British Literature in 1970. Career. Immediately following her degree, Christian was promoted to an assistant professorship at City College, teaching English. The following year, she became an assistant professor at University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and in 1972, was a pivotal player in creating the African-American studies department at the university. Committed to increasing educational opportunities for minorities and the disadvantaged she was a founding member and an instructor at the University Without Walls in 1971. In 1978, Christian was granted tenure at UC Berkeley, the first African American woman to be tenured and the same year she was elected chair of the Department of African American Studies. During the 1970s, Christian began work editing part of the "Norton Anthology of African American Literature", which she would continue for the next two decades. She was one of the first scholars to bring the works of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker to the attention of academia. Christian published her first book, "Black Women Novelists:The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976" in 1980. It was a groundbreaking analysis, being the first comprehensive study, on works from nineteenth century to contemporary times (mid-1970s) of the black feminist literature. The book quickly became a reference for other scholars, leading to the development the academic study of black feminists, and her most known work. Christian held the chair of African American Studies until 1983. In 1985, she published "Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers". In it, she expressed that obsession with theory and the use of literature to advance ideological viewpoints were thwarting scholars from focusing on literary traditions of the work itself. In 1986, Christian was promoted, as the first woman of African descent, to full professor. That same year, she became the inaugural chair of the newly created doctoral program of ethnic studies; a position she held for three years. In 1991, Christian received the Distinguished Teaching Award from UC Berkeley and in 1994, was honored with the MELUS Distinguished Contribution to Ethnic Studies Award bestowed by The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. Barbara Christian's "The Race for Theory" was published in 1987 in the academic journal "Cultural Critique". The essay gave a state-of-the-field of literary criticism and argued that literary theory was becoming increasingly abstract, disconnected, and expressed in mystifying language. Christian tied this phenomenon directly to a rise in critics being trained solely as academics, without any experience as creative writers. She stated that this method of producing theory helped exclude peoples of color, black women, Latin Americans, and Africans from the category of theorists. It also discounted the many variations in language, style, and genre that comprise theory. Christian wrote against the idea that literary theory should be generalizable or universal, instead calling for specific approaches for every text: "So my 'method,' to use a new 'lit. crit' word, is not fixed but relates to what I read and to the historical context of the writers I read "and" to the many critical activities in which I am engaged, which may or may not involve writing." In April 2000, Christian was awarded the UC Berkeley's highest honor, the Berkeley Citation. She died on June 25, 2000 from complications from lung cancer.

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Cathy J. Cohen Cathy J. Cohen (born 1962) is an American political scientist, author, feminist, and social activist, whose work has focused on the African-American experience in politics from a perspective which is underlined by intersectionality. She is currently the David and Mary Winton Green Professor in Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago, and is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Race (2002–05). Early life and education. She received her BA from Miami University, Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1993 and began her academic career at Yale University where she received tenure. Cohen joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 2002. Career and impact. Cohen frequently writes and speaks about gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and their interrelatedness and connection to power. This approach puts her in a class of leftist intellectuals who work to have social and public policy influence on the lives of marginalized groups in a positive way. Cohen, a black lesbian and parent, is the principal researcher on the Black Youth Project, a nationwide survey which focuses on factors that influence black youth decision-making, norms, etc., and has a central focus on understanding how black youth feel political challenges significantly impact them. Cohen is the author of "Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and The Future of American Politics" and "Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics" and "Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?". Cohen is also the co-editor of "Women Transforming Politics: An Alternative Reader" with Kathleen Jones and Joan Tronto and the co-author of a study on New Media and Youth Political Action, which is part of the Youth and Participatory Politics survey project. She was also on the board of as well as the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at CUNY. Her book "Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics" explores how issues such as age, gender, sexuality and the growing AIDs epidemic shape the acceptance boundaries within the African-American community. In "Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and The Future of American Politics," Cohen uses findings from the Black Youth Project to provide a detailed description of what black youth want, how they understand intersecting challenges of opportunity and discrimination, and how we can begin to help transform the lived experiences and future outcomes of African American youth"." Cohen is one of the founding board members of the Audre Lorde Project, which focuses on providing adequate representation, community wellness, and efficient economic and social justice for the LGBT+ communities they serve. Cohen is active in a number of organizations working on social justice issues; she has moderated the Applied Research Center's 2010 conference "Popularizing Racial Justice", and served as secretary of the American Political Science Association. Cohen has also been member of the Black Radical Congress, African American Women in Defense of Ourselves and the United Coalition Against Racism. She currently serves as a board member of the Arcus Foundation and of the University of Chicago’s four charter schools. Notable works. “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” (1997). In “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics”, Cohen brings attention to and problematizes queer theory’s single-oppression framework. She argues that this single-oppression framework reinforces the binary between queer/non-queer, creating a category to identify with instead of strategically challenging heteronormativity. By heteronormativity, Cohen is referring to the practices and institutions that legitimize and privilege heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships presumed to be “natural” in society. Heteronormativity is the normalizing power that is at the focus of queer politics. Because “queer” is taken up in public discourse as a “deviant sexuality” and is indicative of non-normativity, Cohen argues that queer theory fails to advocate and recognize those who are not queer-identified as sexually marginalized subjects, which in turn, limits the radical potential of queer politics. She suggests that we broaden our understanding of queerness, because as it currently stands, the term “queer” does not encompass all marginalized identities. She urges that we must recognize the intersections of oppression and understand how multiple identities work to limit the privilege granted to those who conform to heteronormativity. This article is a call for action for queer activism to take an intersectional approach towards transformation. “The Radical Potential of Queer? Twenty Years Later” (2019). In “The Radical Potential of Queer? Twenty Years Later”, Cohen reflected on her article “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens” saying that it was shaped primarily by three factors: the HIV/AIDS crisis, neoliberal policies and ideologies implemented by Reagan and Clinton that harmed the poor, and hope, which stands in contrast to the first two (she is referring to the emergence of Black feminist and Black gay and lesbians communities between the 70s-90s). The article is primarily focused on hope, as Cohen is afraid of the erasure that happens with re-writing history, especially around Black and gay communities framed as only as response to HIV/AIDS. In fact, she argues that we need to remember that these communities were a radical attack on politics of respectability, and state violence. Cohen articulates that “queer” and “queerness” have become politicized identities in and of themselves, which she is suggesting may rob it of the very potentials that queering is supposed to engender. In other words, queerness as a practice is about the ability to create an opposition to dominant norms—but increasing to be queer is a “normal” identity. Thus, it may be weakening as a position of resistance, because it has become part of a range of identities, which is a turn away from being a form of resistance to categorization and heteronormativity. Cohen concludes with a hopeful message that perhaps her vision of queer resistance isn’t what she thought it would be twenty years ago, but recognizes the potential for contemporary Black feminism and queer activists to make radical change. Awards and honors. She has received a number of awards, including the Robert Wood Johnson Investigator’s Award, and the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Research Fellowship. Cohen is the recipient of two research grants from the Ford Foundation for her work as principal investigator of the Black Youth Project and the Mobilization, Change and Political and Civic Engagement Project. Cohen serves on a number of national and local advisory boards and is the co-editor with Frederick Harris of a book series at Oxford University Press entitled "Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities". In 2004, Cohen was awarded the Race, Politics, and Adolescent Health: Understanding the Health Attitudes and Behaviors of African American Youth Award. In 2004, Cohen was also interviewed for the Global Feminisms Project Comparative Case Studies Of Women's Activism and Scholarships, which is an archive of oral histories given by transnational women scholars and activists. In 2013, Cohen gave the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture, entitled "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Age of Obama: Building a New Movement for the 21st Century", at Gustavus Adolphus College.

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Rebecca Lee Crumpler Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born Rebecca Davis, (February 8, 1831March 9, 1895), was an American physician, nurse and author. After studying at the New England Female Medical College, in 1864 she became the first African-American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States. Crumpler was one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century. In 1883, she published "A Book of Medical Discourses". The book has two parts that cover the prevention and cure of infantile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was among the first publications written by an African American about medicine. Crumpler graduated from medical college at a time when very few African Americans were allowed to attend medical college or publish books. Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston, primarily serving poor women and children. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing treating women and children was an ideal way to perform missionary work. Crumpler worked for the Freedmen's Bureau to provide medical care for freed slaves. She was subject to "intense racism" and sexism while practicing medicine. During this time, many men believed that a man's brain was 10 percent bigger than a woman's brain on average, and that a woman's job was to act submissively and be beautiful. Because of this, many male physicians did not respect Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and would not approve her prescriptions for patients or listen to her medical opinions. Still, Rebecca Lee Crumpler persevered and worked passionately. She later moved back to Boston to continue to treat women and children. The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society at Syracuse University and the Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, were named after her. Her Joy Street house is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. Early life and education. In 1831, Crumpler, was born in Christiana, Delaware to Matilda Webber and Absolum Davis. She was raised in Pennsylvania by her aunt who cared for ill townspeople. Her aunt acted as the doctor in her community and had a huge influence on her. She was inspired by her aunt after seeing that she was the one to go to when people got sick. She moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1852, where she worked as a nurse before applying and becoming accepted into the New England Female Medical College. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the only African American woman who attended this school at this time. Education. Nursing and medical school. From 1855 to 1864, Crumpler was employed as a nurse. She was accepted into the New England Female Medical College in 1860. This school was founded in 1848 by Samuel Gregory. She won a tuition award from the Wade Scholarship Fund, established by a bequest from local businessman John Wade of Woburn. It was rare for women or black men to be admitted to medical schools during this time. In 1860, due to the heavy demands of medical care for Civil War veterans, there were more opportunities for women physicians and doctors. Due to her talent, Crumpler was given a recommendation to attend the school by her supervising physician when she was a medical apprentice. That year, there were 54,543 physicians in the United States, 300 of whom were women. None of them were African Americans making Rebecca Lee Crumpler the first and only African American physician in her class. Crumpler graduated from New England Female Medical College in 1864 after having completed three years of coursework, a thesis, and final oral examinations in February 1864. On March 1, 1864, the board of trustees named her a Doctor of Medicine. Married to Wyatt Lee at that time, she was identified as Mrs. Rebecca Lee by the school, where she was the only African American graduate. She was the country's first African-American woman to become a formally-trained physician. Physician. Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston. She primarily cared for poor African-American women and children. After the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865), she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing it to be an ideal way to provide missionary service, as well as to gain more experience learning about diseases that affected women and children. She said of that time, "During my stay there nearly every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The last quarter of the year 1866, I was enabled... to have access each day to a very large number of the indigent, and others of different classes, in a population of over 30,000 colored." Crumpler worked for the Freedmen's Bureau to provide medical care to freed slaves who were denied care by white physicians. At the Freedmen's Bureau she worked under the assistant commissioner, Orlando Brown. Subject to intense racism by both the administration and other physicians, she had difficulty getting prescriptions filled and was ignored by male physicians. Some people heckled that the M.D. behind her name stood for "Mule Driver".Rebecca knew being the first African American woman in this field would be challenging, but she was resilient and overcame this adversity. Crumpler moved to 67 Joy Street in Boston, a predominantly African-American community street in Beacon Hill. She practiced medicine and treated children without much concern for the parents' ability to pay. Her house is on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. Education. In 1860, bearing letters of recommendation from her physician-employers, Crumpler was accepted into the elite West Newton English and Classical School in Massachusetts, where she was a "special student in mathematics". Crumpler taught in Wilmington beginning in 1874 and in New Castle, Delaware beginning in 1876. "A Book of Medical Discourses". In 1883, Crumpler published "A Book of Medical Discourses" from the notes she kept over the course of her medical career. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focused on the medical care of women and children. Her main desire in presenting this book was to emphasize the "possibilities of prevention". Therefore, she recommended that women should study the mechanisms of human structure before becoming a nurse in order to better enable themselves to protect life. However, Crumpler stated that most nurses did not agree with this and tended to forget that for every ailment, there was a cause and it was within their power to remove it. Although her primary focus was on the health of women and children, which seemed to be influenced by homeopathy, Crumpler recommended courses of treatment without stating that the treatment was homeopathic. She did not mention that medicine could be harmful, but stated the conventional amount of standard medicine usage. Her medical book is divided into two sections: in the first part she focuses on preventing and mitigating intestinal problems that can occur around the teething period until the child is about five years of age; the second part mainly focused on the following areas: "life and growth of beings", the beginning of womanhood and the prevention and cure of most of the "distressing complaints" of both sexes. Although the book was focussed on medical advice, Crumpler also ties in autobiographical details that contain political, social, and moral commentary. Specifically in the first chapter, Crumpler gave non-medical advice concerning her thoughts on what age and how a woman should enter into marriage. The chapter also contained advice for both men and women on how to ensure a happy marriage. Crumpler describes the progression of experiences that led her to study and practice medicine in her book: It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years; most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of Doctress of Medicine. At the time, writings and books by African-American authors had prefaces and introductions written in the style of white male writings to give them authentication. Crumpler was able to introduce her own text, and was also able to justify her work based on her own authority. Personal life. While living in Charlestown, Rebecca Davis married Wyatt Lee, a Virginia native and former slave. They were married on April 19, 1852. This was Wyatt’s second, and her first, marriage. A year later Wyatt’s son, Albert, died at age 7. This tragedy may have motivated Rebecca to begin her study of nursing for the next eight years. Rebecca was still a medical student when her husband died of tuberculosis on April 18, 1863. He is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Boston. Dr. Rebecca Lee married Arthur Crumpler in Saint John, New Brunswick on May 24, 1865. Arthur was a former fugitive slave from Southampton County, Virginia. Born in 1824, he was the son of Samuel Crumpler, a slave of Benjamin Crumpler. Arthur lived on the neighboring estate of a large landowner, Robert Adams, with his mother and siblings. When Adams died, his family was sold and nine-year-old Arthur was kept by Robert Adams' son, John Adams of Smithfield, Virginia after Arthur won a wrestling contest with John on the day of the estate auction. Except for one sister, he never found out the whereabouts of the people who purchased his family members. He served with the Union Army at Fort Monroe, Virginia as a blacksmith, based upon his training and experience. He went to Massachusetts in 1862 and was taken in by Nathaniel Allen, founder of the West Newton English and Classical School, called the Allen School. On July 16, 2020, a ceremony was held at the Fairview Cemetery to dedicate a gravestone in memory of Rebecca Lee Crumpler and her husband Arthur. The granite stone was the result of a fundraising appeal spearheaded by Vicky Gall, a history buff and president of the Friends of the Hyde Park Library. The couple were active members of the Twelfth Baptist Church where Arthur was a trustee. They had a home at 20 Garden Street in Boston. Their daughter Lizzie Sinclair Crumpler was born in mid-December 1870. Crumpler spoke at a service for Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner upon his death in 1874. She read a poem that she had written for him, where "she touchingly alluded to his love for the gifted Emerson". By 1880, the Crumplers moved to Hyde Park, Boston. Although no photographs or other images of Crumpler survive, a "Boston Globe" article described her as "a very pleasant and intellectual woman and an indefatigable church worker. Dr. Crumpler is 59 or 60 years of age, tall and straight, with light brown skin and gray hair." About marriage, she said the secret to a successful marriage "is to continue in the careful routine of the courting days, till it becomes well understood between the two". Rebecca Crumpler died on March 9, 1895, in Fairview, Massachusetts, while still residing in Hyde Park. She and her husband Arthur are both buried at the nearby Fairview Cemetery. Arthur died in May 1910. She and her husband were buried in unmarked graves for 125 years, until July 16, 2020. Donations were collected through a fundraiser to create gravestones for the couple and a ceremony was held at Fairview Cemetery, as a gravestone finally was installed, marking where she and her husband are buried. Legacy. The Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, was named in her honor. Her home on Joy Street is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. In 2019, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared March 30 (National Doctors Day) the Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day. At Syracuse University there is a pre-health club named "The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society". This club encourages people of diverse backgrounds to pursue health professions. They offer mentors, workshops, and resources to help members succeed. Rebecca Lee Crumpler and her husband Arthur Crumpler also received new granite headstones to celebrate her achievement of being a pioneer physician who earned her medical degree in Boston.

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Demico Boothe Demico Boothe is an African-American bestselling author of several books on the plight of African American men in the American prison system. Boothe's book, "Why Are There So Many Black Men in Jail?" addresses the issue of racism in the Crack versus Cocaine Laws and was published in 2007, three years before Michelle Alexander's better-known book that also addresses the subject, "The New Jim Crow," published in 2010. "Why Are There So Many Black Men in Prison?" is on the Black Lives Matter recommended reading list. Biography. Boothe was born in Memphis, Tennessee and grew up partly in his mother’s home in the Castalia Heights Projects in South Memphis, and partly at his father’s home, in a part of Memphis that was originally “residential, crime-free” but that degenerated during Boothe’s teen years when Crip gang members started inducting young neighborhood men into the drug trade. In addition, Boothe’s father, who had previously made a good living in business, developed a crack cocaine habit and began spending all his money on the drug. Boothe started working two part-time jobs, but his father demanded the earnings so he could buy drugs. Boothe had always hoped to go to college. By the time he was finishing up high school and determining how he could finance a college degree, his father had entered a drug rehabilitation program but was still in too much debt due to his previous drug habit to help Boothe out financially. In addition, Boothe’s younger brother was making large amounts of money selling cocaine. Boothe then made the decision to engage in cocaine sales in order to make enough money to pay for his college fees. After six months of selling, at the age of 18, Boothe was arrested (on a first-time charge) and sentenced to ten years in prison for “possession with intent to distribute over 50 grams of crack cocaine.” At that time, crack cocaine sentences were 100 times longer than for selling powder cocaine. A major theme of his book, "Why Are There So Many Black Men in Prison?" is this sentencing disparity, which Boothe blames on racism. After serving eight years and ten months in various prisons, Boothe was released. He was determined to stay out of prison but, six months after his release, was re-arrested when he unknowingly drove a friend to a rendezvous to buy counterfeit money. The friend promised to testify that Boothe had known nothing about the counterfeit money, but upon being repeatedly warned and pressured by both his counsel and the judge, the friend decided not to testify after all. The friend’s mother did testify to Boothe’s innocence, but the jury still convicted Boothe to another 46 months in prison. During this second prison stint, Boothe set out to educate himself as part of an overall plan to prepare himself for life outside and to do all he could to make sure he never did time again. Altogether, Boothe spent nearly 13 years in federal prison and was released in 2003. He wrote his first book, entitled "Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?", while incarcerated. To date, he has written and published three other books, including: "Getting Out & Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success After Prison" and "The Top 25 Things Black Folks Do That We Need To Stop!!!" The latter was published in January, 2009, and received much critical acclaim within the African-American community. Career. Boothe is a noted expert on many subjects and issues concerning the African-American community, with an emphasis on the U.S. criminal justice system as it relates to black males. Besides addressing the issue of anti-black racism in the legal and prison system, Boothe is an advocate for education and lifelong learning. He notes, for example, that the black men he met in prison were very badly educated. On the back of his book, Why Are "So Many Black Men in Prison?", Boothe states that, while he was incarcerated, he read and studied over 500 books, including the entire Webster's Dictionary, the Bible, the Qur'an, as well as every alphabetical entry in the 1998 Encyclopædia Britannica. Boothe also advocates taking a pragmatic approach to avoiding the "school to prison pipeline." In his book, "Getting Out and Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success After Prison," he suggests "taking full control and responsibility of yourself and your actions from that point on, despite any injustices or wrongful actions that may have been committed against you by the system." Other suggestions are, as above, embarking on a serious reading program while still in prison, and when out, developing an entrepreneurial work style, and growing, fostering, and maintaining a committed, supportive relationship and permanent family unit. Works. "Why Are There So Many Black People in Prison?" (2007) "The Top 25 Things Black Folks Do that We Need to Stop!!!" (2009) "Getting Out & Staying Out: A Black Man's Guide to Success after Prison" (2012) "The U.S. Child Support System and the Black Family" (2018)

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David Ehrenstein David Ehrenstein (born February 18, 1947) is an American critic who focuses primarily on LGBTQ issues in cinema. Life and career. Ehrenstein was born in New York City. His father was a secular Jew with Polish ancestors, and his mother was half African-American, half Irish. His mother raised him in her religion, Roman Catholicism. He attended the High School of Music and Art (different from the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts) and then Pace College (now Pace University). He now lives in Los Angeles. He is openly gay. His writing career started in 1965 with an interview with Andy Warhol which was published in "Film Culture" magazine in 1966. Ehrenstein wrote for "Film Culture" until 1983. During the 1960s he also wrote for "December" and the "Village Voice". In 1976 he moved to Los Angeles with his partner Bill Reed and began work as a film critic and entertainment journalist for the "Los Angeles Herald-Examiner" and also wrote for "Film Comment" and "Film Quarterly" during this period. In 1982 he collaborated with Bill Reed on the book "Rock On Film", while continuing to write for diverse publications, including the "San Francisco Examiner", "Rolling Stone", "Cahiers du Cinéma", "Arts", the "Los Angeles Reader", "Enclitic", and "Wide Angle". From the "Herald-Examiner" he moved to "Daily Variety" and later "The Advocate". He also wrote "Film: The Front Line - 1984", a survey of experimental and independent film work. He has contributed to "Sight and Sound". In 1987 he served as the film researcher and historian for the "Hollywood and History" costume exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1992 he published "The Scorsese Picture: The Art and Life of Martin Scorsese". In 1998 he published "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1927-1997". As he documents on his blog and website, lawyers representing Hollywood actor Tom Cruise threatened to take legal action against Ehrenstein because he wrote of how Cruise is appealing to both men and women. Ehrenstein has appeared often on "The E! True Hollywood Story", specifically for the profiles of Rock Hudson, Sonny Bono, and Bob Guccione. He has also written about the film "Brokeback Mountain" for "LA Weekly". His homepage and blog also contain commentary and satire on various journalists, politicians and figures in the entertainment industry. "Obama the 'Magic Negro'". In March 2007, Ehrenstein wrote an opinion piece on Barack Obama, in which he used the archetype of the magical negro to describe Obama, who was then an Illinois senator and candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president. The title of the piece, "Obama the 'Magic Negro'", was later used in a musical parody called "Barack the Magic Negro" by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin. This piece of music caused some controversy in late December, 2008, when compact discs featuring the song were distributed by Tennessee political activist Chip Saltsman (a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee) to various Republican Party activists as Christmas gifts. Part of Saltsman's response to the controversy was that the song was actually a parody of Ehrenstein's "irresponsible" column itself, rather than a parody of Obama. Ehrenstein responded to the controversy in late December stating, "As everyone knows Whites feel no guilt about America's racist history whatsoever. All they care about is the appearance of "politesse" — the slimy veneer of 'good manners.' Clearly the Republican party is 'split' over what to do in the wake of having lost so much political capital. Chip and his ilk want to continue making childish attacks. Others in the party seek to turn chicken shit into chicken salad by claiming Obama is the second coming of Ronald Reagan."

