Social Justice & Anti-Racism: Books, Journals & Databases

Critics often characterize white consumption of African American culture as a form of theft that echoes the fantasies of 1950s-era bohemians, or "White Negroes," who romanticized black culture as anarchic and sexually potent. In Beyond the White Negro, Kimberly Chabot Davis claims such a view fails to describe the varied politics of racial crossover in the past fifteen years.   Davis analyzes how white engagement with African American novels, film narratives, and hip-hop can help form anti-racist attitudes that may catalyze social change and racial justice. Though acknowledging past failures to establish cross-racial empathy, she focuses on examples that show avenues for future progress and change. Her study of ethnographic data from book clubs and college classrooms shows how engagement with African American culture and pedagogical support can lead to the kinds of white self-examination that make empathy possible. The result is a groundbreaking text that challenges the trend of focusing on society's failures in achieving cross-racial empathy and instead explores possible avenues for change.

In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of black people and black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of blacks on western continents, Robinson argues, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this. To illustrate his argument, Robinson traces the emergence of Marxist ideology in Europe, the resistance by blacks in historically oppressive environments, and the influence of both of these traditions on such important twentieth-century black radical thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright.

When Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands were left behind to suffer the ravages of destruction, disease, and even death. The majority of these people were black; nearly all were poor. The Federal government’s slow response to local appeals for help is by now notorious. Yet despite the cries of outrage that have mounted since the levees broke, we have failed to confront the disaster’s true lesson: to be poor, or black, in today’s ownership society, is to be left behind. Displaying the intellectual rigor, political passion, and personal empathy that have won him acclaim and fans all across the color line, Michael Eric Dyson offers a searing assessment of the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. Combining interviews with survivors of the disaster with his deep knowledge of black migrations and government policy over decades, Dyson provides the historical context that has been sorely missing from public conversation. He explores the legacy of black suffering in America since slavery and ties its psychic scars to today’s crisis. And, finally, his critique of the way black people are framed in the national consciousness will shock and surprise even the most politically savvy reader. With this clarion call Dyson warns us that we can only find redemption as a society if we acknowledge that Katrina was more than an engineering or emergency response failure. From the TV newsroom to the Capitol Building to the backyard, we must change the way we relate to the black and the poor among us. What’s at stake is no less than the future of democracy.

Critical Articulations of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation engages scholarly essays, poems, and creative writings that examine the meanings of race, gender, and sexual orientation as interlocking systems of oppression. Each chapter in this volume critically, yet creatively, interrogates the notion of identity as socially constructed, yet interconnected and shaped by cultural associations, expanding on the idea that we as individuals live in an identity matrix--our self-concept, experiences, and interpretations originate or are developed from the culture in which we are embedded. The shaping of an individual's identity, communication, and worldview can be read, shaped, and understood through life, art, popular culture, mass media, and cross-cultural interactions, among other things. The aptness of this work lies in its ability to provide a meaningful and creative space to analyze identity and identity politics, highlighting the complexities of identity formation in the twenty-first century.

While Barack Obama's victory led many to believe that America's racial divide had significantly narrowed, if not been eliminated, the facts belie this. Black youth today continue to be plagued by low levels of employment, high levels of incarceration, and a profound lack of trust in thegovernment and broader political community. Yet discussions of why this is have been largely anecdotal, often putting the blame on black youth themselves - even when the commentators are also black. Think of Bill Cosby's criticism, for example, or the writings of Stanley Crouch and Juan Williams.In Democracy Remixed , award-winning scholar Cathy J. Cohen offers an authoritative and empirically powerful analysis of the state of black youth in America today. Utilizing the results from the Black Youth Project, a groundbreaking nationwide survey, Cohen focuses on what young Black Americansactually experience and think--and underscores the political repercussions. Featuring their stories from cities across the country, she reveals that black youth want, in large part, what most Americans want - a good job, a fulfilling life, safety, respect, and equality. But while this generationshares much in common with the rest of America, they also believe that equality does not yet exist, at least not in their lives. Many believe that they are treated as second-class citizens. Moreover, for many the future seems bleak when they look at their neighborhoods, their schools, and even theirown lives and choices. Through their words, these young people provide a complex and balanced picture of the intersection of opportunity and discrimination in their lives.