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Hallie Quinn Brown Hallie Quinn Brown (March 10, 1849 – September 16, 1949) was an American educator, writer and activist. Originally of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she moved with her parents while quite young to a farm near Chatham, Canada. Brown was born to parents who had been enslaved. Brown's family moved to Canada in 1864 and then to Ohio in 1870. In 1868, she began a course of study in Wilberforce University, Ohio, from which she graduated in 1873 with the degree of Bachelor of Science. She started her career by teaching at a country school in South Carolina and at the same time, a class of older people. After this, she went to Mississippi, where she again had charge of a school. She became employed as a teacher at Yazoo City, Mississippi, before securing a position as teacher in Dayton, Ohio. Resigning due to ill health, she then traveled in the interest of Wiberforce University on a lecture tour, and was particularly welcomed at Hampton Normal School (now Hampton University) in Virginia. Though elected as instructor in elocution and literature at Wilberforce University, she declined the offer in order to accept a position at Tuskegee Institute. In 1886, she graduated from Chautauqua, and in 1887 received the degree of Master of Science from her alma mater, Wilberforce, being the first woman to do so. Early years and education. Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of six children. Her parents, Frances Jane Scroggins and Thomas Arthur Brown, were freed slaves. Her brother, Jeremiah, became a politician in Ohio. At a young age, Brown's parents and siblings migrated to Ontario, Canada. She attended Wilberforce University and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in 1873. There were a total of six people in her class. One of her classmates was the wife of Rev. B. F. Lee, D.D., ex-President of Wilberforce. Career. Educator. Realizing that a great field of labor lay in the South, Brown, with true missionary' spirit, left her pleasant home and friends to devote herself to the noble work she had chosen. Her first school was on a plantation in South Carolina, where she endured the rough life as best she could, and taught a large number of children from neighboring plantations. She also taught a class of aged people, who were then able to read the Bible. She next took charge of a school on Sonora Plantation, in Mississippi, the people much hindered by the use of tobacco and whisky. Her plantation school had no windows, but it was well ventilated and the rain beat in fiercely. Not being successful in getting the authorities to fix the building, she secured the willing service of two of her larger students. She mounted one mule, and the two boys another, and thus they rode to the gin mill. They got cotton seed, returned, mixed it with earth, which formed a plastic mortar, and with her own hands she pasted up the holes. Her fame as instructor spread and her services were secured as teacher at Yazoo City. On account of the unsettled state of affairs in 1874–5, she was compelled to return North. Thus the South lost one of its most valuable missionaries. Brown then taught in Dayton, Ohio, for four years. Owing to ill health, she gave up teaching. She was persuaded to travel for her alma mater, Wilberforce, and started on a lecturing tour, concluding at Hampton School, Virginia. After taking a course in elocution at this place, she traveled again, having much greater success, and received favorable criticism from the press. She was dean of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, from 1885 to 1887 and principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama during 1892–93 under Booker T. Washington. She became a professor at Wilberforce in 1893, and was a frequent lecturer on African American issues and the temperance movement, speaking at the international Woman's Christian Temperance Union conference in London in 1895 and representing the United States at the International Congress of Women in London in 1899. She also performed in front of Queen Victoria in 1897. In 1896, she held a meeting in Edinburgh and gave an interview with a correspondent of "The Edinburgh Evening News." The correspondent wrote: "Our representative found Miss Brown eager to lay before the public the case of the American negro, whose troubles are far from having been ended by the mere process of emancipation…. Miss Brown had some striking faces to narrate of the enmity of the white population towards their black brethren. The feeling, of course, is most bitter in the Southern States – the old slave centres. Even in the North, however, it manifests itself. “I have travelled and conversed with educated people of the well-to-do class, who the moment they discovered that I had a drop or two of negro blood in me, got out of the way, looking as though they could have kicked themselves for having even unwittingly fallen into such company.” In many districts, a negro who went into a white man’s church and took a seat there would promptly be invited out, and, if he did not go, would be hustled out by the police…Again, on their railways, the negro must travel in one miserable car only, the “Jim Crow car,” in which all people of colour, refined or not, are expected to travel. They may pay first-class fare – it is all the same. And in the rougher districts of the South, a negro who did so far forget himself as to travel in any other compartment would speedily be hauled out and subjected to mob violence. A negro daren’t as much as look at a white woman. On the other hand, there is no prescription against the meanest of the white travellers entering the “Jim Crow” compartment, and molesting or insulting negro girls and women travelling unprotected there. Miss Brown mentioned that on several occasions, while travelling in the Southern States, she had been warned to change the seat she occupied in the train, or to leave it altogether..." She also described the convict lease system: ""Another wicked practice is the exploiting of negro prison labour. You have young negro boys and girls, convicted of trifling offences, which in Britain would be dealt with in a reformatory, sent to the workhouse. That is a very different institution to the workhouse of this country. It is really a jail. These young offenders are taken out to work by day at building, or road making, or so forth, and locked up again at night. “I have seen myself,” Miss Brown said, “girls of 12 chained to hardened criminals, going out to break stones on the roads.” This system, she went on to explain, cuts in two ways. In the first place, it affords a ready means of disfranchising the negro. In the second place, it gives the ruling class a supply of cheap convict labour…Then there is what is called the “convict lease system” – the hiring out of prison labour"..." Elocutionist. For several years she traveled with "The Wilberforce Grand Concert Company", an organization for the benefit of Wilberforce College. She read before hundreds of audiences, and tens of thousands of people. She possessed a magnetic voice, seeming to have perfect control of the muscles of the throat, and could vary her voice as successfully. As a public reader, Brown enthused her audiences. In her humorous selections, she often caused "wave after wave" of laughter; in her pathetic pieces, she often moved her audience to tears. Reformer and activist. In 1893, Brown presented a paper at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. In addition to Brown, four more African American women presented at the conference: Anna Julia Cooper, Fannie Barrier Williams, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Sarah Jane Woodson Early. Brown was a founder of the Colored Woman's League of Washington, D.C., which in 1894 merged into the National Association of Colored Women. She was president of the Ohio State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs from 1905 until 1912, and of the National Association of Colored Women from 1920 until 1924. She spoke at the Republican National Convention in 1924 and later directed campaign work among African-American women for President Calvin Coolidge. Brown was inducted as an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta. Private life. She was a prominent member of the A. M. E. Church; also a member of the "King's Daughters," "Human Rights League," and the "Isabella Association." Brown died on September 16, 1949, in Wilberforce, Ohio, and is buried at Massies Creek Cemetery in Cedarville, Ohio. Her biography, "Hallie Quinn Brown, Black Woman Elocutionist, 1845(?)-1949", was published by Annjennette Sophie in 1975.

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Ashley Nicole Black Ashley Nicole Black (born June 15, 1985) is an American comedian, actress, and writer from Los Angeles, California. She was a writer and correspondent for "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" from 2016-2019. She left the show in February 2019 to write and act in "A Black Lady Sketch Show" on HBO. Black received the 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for her work on "Full Frontal." Early life and education. Black was born in Los Angeles, and grew up in Walnut, California, a suburb of said city. Black graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2007 with a degree in theatre arts. She then attended Northwestern University, where she earned a master's degree in performance studies. Black was four years into a PhD program at Northwestern University when she decided to drop out and pursue her dream of working in comedy. Career. Black's comedy career began at the Second City, where she first attended an improv class that her parents paid for her to attend. In 2016, she was hired as a correspondent on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. She worked on the show for three years, during which time she received six total Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning in 2017 for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. Her last episode on "Full Frontal" was on February 13, 2019. Black has also appeared as an actor on Comedy Central's "Drunk History" and in the 2014 film "An American Education". In 2019, Black joined other WGA writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA and the unfair practice of packaging. She is a cast member and writer on HBO's "A Black Lady Sketch Show", which debuted in 2019. Personal life. Black resides in Los Angeles.

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Mary Elizabeth Carnegie Mary Elizabeth Carnegie (19 April 1916 – 20 February 2008) was an educator and author in the field of nursing. Known for breaking down racial barriers, she was the first black nurse to serve as a voting member on the board of a state nursing association. She was later president of the American Academy of Nursing and edited the journal "Nursing Research". Early life. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, received a diploma from the Lincoln School of Nurses, bachelor's degree from West Virginia State College, master's degree from Syracuse University, and doctor of public administration degree from New York University. Career. After receiving her bachelor's degree from West Virginia State College, Carnegie took a job in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia. She became a clinical instructor at St. Philip Hospital School of Nursing. While working at St. Philip, Carnegie was exposed to a different social system in the nursing world in the south. Carnegie joined the Florida Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (FACGN) in 1945. She was elected president of the organization three years later. Traditionally, the FACGN was named a courtesy (non-voting) board member of the Florida State Nurses Association the next year. After Carnegie's service with the FACGN, the FSNA board decided to grant her full rights and responsibilities on their board. She was the first black nurse to serve on the board of a state nursing association. Between 1945 and 1953, Carnegie was a professor and dean of the nursing school at Florida A&M University. She later served as president of the American Academy of Nursing and was the editor of "Nursing Research". She was awarded eight honorary doctorates and was inducted into the hall of fame of the American Nurses Association. She was inducted into the Virginia Nursing Hall of Fame in 2009. After developing hypertensive cardiovascular disease, Carnegie died in 2008 in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She had lived there for 25 years. Carnegie had been married once; her husband died in 1954.

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Sam Aleckson Samuel Williams (1852 – 1946?), better known by his pen name Sam Aleckson, was an American slave and author of "Before the War and After the Union: An Autobiography". Like his father, Alexander Williams, his mother, Susan Williams, and his grandfather of the same name, Samuel Williams was born into slavery in 1852 in Charleston, South Carolina. His great-grandfather, Clement Williams, was brought from Africa in the Atlantic slave trade. Samuel Williams' memoir offers a rare look into the lives of the urban enslaved in North America and the ways freedmen negotiated their ways through Reconstruction and into the 20th century. Samuel Williams had the great fortune of being taught the three "R's" by his owners. Once freed, he used his literacy to document his life and obtained publication in 1929. Williams quotes Shakespeare to readers of his autobiography by drawing from "Othello": "I will a plain unvarnished tale deliver," a line often used in slave narratives but powerful here. The humbleness of this phrase belies a thoughtful, complex life story. While his memoir was actually published in 1929, Williams claims to have composed it in 1914 during a time when he feared he might go blind and wanted to document his life before that occurred. However, he did not go blind, and lived on for several more decades, most likely dying in Massachusetts in 1946. Before the War. In his narrative, he states: "The place of my birth and the conditions under which I was born are matters over which, of course, I had no control. If I had, I should have altered the conditions, but I should not have changed the place; for it is a grand old city, and I have always felt proud of my citizenship." His mother and father were owned by separate families. Like many enslaved children, Williams sometimes lived in a family unit and sometimes did not; he lived in the households of both his father's enslavers for a good part of the time. During his early childhood, his mother and older brother worked with her owners while he remained in his grandmother's care because he was too young for any practical use. Williams held some good memories of his early years, saying that of the family that enslaved him and his relatives, they were "of all slave holders, the very best." The younger children had almost all of their time free to play. Early on, Williams would play with the neighbor's white children, and later with other black children on the plantation that to which he moved. However, Sam makes sure to clearly indicate, "There is nothing good to be said of American slavery. I know it is sometimes customary to speak of its bright and its dark sides. I am not prepared to admit that it had any bright sides, unless it was the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln..." In his early childhood, while the four white children Williams played with were at school, Williams was taught how to read and write by the three unmarried white ladies who were most likely part of the family that enslaved Williams' father. He was taught using only one book, which he called "Thomas Dilworth's," referring to "A New Guide to the English Tongue" by Thomas Dilworth. From the book, Williams claims he learned about grammar, weights and measures, ciphers, and morals. In addition, Williams describes the popular use of slates for his lessons, as well as his fascination with fable illustrations that instructed what was moral and what was not: "...such as that of the man who prayed to Hercules to take his wagon out of the mire; of the two men who stole a piece of meat; of the lazy maids and of the kindhearted man who took a half frozen serpent into his house." He also states many slaves were punished for being found in possession of the schoolbook, though the reward of mastering the book was being considered a "prodigy of learning" within the slave community. Of his owner, Williams stated: "Mr. Ward was what was called a 'good master.' His people were well-fed, well-housed, and not over-worked. There were certain inflexible rules however, governing his plantation of which he allowed not the slightest infraction, for he had his place for the Negro... His place for the Negro was in subjection and servitude to the white man." Williams alludes to his master's classism, pointing out that his white supremacy ideology did not extend to all whites and that there were some he would have barred from slaveholding. Ward, like many other slaveholders, asserted his role as owner and enslaver with a paternalistic view. He provided well for his slaves while demanding complete obedience. Ward, for example, took care to always know their whereabouts by insisting he authorize any departure from his land and as Williams depicts in his memoir, Ward had no qualms about punishing those slaves he felt defied him. As a boy, Williams learned to ride horses from one of his enslavers. Williams states, "He taught me to ride, and when I could sit my horse well 'bare-back' he had a saddle made for me at the then famous 'McKinzie's' saddlery, sign of the 'White Horse' at the corner of Church and Chalmers Street." This training to ride was not wholly unique to Williams' experience. In fact, enslaved people were essential to the world of horse racing in the American South. Jockeys and trainers were commonly enslaved people. Despite limited privileges, these enslaved horse riders were still subjected to the realities of being slaves in a slave society. Williams never became a formal jockey, however, and of this he says the following: "Possibly Mr. Dane had 'views', concerning me for he owned several fast horses, but before I was old enough to be of practical service, 'Sherman came marching through Georgia.'" During the War. Williams recounts his arriving in Charleston one day to find that "men were going about the streets wearing blue cockades on the lapels of their coats." This was his first realization that there was a war going on, though the effects (amazingly high prices for everything and the disappearance of many of the young men to go fight) had been felt for a while. Williams recounts the conversations between other enslaved men and women at this time regarding the impending war and their support of the Union officer General Robert Anderson, who defied the Confederacy by trying to maintain Federal control of Fort Sumter. Free and enslaved African Americans were barred from being soldiers in the Confederacy. However, after Williams' older brother died of fever, the 10-year-old Williams took his brother's place as a Confederate officer's "boy." He ran errands for the soldiers but he was never mentioned in the remembrance of Confederate soldiers. Williams acknowledges this in his memoir: "And here I must admit I wore the 'gray.' I have never attended any of the Confederate reunions. I suppose they overlooked my name on the army roll!" Williams' childhood home on Guignard Street was destroyed by the Great Charleston Fire on December 11, 1861. This fire destroyed many of the main landmarks such as the Charleston Circular Church and Institute Hall where the Ordinance of Secession was signed, and Williams remembered it to be the biggest blaze he would ever see in Charleston. Remembering the event in his memoir, Williams describes how "the sparks seemed to rain down as we ran." Thus, Williams' memoir serves as an eye-witness account of the chaos and fear created by the Great Fire. After the War. Once the Confederates surrendered, life in South Carolina changed dramatically for Williams and his family. They were reunited under one roof; Alexander Williams and his family resided on Princess Street in Charleston for many years. Williams' account of this era includes reflections about the "Black Code" or laws passed to restrict civil and social rights of freedmen. He wondered why, at least in his time when writing his memoir in the 20th century, one did not hear much about this, saying that perhaps "somebody is ashamed of it." In 1876, Williams' employer asked him to vote for General Wade Hampton. Williams chose not to vote in the election at all, even though he heard the General speak: "Our only desire he said, was to save our dear old state from utter ruin. Then, raising his right hand to heaven he said these very words as near as I can recollect, "If I am elected governor, I swear to God that not one right or privilege that you now enjoy shall be taken from you!" Williams also noted that many of the promises that General Hampton made did not come to fruition and that, in fact, acts of disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws were being enacted against blacks during this era. Sometime in the 1880s, Williams moved to Vermont (he appears to have moved initially to Springfield VT) and soon sent for his second wife and children (several from his first marriage and perhaps some step children or children from his second wife)to join him. While not much is known about his life in Vermont, he and his eldest daughter Susan show up in the 1910 census, living in Lebanon, NH where they worked as servants for the Carter family. In Vermont, both worked for author Thomas H. Thomas. They were listed in the 1920 United States Federal Census, living in Windsor with the Thomas Family. Williams appears to have moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 1920s with his daughter Susan, who married an African-American lawyer/dentist named William Alexander Cox. Cox was also heavily involved in the National Negro Business League. Autobiography. After an illness weakened Williams' eyes and he feared going blind, he decided to record events from his past. He was also motivated in writing his memoir by the desire to remind future generations of African Americans of the cruel experience of slavery, a reason disclosed in the memoir's preface: "It is a remarkable fact that very many of the immediate descendants of those who passed through the trying ordeal of American slavery know nothing of the hardships through which their fathers came. Some reason for this may be found in the fact that those fathers hated to harrow the minds of their children by the recital of their cruel experiences of those dark days... While it is sweet to forgive and forget, there are somethings that should never be forgotten. If this humble narrative will serve to cause the youth of my people to take a glance backward, the object of the writer will have been attained." Williams' memoir, written in 1914, uses pseudonyms for the majority of individuals and places of which he speaks. For example, the Ward, Bale, and Dane families he discusses in his memoir are likely fake names just as Williams himself used a pseudonym in order to author his work. His memoir was eventually published in 1929 by Gold Mind Publishing Company in Boston, Massachusetts. It is likely the memoir was published with the help of Williams' grandson, William A. Cox Jr, the son of William Alexander Cox. In the 1930 Federal Census, William A. Cox, Jr. was listed as a "typesetter" so it was most likely his knowledge of the trade that assisted his grandfather in publishing the 1929 memoir. Whether as a typesetter or in some other capacity, William A. Cox Jr. appears to have run or somehow been involved with a small press known as the Gold Mind Printers in Boston around the years of 1928 to 1930. It is probable that it is the same printing company that published Williams' memoir, as the publisher named in the book, Gold Mind Publishing Company, was based in the same city and has a similar name. Thus, it is likely Williams received his grandson's help in publishing his memoir. Williams continued to live with his family for several decades after publishing his memoir and died in Massachusetts in 1946.

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Anita Cornwell Anita Cornwell (born September 23, 1923) is an American lesbian feminist author. In 1983 she wrote the first collection of essays by an African-American lesbian, "Black Lesbian in White America". Biography. Born in Greenwood, South Carolina, Cornwell moved to Pennsylvania at the age of 16, living first in Yeadon with her aunt, then in Philadelphia with her mother, who moved north when Cornwell was aged 18. Cornwell has one sibling, an older brother. She graduated from Temple University with a B.S. in journalism and the social sciences in 1948. She worked as a journalist for local newspapers and a clerical worker for government agencies. Cornwell's early writings, published in "The Ladder" and "The Negro Digest" in the 1950s, were among the first to identify the author as a black lesbian, and other publications where her work has appeared include "Feminist Review", "Labyrinth", "National Leader", and the "Los Angeles Free Press". Published on October 1, 1983, Cornwell's first book "Black Lesbian in White America", which includes her essays and an interview with activist Audre Lorde, is widely noted as the first collection of essays by a black lesbian. Cornwell was honored by the Annual Lambda Literary Festival, which was held in Philadelphia in 2000.

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Robert L. Allen Robert Lee Allen (born May 29, 1942) is an American activist, writer, and Adjunct Professor of African-American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Allen received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco, and previously taught at San José State University and Mills College. He was Senior Editor (with Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Robert Chrisman) of "The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research", published quarterly or more frequently in Oakland, California, by the Black World Foundation since 1969. Allen married Pam Allen in 1965. In the 1980s he co-founded with Alice Walker the publishing company called Wild Trees Press, publishing the work of Third World writers.

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Martha Gruening Martha Gruening (1889–1937) was an American-Jewish journalist, poet, suffragette, and civil rights activist, born in Philadelphia. Gruening was an early advocate for the intersectionality of gender, race, and class. Her writings and research for the NAACP led to the advancement of the civil rights movement and worked to include women of color in the fight for women's suffrage. Early life and education. Martha Gruening was born in Philadelphia in 1889 as one of five siblings. Her father was a renowned physician, and encouraged open discussions about political and social inequality within the United States. As a Jewish woman, she faced her own form of discrimination, but was otherwise privileged enough to pursue higher education. She attended the Ethical Culture School in New York, which reflected the progressive ideals of her family. In 1909, she graduated from Smith College, a private liberal arts college for women. Here, she founded the college league of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA), to promote women's suffrage - which she later broke from over “its refusal to seat an African American delegate at its 1912 convention in Atlanta to placate increasingly powerful southern members”. Gruening’s educational career was reignited by her participation in the Philadelphia Shirtwaist Strike (1909-1910). In response to heightened neglect and a desire for increase in wages, women laborers held a prolonged strike with much opposition. Gruening, who advocated for women’s rights, picketed for weeks until she was arrested. At night court, Gruening informed the magistrate for the reason of her daily visits to the factory, “to determine whether the police were arresting workers justly”, to which the magistrate responded, “it is women of your class...who have stirred up all this strife”. This provided another example for Gruening of the disparity in treatment towards women. In response to her participation and arrest, Gruening was sent to Moyamensing Prison, which she later wrote about in her publications. Her detailing of the “horrors in the prison cell” renewed the drive of reformers and led to more contributions. After being arrested, Gruening was moved by what she learned about police conduct, the legal system, economic inequality, and the power of journalism. After working as a freelance journalist and traveling across the United States as an organizer for the women’s suffrage movement, she enrolled in the New York University of Law in 1914. Her level of education was exceptional for a woman in this time period. Notable works. Martha Gruening’s work as a poet reflected her progressive social views. Before the U.S.’s involvement in WWI, a campaign arose, coined the Preparedness Campaign. This campaign sought to strengthen the U.S. military and gain public support to send troops into war. To foster discussion over U.S. military intervention and patriotism, "The Masses" magazine invited socialist thinkers to share their thoughts about patriotism. Martha Gruening responded with a poem she titled "Prepared". It is a one stanza poem that asserts the narrative voice of an American. The narrator reflects on their current freedom to commit any act and decides that violence is a just defense of their freedoms. Gruening provides insight into her idea of patriotism, indicating that she condemns the parading of the word by a society whose actions do not promote liberty and justice but instead commits acts that prevent them. Many iconic figures spoke out about their opinions on the movement and its achievements for African American culture during the Harlem Renaissance. In her essay "Negro Renaissance" (1932), Martha Gruening discusses her thoughts on the state of the movement and some of the more constructive writings that came about. Though Gruening believed that the movement had made achievements, she admits that it had been “...ballyhooed and exploited commercially and socially…”. Gruening also mentions Alain Locke’s idea of a “common consciousness.” She wrote that there seemed more individual works or works of a “definite consciousness” in the Harlem Renaissance. Additionally, Gruening adds that Langston Hughes’ "Not Without Laughter" and Willa Cather’s "My Antonia" are both constructive expressions of African American writers. She writes that they are both stories where “...Color is an added element” that they are not just stories about families of Color. Gruening saw the benefit of works that showcased mundane but genuine stories written by African Americans, as opposed to other works where authors seemed to “conform to white standards.” Gruening is also well known for her career with the NAACP and The Crisis magazine. Her friendship with chief editor W. E. B. Du Bois stemmed from their shared interest of social equality. Both Gruening and Du Bois criticized the women’s suffrage movement for excluding Black women from participating in the organization. W.E.B Du Bois cited her in his article titled "Suffering Suffragettes," in which he condemns racism within the suffrage movement and praises Gruening for fighting for the inclusion of women of color. In her own article “Two Suffrage Movements,” Martha Gruening states that the suffrage movement began in response to the abolition movement. She argues that women could not advocate for the freedom of slaves without also fighting for freedom for themselves or realizing the parallels in their circumstances. Gruening states that both slaves and white women had been disenfranchised, deprived of an education, and not seen as humans in the government’s eyes. However, fighting against gender inequality was not favored by everyone. “It was finally carried by a small majority, but throughout the discussion, only two of those present, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass, warmly favored it. They alone at this stage seem to have grasped the fact that all rights and privileges go back to this most fundamental right. Throughout the storm of ridicule and abuse which broke out after the convention, Douglass maintained his position and brilliantly defended the convention in his paper, The North Star.” Martha Gruening directly cites Sojourner Truth at the Akron convention, quoted from the “Reminiscence of Mrs. Frances D. Gage.” She says that incidents like Truth’s are far too frequent, and reformers from both sides frequently ignore the parallels between slaves and women. Gruening concludes that everyone, regardless of color or gender, must understand that “the disenfranchised of the earth have a common cause.” Gruening's essay "With Malice Afterthought" was published in The Forum (American magazine) in January 1916. Here, she vehemently advocated against the death penalty by writing the story of a Frank Johnson. The essay recounts Johnson's attempts to kill himself, only to be stopped by the doctors at the prison. The doctors then nurse him back to health until he begins to want to live again. Then, they execute him. Although short, it is an emotional and seminal article that conveys the horrific side of the death penalty. Gruening served as the assistant secretary to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and wrote reports on national events for the association. Gruening's research on lynchings within the United States was fundamental to the NAACP. Aided by the NAACP Field Investigator Helen Boardman, Gruening helped organize verifiable data into the NAACP's first book, "Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889-1918." The two women gathered all of the data manually, documenting 2,224 lynchings: 702 whites (11 female), 2,522 “"colored"” (50 female). The information was accompanied by 100 individual accounts of lynchings, including the stories of 11 women (four pregnant) that confronted general perceptions of lynching. The book and Gruening's research was essential in raising awareness of the horror of lynchings in the United States. Gruening, aside from writing of her work on the field, wrote many book reviews for the different publications she worked for. In her review of Theodore Stanton’s, The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1922), Gruening celebrates Stanton’s strength and unwillingness to conform to societal standards for women. In her review, Gruening also tells of Stanton’s presence at the World Anti-Slavery Convention and how in addition to its significance to the abolition movement, it also signified to Stanton a push towards “the emancipation of women” due to its “exclusion of the women delegates”. Aside from writing of her approval and honoring of Stanton’s achievements, Gruening also implies her view that African-American women should have a place within the women's movement, addressing Stanton’s estrangement with Abolitionists who disregarded African-American women in the case of the Fourteenth Amendment. Gruening remarks upon Stanton’s question in response to their disregard, “Is the African race composed entirely of males?” to which Gruening adds, “a question not without interest today when a considerable number of feminists apparently believe that only the caucausian race has any females”. Legacy. Martha Gruening both participated in and wrote about progressive education in Europe. In 1917, she adopted a young African American boy named David Butt and raised him as a single mother against a backdrop of societal prejudice and economic uncertainty. She was intent upon founding a libertarian school so that he and other children, regardless of race or background, could receive an education. Unfortunately, the school did not succeed, and David Butt died tragically young at twenty-five. After her son's death, she continued to advocate for the civil rights of African-Americans until the end. On October 28, 1937, at age 48, Martha Gruening suffered a brain aneurysm which took her life. Her legacy is defined by the work she did for the NAACP and how she fought for the rights of others. Gomez Mill House. Three years after having adopted an African-American child, David Butt, son of two African-American theatre performers from South Carolina, Gruening bought the Gomez Mill House, in 1918 to provide him a proper education. She set up Mill House as a “Libertarian International School” that provided education for children of all races. Martha encouraged progressive European models of education and partnered with Helen Boardman, an NAACP collaborator. Though it was listed as established in a 1921 almanac, there has been no further evidence that the school ever opened to the public. Later, Gruening allowed for the Gomez Mill House to be sold in 1923 by Helen Boardman.

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Cecil Brown (writer) Cecil Brown (born July 3, 1943) is an African-American writer and educator. He is a published novelist, short story writer, script writer, and college educator. His noted works include "The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger" (1969) and work on the 1977 Richard Pryor film "Which Way Is Up?" as a screenwriter. Biography. Born in rural Bolton, North Carolina, Brown attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University of Greensboro, North Carolina, where he earned his B.A. in English in 1966. He later attended Columbia University, and earned his M.A. degree from the University of Chicago in 1967. Brown while residing in Berkeley, California (to which he returned in the late 1980s and still lives and works), earned his Ph.D. in African American Studies, Folklore and Narrative in 1993. He is a professor at UC Berkeley.

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James Forman James Forman (October 4, 1928 – January 10, 2005) was a prominent African-American leader in the civil rights movement. He was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. As the executive secretary of SNCC from 1961 to 1966, Forman played a significant role in the freedom rides, the Albany movement, the Birmingham campaign, and the Selma to Montgomery marches. After the 1960s, Forman spent the rest of his adult life organizing black people around issues of social and economic equality. He also taught at American University and other major institutions. He wrote several books documenting his experiences within the movement and his evolving political philosophy including "Sammy Younge Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement" (1969), "The Making of Black Revolutionaries" (1972 and 1997) and "Self Determination: An Examination of the Question and Its Application to the African American People" (1984). "The New York Times" called him "a civil rights pioneer who brought a fiercely revolutionary vision and masterly organizational skills to virtually every major civil rights battleground in the 1960s." Early life and education. Forman was born on October 4, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. As an 11-month-old baby, he was sent to live with his grandmother, "Mama Jane", on her farm in Marshall County, Mississippi. He was raised in a "dirt-poor" environment; it was not uncommon for him to eat dirt because it was believed to have some nutritional value. In his autobiography, he called eating dirt a "staple" of his diet. He recalls being "hungry all the time." His family had no outhouse and no electricity. They used leaves, newspapers, and corncobs for toilet paper, and they used twigs as toothbrushes. Despite these things, Forman claims to have never questioned his poverty and did not understand it at the time. His Aunt Thelma once caught James reading a shopping catalog in the dark. She, being a school teacher, took an interest in accelerating James' studying and gave him lessons at home. James credits his upbringing for his eventual successes, saying his grandmother gave him a sense for justice while his aunt gave him his "intellectual fire." Awareness of racism. James' first experience with lynching came when a white man showed up on his doorstep, asking for food and asking that they not tell anyone where he was. The next day, news spread that a white man had been lynched although Forman never learned why. When Forman was around the age of six he had his first experience with racial segregation. While visiting an aunt in Tennessee, Forman attempted to buy a Coca-Cola from a local drugstore. He was told that if he wanted to buy one that he would have to drink it in the back and not at the counter. Confused, Forman asked why and was told "Boy, you're a nigger." This was the first time in his life he realized that because of the color of his skin that there were "things [he] could and could not do, and other people had the 'right' to tell [him] what [he] could and could not do." In the summer of 1935, Forman moved to Chicago to live with his mother and step-father. That September he enrolled in St. Anselm's Catholic School, his first official schooling, and was immediately put into the second grade. He adjusted to his new life in Chicago fairly well, when playing with the neighborhood kids he would throw rocks and cans at white pedestrians and threw bricks off of roofs and onto police cars. However, his new school put a lot of pressure on him to convert to Catholicism, with his Protestantism becoming a "great issue" by the 6th grade. Being the only Protestant at an all-Catholic school put James through "great emotional turmoil." He decided to transfer to the local public school, the Betsy Ross Grammar School. He did so well there that he was allowed to skip the first semester of the seventh grade. From the age of seven onward, James earned a small amount from selling issues of the "Chicago Defender". He would often read these papers which helped develop a "strong sense of protest." He read the works of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois and was heavily influenced by Du Bois. He called Washington an "apologist" and often quoted Du Bois and his call for advancing blacks through education. He had yet to enter high school but for James the "race issue was on my mind, before my eyes, and in my blood." After finishing his primary education, Forman enrolled in Englewood Technical Prep Academy. He started his high school career by taking vocational courses instead of the general, pre-college coursework. This led to a poor performance and eventually a suspension from school. He was sent to a continuation school, Washburne High, he got a job as a paper roller at Cueno Press, and joined a gang known as the "Sixty-first Raiders." His gang activity was very limited in scope and he said he thought using drugs was "a waste of time." Around the age of fourteen James Forman, who had been going under the name of James Rufus, found out that his step-father was not his real father by happening upon his own birth certificate. His real father was a cab driver that Forman coincidentally met and introduced himself to while working at his step-father's gas station. When Forman returned to high school he returned to general coursework and was an honors student. During school he was influenced by the writings of such figures as Richard Wright and Carl Sandburg. He received ROTC training and the "Chicago Tribune" Silver and Gold medal for efficiency as a non-commissioned officer; he was a lieutenant upon graduation. He was also the honor student of his graduating class which landed him an interview in the "Chicago Tribune". During the interview he said that when he grew up he wanted to become a "humanitarian" and a minister as opposed to a preacher. He graduated high school in January 1947. Shortly after Forman graduated high school he was kicked out of his house after an argument with his stepfather. He tried to join the United States Army for a two year period but because of a racial quota he had to settle on joining the United States Air Force for a period of three years. Due to the Korean War his stay was extended to four years. Forman would go on to regret this decision and call the armed forces a "dehumanizing machine which destroys thought and creativity in order to preserve the economic system and the political myths of the United States." He met his first wife, Mary, in California two weeks before being shipped off to Okinawa in 1948. They divorced three years later, in 1951. After his discharge the penniless Forman moved to the slums of Oakland. He was eventually able to raise enough money to attend the University of Southern California. During his second semester, after a long night of studying, a police car stopped in front of him. They called him out and said that a robbery had occurred and Forman looked suspicious. Forman denied any wrongdoing but was apprehended anyway. He demanded a phone call and various other civil rights but instead was locked up for three days while being beaten and interrogated. This caused him severe trauma, for which he sought therapy. Forman overcame his trauma and returned to Chicago in 1954. His step-father died that summer and he enrolled at Roosevelt University that fall. He became president of the student body at Roosevelt and graduated in three years. Forman then went to graduate school at Boston University where he began to develop the ideas of a successful social movement. He wanted blacks to come together and start a visible movement. He knew the movement had to use nonviolent direct action, students, and it had to be started in the South. He was also against monolithic, charismatic leaders because he wanted whatever was created to not die along with the leader. In 1958 he visited Little Rock, Arkansas because he was tired of being an "armchair revolutionary." He taught in Chicago's public schools and worked with dispossessed tenant farmers in Tennessee before joining SNCC. National organizing with SNCC. In 1961, Forman joined the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick"). From 1961 to 1966, Forman, a decade older and more experienced than most of the other members of SNCC, became responsible for providing organizational support to the young, loosely affiliated activists by paying bills, radically expanding the institutional staff and planning the logistics for programs. Under the leadership of Forman and others, SNCC became an important political player at the height of the civil rights movement. SNCC began as an affiliate of another direct action group of the movement, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. At times, Forman's more confrontational and radical style of activism clashed with King's Christian pacifist approach. In August 1961, Forman was jailed with other freedom riders protesting segregated facilities in Monroe, North Carolina. This episode brought him into contact with Robert F. Williams who won Forman's admiration. During a visit to Williams' home in Monroe, Forman discussed the positive role of using armed self-defense in the struggle against white oppression. After his sentence was suspended, Forman agreed to become executive secretary of SNCC. Forman's occasional criticism of Dr. King was not simply a political exercise, but reflected a genuine concern about the direction King was leading the movement in. He specifically questioned King's top-down leadership style, which he saw as undermining the development of local grassroots movements. For example, following W. G. Anderson's invitation to King to join the Albany Movement, Forman criticized the move because he felt "much harm could be done by interjecting the Messiah complex." He recognized that King's presence "would detract from, rather than intensify," the focus on local people's leadership in the movement. Forman echoed the concerns of those in SNCC and the broader civil rights movement who saw the potential dangers of relying too heavily upon one dynamic leader. In an interview with Robert Penn Warren for the book "Who Speaks for the Negro?", Forman laid out many of his ideologies concerning SNCC, commenting that it is "the one movement in this country that has within its spheres of activity room for intellectuals." Years before the famous Selma marches of 1965, Forman and other SNCC organizers visited the city to assist the voter registration work of Amelia Boynton and J. L. Chestnut. In addition to frontline organizing, Forman facilitated a visit by celebrities James Baldwin and Dick Gregory for Selma's first "Freedom Day" in October 1963—a day of mass African-American voter registration in a Jim Crow area. Forman did significant work for SNCC in the cultural community. For instance, Forman recruited the young folk star Bob Dylan to play benefits and rallies for SNCC ( One of these rallies in Mississippi makes an appearance in the classic documentary "Don't Look Back"). When Dylan received an award from the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee he said the honor really belonged to "James Forman and SNCC." Selma and Montgomery. When the second march out of Selma was turned around by Martin Luther King, Tuskegee Institute students decided to open a "Second Front" by marching to the Alabama State Capitol and delivering a petition to Governor George Wallace. They were quickly joined by Forman and much of the SNCC staff from Selma. The SNCC members distrusted King more than ever after the "turnaround Tuesday," and were eager to take a separate course. On March 11, SNCC began a series of demonstrations in Montgomery, and put out a national call for others to join them. James Bevel, SCLC's Selma leader, followed them and discouraged their activities, bringing him and SCLC into conflict with Forman and SNCC. Bevel accused Forman of trying to divert people from the Selma campaign and of abandoning nonviolent discipline. Forman accused Bevel of driving a wedge between the student movement and the local black churches. The argument was resolved only when both were arrested. On March 15 and 16, SNCC led several hundred demonstrators, including Alabama students, Northern students, and local adults, in protests near the capitol complex. The Montgomery County sheriff's posse met them on horseback and drove them back, whipping them. Against the objections of James Bevel, some protesters threw bricks and bottles at police. At a mass meeting on the night of the 16th, Forman "whipped the crowd into a frenzy" demanding that the President act to protect demonstrators, and warned, "If we can't sit at the table of democracy, we'll knock the fucking legs off." "The New York Times" featured the Montgomery confrontations on the front page the next day. Although Dr. King was concerned by Forman's violent rhetoric, he joined him in leading a march of 2000 people in Montgomery to the Montgomery County courthouse. According to historian Gary May, "City officials, also worried by the violent turn of events… apologized for the assault on SNCC protesters and invited King and Forman to discuss how to handle future protests in the city." In the negotiations, Montgomery officials agreed to stop using the county posse against protesters, and to issue march permits to blacks for the first time. Post-SNCC work. After being replaced by Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson as executive secretary, Forman remained close to the leadership of SNCC helping to negotiate the ill-fated "merger" of SNCC and the Black Panther Party in 1967 and even briefly taking a leadership position within the Panthers. In 1969, after the failure of the merger and the decline of SNCC as an effective political organization, Forman began associating with other Black political radical groups. In Detroit he participated in the Black Economic Development Conference, where his Black Manifesto was adopted. He also founded a nonprofit organization called the Unemployment and Poverty Action Committee. As a part of his "Black Manifesto", on a Sunday morning in May 1969, Forman interrupted services at New York City's Riverside Church to demand $500 million in reparations from white churches to make up for injustices African Americans had suffered over the centuries. Although Riverside's preaching minister, the Rev. Ernest T. Campbell, termed the demands "exorbitant and fanciful," he was in sympathy with the impulse, if not the tactic. Later, the church agreed to donate a fixed percentage of its annual income to anti-poverty efforts. On May 30, 1969, Forman made plans to pursue a similar course at a Jewish Synagogue, Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York. Members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), led by Rabbi Meir Kahane, showed up carrying chains and clubs promising to confront Forman if he attempted to enter the synagogue. Kahane and the JDL forewarned Forman and the public about their intended actions and Forman never showed up at the synagogue. Later life and death. During the 1970s and 1980s, Forman completed graduate work at Cornell University in African and African-American Studies and in 1982, he received a Ph.D. from the Union of Experimental Colleges and Universities, in cooperation with the Institute for Policy Studies. Forman spent the rest of his adult life organizing black and disenfranchised people around issues of progressive economic and social development and equality. He also taught at American University in Washington, D.C. He wrote several books documenting his experiences within the movement and his evolving political philosophy including "Sammy Younge Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement" (1969), "The Making of Black Revolutionaries" (1972 and 1997) and "Self Determination: An Examination of the Question and Its Application to the African American People" (1984). Forman died on January 10, 2005, of colon cancer, aged 76, at the Washington House, a hospice in Washington, DC. Personal life. Forman's marriages to Mary Forman and Mildred Thompson ended in divorce. He was married to Mildred Thompson Forman (now Mildred Page) from 1959 to 1965, during the most active period of SNCC. Mildred Forman moved to Atlanta with James and worked at the Atlanta SNCC office as well as working as coordinator for tours of The Freedom Singers. During the 1960s and 1970s, Forman lived with Constancia "Dinky" Romilly, the second and only surviving child of the British-born journalist, anti-fascist activist and aristocrat, the Hon. Jessica Mitford, and her first husband, Esmond Romilly, who was a nephew-by-marriage of Sir Winston Churchill. Though obituaries and other posthumous articles about Forman have stated that he and Romilly were married, correspondence between Romilly's mother and aunts state that the couple were not legally husband and wife. Forman and Romilly had two sons: Chaka Forman and James Forman Jr., who is a professor at Yale Law School. Atheism. In his autobiography "The Making Of Black Revolutionaries" Forman devoted an entire chapter to explaining his atheism. He believed that "belief in God hurts my people." He also received the African American Humanist Award in 1994.

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Jayson Blair Jayson Thomas Blair (born March 23, 1976) is a former American journalist who worked for "The New York Times". He resigned from the newspaper in May 2003 in the wake of the discovery of fabrication and plagiarism in his stories. Blair published a memoir of this period, entitled "Burning Down My Masters' House" (2004), recounting his career, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder after his resignation, and his view of race relations at the newspaper. He later established a support group for people with bipolar disorder and became a life coach. Background. Blair was born in Columbia, Maryland, the son of a federal executive and a schoolteacher. While attending the University of Maryland, College Park, he was a student journalist. For the 1996–1997 academic year, he was selected as the second African-American editor-in-chief of its student newspaper, "The Diamondback". According to a 2004 article by the "Baltimore Sun", some of his fellow students opposed his selection describing him as "an elbows-out competitor". After a summer interning at "The New York Times" in 1998, Blair was offered an extended internship there. He declined in order to complete more coursework for graduation. But he returned to the "Times" in June 1999, with a year of coursework left to complete. That November, he was classified as an "intermediate reporter". He was later promoted to a full reporter and then to editor. Plagiarism and fabrication scandal. On April 28, 2003, Blair received a call from "Times" national editor James Roberts asking him about similarities between a story he had written two days earlier and one published April 18 by "San Antonio Express-News" reporter Macarena Hernandez. The senior editor of the "Express-News" had contacted the "Times" about the similarities between Blair's article in the "Times" and Hernandez's article in his paper. The resulting inquiry led to the discovery of fabrication and plagiarism in a number of articles written by Blair. Some fabrications include Blair's claims to have traveled to the city mentioned in the dateline, when in fact he did not. Suspect articles include the following: After internal investigations, "The New York Times" reported on Blair's journalistic misdeeds in an "unprecedented" 7,239-word front-page story on May 11, 2003, headlined "Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception." The story called the affair "a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper." After the scandal broke, some 30 former staffers of "The Diamondback", who had worked with Blair when he was editor-in-chief at the university newspaper, signed a 2003 letter alleging that Blair had made four serious errors as a reporter and editor while at the University of Maryland. They said these and his work habits brought his integrity into question. The letter-signers alleged that questions raised by some of these staffers at the time were ignored by Maryland Media, Inc. (MMI), the board that owned the paper. Aftermath. The investigation, known as the Siegal committee, found heated debate among the staff over affirmative action hiring, as Blair is African American. Jonathan Landman, Blair's editor, told the Siegal committee he felt that Blair's being black played a large part in the younger man's initial promotion in 2001 to full-time staffer. "I think race was the decisive factor in his promotion," he said. "I thought then and I think now that it was the wrong decision." Others disagreed. Five days later, "New York Times" op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, an African American, asserted in his column that race had nothing to do with the Blair case: "Listen up: the race issue in this case is as bogus as some of Jayson Blair's reporting." Herbert said, "[F]olks who delight in attacking anything black, or anything designed to help blacks, have pounced on the Blair story as evidence that there is something inherently wrong with "The New York Times"s effort to diversify its newsroom, and beyond that, with the very idea of a commitment to diversity or affirmative action anywhere. And while these agitators won't admit it, the nasty subtext to their attack is that there is something inherently wrong with blacks." Executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd resigned after losing newsroom support in the aftermath of the scandal. After resigning from the "Times," Blair struggled with severe depression and, according to his memoir, entered a hospital for treatment. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder for the first time. He has acknowledged that he had been self-medicating when he was dealing with substance abuse of alcohol and cocaine in earlier years. Later career. Blair later returned to college to complete his postponed degree. At one time he said he considered going into politics. The year after he left the "Times", Blair wrote a memoir, "Burning Down My Masters' House", published by New Millennium Books in 2004. Its initial print run was 250,000 copies; some 1,400 were sold in its first nine days. The Associated Press reported that the potential audience for his book may have gained enough information from the "New York Times" coverage of the reporting scandal. Although most reviews were critical, sales of the book increased after Blair was interviewed by Larry King and Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly. In his book Blair revealed extended substance abuse, which he had ended before he resigned from the newspaper, and a struggle with bipolar disorder, which was diagnosed and first treated after he resigned. He also discussed journalistic practices at the "Times", and his view of race relations and disagreements among senior editors at the newspaper. In 2006 Blair was running a support group for people with bipolar disorder, for which he has received continuing treatment. In 2007 he became a life coach, working in Virginia, opening his own coaching center five years later. He was still working in this field in 2016.

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Molefi Kete Asante Molefi Kete Asante (; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professor in the Department of Africology at Temple University, where he founded the PhD program in African-American Studies. He is president of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies. Asante is known for his writings on Afrocentricity, a school of thought that has influenced the fields of sociology, intercultural communication, critical theory, political science, the history of Africa, and social work. He is the author of more than 66 books and the founding editor of the "Journal of Black Studies". He is the father of author and filmmaker M. K. Asante. Early life and education. Asante was born Arthur Lee Smith Jr. in Valdosta, Georgia, the fourth of sixteen children. His father, Arthur Lee Smith, worked in a peanut warehouse and then on the Georgia Southern Railroad; his mother worked as a domestic. During the summers Asante would return to Georgia to work in the tobacco and cotton fields in order to earn tuition for school. An aunt, Georgia Smith, influenced him to pursue his education; she gave him his first book, a collection of short stories by Charles Dickens. Smith attended Nashville Christian Institute, a Church of Christ-founded boarding school for black students, in Nashville, Tennessee. There he earned his high school diploma in 1960. While still in high school, he became involved with the Civil Rights Movement, joining the Fisk University student march in Nashville. After graduation, he initially enrolled in Southwestern Christian College of Terrell, Texas, another historically black institution with Church of Christ roots. There he met Nigerian Essien Essien, whose character and intelligence inspired Smith to learn more about Africa. Smith received his B.A. from Oklahoma Christian College (now Oklahoma Christian University) in 1964. He did graduate work, earning his master's degree from Pepperdine University in 1965 with a thesis on Marshall Keeble, a black preacher in the Church of Christ. Smith earned his PhD from UCLA in 1968 in communication studies. He worked for a time at UCLA, becoming the director of the Center for Afro-American Studies. At the age of 30, he was appointed by the University at Buffalo as a full professor and head of the Department of Communication. In 1976, Asante chose to make a legal name change because he considered "Arthur Lee Smith" a slave name. Career. At the University at Buffalo, Asante advanced the ideas of international and intercultural communication; he wrote and published with colleagues, "Handbook of Intercultural Communication," the first book in the field. Asante was elected president of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research in 1976. His work in intercultural communication made him a leading trainer of doctoral students in the field. Asante has directed more than one hundred PhD dissertations. Asante published his first study of the black movement, "Rhetoric of Black Revolution," in 1969. Subsequently, he wrote "Transracial Communication," to explain how race complicates human interaction in American society. Soon Asante changed his focus to African-American and African culture in communication, with attention to the nature of African-American oratorical style. Asante wrote "Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change" (1980) to announce a break with the past, where African-Americans believed they were on the margins of Europe and did not have a sense of historical centrality. He wrote on the conflict between white cultural hegemony and the oppressed African culture, and on the lack of victorious consciousness among Africans, a theme found in his principal philosophical work, "The Afrocentric Idea" (1987). Additional works on Afrocentric theory included "Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge" (1990), and "An Afrocentric Manifesto" (2007). The "Utne Reader" identified Asante as one of the 100 leading thinkers in America, writing, "Asante is a genial, determined, and energetic cultural liberationist whose many books, including "Afrocentricity" and "The Afrocentric Idea," articulate a powerful African-oriented pathway of thought, action, and cultural self-confidence for black Americans." In 1986 Asante proposed the first doctoral program in African-American studies to the administration at Temple University. This program was approved, and the first class entered the doctorate in 1988. More than 500 applicants had sought admission to the graduate program. Temple became known as the leader among the African-American Studies departments; it was 10 years before the next doctoral program was introduced in this field, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1997. Alumni from the Temple program are found in every continent, many nations, and many direct African American Studies programs at major universities. Afrocentricity. According to "The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Historical Writing Since 1945," Asante has "based his entire career on Afrocentricity, and continues to defend it in spite of strong criticisms". In 1980 Asante published "Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change", which initiated a discourse around the issue of African agency and subject place in historical and cultural phenomena. He maintained that Africans had been moved off-center in terms on most questions of identity, culture, and history. Afrocentricity sought to place Africans at the center of their own narratives and to reclaim the teaching of African-American history from where it had been marginalized by Europeans. Asante's book "The Afrocentric Idea" was a more intellectual book about Afrocentricity than the earlier popular book. After the second edition of "The Afrocentric Idea" was released in 1998, Asante appeared as a guest on a number of television programs, including "The Today Show", "60 Minutes", and the "MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour", to discuss his ideas. According to Asante's "Afrocentric Manifesto", an Afrocentric project requires a minimum of five characteristics: (1) an interest in a psychological location, (2) a commitment to finding the African subject place, (3) the defense of African cultural elements, (4) a commitment to lexical refinement, and (5) a commitment to correct the dislocations in the history of Africa.