The decades-long increase in income inequality has become perhaps "the" issue in American politics, and scholars have offered many reasons for why the gap between the rich and the rest has widened so much since the mid-1970s. Most of the explanations have been social and political in thebroadest sense, and many have keyed on the propensity of middle- and working class Americans to vote against their own interest. Yet given that the greatest income divide is racial in nature, why have so few looked toward racially motivated behavior as a cause?Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Wrecked the Middle Class is a sweeping account of how "dog-whistle" racial politics contributed to increasing inequality in America since the 1960s. Now a pervasive term in American political coverage, "dog whistle" refers to coded signals sent tocertain constituencies that only those constituencies will understand. Just as only dogs can hear a dog whistle, only a constituency fluent in a subterranean argot can understand that argot when it is used. For instance, attacks on Obama's use of a teleprompter is a dog whistle for racist voters whoquestion blacks' (and by extension, the President's) intelligence.Haney's book will cover racial dog whistles in America from the 1960s to the present, showing that their appeal has helped generate working class and middle class populist enthusiasm for policies that were actually injurious to their own interests. As Haney-Lopez argues, the implicit associationbetween blacks and social welfare programs that dog whistle politicians make has led many voters to turn against the state itself despite the fact that they benefit from redistributive policies. The dog whistle tactic has been with us from at least the era of George Wallace, but every candidate whohas benefited from race-based resentments has used it: Nixon, Reagan (welfare queens), George Bush I (Willie Horton), Bill Clinton (Sister Souljah), and - most recently - Newt Gingrich. A sweeping reinterpretation of the recent political and legal history of the U.S., Dog Whistle Politics is sure togenerate a productive and lively debate about the role of race as a fundamental driver of inequality.

Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement offers the first, and as of 2018, only comprehensive account of the 1955 murder, the trial, and the 2004-2007 FBI investigation into the case and Mississippi grand jury decision. By all accounts, it is the definitive account of the case. It tells the story of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the Mississippi Delta. Anderson utilizes documents that had never been available to previous researchers, such as the trial transcript, long-hidden depositions by key players in the case, and interviews given by Carolyn Bryant to the FBI in 2004 (her first in fifty years), as well as other recently revealed FBI documents. Anderson also interviewed family members of the accused killers, most of whom agreed to talk for the first time, as well as several journalists who covered the murder trial in 1955. Till's death and the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury set off a firestorm of protests that reverberated all over the world and spurred on the civil rights movement. Like no other event in modern history, the death of Emmett Till provoked people all over the United States to seek social change. Anderson's exhaustively researched book is also the basis for a Hollywood mini-series produced by Jay-Z, Will Smith, Casey Affleck, Aaron Kaplan, James Lassiter, Jay Brown, Ty Ty Smith, John P. Middleton, Rosanna Grace, David B. Clark, and Alex Foster. For over six decades the Till story has continued to haunt the South as the lingering injustice of Till's murder and the aftermath altered many lives. Fifty years after the murder, renewed interest in the case led the Justice Department to open an investigation into identifying and possibly prosecuting accomplices of the two men originally tried. Between 2004 and 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the first real probe into the killing and turned up important information that had been lost for decades. Anderson covers the events that led up to this probe in great detail, as well as the investigation itself. This book will stand as the definitive work on Emmett Till for years to come. Incorporating much new information, the book demonstrates how the Emmett Till murder exemplifies the Jim Crow South at its nadir. The author accessed a wealth of new evidence. Anderson made a dozen trips to Mississippi and Chicago over a ten-year period to conduct research and interview witnesses and reporters who covered the trial. In Emmett Till, Anderson corrects the historical record and presents this critical saga in its entirety.

Argues for the necessity of a new ethos for middle-class white anti-racism.

Examines how Black girls and women negotiate and resist dominant stereotypes in the context of an Afrocentric youth organization for at-risk girls in the Bay Area.

Although eugenics is now widely discredited, some groups and individuals claim a new scientific basis for old racist assumptions. Pondering the continuing influence of racist research and thought, despite all evidence to the contrary, Robert Sussman explains why--when it comes to race--too many people still mistake bigotry for science.

Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a "call to action." Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily Kos, "explosive" by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.

Since the early 2000s, the phenomenon of the "down low"d--black men who have sex with men as well as women and do not identify as gay, queer, or bisexual--has exploded in news media and popular culture, from the Oprah Winfrey Show to R & B singer R. Kelly's hip hopera Trapped in the Closet. Most down-low stories are morality tales in which black men are either predators who risk infecting their unsuspecting female partners with HIV or victims of a pathological black culture that repudiates openly gay identities. In both cases, down-low narratives depict black men as sexually dangerous, duplicitous, promiscuous, and contaminated.In Nobody Is Supposed to Know, C. Riley Snorton traces the emergence and circulation of the down low in contemporary media and popular culture to show how these portrayals reinforce troubling perceptions of black sexuality. Reworking Eve Sedgwick's notion of the "glass closet,"Snorton advances a new theory of such representations in which black sexuality is marked by hypervisibility and confinement, spectacle and speculation. Through close readings of news, music, movies, television, and gossip blogs, Nobody Is Supposed to Know explores the contemporary genealogy, meaning, and functions of the down low.Snorton examines how the down low links blackness and queerness in the popular imagination and how the down low is just one example of how media and popular culture surveil and police black sexuality. Looking at figures such as Ma Rainey, Bishop Eddie L. Long, J. L. King, and Will Smith, he ultimately contends that down-low narratives reveal the limits of current understandings of black sexuality.

Kahn's important and masterly work deserves close reading and broad discussion among practitioners and students of law and public policy, but even more so among those interested in promoting racial justice. Laura E. Gómez, author of Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race: Race on the Brain makes a critical intervention at a time when implicit bias has become a dominant racial frame (witness its presence in the 2016 presidential debates). Without denying its limited value, Kahn persuasively argues that policy makers' and legal scholars' embrace of implicit bias ignores history, social context, and power--the very things that make racism so intractable today. Osagie K. Obasogie, author of Blinded by Sight: Seeing Race Through the Eyes of the Blind: Race on the Brain offers a provocative examination of contemporary discussions of race, racism, and law. Kahn carefully assesses the scientific framework of implicit bias, highlighting its laudable intent and aspirations while revealing hidden challenges. This is a thoughtful and timely contribution that will surely enrich ongoing conversations on race and human cognition and their socio-legal significance. Alondra Nelson, author of The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome: As powerful as implicit bias tests may be for uncovering prejudice, Kahn skillfully reveals that there are no quick fixes for the problem of deeply entrenched racism. Analytically brilliant and sobering, Race on the Brain asks us to think harder about the structures underlying racial inequality and to be cautious of technological panaceas that promise easy solutions to the intractable work of ensuring social justice. Troy Duster, author of Backdoor to Eugenics, University of California, Berkeley: Well-reasoned and meticulously documented, this book sounds the loudest warning yet that the current seduction to considering racism as implicit bias can dangerously undermine long-fought attempts to better understand the structural sources of racial inequality. Little irony is lost in suggesting that twenty-first century neuroscience has enabled a reincarnation of the early twentieth-century conception of race in America, a view that an analysis of discrimination can be reduced to individuals' personal bias.

In the 1960s and 1970s, minority and women students at colleges and universities across the United States organized protest movements to end racial and gender inequality on campus. African American, Chicano, Asia American, American Indian, women, and queer activists demanded the creation of departments that reflected their histories and experiences, resulting in the formation of interdisciplinary studies programs that hoped to transform both the university and the wider society beyond the campus. In The Reorder of Things, however, Roderick A. Ferguson traces and assesses the ways in which the rise of interdisciplines--departments of race, gender, and ethnicity; fields such as queer studies--were not simply a challenge to contemporary power as manifest in academia, the state, and global capitalism but were, rather, constitutive of it. Ferguson delineates precisely how minority culture and difference as affirmed by legacies of the student movements were appropriated and institutionalized by established networks of power. Critically examining liberationist social movements and the cultural products that have been informed by them, including works by Adrian Piper, Toni Cade Bambara, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Zadie Smith, The Reorder of Things argues for the need to recognize the vulnerabilities of cultural studies to co-option by state power and to develop modes of debate and analysis that may be in the institution but are, unequivocally, not of it.