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Farai Chideya Farai Chideya (; born July 27, 1969 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States) is an American novelist, multimedia journalist, and radio host. She produced and hosted "Pop and Politics with Farai Chideya", a series of radio specials on politics for 15 years. She is the creator and host of the podcast "Our Body Politic", which launched in September 2020. Additionally, since 2012 Chideya has held the position of distinguished writer in residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, where she teaches courses in radio production and media economics. Early life. Chideya was born on July 27, 1969, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her mother is from Baltimore, Maryland, and her father is from Zimbabwe. Chideya holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Harvard College. She graduated from Harvard in 1990, Magna Cum Laude. Career. Chideya was a member of the improv comedy troupe The Immediate Gratification Players. In 2000, she was distinguished as the most honored alumna from Harvard. Her academic life includes being a professional in residence at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and a visiting professor at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California in addition to her current position as distinguished writer in residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. Chideya is also the founder and president of one of the earliest pop culture blogs in the US, PopandPolitics.com. During the 15 years of its existence, PopandPolitics.com was a training ground for young arts and culture journalists. In addition to her radio, video and online journalism, Chideya appears as a political analyst on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC News, Fox News, BET and HBO. She began working as a senior writer for the website FiveThirtyEight in 2015 covering issues including the 2016 presidential election. In May 2009, Atria Books published Chideya's first novel, "Kiss the Sky", which details the life of a black female rock musician making a career comeback in New York. The book takes place just months before 9/11 and is rooted in the ethos of the Black Rock movement and the New York club scene. Chideya is also part of The Finish Party writing group, and is the author of three non-fiction books about race and politics: "Don't Believe the Hype", "The Color of Our Future" and "Trust: Reaching the 100 Million Missing Voters". Prior to 2009, Chideya was the host of the National Public Radio radio program "News & Notes". Before that, she hosted "Your Call", a daily radio call-in show on San Francisco, California's KALW public radio. She got her start in journalism working for "Newsweek" magazine, MTV News, the Oxygen Network and the non-profit community news website, TheBeehive.org. She has subsequently written pieces for "The New York Times", "The Los Angeles Times Syndicate", "The Chicago Tribune Syndicate", "The American Prospect", "The San Francisco Chronicle", "Time Magazine", "", "Vibe Magazine", "Spin Magazine" and "Glamour". From 2014 to 2015, Chideya produced and hosted "One with Farai", a podcast for Public Radio International (PRI), in which she interviewed distinguished individuals with a range of stories and opinions, including Melissa Harris-Perry, Urvashi Vaid, and Alec Ross. Chideya is the recipient of a Foreign Press Center fellowship that took her to Japan in 2002, a Knight Foundation fellowship based at Stanford University in 2001 and a Freedom Forum Media Studies Center fellowship in 1996. She has won various awards for her work: a special award from the Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for AIDS reporting in 2008; an Enterprise reporting award from the National Association of Black Journalists for a piece on Skid Row in 2007; a North Star Award for covering communities of color in 2006; a distinguished honoree award from the Black Entertainment and Telecommunications Association in 2004; a MOBE IT Innovator Award and an Alternet New Media Hero award for PopandPolitics.com in 2001; New York Public Library's Best Books for Teens for "The Color of Our Future" in 2000; a WIN Young Women of Achievement Award in 1996; a GLAAD Award from "Spin Magazine" in 1995; and a National Education Reporting Award and an EdPress award for education reporting done for "Newsweek" in 1994. Her speeches on civic engagement, electoral politics, digital media, hip-hop, race and politics have taken her around the world—from India to South Africa to Alaska. Syracuse University, the University of Southern California, the California African-American Museum in Los Angeles, M.I.T., the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, Louisiana State University, De Anza Community College, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, Wellesley College, Chicago State University, Harvard University and Smith College are just some of the places where she has spoken.

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Thea Bowman Thea Bowman (December 29, 1937 – March 30, 1990) was a Roman Catholic religious sister, teacher, and scholar who made a major contribution to the ministry of the Catholic Church toward her fellow African Americans. She became an evangelist among her people, assisted in the production of an African American Catholic hymnal, and was a popular speaker on faith and spirituality in her final years. She also helped found the National Black Sisters Conference to provide support for African-American women in Catholic religious institutes. In 2018, she was designated a Servant of God. Life. Early life. She was born Bertha Elizabeth Bowman in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1937. Her grandfather had been born a slave but her father was a physician and her mother a teacher. She was raised in a Methodist home but, with her parents' permission, converted to the Roman Catholic faith at the age of nine. She joined the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration at La Crosse, Wisconsin at age 15, overcoming her parents' objections. Bowman attended Viterbo University, run by her congregation, and earned a B.A. in English in 1965. She went on to attend The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where she earned an M.A. in English in 1969 and a Ph.D. in English in 1972, writing her doctoral thesis on Thomas More. Educator. Bowman taught at an elementary school in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and then at a high school in Canton, Mississippi. She later taught at her alma maters, Viterbo College in La Crosse and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., as well as at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana. In his book "Eleven Modern Mystics", Victor M. Parachin, a meditation teacher, notes Bowman's impact upon Catholic liturgical music in providing an intellectual, spiritual, historical, and cultural foundation for developing and legitimizing a distinct worship form for Black Catholics. Bowman had explained: "When we understand our history and culture, then we can develop the ritual, the music and the devotional expression that satisfy us in the Church." Bowman became instrumental in the 1987 publication of a new Catholic hymnal, "Lead Me, Guide Me: The African American Catholic Hymnal", the first such work directed to the Black community. James P. Lyke, Auxiliary Bishop of Cleveland (also an African-American), coordinated the hymnal project, saying it was born of the needs and aspirations of Black Catholics. Bowman was actively involved in selecting hymns to be included. The hymnal includes her essay titled "The Gift of African American Sacred Song." In it, she wrote, "Black sacred song is soulful song" and described it in five ways: Her 1988 albums, "Songs of My People" and" 'Round the Glory Manger", released on stereo audiocassette by the Daughters of St. Paul, were re-released in 2020 for the 30th anniversary of Bowman's death under the title, "Songs of My People: The Complete Collection." Evangelist. After she had spent 16 years in education, the Bishop of Jackson, Mississippi, invited Bowman to become a consultant for intercultural awareness for his diocese. She then became more directly involved with ministry to her fellow African-Americans. She began to give inspirational talks to Black congregations and found a tremendous response by the people to whom she spoke. She brought her "ministry of joy" to far-ranging audiences, from Nigeria and Kenya to Canada, from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii, New York, and California. She called on Catholics to celebrate their differences and to retain their cultures, but to reflect their joy at being one in Christ, a joy which her audiences found her exhibiting to a remarkable degree, including with those of other faiths. In his book "Hope Sings, So Beautiful: Graced Encounters Across the Color Line", Christopher Pramuk wrote: Arguably no person in recent memory did more to resist and transform the sad legacy of segregation and racism in the Catholic Church than Thea Bowman ... who inspired millions with her singing and message of God's love for all races and faiths. Sister Thea awakened a sense of fellowship in people both within and well beyond the Catholic world, first and foremost through her charismatic presence. During an appearance on the show "60 Minutes" with Mike Wallace, she prodded him into saying "Black is beautiful" and she said: I think the difference between me and some people is that I'm content to do my little bit. Sometimes people think they have to do big things in order to make change. But if each one would light a candle we'd have a tremendous light. In 1989, shortly before her death, in recognition of her contributions to the service of the Church, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Religion by Boston College in Massachusetts. Death. Just months before her death from cancer, Bowman spoke to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1989 from her wheelchair, and the bishops "powerfully and visibly moved, applauded her. When she finished they stood linking arms and singing as Thea led them in the spiritual, 'We Shall Overcome'." Harry Belafonte met her in Mississippi in 1989 hoping to do a film on her life. Less than a week before her death, the University of Notre Dame announced that it would award Bowman the 1990 Laetare Medal. It was presented posthumously at the 1990 commencement exercises. She died on March 30, 1990, aged 52, in Canton, Mississippi, and was buried with her parents in Memphis, Tennessee. The 25th anniversary of her death brought forth, again, numerous tributes. Legacy. Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center. Boston College instituted the Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center (African, Hispanic, Asian, Native American), which in 2015 inaugurated an annual Thea Bowman Legacy Day. At the inaugural event of the legacy day, the keynote speaker mentioned how Bowman had stressed the importance of education for Blacks, and how she had legitimized a distinct form of worship for Black Catholics. Sister Thea Bowman Foundation. Shortly before her death, the Sister Thea Bowman Black Catholic Educational Foundation was established to raise scholarship money on a national scale, an endeavor Bowman saw as key to raising up the Black people. She conceived of the foundation as early as 1984 and articulated its mission for the students: "Walk with us. Don't walk behind us and don't walk in front of us; walk with us." By 2015 it had put more than 150 African American students through college. Cause for canonization. A cause for canonization has been opened for Bowman. In mid-2018, she was officially designated a Servant of God, the first of the four steps toward possible sainthood. At the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' 2018 Fall General Assembly, the Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance indicated unanimous support for the advancement of Sister Thea Bowman's canonization cause on the diocesan level.