In this highly anticipated follow-up toWhite Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, activist Tim Wise examines the way in which institutional racism continues to shape the contours of daily life in the United States, and the ways in which white Americans reap enormous privileges from it. The essays included in this collection span the last ten years of Wise's writing and cover all the hottest racial topics of the past decade: affirmative action, Hurricane Katrina, racial tension in the wake of the Duke lacrosse scandal, white school shootings, racial profiling, phony racial unity in the wake of 9/11, and the political rise of Barack Obama. Wise's commentaries make forceful yet accessible arguments that serve to counter both white denial and complacency--two of the main obstacles to creating a more racially equitable and just society.Speaking Treason Fluently is a superbly crafted collection of Wise's best work, which reveals the ongoing salience of race in America today and demonstrates that racial privilege is not only a real and persistent problem, but one that ultimately threatens the health and well-being of the entire society.

Drawing on indigenous belief systems and recent work in critical 'race' studies and multicultural-feminist theory, Keating provides detailed step-by-step suggestions, based on her own teaching experiences, designed to anticipate and change students' resistance to social-justice issues. It offers a holistic approach to theory and practice.

West Indian immigrants to the United States fare better than native-born African Americans on a wide array of economic measures, including labor force participation, earnings, and occupational prestige. Some researchers argue that the root of this difference lies in differing cultural attitudes toward work, while others maintain that white Americans favor West Indian blacks over African Americans, giving them an edge in the workforce. Still others hold that West Indians who emigrate to this country are more ambitious and talented than those they left behind. In West Indian Immigrants,  sociologist Suzanne Model subjects these theories to close historical and empirical scrutiny to unravel the mystery of West Indian success. West Indian Immigrants draws on four decades of national census data, surveys of Caribbean emigrants around the world, and historical records dating back to the emergence of the slave trade. Model debunks the notion that growing up in an all-black society is an advantage by showing that immigrants from racially homogeneous and racially heterogeneous areas have identical economic outcomes. Weighing the evidence for white American favoritism, Model compares West Indian immigrants in New York, Toronto, London, and Amsterdam, and finds that, despite variation in the labor markets and ethnic composition of these cities, Caribbean immigrants in these four cities attain similar levels of economic success. Model also looks at "movers" and "stayers" from Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guyana, and finds that emigrants leaving all four countries have more education and hold higher status jobs than those who remain. In this sense, West Indians immigrants are not so different from successful native-born African Americans who have moved within the U.S. to further their careers. Both West Indian immigrants and native-born African-American movers are the "best and the brightest"--they are more literate and hold better jobs than those who stay put. While political debates about the nature of black disadvantage in America have long fixated on West Indians' relatively favorable economic position, this crucial finding reveals a fundamental flaw in the argument that West Indian success is proof of native-born blacks' behavioral shortcomings. Proponents of this viewpoint have overlooked the critical role of immigrant self-selection. West Indian Immigrants is a sweeping historical narrative and definitive empirical analysis that promises to change the way we think about what it means to be a black American. Ultimately, Model shows that West Indians aren't a black success story at all--rather, they are an immigrant success story.

White Americans, abetted by neo-conservative writers of all hues, generally believe that racial discrimination is a thing of the past and that any racial inequalities that undeniably persist--in wages, family income, access to housing or health care--can be attributed to African Americans' cultural and individual failures. If the experience of most black Americans says otherwise, an explanation has been sorely lacking--or obscured by the passions the issue provokes. At long last offering a cool, clear, and informed perspective on the subject, this book brings together a team of highly respected sociologists, political scientists, economists, criminologists, and legal scholars to scrutinize the logic and evidence behind the widely held belief in a color-blind society--and to provide an alternative explanation for continued racial inequality in the United States. While not denying the economic advances of black Americans since the 1960s, Whitewashing Race draws on new and compelling research to demonstrate the persistence of racism and the effects of organized racial advantage across many institutions in American society--including the labor market, the welfare state, the criminal justice system, and schools and universities. Looking beyond the stalled debate over current antidiscrimination policies, the authors also put forth a fresh vision for achieving genuine racial equality of opportunity in a post-affirmative action world.