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W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Earlier, Du Bois had risen to national prominence as the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta compromise, an agreement crafted by Booker T. Washington which provided that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the Talented Tenth, a concept under the umbrella of Racial uplift, and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership. Racism was the main target of Du Bois's polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for the independence of African colonies from European powers. Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. After World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread prejudice and racism in the United States military. Du Bois was a prolific author. His collection of essays, "The Souls of Black Folk", is a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus, "Black Reconstruction in America", challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era. Borrowing a phrase from Frederick Douglass, he popularized the use of the term color line to represent the injustice of the separate but equal doctrine prevalent in American social and political life. He opens "The Souls of Black Folk" with the central thesis of much of his life's work: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line." His 1940 autobiography "Dusk of Dawn" is regarded in part as one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and he published two other life stories, all three containing essays on sociology, politics and history. In his role as editor of the NAACP's journal "The Crisis", he published many influential pieces. Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. He was an ardent peace activist and advocated nuclear disarmament. The United States' Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death. Early life. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to Alfred and Mary Silvina (née Burghardt) Du Bois. Mary Silvina Burghardt's family was part of the very small free black population of Great Barrington and had long owned land in the state. She was descended from Dutch, African and English ancestors. William Du Bois's maternal great-great-grandfather was Tom Burghardt, a slave (born in West Africa around 1730) who was held by the Dutch colonist Conraed Burghardt. Tom briefly served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, which may have been how he gained his freedom during the late 18th century. His son Jack Burghardt was the father of Othello Burghardt, who in turn was the father of Mary Silvina Burghardt. William Du Bois claimed Elizabeth Freeman as his relative; he wrote that she had married his great-grandfather Jack Burghardt. But Freeman was 20 years older than Burghardt, and no record of such a marriage has been found. It may have been Freeman's daughter, Betsy Humphrey, who married Burghardt after her first husband, Jonah Humphrey, left the area "around 1811", and after Burghardt's first wife died ( 1810). If so, Freeman would have been William Du Bois's step-great-great-grandmother. Anecdotal evidence supports Humphrey's marrying Burghardt; a close relationship of some form is likely. William Du Bois's paternal great-grandfather was James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York, an ethnic French-American of Huguenot origin who fathered several children with slave women. One of James' mixed-race sons was Alexander, who was born on Long Cay in the Bahamas in 1803; in 1810 he immigrated to the United States with his father. Alexander Du Bois traveled and worked in Haiti, where he fathered a son, Alfred, with a mistress. Alexander returned to Connecticut, leaving Alfred in Haiti with his mother. Sometime before 1860, Alfred Du Bois immigrated to the United States, settling in Massachusetts. He married Mary Silvina Burghardt on February 5, 1867, in Housatonic, a village in Great Barrington. Alfred left Mary in 1870, two years after their son William was born. Mary Du Bois moved with her son back to her parents' house in Great Barrington, and they lived there until he was five. She worked to support her family (receiving some assistance from her brother and neighbors), until she suffered a stroke in the early 1880s. She died in 1885. Great Barrington had a majority European American community, who generally treated Du Bois well. He attended the local integrated public school and played with white schoolmates. As an adult, he wrote about racism that he felt as a fatherless child and being a minority in the town. But teachers recognized his ability and encouraged his intellectual pursuits, and his rewarding experience with academic studies led him to believe that he could use his knowledge to empower African Americans. He graduated from the town's Searles High School. When he decided to attend college, the congregation of his childhood church, the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, raised the money for his tuition. University education. Relying on money donated by neighbors, Du Bois attended Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1885 to 1888. Like other Fisk students who relied on summer and intermittent teaching to support their university studies, Du Bois taught school during the summer of 1886 after his sophomore year. His travel to and residency in the South was Du Bois's first experience with Southern racism, which at the time encompassed Jim Crow laws, bigotry, suppression of black voting, and lynchings; the lattermost reached a peak in the next decade. After receiving a bachelor's degree from Fisk, he attended Harvard College (which did not accept course credits from Fisk) from 1888 to 1890, where he was strongly influenced by professor William James, prominent in American philosophy. Du Bois paid his way through three years at Harvard with money from summer jobs, an inheritance, scholarships, and loans from friends. In 1890, Harvard awarded Du Bois his second bachelor's degree, "cum laude", in history. In 1891, Du Bois received a scholarship to attend the sociology graduate school at Harvard. In 1892, Du Bois received a fellowship from the John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen to attend the University of Berlin for graduate work. While a student in Berlin, he traveled extensively throughout Europe. He came of age intellectually in the German capital while studying with some of that nation's most prominent social scientists, including Gustav von Schmoller, Adolph Wagner, and Heinrich von Treitschke. He wrote about his time in Germany: "I found myself on the outside of the American world, looking in. With me were white folkstudents, acquaintances, teacherswho viewed the scene with me. They did not always pause to regard me as a curiosity, or something sub-human; I was just a man of the somewhat privileged student rank, with whom they were glad to meet and talk over the world; particularly, the part of the world whence I came." After returning from Europe, Du Bois completed his graduate studies; in 1895 he was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Wilberforce and Philadelphia. In the summer of 1894, Du Bois received several job offers, including from the prestigious Tuskegee Institute; he accepted a teaching job at Wilberforce University in Ohio. At Wilberforce, Du Bois was strongly influenced by Alexander Crummell, who believed that ideas and morals are necessary tools to effect social change. While at Wilberforce, Du Bois married Nina Gomer, one of his students, on May 12, 1896. After two years at Wilberforce, Du Bois accepted a one-year research job from the University of Pennsylvania as an "assistant in sociology" in the summer of 1896. He performed sociological field research in Philadelphia's African-American neighborhoods, which formed the foundation for his landmark study, "The Philadelphia Negro", published in 1899 while he was teaching at Atlanta University. It was the first case study of a black community in the United States. By the 1890s, Philadelphia's black neighborhoods had a negative reputation in terms of crime, poverty, and mortality. Du Bois's book undermined the stereotypes with empirical evidence and shaped his approach to segregation and its negative impact on black lives and reputations. The results led him to realize that racial integration was the key to democratic equality in American cities. The methodology employed in "The Philadelphia Negro", namely the description and the mapping of social characteristics onto neighborhood areas was a forerunner to the studies under the Chicago School of Sociology. While taking part in the American Negro Academy (ANA) in 1897, Du Bois presented a paper in which he rejected Frederick Douglass's plea for black Americans to integrate into white society. He wrote: "we are Negroes, members of a vast historic race that from the very dawn of creation has slept, but half awakening in the dark forests of its African fatherland". In the August 1897 issue of "The Atlantic Monthly", Du Bois published "Strivings of the Negro People", his first work aimed at the general public, in which he enlarged upon his thesis that African Americans should embrace their African heritage while contributing to American society. Atlanta University. In July 1897, Du Bois left Philadelphia and took a professorship in history and economics at the historically black Atlanta University in Georgia. His first major academic work was his book "The Philadelphia Negro" (1899), a detailed and comprehensive sociological study of the African-American people of Philadelphia, based on his fieldwork in 1896–1897. This breakthrough in scholarship was the first scientific study of African Americans and a major contribution to early scientific sociology in the U.S. Du Bois coined the phrase "the submerged tenth" to describe the black underclass in the study. Later in 1903, he popularized the term, the "Talented Tenth", applied to society's elite class. His terminology reflected his opinion that the elite of a nation, both black and white, were critical to achievements in culture and progress. During this period he wrote dismissively of the underclass, describing them as "lazy" or "unreliable", but – in contrast to other scholars – he attributed many of their societal problems to the ravages of slavery. Du Bois's output at Atlanta University was prodigious, in spite of a limited budget: he produced numerous social science papers and annually hosted the Atlanta Conference of Negro Problems. He also received grants from the U.S. government to prepare reports about African-American workforce and culture. His students considered him to be a brilliant, but aloof and strict, teacher. First Pan-African Conference. Du Bois attended the First Pan-African Conference, held in London on 23−25 July 1900, shortly ahead of the Paris Exhibition of 1900 ("to allow tourists of African descent to attend both events".) The Conference had been organized by people from the Caribbean: Haitians Anténor Firmin and Bénito Sylvain and Trinidadian barrister Henry Sylvester Williams. Du Bois played a leading role in drafting a letter ("Address to the Nations of the World"), asking European leaders to struggle against racism, to grant colonies in Africa and the West Indies the right to self-government and to demand political and other rights for African Americans. By this time, southern states were passing new laws and constitutions to disfranchise most African Americans, an exclusion from the political system that lasted into the 1960s. At the conclusion of the conference, delegates unanimously adopted the "Address to the Nations of the World", and sent it to various heads of state where people of African descent were living and suffering oppression. The address implored the United States and the imperial European nations to "acknowledge and protect the rights of people of African descent" and to respect the integrity and independence of "the free Negro States of Abyssinia, Liberia, Haiti, etc." It was signed by Bishop Alexander Walters (President of the Pan-African Association), the Canadian Rev. Henry B. Brown (Vice-President), Williams (General Secretary) and Du Bois (Chairman of the committee on the Address). The address included Du Bois's observation, "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the colour-line." He used this again three years later in the "Forethought" of his book "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903). 1900 Paris Exposition. Du Bois was primary organizer of "The Exhibit of American Negroes" at the "Exposition Universelle" held in Paris between April and November 1900, for which he put together a series of 363 photographs aiming to commemorate the lives of African Americans at the turn of the century and challenge the racist caricatures and stereotypes of the day. Also included were charts, graphs, and maps. He was awarded a gold medal for his role as compiler of the materials, which are now housed at the Library of Congress. Booker T. Washington and the Atlanta Compromise. In the first decade of the new century, Du Bois emerged as a spokesperson for his race, second only to Booker T. Washington. Washington was the director of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and wielded tremendous influence within the African-American and white communities. Washington was the architect of the Atlanta Compromise, an unwritten deal that he had struck in 1895 with Southern white leaders who dominated state governments after Reconstruction. Essentially the agreement provided that Southern blacks, who overwhelmingly lived in rural communities, would submit to the current discrimination, segregation, disenfranchisement, and non-unionized employment; that Southern whites would permit blacks to receive a basic education, some economic opportunities, and justice within the legal system; and that Northern whites would invest in Southern enterprises and fund black educational charities. Despite initially sending congratulations to Washington for his Atlanta Exposition Speech, Du Bois later came to oppose Washington's plan, along with many other African Americans, including Archibald H. Grimke, Kelly Miller, James Weldon Johnson and Paul Laurence Dunbar – representatives of the class of educated blacks that Du Bois would later call the "talented tenth". Du Bois felt that African Americans should fight for equal rights and higher opportunities, rather than passively submit to the segregation and discrimination of Washington's Atlanta Compromise. Du Bois was inspired to greater activism by the lynching of Sam Hose, which occurred near Atlanta in 1899. Hose was tortured, burned and hung by a mob of two thousand whites. When walking through Atlanta to discuss the lynching with newspaper editor Joel Chandler Harris, Du Bois encountered Hose's burned knuckles in a storefront display. The episode stunned Du Bois, and he resolved that "one could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered, and starved". Du Bois realized that "the cure wasn't simply telling people the truth, it was inducing them to act on the truth". In 1901, Du Bois wrote a review critical of Washington's autobiography "Up from Slavery", which he later expanded and published to a wider audience as the essay "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" in "The Souls of Black Folk". Later in life, Du Bois regretted having been critical of Washington in those essays. One of the contrasts between the two leaders was their approach to education: Washington felt that African-American schools should focus primarily on industrial education topics such as agricultural and mechanical skills, to prepare southern blacks for the opportunities in the rural areas where most lived. Du Bois felt that black schools should focus more on liberal arts and academic curriculum (including the classics, arts, and humanities), because liberal arts were required to develop a leadership elite. However, as sociologist E. Franklin Frazier and economists Gunnar Myrdal and Thomas Sowell have argued, such disagreement over education was a minor point of difference between Washington and Du Bois; both men acknowledged the importance of the form of education that the other emphasized. Sowell has also argued that, despite genuine disagreements between the two leaders, the supposed animosity between Washington and Du Bois actually formed among their followers, not between Washington and Du Bois themselves. Du Bois also made this observation in an interview published in "The Atlantic Monthly" in November 1965. Niagara Movement. In 1905, Du Bois and several other African-American civil rights activists – including Fredrick L. McGhee, Jesse Max Barber and William Monroe Trotter – met in Canada, near Niagara Falls, where they wrote a declaration of principles opposing the Atlanta Compromise, and which were incorporated as the Niagara Movement in 1906. They wanted to publicize their ideals to other African Americans, but most black periodicals were owned by publishers sympathetic to Washington, so Du Bois bought a printing press and started publishing "Moon Illustrated Weekly" in December 1905. It was the first African-American illustrated weekly, and Du Bois used it to attack Washington's positions, but the magazine lasted only for about eight months. Du Bois soon founded and edited another vehicle for his polemics, ', which debuted in 1907. Freeman H. M. Murray and Lafayette M. Hershaw served as "The Horizons co-editors. The Niagarites held a second conference in August 1906, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of abolitionist John Brown's birth, at the West Virginia site of Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Reverdy C. Ransom spoke, explaining that Washington's primary goal was to prepare blacks for employment in their current society: "Today, two classes of Negroes, ... are standing at the parting of the ways. The one counsels patient submission to our present humiliations and degradations; ... The other class believe that it should not submit to being humiliated, degraded, and remanded to an inferior place ... it does not believe in bartering its manhood for the sake of gain." "The Souls of Black Folk". In an effort to portray the genius and humanity of the black race, Du Bois published "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903), a collection of 14 essays. James Weldon Johnson said the book's effect on African Americans was comparable to that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin". The introduction famously proclaimed that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line". Each chapter begins with two epigraphs – one from a white poet, and one from a black spiritual – to demonstrate intellectual and cultural parity between black and white cultures. A major theme of the work was the double consciousness faced by African Americans: being both American and black. This was a unique identity which, according to Du Bois, had been a handicap in the past, but could be a strength in the future: "Henceforth, the destiny of the race could be conceived as leading neither to assimilation nor separatism but to proud, enduring hyphenation." Jonathon S. Kahn in "Divine Discontent: The Religious Imagination of Du Bois" shows how Du Bois, in his "The Souls of Black Folk", represents an exemplary text of pragmatic religious naturalism. On page 12 Kahn writes: "Du Bois needs to be understood as an African American pragmatic religious naturalist. By this I mean that, like Du Bois the American traditional pragmatic religious naturalism, which runs through William James, George Santayana and John Dewey, seeks religion without metaphysical foundations." Kahn's interpretation of religious naturalism is very broad but he relates it to specific thinkers. Du Bois's anti-metaphysical viewpoint places him in the sphere of religious naturalism as typified by William James and others. Racial violence. Two calamities in the autumn of 1906 shocked African Americans, and they contributed to strengthening support for Du Bois's struggle for civil rights to prevail over Booker T. Washington's accommodationism. First, President Teddy Roosevelt dishonorably discharged 167 black soldiers because they were accused of crimes as a result of the Brownsville Affair. Many of the discharged soldiers had served for 20 years and were near retirement. Second, in September, riots broke out in Atlanta, precipitated by unfounded allegations of black men assaulting white women. This was a catalyst for racial tensions based on a job shortage and employers playing black workers against white workers. Ten thousand whites rampaged through Atlanta, beating every black person they could find, resulting in over 25 deaths. In the aftermath of the 1906 violence, Du Bois urged blacks to withdraw their support from the Republican Party, because Republicans Roosevelt and William Howard Taft did not sufficiently support blacks. Most African Americans had been loyal to the Republican Party since the time of Abraham Lincoln. Du Bois wrote the essay, "A Litany at Atlanta", which asserted that the riot demonstrated that the Atlanta Compromise was a failure. Despite upholding their end of the bargain, blacks had failed to receive legal justice in the South. Historian David Levering Lewis has written that the Compromise no longer held because white patrician planters, who took a paternalistic role, had been replaced by aggressive businessmen who were willing to pit blacks against whites. These two calamities were watershed events for the African-American community, marking the ascendancy of Du Bois's vision of equal rights. Academic work. In addition to writing editorials, Du Bois continued to produce scholarly work at Atlanta University. In 1909, after five years of effort, he published a biography of abolitionist John Brown. It contained many insights, but also contained some factual errors. The work was strongly criticized by "The Nation", which was owned by Oswald Villard, who was writing his own, competing biography of John Brown. Possibly as a result, Du Bois's work was largely ignored by white scholars. After publishing a piece in "Collier's" magazine warning of the end of "white supremacy", Du Bois had difficulty getting pieces accepted by major periodicals, although he did continue to publish columns regularly in "The Horizon" magazine. Du Bois was the first African American invited by the American Historical Association (AHA) to present a paper at their annual conference. He read his paper, "Reconstruction and Its Benefits," to an astounded audience at the AHA's December 1909 conference. The paper went against the mainstream historical view, promoted by the Dunning School of scholars at Columbia University, that Reconstruction was a disaster, caused by the ineptitude and sloth of blacks. To the contrary, Du Bois asserted that the brief period of African-American leadership in the South accomplished three important goals: democracy, free public schools, and new social welfare legislation. Du Bois asserted that it was the federal government's failure to manage the Freedmen's Bureau, to distribute land, and to establish an educational system, that doomed African-American prospects in the South. When Du Bois submitted the paper for publication a few months later in the "American Historical Review", he asked that the word Negro be capitalized. The editor, J. Franklin Jameson, refused, and published the paper without the capitalization. The paper was mostly ignored by white historians. Du Bois later developed his paper as his ground-breaking 1935 book, "Black Reconstruction," which marshaled extensive facts to support his assertions. The AHA did not invite another African-American speaker until 1940. NAACP era. In May 1909, Du Bois attended the National Negro Conference in New York. The meeting led to the creation of the National Negro Committee, chaired by Oswald Villard, and dedicated to campaigning for civil rights, equal voting rights, and equal educational opportunities. The following spring, in 1910, at the second National Negro Conference, the attendees created the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). At Du Bois's suggestion, the word "colored", rather than "black", was used to include "dark skinned people everywhere". Dozens of civil rights supporters, black and white, participated in the founding, but most executive officers were white, including Mary Ovington, Charles Edward Russell, William English Walling, and its first president, Moorfield Storey. Feeling inspired by this, Indian social reformer and civil rights activist Dr. B.R. Ambedkar contacted Du Bois in the 1940s. In a letter to Du Bois in 1946, he introduced himself as a member of the "Untouchables of India" and "a student of the Negro problem" and expressed his interest in the NAACP's petition to the U.N. He noted that his group was "thinking of following suit"; and requested copies of the proposed statement from Du Bois. In a letter dated July 31, 1946, Du Bois responded by telling Ambedkar he was familiar with his name, and that he had "every sympathy with the Untouchables of India." "The Crisis". NAACP leaders offered Du Bois the position of Director of Publicity and Research. He accepted the job in the summer of 1910, and moved to New York after resigning from Atlanta University. His primary duty was editing the NAACP's monthly magazine, which he named "The Crisis". The first issue appeared in November 1910, and Du Bois wrote that its aim was to set out "those facts and arguments which show the danger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people". The journal was phenomenally successful, and its circulation would reach 100,000 in 1920. Typical articles in the early editions polemics against the dishonesty and parochialism of black churches, and disussions on the Afrocentric origins of Egyptian civilization. A 1911 Du Bois editorial helped initiate a nationwide push to induce the Federal government to outlaw lynching. Du Bois, employing the sarcasm he frequently used, commented on a lynching in Pennsylvania: "The point is he was black. Blackness must be punished. Blackness is the crime of crimes ... It is therefore necessary, as every white scoundrel in the nation knows, to let slip no opportunity of punishing this crime of crimes. Of course if possible, the pretext should be great and overwhelming – some awful stunning crime, made even more horrible by the reporters' imagination. Failing this, mere murder, arson, barn burning or impudence may do." "The Crisis" carried Du Bois editorials supporting the ideals of unionized labor but denouncing its leaders' racism; blacks were barred from membership. Du Bois also supported the principles of the Socialist Party (he held party membership from 1910 to 1912), but he denounced the racism demonstrated by some socialist leaders. Frustrated by Republican president Taft's failure to address widespread lynching, Du Bois endorsed Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential race, in exchange for Wilson's promise to support black causes. Throughout his writings, Du Bois supported women's rights and women's suffrage, but he found it difficult to publicly endorse the women's right-to-vote movement because leaders of the suffragism movement refused to support his fight against racial injustice. A 1913 "Crisis" editorial broached the taboo subject of interracial marriage: although Du Bois generally expected persons to marry within their race, he viewed the problem as a women's rights issue, because laws prohibited white men from marrying black women. Du Bois wrote "[anti-miscegenation] laws leave the colored girls absolutely helpless for the lust of white men. It reduces colored women in the eyes of the law to the position of dogs. As low as the white girl falls, she can compel her seducer to marry her ... We must kill [anti-miscegenation laws] not because we are anxious to marry the white men's sisters, but because we are determined that white men will leave our sisters alone." During 1915 − 1916, some leaders of the NAACP – disturbed by financial losses at "The Crisis", and worried about the inflammatory rhetoric of some of its essays – attempted to oust Du Bois from his editorial position. Du Bois and his supporters prevailed, and he continued in his role as editor. In a 1919 column titled "The True Brownies", he announced the creation of "The Brownies' Book", the first magazine published for African-American children and youth, which he founded with Augustus Granville Dill and Jessie Redmon Fauset. Historian and author. The 1910s were a productive time for Du Bois. In 1911 he attended the First Universal Races Congress in London and he published his first novel, "The Quest of the Silver Fleece." Two years later, Du Bois wrote, produced, and directed a pageant for the stage, "The Star of Ethiopia". In 1915, Du Bois published "The Negro", a general history of black Africans, and the first of its kind in English. The book rebutted claims of African inferiority, and would come to serve as the basis of much Afrocentric historiography in the 20th century. "The Negro" predicted unity and solidarity for colored people around the world, and it influenced many who supported the Pan-African movement. In 1915, "The Atlantic Monthly" carried a Du Bois essay, "The African Roots of the War", which consolidated his ideas on capitalism and race. He argued that the scramble for Africa was at the root of World War I. He also anticipated later Communist doctrine, by suggesting that wealthy capitalists had pacified white workers by giving them just enough wealth to prevent them from revolting, and by threatening them with competition by the lower-cost labor of colored workers. Combating racism. Du Bois used his influential NAACP position to oppose a variety of racist incidents. When the silent film "The Birth of a Nation" premiered in 1915, Du Bois and the NAACP led the fight to ban the movie, because of its racist portrayal of blacks as brutish and lustful. The fight was not successful, and possibly contributed to the film's fame, but the publicity drew many new supporters to the NAACP. The private sector was not the only source of racism: under President Wilson, the plight of African Americans in government jobs suffered. Many federal agencies adopted whites-only employment practices, the Army excluded blacks from officer ranks, and the immigration service prohibited the immigration of persons of African ancestry. Du Bois wrote an editorial in 1914 deploring the dismissal of blacks from federal posts, and he supported William Monroe Trotter when Trotter brusquely confronted Wilson about the President's failure to fulfill his campaign promise of justice for blacks. "The Crisis" continued to wage a campaign against lynching. In 1915, it published an article with a year-by-year tabulation of 2,732 lynchings from 1884 to 1914. The April 1916 edition covered the group lynching of six African Americans in Lee County, Georgia. Later in 1916, the "Waco Horror" article covered the lynching of Jesse Washington, a mentally impaired 17-year-old African American. The article broke new ground by utilizing undercover reporting to expose the conduct of local whites in Waco, Texas. The early 20th century was the era of the Great Migration of blacks from the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest and West. Du Bois wrote an editorial supporting the Great Migration, because he felt it would help blacks escape Southern racism, find economic opportunities, and assimilate into American society. Also in the 1910s the American eugenics movement was in its infancy, and many leading eugenicists were openly racist, defining Blacks as "a lower race". Du Bois opposed this view as an unscientific aberration, but still maintained the basic principle of eugenics: that different persons have different inborn characteristics that make them more or less suited for specific kinds of employment, and that by encouraging the most talented members of all races to procreate would better the "stocks" of humanity. World War I. As the United States prepared to enter World War I in 1917, Du Bois's colleague in the NAACP, Joel Spingarn, established a camp to train African Americans to serve as officers in the United States military. The camp was controversial, because some whites felt that blacks were not qualified to be officers, and some blacks felt that African Americans should not participate in what they considered a white man's war. Du Bois supported Spingarn's training camp, but was disappointed when the Army forcibly retired one of its few black officers, Charles Young, on a pretense of ill health. The Army agreed to create 1,000 officer positions for blacks, but insisted that 250 come from enlisted men, conditioned to taking orders from whites, rather than from independent-minded blacks who came from the camp. Over 700,000 blacks enlisted on the first day of the draft, but were subject to discriminatory conditions which prompted vocal protests from Du Bois. After the East St. Louis riots occurred in the summer of 1917, Du Bois traveled to St. Louis to report on the riots. Between 40 and 250 African Americans were massacred by whites, primarily due to resentment caused by St. Louis industry hiring blacks to replace striking white workers. Du Bois's reporting resulted in an article "The Massacre of East St. Louis", published in the September issue of "The Crisis," which contained photographs and interviews detailing the violence. Historian David Levering Lewis concluded that Du Bois distorted some of the facts in order to increase the propaganda value of the article. To publicly demonstrate the black community's outrage over the riots, Du Bois organized the Silent Parade, a march of around 9,000 African Americans down New York City's Fifth Avenue, the first parade of its kind in New York, and the second instance of blacks publicly demonstrating for civil rights. The Houston riot of 1917 disturbed Du Bois and was a major setback to efforts to permit African Americans to become military officers. The riot began after Houston police arrested and beat two black soldiers; in response, over 100 black soldiers took to the streets of Houston and killed 16 whites. A military court martial was held, and 19 of the soldiers were hung, and 67 others were imprisoned. In spite of the Houston riot, Du Bois and others successfully pressed the Army to accept the officers trained at Spingarn's camp, resulting in over 600 black officers joining the Army in October 1917. Federal officials, concerned about subversive viewpoints expressed by NAACP leaders, attempted to frighten the NAACP by threatening it with investigations. Du Bois was not intimidated, and in 1918 he predicted that World War I would lead to an overthrow of the European colonial system and to the "liberation" of colored people worldwide – in China, in India, and especially in America. NAACP chairman Joel Spingarn was enthusiastic about the war, and he persuaded Du Bois to consider an officer's commission in the Army, contingent on Du Bois writing an editorial repudiating his anti-war stance. Du Bois accepted this bargain and wrote the pro-war "Close Ranks" editorial in June 1918 and soon thereafter he received a commission in the Army. Many black leaders, who wanted to leverage the war to gain civil rights for African Americans, criticized Du Bois for his sudden reversal. Southern officers in Du Bois's unit objected to his presence, and his commission was withdrawn. After the war. When the war ended, Du Bois traveled to Europe in 1919 to attend the first Pan-African Congress and to interview African-American soldiers for a planned book on their experiences in World War I. He was trailed by U.S. agents who were searching for evidence of treasonous activities. Du Bois discovered that the vast majority of black American soldiers were relegated to menial labor as stevedores and laborers. Some units were armed, and one in particular, the 92nd Division (the Buffalo soldiers), engaged in combat. Du Bois discovered widespread racism in the Army, and concluded that the Army command discouraged African Americans from joining the Army, discredited the accomplishments of black soldiers, and promoted bigotry. Du Bois returned from Europe more determined than ever to gain equal rights for African Americans. Black soldiers returning from overseas felt a new sense of power and worth, and were representative of an emerging attitude referred to as the New Negro. In the editorial "Returning Soldiers" he wrote: "But, by the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if, now that the war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land." Many blacks moved to northern cities in search of work, and some northern white workers resented the competition. This labor strife was one of the causes of the Red Summer of 1919, a horrific series of race riots across America, in which over 300 African Americans were killed in over 30 cities. Du Bois documented the atrocities in the pages of "The Crisis", culminating in the December publication of a gruesome photograph of a lynching that occurred during a race riot in Omaha, Nebraska. The most egregious episode during the Red Summer was a vicious attack on blacks in Elaine, Arkansas, in which nearly 200 blacks were murdered. Reports coming out of the South blamed the blacks, alleging that they were conspiring to take over the government. Infuriated with the distortions, Du Bois published a letter in the "New York World", claiming that the only crime the black sharecroppers had committed was daring to challenge their white landlords by hiring an attorney to investigate contractual irregularities. Over 60 of the surviving blacks were arrested and tried for conspiracy, in the case known as "Moore v. Dempsey". Du Bois rallied blacks across America to raise funds for the legal defense, which, six years later, resulted in a Supreme Court victory authored by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Although the victory had little immediate impact on justice for blacks in the South, it marked the first time the Federal government used the 14th amendment guarantee of due process to prevent states from shielding mob violence. In 1920, Du Bois published "", the first of his three autobiographies. The "veil" was that which covered colored people around the world. In the book, he hoped to lift the veil and show white readers what life was like behind the veil, and how it distorted the viewpoints of those looking through it – in both directions. The book contained Du Bois's feminist essay, "The Damnation of Women", which was a tribute to the dignity and worth of women, particularly black women. Concerned that textbooks used by African-American children ignored black history and culture, Du Bois created a monthly children's magazine, "The Brownies' Book". Initially published in 1920, it was aimed at black children, who Du Bois called "the children of the sun". Pan-Africanism and Marcus Garvey. Du Bois traveled to Europe in 1921 to attend the second Pan-African Congress. The assembled black leaders from around the world issued the "London Resolutions" and established a Pan-African Association headquarters in Paris. Under Du Bois's guidance, the resolutions insisted on racial equality, and that Africa be ruled "by" Africans (not, as in the 1919 congress, with the "consent" of Africans). Du Bois restated the resolutions of the congress in his "Manifesto To the League of Nations", which implored the newly formed League of Nations to address labor issues and to appoint Africans to key posts. The League took little action on the requests. Another important African-American leader of the 1920s was Marcus Garvey, promoter of the Back-to-Africa movement and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey denounced Du Bois's efforts to achieve equality through integration, and instead endorsed racial separatism. Du Bois initially supported the concept of Garvey's Black Star Line, a shipping company that was intended to facilitate commerce within the African diaspora. But Du Bois later became concerned that Garvey was threatening the NAACP's efforts, leading Du Bois to describe him as fraudulent and reckless. Responding to Garvey's slogan "Africa for the Africans", Du Bois said that he supported that concept, but denounced Garvey's intention that Africa be ruled by African Americans. Du Bois wrote a series of articles in "The Crisis" between 1922 and 1924 attacking Garvey's movement, calling him the "most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and the world." Du Bois and Garvey never made a serious attempt to collaborate, and their dispute was partly rooted in the desire of their respective organizations (NAACP and UNIA) to capture a larger portion of the available philanthropic funding. Du Bois decried Harvard's decision to ban blacks from its dormitories in 1921 as an instance of a broad effort in the U.S. to renew "the Anglo-Saxon cult; the worship of the Nordic totem, the disfranchisement of Negro, Jew, Irishman, Italian, Hungarian, Asiatic and South Sea Islander – the world rule of Nordic white through brute force." When Du Bois sailed for Europe in 1923 for the third Pan-African Congress, the circulation of "The Crisis" had declined to 60,000 from its World War I high of 100,000, but it remained the preeminent periodical of the civil rights movement. President Coolidge designated Du Bois an "Envoy Extraordinary" to Liberia and – after the third congress concluded – Du Bois rode a German freighter from the Canary Islands to Africa, visiting Liberia, Sierra Leone and Senegal. Harlem Renaissance. Du Bois frequently promoted African-American artistic creativity in his writings, and when the Harlem Renaissance emerged in the mid-1920s, his article "A Negro Art Renaissance" celebrated the end of the long hiatus of blacks from creative endeavors. His enthusiasm for the Harlem Renaissance waned as he came to believe that many whites visited Harlem for voyeurism, not for genuine appreciation of black art. Du Bois insisted that artists recognize their moral responsibilities, writing that "a black artist is first of all a "black" artist." He was also concerned that black artists were not using their art to promote black causes, saying "I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda." By the end of 1926, he stopped employing "The Crisis" to support the arts. Debate with Lothrop Stoddard. In 1929, a debate organised by the Chicago Forum Council billed as "One of the greatest debates ever held" was held between Du Bois and Lothrop Stoddard, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, proponent of eugenics and so−called scientific racism. The debate was held in Chicago and Du Bois was arguing the affirmative to the question "Shall the Negro be encouraged to seek cultural equality? Has the Negro the same intellectual possibilities as other races?" Du Bois knew that the racists would be unintentionally funny onstage; as he wrote to Moore, Senator Heflin "would be a scream" in a debate. Du Bois let the overconfident and bombastic Stoddard walk into a comic moment, which Stoddard then made even funnier by not getting the joke. This moment was captured in headlines "DuBois Shatters Stoddard’s Cultural Theories in Debate; Thousands Jam Hall . . . Cheered As He Proves Race Equality," the "Defender’s" front-page headline ran. "5,000 Cheer W.E.B. DuBois, Laugh at Lothrop Stoddard." Ian Frazier of the "New Yorker" writes that the comic potential of Stoddard's bankrupt ideas was left untapped until Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove". Socialism. When Du Bois became editor of "The Crisis" magazine in 1911, he joined the Socialist Party of America on the advice of NAACP founders Mary Ovington, William English Walling and Charles Edward Russell. However, he supported the Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential campaign, a breach of the rules, and was forced to resign from the Socialist Party. In 1913, his support for Wilson was shaken when racial segregation in government hiring was reported. Du Bois remained "convinced that socialism was an excellent way of life, but I thought it might be reached by various methods." Nine years after the 1917 Russian Revolution, Du Bois extended a trip to Europe to include a visit to the Soviet Union, where he was struck by the poverty and disorganization he encountered in the Soviet Union, yet was impressed by the intense labors of the officials and by the recognition given to workers. Although Du Bois was not yet familiar with the communist theories of Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin, he concluded that socialism might be a better path towards racial equality than capitalism. Although Du Bois generally endorsed socialist principles, his politics were strictly pragmatic: in 1929, he endorsed Democrat Jimmy Walker for mayor of New York, rather than the socialist Norman Thomas, believing that Walker could do more immediate good for blacks, even though Thomas's platform was more consistent with Du Bois's views. Throughout the 1920s, Du Bois and the NAACP shifted support back and forth between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, induced by promises from the candidates to fight lynchings, improve working conditions, or support voting rights in the South; invariably, the candidates failed to deliver on their promises. A rivalry emerged in 1931 between the NAACP and the Communist Party, when the Communists responded quickly and effectively to support the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American youth arrested in 1931 in Alabama for rape. Du Bois and the NAACP felt that the case would not be beneficial to their cause, so they chose to let the Communist Party organize the defense efforts. Du Bois was impressed with the vast amount of publicity and funds which the Communists devoted to the partially successful defense effort, and he came to suspect that the Communists were attempting to present their party to African Americans as a better solution than the NAACP. Responding to criticisms of the NAACP from the Communist Party, Du Bois wrote articles condemning the party, claiming that it unfairly attacked the NAACP, and that it failed to fully appreciate racism in the United States. In their turn, the Communist leaders accused him of being a "class enemy", and claimed that the NAACP leadership was an isolated elite, disconnected from the working-class blacks they ostensibly fought for. Return to Atlanta. Du Bois did not have a good working relationship with Walter Francis White, president of the NAACP since 1931. That conflict, combined with the financial stresses of the Great Depression, precipitated a power struggle over "The Crisis". Du Bois, concerned that his position as editor would be eliminated, resigned his job at "The Crisis" and accepted an academic position at Atlanta University in early 1933. The rift with the NAACP grew larger in 1934 when Du Bois reversed his stance on segregation, stating that "separate but equal" was an acceptable goal for African Americans. The NAACP leadership was stunned, and asked Du Bois to retract his statement, but he refused, and the dispute led to Du Bois's resignation from the NAACP. After arriving at his new professorship in Atlanta, Du Bois wrote a series of articles generally supportive of Marxism. He was not a strong proponent of labor unions or the Communist Party, but he felt that Marx's scientific explanation of society and the economy were useful for explaining the situation of African Americans in the United States. Marx's atheism also struck a chord with Du Bois, who routinely criticized black churches for dulling blacks' sensitivity to racism. In his 1933 writings, Du Bois embraced socialism, but asserted that "[c]olored labor has no common ground with white labor", a controversial position that was rooted in Du Bois's dislike of American labor unions, which had systematically excluded blacks for decades. Du Bois did not support the Communist Party in the U.S. and did not vote for their candidate in the 1932 presidential election, in spite of an African American on their ticket. "Black Reconstruction in America". Back in the world of academia, Du Bois was able to resume his study of Reconstruction, the topic of the 1910 paper that he presented to the American Historical Association. In 1935 he published his magnum opus, "Black Reconstruction in America". The book presented the thesis, in the words of the historian David Levering Lewis, that "black people, suddenly admitted to citizenship in an environment of feral hostility, displayed admirable volition and intelligence as well as the indolence and ignorance inherent in three centuries of bondage." Du Bois documented how black people were central figures in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and also showed how they made alliances with white politicians. He provided evidence that the coalition governments established public education in the South, and many needed social service programs. The book also demonstrated the ways in which black emancipation – the crux of Reconstruction – promoted a radical restructuring of United States society, as well as how and why the country failed to continue support for civil rights for blacks in the aftermath of Reconstruction. The book's thesis ran counter to the orthodox interpretation of Reconstruction maintained by white historians, and the book was virtually ignored by mainstream historians until the 1960s. Thereafter, however, it ignited a "revisionist" trend in the historiography of Reconstruction, which emphasized black people's search for freedom and the era's radical policy changes. By the 21st century, "Black Reconstruction" was widely perceived as "the foundational text of revisionist African American historiography." In the final chapter of the book, "XIV. The Propaganda of History", Du Bois evokes his efforts at writing an article for the "Encyclopædia Britannica" on the "history of the American Negro". After the editors had cut all reference to Reconstruction, he insisted that the following note appear in the entry: "White historians have ascribed the faults and failures of Reconstruction to Negro ignorance and corruption. But the Negro insists that it was Negro loyalty and the Negro vote alone that restored the South to the Union; established the new democracy, both for white and black, and instituted the public schools." The editors refused and, so, Du Bois withdrew his article. Projected encyclopedia. In 1932, Du Bois was selected by several philanthropies, including the Phelps-Stokes Fund, the Carnegie Corporation, and the General Education Board, to be the managing editor for a proposed "Encyclopedia of the Negro", a work which Du Bois had been contemplating for 30 years. After several years of planning and organizing, the philanthropies canceled the project in 1938 because some board members believed that Du Bois was too biased to produce an objective encyclopedia. Trip around the world. Du Bois took a trip around the world in 1936, which included visits to Nazi Germany, China and Japan. While in Germany, Du Bois remarked that he was treated with warmth and respect. After his return to the United States, he expressed his ambivalence about the Nazi regime. He admired how the Nazis had improved the German economy, but he was horrified by their treatment of the Jewish people, which he described as "an attack on civilization, comparable only to such horrors as the Spanish Inquisition and the African slave trade." Following the 1905 Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Du Bois became impressed by the growing strength of Imperial Japan. He came to view the ascendant Japanese Empire as an antidote to Western imperialism, arguing over for over three decades after the war that its rise represented a chance to break the monopoly that white nations had on international affairs. A representative of Japan's "Negro Propaganda Operations" traveled to the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, meeting with Du Bois and giving him a positive impression of Imperial Japan's racial policies. In 1936, the Japanese ambassador arranged a trip to Japan for Du Bois and a small group of academics, visiting China, Japan, and Manchukuo (Manchuria). Du Bois viewed Japanese colonialism in Manchuria as benevolent; he wrote that "colonial enterprise by a colored nation need not imply the caste, exploitation and subjection which is has always implied in the case of white Europe." While disturbed by the eventual Japanese alliance with Nazi Germany, Du Bois also argued Japan was only compelled to enter the pact because of the hostility of the United States and United Kingdom, and he viewed American apprehensions over Japanese expansion in Asia as racially motivated both before and after the Attack on Pearl Harbor. World War II. Du Bois opposed the US intervention in World War II, particularly in the Pacific, because he believed that China and Japan were emerging from the clutches of white imperialists. He felt that the European Allies waging war against Japan was an opportunity for whites to reestablish their influence in Asia. He was deeply disappointed by the US government's plan for African Americans in the armed forces: Blacks were limited to 5.8% of the force, and there were to be no African-American combat units – virtually the same restrictions as in World War I. With blacks threatening to shift their support to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Republican opponent in the 1940 election, Roosevelt appointed a few blacks to leadership posts in the military. "Dusk of Dawn", Du Bois's second autobiography, was published in 1940. The title refers to his hope that African Americans were passing out of the darkness of racism into an era of greater equality. The work is part autobiography, part history, and part sociological treatise. Du Bois described the book as "the autobiography of a concept of race ... elucidated and magnified and doubtless distorted in the thoughts and deeds which were mine ... Thus for all time my life is significant for all lives of men." In 1943, at age 75, Du Bois was abruptly fired from his position at Atlanta University by college president Rufus Clement. Many scholars expressed outrage, prompting Atlanta University to provide Du Bois with a lifelong pension and the title of professor emeritus. Arthur Spingarn remarked that Du Bois spent his time in Atlanta "battering his life out against ignorance, bigotry, intolerance and slothfulness, projecting ideas nobody but he understands, and raising hopes for change which may be comprehended in a hundred years." Turning down job offers from Fisk and Howard, Du Bois re-joined the NAACP as director of the Department of Special Research. Surprising many NAACP leaders, Du Bois jumped into the job with vigor and determination. During his 10−years hiatus, the NAACP's income had increased fourfold, and its membership had soared to 325,000 members. Later life. United Nations. Du Bois was a member of the three-person delegation from the NAACP that attended the 1945 conference in San Francisco at which the United Nations was established. The NAACP delegation wanted the United Nations to endorse racial equality and to bring an end to the colonial era. To push the United Nations in that direction, Du Bois drafted a proposal that pronounced "[t]he colonial system of government ... is undemocratic, socially dangerous and a main cause of wars". The NAACP proposal received support from China, India, and the Soviet Union, but it was virtually ignored by the other major powers, and the NAACP proposals were not included in the final United Nations charter. After the United Nations conference, Du Bois published "Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace", a book that attacked colonial empires and, in the words of one reviewer, "contains enough dynamite to blow up the whole vicious system whereby we have comforted our white souls and lined the pockets of generations of free-booting capitalists." In late 1945, Du Bois attended the fifth, and final, Pan-African Congress, in Manchester, England. The congress was the most productive of the five congresses, and there Du Bois met Kwame Nkrumah, the future first president of Ghana, who would later invite him to Africa. Du Bois helped to submit petitions to the UN concerning discrimination against African Americans, the most noteworthy of which was the NAACP's "An Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress". This advocacy laid the foundation for the later report and petition called "We Charge Genocide", submitted in 1951 by the Civil Rights Congress. "We Charge Genocide" accuses the U.S. of systematically sanctioning murders and inflicting harm against African Americans and therefore committing genocide. Cold War. When the Cold War commenced in the mid-1940s, the NAACP distanced itself from Communists, lest its funding or reputation suffer. The NAACP redoubled its efforts in 1947 after "Life" magazine published a piece by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. claiming that the NAACP was heavily influenced by Communists. Ignoring the NAACP's desires, Du Bois continued to fraternize with communist sympathizers such as Paul Robeson, Howard Fast and Shirley Graham (his future second wife). Du Bois wrote "I am not a communist ... On the other hand, I ... believe ... that Karl Marx ... put his finger squarely upon our difficulties ...". In 1946, Du Bois wrote articles giving his assessment of the Soviet Union; he did not embrace communism and he criticized its dictatorship. However, he felt that capitalism was responsible for poverty and racism, and felt that socialism was an alternative that might ameliorate those problems. The Soviets explicitly rejected racial distinctions and class distinctions, leading Du Bois to conclude that the USSR was the "most hopeful country on earth". Du Bois's association with prominent communists made him a liability for the NAACP, especially since the FBI was starting to aggressively investigate communist sympathizers; so – by mutual agreement – he resigned from the NAACP for the second time in late 1948. After departing the NAACP, Du Bois started writing regularly for the leftist weekly newspaper the "National Guardian", a relationship that would endure until 1961. Peace activism. Du Bois was a lifelong anti-war activist, but his efforts became more pronounced after World War II. In 1949, Du Bois spoke at the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace in New York: "I tell you, people of America, the dark world is on the move! It wants and will have Freedom, Autonomy and Equality. It will not be diverted in these fundamental rights by dialectical splitting of political hairs ... Whites may, if they will, arm themselves for suicide. But the vast majority of the world's peoples will march on over them to freedom!" In the spring of 1949, he spoke at the World Congress of the Partisans of Peace in Paris, saying to the large crowd: "Leading this new colonial imperialism comes my own native land built by my father's toil and blood, the United States. The United States is a great nation; rich by grace of God and prosperous by the hard work of its humblest citizens ... Drunk with power we are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human slavery which once ruined us; and to a third World War which will ruin the world." Du Bois affiliated himself with a leftist organization, the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions, and he traveled to Moscow as its representative to speak at the All-Soviet Peace Conference in late 1949. The FBI, McCarthyism, and trial. During the 1950s, the U.S. government's anti-communist McCarthyism campaign targeted Du Bois because of his socialist leanings. Historian Manning Marable characterizes the government's treatment of Du Bois as "ruthless repression" and a "political assassination". The FBI began to compile a file on Du Bois in 1942, investigating him for possible subversive activities. The original investigation appears to have ended in 1943 because the FBI was unable to discover sufficient evidence against Du Bois, but the FBI resumed its investigation in 1949, suspecting he was among a group of "Concealed Communists". The most aggressive government attack against Du Bois occurred in the early 1950s, as a consequence of his opposition to nuclear weapons. In 1950 he became chair of the newly created Peace Information Center (PIC), which worked to publicize the Stockholm Peace Appeal in the United States. The primary purpose of the appeal was to gather signatures on a petition, asking governments around the world to ban all nuclear weapons. In , the U.S. Justice Department alleged that the PIC was acting as an agent of a foreign state, and thus required the PIC to register with the federal government. Du Bois and other PIC leaders refused, and they were indicted for failure to register. After the indictment, some of Du Bois's associates distanced themselves from him, and the NAACP refused to issue a statement of support; but many labor figures and leftists – including Langston Hughes – supported Du Bois. He was finally tried in 1951 and was represented by civil rights attorney Vito Marcantonio. The case was dismissed before the jury rendered a verdict as soon as the defense attorney told the judge that "Dr. Albert Einstein has offered to appear as character witness for Dr. Du Bois". Du Bois's memoir of the trial is "In Battle for Peace". Even though Du Bois was not convicted, the government confiscated Du Bois's passport and withheld it for eight years. Communism. Du Bois was bitterly disappointed that many of his colleaguesparticularly the NAACPdid not support him during his 1951 PIC trial, whereas working class whites and blacks supported him enthusiastically. After the trial, Du Bois lived in Manhattan, writing and speaking, and continuing to associate primarily with leftist acquaintances. His primary concern was world peace, and he railed against military actions such as the Korean War, which he viewed as efforts by imperialist whites to maintain colored people in a submissive state. In 1950, at the age of 82, Du Bois ran for U.S. Senator from New York on the American Labor Party ticket and received about 200,000 votes, or 4% of the statewide total. He continued to believe that capitalism was the primary culprit responsible for the subjugation of colored people around the world, and although he recognized the faults of the Soviet Union, he continued to uphold Communism as a possible solution to racial problems. In the words of biographer David Lewis, Du Bois did not endorse Communism for its own sake, but did so because "the enemies of his enemies were his friends". The same ambiguity characterized his opinions of Joseph Stalin: in 1940 he wrote disdainfully of the "Tyrant Stalin", but when Stalin died in 1953, Du Bois wrote a eulogy characterizing Stalin as "simple, calm, and courageous", and lauding him for being the "first [to] set Russia on the road to conquer race prejudice and make one nation out of its 140 groups without destroying their individuality". The U.S. government prevented Du Bois from attending the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. The conference was the culmination of 40 years of Du Bois's dreams – a meeting of 29 nations from Africa and Asia, many recently independent, representing most of the world's colored peoples. The conference celebrated those nations' independence as they began to assert their power as non-aligned nations during the Cold War. Du Bois regained his passport in 1958, and with his second wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, he traveled around the world, visiting Russia and China. In both countries he was celebrated. Du Bois later wrote approvingly of the conditions in both countries. Du Bois became incensed in 1961 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1950 McCarran Act, a key piece of McCarthyism legislation which required Communists to register with the government. To demonstrate his outrage, he joined the Communist Party in October 1961, at the age of 93. Around that time, he wrote: "I believe in Communism. I mean by Communism, a planned way of life in the production of wealth and work designed for building a state whose object is the highest welfare of its people and not merely the profit of a part." He asked Herbert Aptheker, a Communist and historian of African-American history, to be his literary executor. Death in Africa. Nkrumah invited Du Bois to Ghana to participate in their independence celebration in 1957, but he was unable to attend because the U.S. government had confiscated his passport in 1951. By 1960the "Year of Africa"Du Bois had recovered his passport, and was able to cross the Atlantic and celebrate the creation of the Republic of Ghana. Du Bois returned to Africa in late 1960 to attend the inauguration of Nnamdi Azikiwe as the first African governor of Nigeria. While visiting Ghana in 1960, Du Bois spoke with its president about the creation of a new encyclopedia of the African diaspora, the "Encyclopedia Africana". In early 1961, Ghana notified Du Bois that they had appropriated funds to support the encyclopedia project, and they invited him to travel to Ghana and manage the project there. In October 1961, at the age of 93, Du Bois and his wife traveled to Ghana to take up residence and commence work on the encyclopedia. In early 1963, the United States refused to renew his passport, so he made the symbolic gesture of becoming a citizen of Ghana. While it is sometimes stated that Du Bois renounced his U.S. citizenship at that time, and he stated his intention to do so, Du Bois never actually did. His health declined during the two years he was in Ghana, and he died on August 27, 1963, in the capital of Accra at the age of 95. The following day, at the March on Washington, speaker Roy Wilkins asked the hundreds of thousands of marchers to honor Du Bois with a moment of silence. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, embodying many of the reforms Du Bois had campaigned for during his entire life, was enacted almost a year after his death. Du Bois was given a state funeral on August 29–30, 1963, at Nkrumah's request, and was buried near the western wall of Christiansborg Castle (now Osu Castle), then the seat of government in Accra. In 1985, another state ceremony honored Du Bois. With the ashes of his wife Shirley Graham Du Bois, who had died in 1977, his body was re-interred at their former home in Accra, which was dedicated the W. E. B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture in his memory. Du Bois's first wife Nina, their son Burghardt, and their daughter Yolande, who died in 1961, were buried in the cemetery of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, his hometown. Personal life. Du Bois was organized and disciplined: his lifelong regimen was to rise at 7:15, work until 5:00, eat dinner and read a newspaper until 7:00, then read or socialize until he was in bed, invariably before 10:00. He was a meticulous planner, and frequently mapped out his schedules and goals on large pieces of graph paper. Many acquaintances found him to be distant and aloof, and he insisted on being addressed as "Dr. Du Bois". Although he was not gregarious, he formed several close friendships with associates such as Charles Young, Paul Laurence Dunbar, John Hope and Mary White Ovington. His closest friend was Joel Spingarn – a white man – but Du Bois never accepted Spingarn's offer to be on a first-name basis. Du Bois was something of a dandy – he dressed formally, carried a walking stick, and walked with an air of confidence and dignity. He was relatively short, standing at , and always maintained a well-groomed mustache and goatee. He enjoyed singing and playing tennis. Du Bois married Nina Gomer (b. about 1870, m. 1896, d. 1950), with whom he had two children. Their son Burghardt died as an infant before their second child, daughter Yolande, was born. Yolande attended Fisk University and became a high school teacher in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father encouraged her marriage to Countee Cullen, a nationally known poet of the Harlem Renaissance. They divorced within two years. She married again and had a daughter, Du Bois's only grandchild. That marriage also ended in divorce. As a widower, Du Bois married Shirley Graham (m. 1951, d. 1977), an author, playwright, composer, and activist. She brought her son David Graham to the marriage. David grew close to Du Bois and took his stepfather's name; he also worked for African-American causes. The historian David Levering Lewis wrote that Du Bois engaged in several extramarital relationships. Religion. Although Du Bois attended a New England Congregational church as a child, he abandoned organized religion while at Fisk College. As an adult, Du Bois described himself as agnostic or a freethinker, but at least one biographer concluded that Du Bois was virtually an atheist. However, another analyst of Du Bois's writings concluded that he had a religious voice, albeit radically different from other African-American religious voices of his era. Du Bois was credited with inaugurating a 20th-century spirituality to which Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin also belong. When asked to lead public prayers, Du Bois would refuse. In his autobiography, Du Bois wrote: Du Bois accused American churches of being the most discriminatory of all institutions. He also provocatively linked African-American Christianity to indigenous African religions. He did occasionally acknowledge the beneficial role that religion played in African-American life – as the "basic rock" which served as an anchor for African-American communities – but in general disparaged African-American churches and clergy because he felt they did not support the goals of racial equality and hindered activists' efforts. Although Du Bois was not personally religious, he infused his writings with religious symbology. Many contemporaries viewed him as a prophet. His 1904 prose poem, "Credo", was written in the style of a religious creed and widely read by the African-American community. Moreover, Du Bois, both in his own fiction and in stories published in "The Crisis", often drew analogies between the lynchings of African Americans and the crucifixion of Christ. Between 1920 and 1940, Du Bois shifted from overt black messiah symbolism to more subtle messianic language. Voting. In 1889, Du Bois became eligible to vote at the age of 21. During his life he followed the philosophy of voting for third parties if the Democratic and Republican parties were unsatisfactory; or voting for the lesser of two evils if a third option was not available. During the 1912 presidential election, Du Bois supported Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee, as he believed Wilson was a "liberal Southerner" although he had wanted to support Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, but the Progressives ignored issues facing black people. He later regretted his decision, as he came to the conclusion that Wilson was opposed to racial equality. During the 1916 presidential election he supported Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican nominee, as he believed that Wilson was the greater evil. During the 1920 presidential election he supported Warren G. Harding, the Republican nominee, as Harding promised to end the United States occupation of Haiti. During the 1924 presidential election he supported Robert M. La Follette, the Progressive nominee, although he believed that La Follette couldn't win. During the 1928 presidential election he believed that both Herbert Hoover and Al Smith insulted black voters, and instead Du Bois supported Norman Thomas, the Socialist nominee. From 1932 to 1944, Du Bois supported Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, as Roosevelt's attitude towards workers was more realistic. During the 1948 presidential election he supported Henry A. Wallace, the Progressive nominee, and supported the Progressives’ nominee, Vincent Hallinan, again in 1952. During the 1956 presidential election Du Bois stated that he would not vote. He criticized the foreign, taxation, and crime policies of the Eisenhower administration and Adlai Stevenson II for promising to maintain those policies. However, he could not vote third party due to the lack of ballot access for the Socialist Party. Archival material. The W. E. B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst contains Du Bois's archive, 294 boxes, 89 microfilm reels. 99,625 items have been digitized.