The classic, bestselling book on the psychology of racism-now fully revised and updated Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America. "An unusually sensitive work about the racial barriers that still divide us in so many areas of life."-Jonathan Kozol

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like "manifest destiny" and "Jacksonian democracy," and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism. Drawing on rich narratives and primary source documents, Ortiz links racial segregation in the Southwest and the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, known as International Workers' Day, when migrant laborers--Chicana/os, Afrocubanos, and immigrants from every continent on earth--united in resistance on the first "Day Without Immigrants." As African American civil rights activists fought Jim Crow laws and Mexican labor organizers warred against the suffocating grip of capitalism, Black and Spanish-language newspapers, abolitionists, and Latin American revolutionaries coalesced around movements built between people from the United States and people from Central America and the Caribbean. In stark contrast to the resurgence of "America First" rhetoric, Black and Latinx intellectuals and organizers today have historically urged the United States to build bridges of solidarity with the nations of the Americas. Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and African Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights. 2018 Winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award

Here, in a Library of America volume edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, is the fiction that established James Baldwin's reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism and rare verbal eloquence. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), tells the story, rooted in Baldwin's own experience, of a preacher's son coming of age in 1930's Harlem. Ten years in the writing, its exploration of religious, sexual, and generational conflicts was described by Baldwin as "an attempt to exorcise something, to find out what happened to my father, what happened to all of us." Giovanni's Room (1956) is a searching, and in its day controversial, treatment of the tragic self-delusions of a young American expatriate at war with his own homosexuality. Another Country (1962), a wide-ranging exploration of America's racial and sexual boundaries, depicts the suicide of a gifted jazz musician and its ripple effect on those who knew him. Complex in structure and turbulent in mood, it is in many ways Baldwin's most ambitious novel. Going to Meet the Man (1965) collects Baldwin's short fiction, including the masterful "Sonny's Blues," the unforgettable portrait of a jazz musician struggling with drug addiction in which Baldwin came closest to defining his goal as a writer: "For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream--the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy New York Times Bestseller * Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award * Longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award * An ALA Notable Book NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY  NPR * The New York Times Book Review * San Francisco Chronicle * The Guardian * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Chicago Public Library * BookPage * Refinery29 * Kirkus Reviews  Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty--and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future. However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers' façades. When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende's job--even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice. Praise for Behold the Dreamers "A debut novel by a young woman from Cameroon that illuminates the immigrant experience in America with the tenderhearted wisdom so lacking in our political discourse . . . Mbue is a bright and captivating storyteller."--The Washington Post "A capacious, big-hearted novel."--The New York Times Book Review "Behold the Dreamers' heart . . . belongs to the struggles and small triumphs of the Jongas, which Mbue traces in clean, quick-moving paragraphs."--Entertainment Weekly "Mbue's writing is warm and captivating."--People (book of the week) "[Mbue's] book isn't the first work of fiction to grapple with the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, but it's surely one of the best. . . . It's a novel that depicts a country both blessed and doomed, on top of the world, but always at risk of losing its balance. It is, in other words, quintessentially American."--NPR "This story is one that needs to be told."--Bust  "Behold the Dreamers challenges us all to consider what it takes to make us genuinely content, and how long is too long to live with our dreams deferred."--O: The Oprah Magazine "[A] beautiful, empathetic novel."--The Boston Globe "A witty, compassionate, swiftly paced novel that takes on race, immigration, family and the dangers of capitalist excess."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Mbue [is] a deft, often lyrical observer. . . . [Her] meticulous storytelling announces a writer in command of her gifts."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, New York Times * USA Today * San Francisco Chronicle * NPR * Esquire * Newsday * Booklist Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa's tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man's relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother--his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional, unconditional love. Praise for Born a Crime  "[A] compelling new memoir . . . By turns alarming, sad and funny, [Trevor Noah's] book provides a harrowing look, through the prism of Mr. Noah's family, at life in South Africa under apartheid. . . . Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author's remarkable mother."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "[An] unforgettable memoir."--Parade  "What makes Born a Crime such a soul-nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns, is reading Noah recount in brisk, warmly conversational prose how he learned to negotiate his way through the bullying and ostracism. . . . What also helped was having a mother like Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah. . . . Consider Born a Crime another such gift to her--and an enormous gift to the rest of us."--USA Today "[Noah] thrives with the help of his astonishingly fearless mother. . . . Their fierce bond makes this story soar."--People