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William Leo Hansberry William Leo Hansberry (February 25, 1894 – November 3, 1965) was an American scholar and lecturer. He was the older brother of real estate broker Carl Augustus Hansberry, uncle of award-winning playwright Lorraine Hansberry and great-granduncle of actress Taye Hansberry. Life and career. Hansberry was born on February 25, 1894, in Gloster, Amite County, Mississippi. He was the son of Elden Hayes and Pauline (Bailey) Hansberry. His father taught history at Alcorn A&M in Lorman, Mississippi, but died when the younger Hansberry was only three years old. He and his younger brother, Carl Augustus Hansberry, were raised by their stepfather, Elijah Washington. In 1915, he attended Atlanta University, where he was exposed to a new volume of essays on race (published by the university's Sociology Department), which served as a major influence on him. Another big influence was the book, "The Negro" by W. E. B. Du Bois. After he purchased a copy of the book, he rushed to the school's library to refer to the references cited in the volume. To his dismay, Hansberry discovered Atlanta University's reference library to be sorely lacking. As a result, he left Atlanta University two weeks into his sophomore year to transfer to the best-equipped university he could find that would admit blacks. As a result, he began studies at Harvard University in February 1917; he completed his undergraduate studies there in 1921. Upon his graduation from Harvard, Hansberry taught for a year at Straight College (now Dillard University) in New Orleans. In September 1922, Hansberry joined the faculty of Howard University where he started the African Civilization Section of the History Department. Hansberry received his Masters from Harvard in 1932. Additional post-graduate work was done at the University of Chicago, Oxford University and Cairo University. His knowledge of African studies was so vast that he was unable to obtain a Ph.D. because there was no school with faculty members qualified to supervise his dissertation. As a professor at Howard, Hansberry taught courses on African civilizations and cultures. By the mid-1930s, he was internationally recognized by his peers as an outstanding scholar in his field. Among his students were two future African leaders. One was the future Ghanaian revolutionary, Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah would later become the first prime minister and president of Ghana. The other was Nnamdi Azikiwe, who studied anthropology under him from 1928 to 1929 and wrote a eulogy for him. Azikiwe would become the first president of Nigeria. In 1961, then-Nigerian Governor-General Azikiwe thought Hansberry's work so important that he offered to underwrite the publication of his major work, "The Rise and Decline of the Ethiopian Empire". Although Hansberry's courses were very popular with students, two distinguished faculty members accused Hansberry of teaching subject matter without adequate research to support it. With the program and his job on the line, Hansberry presented the Board of Trustees with detailed documentation of his research. While he managed to save the African studies program, Hansberry's research funding was cut off and he would not receive tenure until 1938. Despite the extensive research he conducted over his lifetime, Hansberry was very reluctant to have his work published. James Williams, one of his former students and later a Senior Professor of African History at Howard, recalled in 1972 that when his students urged publication of his work, Hansberry would smile, but always firmly reply, "I am not ready yet." Hansberry retired from Howard in June 1959. He married Myrtle Kelso (September 24, 1908—May 1980) of Meridian, Lauderdale County, Mississippi, on June 22, 1937, in Chicago. She is the daughter of Wiley and Mamie Kelso. Two children were born to this union: While visiting relatives in Chicago, Hansberry died at Billings Hospital of a cerebral hemorrhage on November 3, 1965. In 1972, he finally received recognition from the university that had snubbed him when Howard named a lecture hall in his honor. William Leo Hansberry was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

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Elaine Brown Elaine Brown (born March 2, 1943) is an American prison activist, writer, singer, and former Black Panther Party chairwoman who is based in Oakland, California. Brown briefly ran for the Green Party presidential nomination in 2008. She withdrew from the party. Early life. Elaine Brown grew up in the inner city of North Philadelphia with her mother Dorothy Clark and an absent father. Despite being in desperate poverty, Brown's mother worked hard to provide for Elaine. She was enrolled in private schooling, took music lessons, and had nice clothing. During her childhood, she studied classical piano and ballet for many years at a predominantly white experimental elementary school. As a young woman, Elaine had very few African-American friends and spent most of her time with white people. After graduating from Philadelphia High School for Girls, a public preparatory school for gifted young women, she studied at Temple University for less than a semester. She withdrew from Temple because of her desire to work in the music industry. Brown moved to Los Angeles, California, to become a professional songwriter. While in Los Angeles, Brown enrolled in the University of California Los Angeles. She later went on to briefly attend Mills College and Southwestern University School of Law. Upon arriving in California with little money and few contacts, Brown got work as a cocktail waitress at the strip club The Pink Pussycat. While working at the Pink Pussycat, she met Jay Richard Kennedy, a music executive who taught her about the intricacies of social justice. They became lovers. Kennedy was the first person to politicize and radicalize Brown. Because of the thorough education on the Civil Rights Movement, Capitalism, and Communism which Kennedy provided to her, Brown later became involved with the Black Liberation Movement. After living together for a brief time in the Hollywood Hills Hotel, the pair parted ways. After this pivotal relationship, Brown's involvement in politics grew and she began working for the radical newspaper "Harambee". Soon after, Brown became the first representative of the Black Student Alliance at the Black Congress in California. In April 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., she attended her first meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party. Involvement with the Black Panther Party. In 1968, Brown joined the Black Panther Party as a rank-and-file member, studying revolutionary literature, selling Black Panther Party newspapers, and cleaning guns, among other tasks. She soon helped the Party set up its first Free Breakfast for Children program in Los Angeles, as well as the Party's initial Free Busing to Prisons Program and Free Legal Aid Program. In 1968, Brown was commissioned by David Hilliard, the Party chief of staff, to record her songs, a request resulting in the album "Seize the Time". She eventually assumed the role of editor of "the" "Black Panther" publication in the Southern California Branch of the Party. In 1971, Brown became a member of the Party's Central Committee as Minister of Information, replacing the expelled Eldridge Cleaver. In 1973, Brown was commissioned to record more songs by Black Panther Party founder and Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton. These songs resulted in the album "Until We're Free". As part of a directive by Newton, Brown unsuccessfully ran for the Oakland city council in 1973, getting 30 percent of the vote. She ran again in 1975, losing again with 44 percent of the vote. When Newton fled to Cuba in 1974 to avoid criminal charges, he appointed Brown to lead the Black Panther Party. Brown was the only woman to do so. She chaired the Black Panther Party from 1974 until 1977. In her 1992 memoir, "A Taste of Power", she wrote about the experience: "A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant. A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race. She was an enemy of the black people... I knew I would have to muster something mighty to manage the Black Panther Party". She dealt with regular sexism because the men were angered by the thought of taking orders from a woman. During Brown's leadership of the Black Panther Party, she focused on electoral politics and community service. In 1977, she managed Lionel Wilson’s victorious campaign to become Oakland’s first black mayor. Also, Brown founded the Panther's Liberation School, which was recognized by the state of California as a model school. Brown stepped down from chairing the Black Panther Party less than a year after Newton’s return from Cuba in 1977 when Newton refused to condemn the beating of Regina Davis, an administrator of the Panther Liberation School. Other male members of the party beat her and broke her jaw because she reprimanded a coworker when he did not do an assignment. Newton opted for solidarity with the men. This incident was the point at which Brown could no longer tolerate the sexism and patriarchy of the Black Panther Party. For many, Brown's leaving was seen as a turning point for the Party. She left Oakland with her daughter, Ericka, and moved to Los Angeles. Brown recorded two albums, "Seize the Time" (Vault, 1969) and "Until We're Free" (Motown Records, 1973). "Seize the Time" includes "The Meeting," the anthem of the Black Panther Party. Later activism. After leaving the Black Panther Party in order to raise her daughter Ericka, Brown worked on her memoir, "A Taste of Power". She eventually returned to the struggle for black liberation, especially espousing the need for radical prison reform. From 1980 to 1983, she attended Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles. From 1990 to 1996, she lived in France. In 1996, Brown moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and founded Fields of Flowers, Inc., a non-profit organization committed to providing educational opportunities for impoverished African-American children. In 1998, she co-founded the grassroots group Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice to advocate for children being prosecuted as adults in the state of Georgia. Around the same time, she continued her advocacy for incarcerated youth by founding and leading the Michael Lewis Legal Defense Committee. Michael Lewis, also known as “Little B”, was sentenced to life in prison at the age of 14 for a murder that Brown believes he did not commit. Brown would eventually write a non-fiction novel, "The Condemnation of Little B" which analyzes the prosecution of Lewis as part of the greater problem of the increased imprisonment of black youth. In 2003, Brown co-founded the National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform, which helps thousands of prisoners find housing after they are released on parole, facilitates transportation for family visits to prisons, helps prisoners find employment, and raises money for prisoner phone calls and gifts. In 2005, while protesting a G-8 Summit in Sea Island, Georgia, Brown learned of the massive poverty in the nearby city of Brunswick, Georgia. Brown then attempted to run for mayor of Brunswick against Bryan Thompson. Running on the Green Party ticket, Brown hoped to become mayor in order to use her influence to bring the Michael Lewis case to prominence, as well as to empower blacks in Brunswick by using her elected office to create a base of economic power for the city's majority black and poor population through redistribution of the city's revenues. Though Brown was eventually disqualified from running and voting in Brunswick because she failed to establish residency in the city, her efforts brought widespread attention to Michael Lewis's case. She later became a co-founder of the Brunswick Women's Association for a People's Blueprint. Brown has continued her prison reform advocacy by lecturing frequently at colleges and universities in the US. Since 1995, she has lectured at more than forty colleges and universities, as well as numerous conferences. 2007 Green Party role. In March 2007, Brown announced her bid to be the 2008 Green Party presidential nominee. Brown felt that a campaign was necessary to promote the interests of those not represented by the major political parties, especially the interests of women under 30 and African Americans. Her platform focused on the needs of working-class families, promoting living wages for all, free health care, more funding for public education, more affordable housing, removal of troops from Iraq, improving the environment, and promoting equality. Brown intended on using her campaign to bring many minorities to the Green Party in the hope that it would better represent a revolutionary force for social justice. In late 2007, she resigned from the Green Party, as she found that the Party remained dominated by whites who had “no intention of using the ballot to actualize real social progress, and will aggressively repel attempts to do so.” In 2010, inmates in more than seven Georgia prisons used contraband cellphones to organize a nonviolent strike for better prison conditions, Brown became their "closest adviser outside prison walls." She "helped distill the inmate complaints into a list of demands. She held a conference call... to develop a strategy with various groups, including the Georgia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Nation of Islam." Personal life. Brown has one daughter, Ericka Abram, fathered by Black Panther member Raymond Hewitt, but he was mostly absent from his daughter's life. At Hewitt's funeral, Elaine Brown was in attendance.

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Cecelia Antoinette Cecelia Antoinette Bruton (November 24, 1949 – May 28, 2020), known professionally as Cecelia Antoinette or CeCe Antoinette, was an American actress, comedian, and writer. Early life. Cecelia Antoinette Bruton was born a twin in Dallas, in 1949, the daughter of Cicero Hamilton Bruton Sr. and Naomi Hartman Bruton. Her mother was an actress, and her father worked for the railroad. She was educated in Hamilton Park schools, graduating from high school in 1968. She earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Oklahoma. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. Career. Bruton began acting in Dallas and took acting classes in New York City. She appeared on Broadway in "Mule Bone", and in touring or regional companies of "The Wake of Jeremy Foster", "The Member of the Wedding", "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan", "St. Lucy's Eyes," and "Bronzeville". On television, she had small roles in , "Scrubs, Weeds, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Godfather of Harlem, The Punisher," "A Black Lady Sketch Show, Blue Bloods, 2 Broke Girls," "Mad Men", "Desperate Housewives", "Girlfriends", "Crossing Jordan", and "The Chris Rock Show". Her film credits included appearances in "After School" (2008), "Proud American" (2008), "Yes Man" (2008), "Dance Fu" (2011), "Different Flowers" (2017), and "Deadtectives" (2018). Bruton published a book of poetry, "Just as I am", and a memoir, "Brown Gal's Rising", and an autobiographical one-woman show, "Watermelon: Git It While It's Hot!". She participated in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in 1998, and performed at festivals about women in jazz in Hartford in 1999 and 2001. She was a member of the Women's Project Directors Forum. She taught theatre at various levels, including at the Pennsylvania State University and the New York City public schools. Personal life. Cecelia Antoinette Bruton was a practicing Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist. Death. She died in 2020, aged 70 years. She was honored posthumously at the Reel Sisters awards ceremony in November 2020.

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Dhoruba bin Wahad Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad (born Richard Earl Moore; 1944) is an American writer and activist, who is a former political prisoner, Black Panther Party leader, and co-founder of the Black Liberation Army. "Dhoruba", in Swahili, means "the storm". Early years. Richard Earl Moore was three years into a five-year sentence at Comstock Prison when he learned Malcolm X had been assassinated. Moore, who had a spotty disciplinary record at Comstock, felt the Nation of Islam was dogmatic and valued myrmidons rather than free thinkers, but he admired Malcolm X, who he felt "wasn't just a bow tie, a talking head. He was funny; he was witty; he was analytical." Moore had been reading Malcolm X's teachings and speeches and had considered joining with Malcolm X's army after being released from prison, and was stunned by Malcolm X's public execution. Like many others, black and white alike, Moore believed Malcolm X had been killed by a combination of enemies in the Nation of Islam and law enforcement, and Moore decided the best way to honor his hero's legacy was "to think like Malcolm X, and take his message and apply it to his daily reality." Consequently, Moore converted to Islam, took the name Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad, and began reading political material, including both non-fiction (such as Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and Karl Marx's "Das Kapital") as well as historical fiction (such as Leon Uris's "Exodus" and novels about Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan). The shooting. On May 19, 1971, Thomas Curry and Nicholas Binetti, two New York City Police Department officers who were guarding the home of Frank S. Hogan, the Manhattan district attorney, were fired upon in a drive-by shooting, with a machine gun. The officers survived, but were seriously injured, sustaining shots to the head, neck, chest, and abdomen. The shootings took place during a period of intense violence between black activist organizations and the New York City police department. Two days later, NYPD officers Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini were shot and killed outside a housing project in Harlem. Wahad was arrested and initially charged with robbing a South Bronx social club, and then was later charged with the attempted murders of Curry and Binetti. Wahad's first trial ended in a hung jury; his second in a mistrial. Two years later, in 1973, his third trial resulted in a guilty verdict; he was sentenced to twenty-five years to life. Prison and release. Wahad spent a total of nineteen years in prison. While incarcerated, he learned about Congressional hearings that disclosed the existence of a covert F.B.I. operation known as COINTELPRO. In December 1975 he filed a lawsuit against the F.B.I. and the police department of the City of New York. As a direct result of his lawsuit, over the next fifteen years the F.B.I. released more than 300,000 pages of documents regarding COINTELPRO. The COINTELPRO documents were the basis on which Wahad appealed his conviction, and on March 15, 1990, Judge Peter J. McQuillan of the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan reversed it, ruling that the prosecution had failed to disclose evidence that could have helped Mr. Wahad's defense. While Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau stated that he planned to appeal the ruling, and would obtain a retrial if his appeal failed, Wahad was freed and released without bail. Morgenthau's attempt to appeal was rejected by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, and on January 20, 1995, the Manhattan district attorney's office stated there would be no retrial, indicating that the current condition of the evidence would make this impossible. Lawsuits. In 1995, the F.B.I. settled with Wahad; the U.S. government paid him $400,000. On December 4, 2000, Dhoruba's suit against the New York Police Department, seeking $15 million in damages was scheduled to begin. On December 8, 2000, the city of New York laid to rest a 25-year legal battle, and agreed to pay Wahad an additional $490,000 in damages. Aftermath. Wahad lived in Accra, Ghana, where he organized on Pan-Africanism and the prison system. Using the funds from his settlements for personal damages from the FBI and City of New York, he established the Campaign to Free Black and New African Political Prisoners (formerly the Campaign to Free Black Political Prisoners and Prisoners-of-War) and founded the Institute for the Development of Pan-African policy in Ghana. He currently lives in New York City and continues his work. Assault by "New" Black Panther Party. On August 19, 2015, Bin Wahad and an associate were assaulted by a faction of the New Black Panther Party. Bin Wahad had been attending a conference in Atlanta, Georgia held by the Nzinga faction of the "New" Panthers, where Bin Wahad confronted the group about their adoption of the Black Panther name and their rhetoric. The two were ordered to leave but when they refused, Bin Wahad was assaulted. Wahad was left with a concussion, a broken jaw and lacerations from the attack. The event led founding member of the original Black Panthers, Elbert "Big Man" Howard, to denounce the group as "reactionaries" and "thugs".

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Barbara Becnel Barbara Cottman Becnel (born May 30, 1950) is an American author, journalist, and film producer. She was a close friend and advocate for Crips co-founder Stanley Williams (aka "Stan Tookie Williams"; a convicted murderer and former gang leader who would later become an anti-gang activist and writer), and editor of Williams's series of children's books, which spoke out against gang violence. Williams was executed in 2005. Becnel co-produced the Golden Globe-nominated film "", which starred award-winning actress Lynn Whitfield playing the role of Becnel. Biography. Becnel was in attendance at Williams' execution as one of his chosen witnesses. After he was pronounced dead, she, along with two of his friends, television executive Shirley Neal and movie producer Rudy Langlais, stood up and yelled that California had executed an innocent man. After the execution, she said "We are going to prove his innocence, and when we do, we are going to show that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is, in fact, himself a cold blooded murderer." Williams directed Becnel to make the arrangements for his funeral, which was held at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on December 20, 2005. More than 3,000 people attended Williams' memorial service. On Sunday, June 25, 2006, Becnel and Neal released Williams' ashes into a lake in Thokoza Park, located in the black township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. In February 2009, Becnel and Neal released "Tribute: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005", a documentary they directed and produced about Williams. Announcing her intention to defeat Schwarzenegger in the upcoming gubernatorial election, Becnel ran for the Democratic Party's nomination for Governor of California in 2006, the first black female to do so. She finished with 66,544 votes overall, which amounted to 2.7% of all ballots cast, coming in third out of eight Democrats behind Phil Angelides and Steve Westly. Her campaign attracted media attention, and she raised enough money in the last week of the campaign to run television and radio commercials. She publicly denounced Democratic Gubernatorial candidates Phil Angelides and Steve Westly for supporting the death penalty. She is also outspoken on other social issues, such as the environment and immigration. Barbara's outspoken criticism of Angelides and Westly resulted in her not being invited to a number of key Democratic Party events during the general election season. This, coupled with differences over issues such as the death penalty, led Barbara to leave the Democratic Party. In the first weeks of 2007 Barbara left the Democratic Party and joined the Green Party of California, the state affiliate of the Green Party (GPUS). When asked why she joined the Green Party, Becnel responded, "The Green Party is right on the issues--no ifs, ands, or buts."

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Shirley Graham Du Bois Shirley Graham Du Bois (born Lola Shirley Graham Jr.; November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American author, playwright, composer, and activist for African-American causes, among others. She won the Messner and the Anisfield-Wolf prizes for her works. Biography. She was born Lola Shirley Graham Jr. in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1896, as the only daughter among five children. Her father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and the family moved often due to her fathers work in parsonages throughout the country. In June 1915, Shirley graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Washington. She married her first husband, Shadrach T. McCants, in 1921. Their son Robert was born in 1923, followed by David Graham DuBois in 1925. In 1926, Graham moved to Paris, France, to study music composition at the Sorbonne. She thought that this education might allow her to achieve better employment and be able to better support her children. Meeting Africans and Afro-Caribbean people in Paris introduced her to new music and cultures. Shirley and Shadrach divorced in 1927. Graham served as music librarian while attending Howard University as a nonmatriculated student under the tutelage of Professor Roy W. Tibbs. He recommended her for a teaching position at Morgan College which led to her position as head of the music department from 1929 to 1931. In 1931, Graham entered Oberlin College as an advanced student and, after earning her B.A. in 1934, went on to do graduate work in music, completing a master's degree in 1935. In 1936, Hallie Flanagan appointed Graham director of the Chicago Negro Unit of the Federal Theater Project, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. She wrote musical scores, directed, and did additional associated work. Shirley Graham Du Bois composed the opera "Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro" which premiered in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932, commissioned by the Stadium Opera Company. Tom Tom featured an all Black cast and orchestra, structured in three acts; act one taking place in an Indigenous African tribe, act two portraying an American Slave plantation, and the final act taking place in 1920s Harlem. The music features elements of blues and spirituals, as well as jazz with elements of opera. The score of this opera was considered lost and has not been performed since its premiere until it was rediscovered in 2001 at Harvard University. Shirley Graham briefly worked at the Federal Theatre Project before it was shut down in 1939 by a group of anti-communists. Elizabeth Dilling - a white-supremacist and staunch anti-communist - as well as Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-semite, sought to defund the Federal Theatre Project. The Federal Theatre Project eventually was defunded as a result of this anti-communist and racist rhetoric. From 1940 to 1942 Shirley Graham worked at the Phillis Wheatley Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Indianapolis, Indiana where she focused on establishing a theatre program and then became the director of the YMCA-USO group in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The YWCA supported the Federal Anti-Lynching Law. However, Elizabeth Dilling and anti-communist and white-supremacist groups had claimed that YWCA was a “Communist-front organizations controlled by Jews” and attacked the organization’s support for equal rights for Black peoples. Elizabeth Dilling’s publication of “Red Channels” ultimately launched anti-communist backlash against Shirley Graham Du Bois, resulting in her work being pulled from libraries and censored. In the late 1940s, Graham became a member of Sojourners for Truth and Justicean African-American organization working for global women's liberation. Around the same time, she joined the American Communist Party. In 1951, she married W. E. B. Du Bois, the second marriage for both. She was 54 years old; he was 83. In 1958, Shirley Graham Du Bois and her husband visited Ghana, where she spoke at the All-African People's Conference (AAPC), an event held by 62 African National Liberation organizations where she delivered a speech titled “The Future of All-Africa lies in Socialism” where she stated “Africa, ancient Africa, has been called by the world and has lifted up her hands! Africa has no choice between private capitalism and socialism. The whole world, including capitalist countries, is moving toward socialism, inevitably, inexorably. You can choose between blocs of military alliance, you can choose between groups of political union; you cannot choose between socialism and private capitalism because private capitalism is doomed.” In 1960 the Du Boises attended a ceremony in the Republic of Ghana honoring Kwame Nkrumah as the first president of the newly liberated country. Shirley Graham Du Bois and W.E.B Du Bois later became citizens of Ghana in 1961. Shirley Graham Du Bois attended the Second Summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Cairo in 1964 and consulted with Malcom X on the efforts of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) to get support for the issues inside the U.S. among heads-of-state, the UN and national liberation movements. Graham announced the starting of a course on television screenwriting in Accra to create a group of writers for Ghana National Television. During her first visit to China in 1959, Shirley Graham Du Bois, alongside her husband W.E.B Du Bois, was commemorated in China for their activism and commitment to Black Liberation, as well as for liberation of all people of color across the globe. The Communist Party of China in 1959 commemorated W.E.B Du Bois by publishing his book The Soul of Black Folk in Chinese languages. Shirley Graham Du Bois devoted her time in China to the women’s struggle and sought to bridge ties between the proletarian struggle in China with the struggle of Black Americans. The People’s Daily recognized her as a member of the World Peace Council and of the national committee for the Association of American-Soviet Friendship. Following the right-wing military coup led by Joseph Aruther Ankrah, ousting Kwame Nkrumah, Shirley Graham Du Bois moved to Egypt and later moved to China again during the midst of the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”. During this time, Shirley Graham Du Bois sided with the Chinese Communists in the Sino-Soviet split. She had praised China’s music programs in Shanghai and she joined the Bureau of Afro-Asian writers. Shirley Graham Du Bois spent a good amount of time in Chinese Communes and with the Red Guards. She was able to attain a visa to the U.S to give talks at Yale and UCLA in 1970, where she was able to speak on Imperialism, Capitalism and colonialism and her experiences in countries undergoing Socialist construction, such as China and Vietnam. She also gave W.E.B Du Bois’ writings to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She produced a movie in China called “Women of the New China” in 1974. Shirley Graham Du Bois passed away in Beijing, China in 1977, where she is buried in the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionary Heroes. Her funeral was attended by many important political figures in China, including Cheng Yonggui, Deng Yingchao, and Hua Goufeng, where they honored her as a hero for her internationalism and selflessness. The Communist Party Chairman memorial wreaths in honor of Graham Du Bois, as did the embassies of Tanzania, Ghana, and Zambia. In 1967, she was forced to leave after a military-led coup d'état, and moved to Cairo, Egypt, where she continued writing. Her surviving son David Graham Du Bois accompanied her and worked as a journalist. Death. Shirley Graham Du Bois died of breast cancer on March 27, 1977, aged 80, in Beijing, China. She died as a Tanzanian. She had moved from Ghana to Tanzania after Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah, was overthrown on 24 February 1966, and became close to Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, and acquired Tanzanian citizenship. Honors. Her alma mater Oberlin Conservatory of Music recently honored DuBois offering cluster courses and a conference devoted to reviving her remarkable legacy as a composer, activist and media figure. The conference was called "Intersections: Recovering the Genius of Shirley Graham Du Bois 2020 Symposium" on Thursday and Friday, February 27 & 28, 2020 that included a plenary lecture by Columbia professor and author Farah Jasmine Griffin. The event was co-sponsored by The Gertrude B. Lemle Teaching Center, StudiOC, a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Dean of The College, Dean of the Conservatory, History Department, Oberlin College Libraries, Africana Studies Department, and the Theater Department. Her papers are archived at; Works. After meeting Africans in Paris while studying at the Sorbonne in 1926, Graham composed the musical score and libretto of "Tom Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro" (1932), an opera. She used music, dance and the book to express the story of Africans' journey to the North American colonies, through slavery and to freedom. It premiered in Cleveland, Ohio. The opera attracted 10,000 people to its premiere at the Cleveland Stadium and 15,000 to the second performance. According to the "Oxford Companion to African-American Literature," her theatre works included "Deep Rivers" (1939), a musical; "It's Morning" (1940), a one-act tragedy about a slave mother who contemplates infanticide; "I Gotta Home" (1940), a one-act drama; "Track Thirteen" (1940), a comedy for radio and her only published play; "Elijah's Raven" (1941), a three-act comedy; and "Dust to Earth" (1941), a three-act tragedy. Graham used theater to tell the black woman's story and perspective, countering white versions of history. Despite her unsuccessful attempts to land a Broadway production as many African American women before and after her, her plays were still produced by Karamu Theatre in Cleveland and other major Black companies. Her work was also seen in many colleges and both "Track Thirteen (1940)" and "Tom-Tom" were aired on the radio. Due to the difficulty in getting musicals or plays produced and published, Graham turned to literature. She wrote in a variety of genres, specializing from the 1950s in biographies of leading African-American and world figures for young readers. She wanted to increase the number of books that dealt with notable African Americans in elementary school libraries. Owing to her personal knowledge of her subjects, her books on Paul Robeson and Kwame Nkrumah are considered especially interesting. Other subjects included Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley, and Booker T. Washington; as well as Gamal Abdul Nasser, and Julius Nyerere. One of her last novels, "Zulu Heart" (1974), included sympathetic portrayals of whites in South Africa despite racial conflicts. Selections from her correspondence with her husband (both before and after their relationship began) appear in the three volume 1976 collection edited by Herbert Aptheker (ed.), "Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois". Shirley Graham Du Bois is the subject of "Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois". Biographical Works. Biographies for young readers: Novels:

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Darius Gray Darius Gray is an African-American Latter-day Saint speaker and writer. Gray was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in 1964. He attended Brigham Young University for one year and then transferred to the University of Utah. Gray worked for a time as a journalist. LDS Church service. Gray was a counselor in the presidency of the LDS Church's Genesis Group when it was formed in 1971. He was president of the group from 1997 to 2003. Gray was also the co-director (with Marie Taylor) of the Freedmens Bank Records project for the church's Family History Department. He is a speaker on African-American genealogy, blacks in the Bible and blacks in the LDS Church. He had also written a trilogy of historical novels ("Standing on the Promises") with Margaret Blair Young, and co-produced/directed a documentary with Young as well: "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons." Utah's NAACP honored him with its Martin Luther King Jr. award in 2008, and the Iota Iota chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity honored him as "Citizen of the Year" in 2011. Gray has traveled throughout the United States to make presentations. In 2007, he appeared in the PBS documentary "The Mormons". In February 2008, he made an invitation-only presentation at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit that was partly sponsored by New Detroit. He is also featured in the BYU Television series "Questions and Ancestors". Gray has also served as a developer of the website blacklds.org and on the advisory board of Reach the Children, a humanitarian organization designed to help people in Africa. Gray was among those involved in Developing the "Race and the Priesthood" essay published on the website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in December 2013. In 2014 Gray was given a special citation by the Mormon History Association for contributions to Mormon history.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is a political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He became widely known while on death row for his writings and commentary on the criminal justice system in the United States. After numerous appeals, his death penalty sentence was overturned by a Federal court. In 2011, the prosecution agreed to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. He entered the general prison population early the following year. Beginning at the age of 14 in 1968, Abu-Jamal became involved with the Black Panther Party and was a member until October 1970. After he left the party, he completed his high school education, and later became a radio reporter. He eventually served as president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He supported the MOVE Organization in Philadelphia and covered the 1978 confrontation in which one police officer was killed. The MOVE Nine were the members who were arrested and convicted of murder in that case. Since 1982, the murder trial of Abu-Jamal has been seriously criticized for constitutional failings; some have claimed that he is innocent, and many opposed his death sentence. The Faulkner family, politicians, and other groups involved with law enforcement, state and city governments argue that Abu-Jamal's trial was fair, his guilt beyond question, and his death sentence justified. When his death sentence was overturned by a Federal court in 2001, he was described as "perhaps the world's best-known death-row inmate" by "The New York Times." During his imprisonment, Abu-Jamal has published books and commentaries on social and political issues; his first book was "Live from Death Row" (1995). Early life and activism. He was born Wesley Cook in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he grew up. He has a younger brother named William. They attended local public schools. In 1968, a high school teacher, a Kenyan instructing a class on African cultures, encouraged the students to take African or Arabic names for classroom use; he gave Cook the name "Mumia". According to Abu-Jamal, "Mumia" means "Prince" and was the name of a Kenyan anti-colonial African nationalist who fought against the British before Kenyan independence. Involvement with the Black Panthers. Abu-Jamal has described being "kicked ... into the Black Panther Party" as a teenager of 14, after suffering a beating from "white racists" and a policeman for trying to disrupt a 1968 rally for Independent candidate George Wallace, former governor of Alabama, who was running on a racist platform. From then he helped form the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party with Defense Captain Reggie Schell, and other Panthers. He was appointed as the chapter's "Lieutenant of Information," responsible for writing information and news communications. In an interview in the early years, Abu-Jamal quoted Mao Zedong, saying that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". That same year, he dropped out of Benjamin Franklin High School and began living at the branch's headquarters. He spent late 1969 in New York City and early 1970 in Oakland, living and working with BPP colleagues in those cities; the party had been founded in Oakland. He was a party member from May 1969 until October 1970. During this period, he was subject to illegal surveillance as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's COINTELPRO program, with which the Philadelphia police cooperated. The FBI was working to infiltrate black radical groups and to disrupt them by creating internal dissension. Return to education. After leaving the Panthers, Abu-Jamal returned as a student to his former high school. He was suspended for distributing literature calling for "black revolutionary student power". He led unsuccessful protests to change the school name to Malcolm X High, to honor the major African-American leader who had been killed in New York by political opponents. After attaining his GED, Abu-Jamal studied briefly at Goddard College in rural Vermont. He returned to Philadelphia. Marriages and family. Cook adopted the surname Abu-Jamal ("father of Jamal" in Arabic) after the birth of his first child, son Jamal, on July 18, 1971. He married Jamal's mother Biba in 1973, but they did not stay together long. Their daughter, Lateefa, was born shortly after the wedding. The couple divorced. In 1977 Abu-Jamal married again, to his second wife, Marilyn (known as "Peachie"). Their son, Mazi, was born in early 1978. By 1981, Abu-Jamal had divorced Peachie and had married his third (and current) wife, Wadiya. Radio journalism career. By 1975 Abu-Jamal was working in radio newscasting, first at Temple University's WRTI and then at commercial enterprises. In 1975, he was employed at radio station WHAT, and he became host of a weekly feature program at WCAU-FM in 1978. He also worked for brief periods at radio station WPEN. He became active in the local chapter of the Marijuana Users Association of America. From 1979 to 1981 he worked at National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate WHYY. The management asked him to resign, saying that he did not maintain a sufficiently objective approach in his presentation of news. As a radio journalist, Abu-Jamal was renowned for identifying with and covering the MOVE anarcho-primitivist commune in West Philadelphia's Powelton Village neighborhood. He reported on the 1979–80 trial of certain members (the "MOVE Nine"), who were convicted of the murder of police officer James Ramp. Abu-Jamal had several high-profile interviews, including with Julius Erving, Bob Marley and Alex Haley. He was elected president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. Before joining MOVE, Abu-Jamal reported on the organization. When he joined MOVE, he said it was because of his love of the people in the organization. Thinking back on it later, he said he "was probably enraged as well". In December 1981, Abu-Jamal was working as a taxicab driver in Philadelphia two nights a week to supplement his income. He had been working part-time as a reporter for WDAS, then an African-American-oriented and minority-owned radio station. Traffic stop and death of officer Faulkner. At 3:55 am on December 9, 1981, in Philadelphia, close to the intersection at 13th and Locust streets, Philadelphia Police Department officer Daniel Faulkner conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle belonging to and driven by William Cook, Abu-Jamal's younger brother. Faulkner and Cook became engaged in a physical confrontation. Driving his cab in the vicinity, Abu-Jamal observed the altercation, parked, and ran across the street toward Cook's car. Faulkner was shot in the back and face. He shot Abu-Jamal in the stomach. Faulkner died at the scene from the gunshot to his head. Arrest and trial. Police arrived and arrested Abu-Jamal, who was found to be wearing a shoulder holster. His revolver, which had five spent cartridges, was beside him. He was taken directly from the scene of the shooting to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he received treatment for his wound. He was next taken to Police Headquarters, where he was charged and held for trial in the first-degree murder of Officer Faulkner. Prosecution case at trial. The prosecution presented four witnesses to the court about the shootings. Robert Chobert, a cab driver who testified he was parked behind Faulkner, identified Abu-Jamal as the shooter. Cynthia White testified that Abu-Jamal emerged from a nearby parking lot and shot Faulkner. Michael Scanlan, a motorist, testified that from two car lengths away he saw a man matching Abu-Jamal's description run across the street from a parking lot and shoot Faulkner. Albert Magilton testified to seeing Faulkner pull over Cook's car. As Abu-Jamal started to cross the street toward them, Magilton turned away and did not see what happened next. The prosecution presented two witnesses from the hospital where Abu-Jamal was treated. Hospital security guard Priscilla Durham and police officer Garry Bell testified that Abu-Jamal said in the hospital, "I shot the motherfucker, and I hope the motherfucker dies." A .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver, belonging to Abu-Jamal, with five spent cartridges, was retrieved beside him at the scene. He was wearing a shoulder holster. Anthony Paul, the Supervisor of the Philadelphia Police Department's firearms identification unit, testified at trial that the cartridge cases and rifling characteristics of the weapon were consistent with bullet fragments taken from Faulkner's body. Tests to confirm that Abu-Jamal had handled and fired the weapon were not performed. Contact with arresting police and other surfaces at the scene could have compromised the forensic value of such tests. Defense case at trial. The defense maintained that Abu-Jamal was innocent, and that the prosecution witnesses were unreliable. The defense presented nine character witnesses, including poet Sonia Sanchez, who testified that Abu-Jamal was "viewed by the black community as a creative, articulate, peaceful, genial man". Another defense witness, Dessie Hightower, testified that he saw a man running along the street shortly after the shooting, although he did not see the shooting itself. His testimony contributed to the development of a "running man theory", based on the possibility that a "running man" may have been the shooter. Veronica Jones also testified for the defense, but she did not testify to having seen another man. Other potential defense witnesses refused to appear in court. Abu-Jamal did not testify in his own defense, nor did his brother, William Cook. Cook had repeatedly told investigators at the crime scene: "I ain't got nothing to do with this!". Verdict and sentence. After three hours of deliberations, the jury presented a unanimous guilty verdict. In the sentencing phase of the trial, Abu-Jamal read to the jury from a prepared statement. He was cross-examined about issues relevant to the assessment of his character by Joseph McGill, the prosecuting attorney. In his statement, Abu-Jamal criticized his attorney as a "legal trained lawyer", who was imposed on him against his will and who "knew he was inadequate to the task and chose to follow the directions of this black-robed conspirator [referring to the judge], Albert Sabo, even if it meant ignoring my directions." He claimed that his rights had been "deceitfully stolen" from him by [Judge] Sabo, particularly focusing on the denial of his request to receive defense assistance from John Africa, who was not an attorney, and being prevented from proceeding "pro se". He quoted remarks of John Africa, and said: Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death by the unanimous decision of the jury. Amnesty International has objected to the introduction by the prosecution at the time of his sentencing of statements from when he was an activist as a youth. It also protested the politicization of the trial, noting that there was documented recent history in Philadelphia of police abuse and corruption, including fabricated evidence and use of excessive force. Amnesty International concluded "that the proceedings used to convict and sentence Mumia Abu-Jamal to death were in violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty". Appeals and review. State appeals. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on March 6, 1989, heard and rejected a direct appeal of his conviction. It subsequently denied rehearing. The Supreme Court of the United States denied his petition for writ of "certiorari" on October 1, 1990, and denied his petition for rehearing twice up to June 10, 1991. On June 1, 1995, Abu-Jamal's death warrant was signed by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. Its execution was suspended while Abu-Jamal pursued state post-conviction review. At the post-conviction review hearings, new witnesses were called. William "Dales" Singletary testified that he saw the shooting, and that the gunman was the passenger in Cook's car. Singletary's account contained discrepancies which rendered it "not credible" in the opinion of the court. The six judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled unanimously that all issues raised by Abu-Jamal, including the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, were without merit. The Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for "certiorari" against that decision on October 4, 1999, enabling Ridge to sign a second death warrant on October 13, 1999. Its execution was stayed as Abu-Jamal began to seek federal "habeas corpus" review. In 1999, Arnold Beverly claimed that he and an unnamed assailant, not Mumia Abu-Jamal, shot Daniel Faulkner as part of a contract killing because Faulkner was interfering with graft and payoff to corrupt police. As Abu-Jamal's defense team prepared another appeal in 2001, they were divided over use of the Beverly affidavit. Some thought it usable and others rejected Beverly's story as "not credible". Private investigator George Newman claimed in 2001 that Chobert had recanted his testimony. Commentators noted that police and news photographs of the crime scene did not show Chobert's taxi, and that Cynthia White, the only witness at the original trial to testify to seeing the taxi, had previously provided crime scene descriptions that omitted it. Cynthia White was declared to be dead by the state of New Jersey in 1992, but Pamela Jenkins claimed that she saw White alive as late as 1997. The Free Mumia Coalition has claimed that White was a police informant and that she falsified her testimony against Abu-Jamal. Kenneth Pate, who was imprisoned with Abu-Jamal on other charges, has since claimed that his step-sister Priscilla Durham, a hospital security guard, admitted later she had not heard the "hospital confession" to which she had testified at trial. The hospital doctors said that Abu-Jamal was "on the verge of fainting" when brought in, and they did not hear any such confession. In 2008, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected a further request from Abu-Jamal for a hearing into claims that the trial witnesses perjured themselves, on the grounds that he had waited too long before filing the appeal. On March 26, 2012 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected his appeal for retrial. His defense had asserted, based on a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences, that forensic evidence presented by the prosecution and accepted into evidence in the original trial was unreliable. This was reported as Abu-Jamal's last legal appeal. On April 30, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Abu-Jamal would not be immediately granted another appeal and that the proceedings had to continue until August 30 of that year. The defense argued that former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief justice Ronald D. Castille should have recused himself from the 2012 appeals decision after his involvement as Philadelphia District Attorney (DA) in the 1989 appeal. Both sides of the 2018 proceedings repeatedly cited a 1990 letter sent by Castille to then-Governor Bob Casey, urging Casey to sign the execution warrants of those convicted of murdering police. This letter, demanding Casey send "a clear and dramatic message to all cop killers," was claimed one of many reasons to suspect Castille's bias in the case. Philadelphia's current DA Larry Krasner stated he could not find any document supporting the defense's claim. On August 30, 2018, the proceedings to determine another appeal were once again extended and a ruling on the matter was delayed for at least 60 more days. Federal District Court 2001 ruling. The Free Mumia Coalition published statements by William Cook and his brother Abu-Jamal in the spring of 2001. Cook, who had been stopped by the police officer, had not made any statement before April 29, 2001, and did not testify at his brother's trial. In 2001 he said that he had not seen who had shot Faulkner. Abu-Jamal did not make any public statements about Faulkner's murder until May 4, 2001. In his version of events, he claimed that he was sitting in his cab across the street when he heard shouting, saw a police vehicle, and heard the sound of gunshots. Upon seeing his brother appearing disoriented across the street, Abu-Jamal ran to him from the parking lot and was shot by a police officer. In 2001 Judge William H. Yohn, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania upheld the conviction, saying that Abu-Jamal did not have the right to a new trial. But he vacated the sentence of death on December 18, 2001, citing irregularities in the penalty phase of the trial and the original process of sentencing. Particularly, he said that He ordered the State of Pennsylvania to commence new sentencing proceedings within 180 days, and ruled unconstitutional the requirement that a jury be unanimous in its finding of circumstances mitigating against a sentence of death. Eliot Grossman and Marlene Kamish, attorneys for Abu-Jamal, criticized the ruling on the grounds that it denied the possibility of a "trial de novo", at which they could introduce evidence that their client had been framed. Prosecutors also criticized the ruling. Officer Faulkner's widow Maureen said the judgment would allow Abu-Jamal, whom she described as a "remorseless, hate-filled killer", to "be permitted to enjoy the pleasures that come from simply being alive". Both parties appealed. Federal appeal and review. On December 6, 2005, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals admitted four issues for appeal of the ruling of the District Court: The Third Circuit Court heard oral arguments in the appeals on May 17, 2007, at the United States Courthouse in Philadelphia. The appeal panel consisted of Chief Judge Anthony Joseph Scirica, Judge Thomas Ambro, and Judge Robert Cowen. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sought to reinstate the sentence of death, on the basis that Yohn's ruling was flawed, as he should have deferred to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which had already ruled on the issue of sentencing. The prosecution said that the "Batson" claim was invalid because Abu-Jamal made no complaints during the original jury selection. The resulting jury was racially mixed, with 2 blacks and 10 whites at the time of the unanimous conviction, but defense counsel told the Third Circuit Court that Abu-Jamal did not get a fair trial because the jury was racially biased, misinformed, and the judge was a racist. He noted that the prosecution used eleven out of fourteen peremptory challenges to eliminate prospective black jurors. Terri Maurer-Carter, a former Philadelphia court stenographer, stated in a 2001 affidavit that she overheard Judge Sabo say "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger" in the course of a conversation with three people present regarding Abu-Jamal's case. Sabo denied having made any such comment. On March 27, 2008, the three-judge panel issued a majority 2–1 opinion upholding Yohn's 2001 opinion but rejecting the bias and "Batson" claims, with Judge Ambro dissenting on the "Batson" issue. On July 22, 2008, Abu-Jamal's formal petition seeking reconsideration of the decision by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges was denied. On April 6, 2009, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear Abu-Jamal's appeal, allowing his conviction to stand. On January 19, 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider its decision to rescind the death penalty. The same three-judge panel convened in Philadelphia on November 9, 2010, to hear oral argument. On April 26, 2011, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed its prior decision to vacate the death sentence on the grounds that the jury instructions and verdict form were ambiguous and confusing. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case in October. Death penalty dropped. On December 7, 2011, District Attorney of Philadelphia R. Seth Williams announced that prosecutors, with the support of the victim's family, would no longer seek the death penalty for Abu-Jamal and would accept a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. This sentence was reaffirmed by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on July 9, 2013. After the press conference on the sentence, widow Maureen Faulkner said that she did not want to relive the trauma of another trial. She understood that it would be extremely difficult to present the case against Abu-Jamal again, after the passage of 30 years and the deaths of several key witnesses. She also reiterated her belief that Abu-Jamal will be punished further after death. Life as a prisoner. In 1991 Abu-Jamal published an essay in the "Yale Law Journal", on the death penalty and his death row experience. In May 1994, Abu-Jamal was engaged by National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" program to deliver a series of monthly three-minute commentaries on crime and punishment. The broadcast plans and commercial arrangement were canceled following condemnations from, among others, the Fraternal Order of Police and U.S. Senator Bob Dole (Kansas Republican Party). Abu-Jamal sued NPR for not airing his work, but a federal judge dismissed the suit. His commentaries later were published in May 1995 as part of his first book, "Live from Death Row." At April 2021 he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was scheduled for heart surgery to relieve blocked coronary arteries In 1996, he completed a B.A. degree via correspondence classes at Goddard College, which he had attended for a time as a young man. He has been invited as commencement speaker by a number of colleges, and has participated via recordings. In 1999, Abu-Jamal was invited to record a keynote address for the graduating class at Evergreen State College in Washington State. The event was protested by some. In 2000, he recorded a commencement address for Antioch College. The now defunct New College of California School of Law presented him with an honorary degree "for his struggle to resist the death penalty." On October 5, 2014, he gave the commencement speech at Goddard College, via playback of a recording. As before, the choice of Abu-Jamal was controversial. Ten days later the Pennsylvania legislature had passed an addition to the Crime Victims Act called "Revictimization Relief." The new provision is intended to prevent actions that cause "a temporary or permanent state of mental anguish" to those who have previously been victimized by crime. It was signed by Republican governor Tom Corbett five days later. Commentators suggest that the bill was directed to control Abu-Jamal's journalism, book publication, and public speaking, and that it would be challenged on the grounds of free speech. With occasional interruptions due to prison disciplinary actions, Abu-Jamal has for many years been a regular commentator on an online broadcast, sponsored by Prison Radio. He also is published as a regular columnist for "Junge Welt," a Marxist newspaper in Germany. For almost a decade, Abu-Jamal taught introductory courses in Georgist economics by correspondence to other prisoners around the world. In addition, he has written and published several books: "Live From Death Row" (1995), a diary of life on Pennsylvania's death row; "All Things Censored" (2000), a collection of essays examining issues of crime and punishment; "Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience" (2003), in which he explores religious themes; and "We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party" (2004), a history of the Black Panthers that draws on his own experience and research, and discusses the federal government's program known as COINTELPRO, to disrupt black activist organizations. In 1995, Abu-Jamal was punished with solitary confinement for engaging in entrepreneurship contrary to prison regulations. Subsequent to the airing of the 1996 HBO documentary "," which included footage from visitation interviews conducted with him, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections banned outsiders from using any recording equipment in state prisons. In litigation before the U.S. Court of Appeals, in 1998 Abu-Jamal successfully established his right while in prison to write for financial gain. The same litigation also established that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections had illegally opened his mail in an attempt to establish whether he was earning money by his writing. When, for a brief time in August 1999, Abu-Jamal began delivering his radio commentaries live on the Pacifica Network's "Democracy Now!" weekday radio newsmagazine, prison staff severed the connecting wires of his telephone from their mounting in mid-performance. He was later allowed to resume his broadcasts, and hundreds of his broadcasts have been aired on Pacifica Radio. Following the overturning of his death sentence, Abu-Jamal was sentenced to life in prison in December 2011. At the end of January 2012, he was shifted from the isolation of death row into the general prison population at State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy. On March 30, 2015, he suffered diabetic shock and has been diagnosed with active Hepatitis C. In August 2015 his attorneys filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, alleging that he has not received appropriate medical care for his serious health conditions. Popular support and opposition. Labor unions, politicians, advocates, educators, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and human rights advocacy organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have expressed concern about the impartiality of the trial of Abu-Jamal. Amnesty International neither takes a position on the guilt or innocence of Abu-Jamal nor classifies him as a political prisoner. The family of Daniel Faulkner, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia, politicians, and the Fraternal Order of Police have continued to support the original trial and sentencing of the journalist. In August 1999, the Fraternal Order of Police called for an economic boycott against all individuals and organizations that support Abu-Jamal. Many such groups operate within the Prison-Industrial Complex, a system which Abu-Jamal has frequently criticized. Partly based on his own writing, Abu-Jamal and his cause have become widely known internationally, and other groups have classified him as a political prisoner. About 25 cities, including Montreal, Palermo, and Paris, have made him an honorary citizen. In 2001, he received the sixth biennial Erich Mühsam Prize, named after an anarcho-communist essayist, which recognizes activism in line with that of its namesake. In October 2002, he was made an honorary member of the German political organization Society of People Persecuted by the Nazi Regime – Federation of Anti-Fascists (VVN-BdA). On April 29, 2006, a newly paved road in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis was named Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal in his honor. In protest of the street-naming, U.S. Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick and Senator Rick Santorum, both members of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, introduced resolutions in both Houses of Congress condemning the decision. The House of Representatives voted 368–31 in favor of Fitzpatrick's resolution. In December 2006, the 25th anniversary of the murder, the executive committee of the Republican Party for the 59th Ward of the City of Philadelphia—covering approximately Germantown, Philadelphia—filed two criminal complaints in the French legal system against the city of Paris and the city of Saint-Denis, accusing the municipalities of "glorifying" Abu-Jamal and alleging the offense "apology or denial of crime" in respect of their actions. In 2007, the widow of Officer Faulkner co-authored a book with Philadelphia radio journalist Michael Smerconish titled "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Pain, Loss, and Injustice." The book was part memoir of Faulkner's widow, and part discussion in which they chronicled Abu-Jamal's trial and discussed evidence for his conviction. They also discussed support for the death penalty. In early 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Debo Adegbile, a former lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department. He had worked on Abu-Jamal's case, and his nomination was rejected by the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan basis because of that. On April 10, 2015, Marylin Zuniga, a teacher at Forest Street Elementary School in Orange, New Jersey, was suspended without pay after asking her students to write cards to Abu-Jamal, who was ill in prison due to complications from diabetes, without approval from the school or parents. Some parents and police leaders denounced her actions. On the other hand, community members, parents, teachers, and professors expressed their support and condemned Zuniga's suspension. Scholars and educators nationwide, including Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges and Cornel West among others, signed a letter calling for her immediate reinstatement. On May 13, 2015, the Orange Preparatory Academy board voted to dismiss Marylin Zuniga after hearing from her and several of her supporters. External links. Video Supporter websites Opponent websites

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Dorothy Lavinia Brown Dorothy Lavinia Brown (January 7, 1914 – June 13, 2004), also known as "Dr. D.", was an African-American surgeon, legislator, and teacher. She was the first female surgeon of African-American ancestry from the Southeastern United States. She was also the first African American female to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly as she was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives. While serving in the House of Representatives, Brown fought for women's rights and for the rights of people of color. Biography. Brown was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was surrendered to the Troy Orphan Asylum, an orphanage in Troy, New York at five months old by her mother, Edna Brown. Dorothy lived at the orphanage until the age of 12. There were multiple factors that inspired Brown to pursue a career in surgery: the care she received during her tonsillectomy, and a performance that she watched that made her want to do something to make other African Americans proud. Although her mother tried to persuade Dorothy to live with her again, Brown ran away five times, returning to the Troy orphanage each time. At the age of fifteen, Brown ran away to enroll at Troy High School. The principal at Troy High School found out that Brown was homeless, and he arranged for her to be taken in by Lola and Samuel Wesley Redmon. She worked as a mother's helper in the house of Mrs. W. F. Jarrett, in Albany, New York, which was just across the Hudson River. When she was fifteen, she worked at a self-service laundry. Education. After finishing high school, Brown attended Bennett College, a historically black college in Greensboro, North Carolina. She received a scholarship from the Women’s Division of Christian Service of the Methodist Church. Brown earned money during this period as a domestic helper. She was aided by a Methodist woman, of the Division of Christian Service, to be admitted into the American College of Surgeons, where she earned a BA degree in 1941. She began working as an inspector at the Rochester Army Ordnance Department in Rochester, New York. In 1944, Brown was admitted to study medicine at Meharry Medical College, a historically black college in Nashville. She completed her internship at the Harlem Hospital in New York City. After graduating in 1948 in the top third of her class, Brown became a resident at Hubbard Hospital of Meharry in 1949, despite local opposition to training female surgeons. She had gained approval from the chief surgeon, Matthew Walker, Sr., M.D. Brown completed her residency in 1954. Career. To start off her career, Brown helped as a doctor in World War II. She worked as an inspector in the Rochester Army Ordinance Department. Brown was the chief surgeon at the now-defunct Riverside Hospital in Nashville from 1957 to 1983. In 1966, she became the first African-American female to be elected to the Tennessee General Assembly (known also as the Tennessee State Legislature), a position that she held for two years. She almost succeeded in having abortions legalized in cases of rape or incest, and in expanding the already existing legally permitted abortions in cases when the "mother's life was in danger". During her career as a politician, Brown also became involved in the passing of the Negro History Act, which required public schools in Tennessee to "conduct special programs during Negro History Week to recognize accomplishments made by African Americans". After her work in WWII, she entered medical school at Meharry Medical College in Nashville Tennessee. Dr. Brown then did a one-year internship at Harlem Hospital and next she completed a five-year residency in general surgery at Meharry and Hubbard Hospital. In 1959, She became the first black female surgeon to become a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. In 1968, Brown tried to obtain a seat in the Tennessee Senate, but lost in part due to her support for abortion laws. In 1968, following her departure from politics, Brown returned to becoming a full-time physician at the Riverside Hospital. Brown also acted as an attending surgeon at the George W. Hubbard and General Hospitals, as director of education for the clinical rotation program of the Riverside and Meharry Hospitals. She was also a surgery professor at the Meharry Medical College and consulted for the National Institutes of Health in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. After losing in her run for a seat in the Tennessee Senate, Brown served on the Joint Committee on Opportunities for Women in Medicine, sponsored by the American Medical Association. Along with support women in medicine, Brown also had a major influence in the fight for the rights of people of color, and was a life long member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Personal life. In 1956, Brown agreed to adopt a female child from an unmarried patient at the Riverside Hospital. The patient came to Brown while still pregnant and asked her to adopt her child. Brown agreed because she wanted a child and knew that a chance like this would most likely never come again. Brown became the first known single female in Tennessee to legally adopt a child, whom she named Lola Denise Brown in honor of her foster mother. She later adopted a son named Kevin. Brown was a member of the United Methodist Church. Writing. Brown wrote an autobiography, essays, and inspirational guides. Recognitions. In 1959, she became the third woman to become a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the first African-American woman to be elected. In 1971, the Dorothy L. Brown Women's Residence at Meharry Medical College, Nashville, was named after her. She also received honorary doctorate degrees from the Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, and also from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. In particular, she received her honorary degrees in the Humanities from Bennett College and Cumberland University. Brown was a member of the board of trustees at Bennett College and of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She participated as a speaker on panels that discussed scientific, religious, medical, and political issues. Brown was also awarded the Horatio Alger Award in 1994 and the Carnegie Foundation's humanitarian award in 1993. Because Dorothy Lavinia Brown had accomplished so much in her career as a surgeon, she was a very sought-after public speaker, both nationally and internationally. Death. She died in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2004 of congestive heart failure.