How the automobile fundamentally changed African American life--the basis of a major PBS documentary by Ric Burns. It's hardly a secret that mobility has always been limited, if not impossible, for African Americans. Before the Civil War, masters confined their slaves to their property, while free black people found themselves regularly stopped, questioned, and even kidnapped. Restrictions on movement before Emancipation carried over, in different forms, into Reconstruction and beyond; for most of the 20th century, many white Americans felt blithely comfortable denying their black countrymen the right to travel freely on trains and buses. Yet it became more difficult to shackle someone who was cruising along a highway at 45 miles per hour. In Driving While Black, the acclaimed historian Gretchen Sorin reveals how the car--the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility--has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road. She recounts the creation of a parallel, unseen world of black motorists, who relied on travel guides, black only businesses, and informal communications networks to keep them safe. From coast to coast, mom and pop guest houses and tourist homes, beauty parlors, and even large hotels--including New York's Hotel Theresa, the Hampton House in Miami, or the Dunbar Hotel in Los Angeles--as well as night clubs and restaurants like New Orleans' Dooky Chase and Atlanta's Paschal's, fed travelers and provided places to stay the night. At the heart of Sorin's story is Victor and Alma Green's famous Green Book, a travel guide begun in 1936, which helped grant black Americans that most basic American rite, the family vacation. As Sorin demonstrates, black travel guides and black-only businesses encouraged a new way of resisting oppression. Black Americans could be confident of finding welcoming establishments as they traveled for vacation or for business. Civil Rights workers learned where to stay and where to eat in the South between marches and protests. As Driving While Black reminds us, the Civil Rights Movement was just that--a movement of black people and their allies in defiance of local law and custom. At the same time, she shows that the car, despite the freedoms it offered, brought black people up against new challenges, from segregated ambulance services to unwarranted traffic stops, and the racist violence that too often followed. Interwoven with Sorin's own family history and enhanced by dozens of little known images, Driving While Black charts how the automobile fundamentally reshaped African American life, and opens up an entirely new view onto one of the most important issues of our time.

An eye-opening look at how young Arab- and Muslim- Americans are forging lives for themselves in a country that often mistakes them for the enemy Just over a century ago , W.E.B. Du Bois posed a probing question in his classic The Souls of Black Folk: How does it feel to be a problem? Now, Moustafa Bayoumi asks the same about America's new "problem"-Arab- and Muslim-Americans. Bayoumi takes readers into the lives of seven twenty-somethings living in Brooklyn, home to the largest Arab-American population in the United States. He moves beyond stereotypes and clichés to reveal their often unseen struggles, from being subjected to government surveillance to the indignities of workplace discrimination. Through it all, these young men and women persevere through triumphs and setbacks as they help weave the tapestry of a new society that is, at its heart, purely American.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a "groundbreaking" (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society--and in ourselves. "The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind."--The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Time * NPR * The Washington Post * Shelf Awareness * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly * Kirkus Reviews Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism--and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At it's core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas--from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilites--that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their posionous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves. Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society. Praise for How to Be an Antiracist "Ibram X. Kendi's new book, How to Be an Antiracist, couldn't come at a better time. . . . Kendi has gifted us with a book that is not only an essential instruction manual but also a memoir of the author's own path from anti-black racism to anti-white racism and, finally, to antiracism. . . .  How to Be an Antiracist gives us a clear and compelling way to approach, as Kendi puts it in his introduction, 'the basic struggle we're all in, the struggle to be fully human and to see that others are fully human.' "--NPR "Kendi dissects why in a society where so few people consider themselves to be racist the divisions and inequalities of racism remain so prevalent. How to Be an Antiracist punctures the myths of a post-racial America, examining what racism really is--and what we should do about it."--Time

Superbly told, with the poet's gift for language and observation, Angelou's autobiography of her childhood in Arkansas - a world of which most Americans are ignorant.

2020 American Indian Youth Literature Young Adult Honor Book 2020 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People,selected by National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the Children's Book Council 2019 Best-Of Lists: Best YA Nonfiction of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) · Best Nonfiction of 2019 (School Library Journal) · Best Books for Teens (New York Public Library) · Best Informational Books for Older Readers (Chicago Public Library) Spanning more than 400 years, this classic bottom-up history examines the legacy of Indigenous peoples' resistance, resilience, and steadfast fight against imperialism. Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity. The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING MICHAEL B. JORDAN AND JAMIE FOXX * A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice--from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. "[Bryan Stevenson's] dedication to fighting for justice and equality has inspired me and many others and made a lasting impact on our country."--John Legend NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN * Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times * The Washington Post * The Boston Globe * The Seattle Times * Esquire * Time Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship--and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice. Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction * Winner of a Books for a Better Life Award * Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize * Finalist for the Kirkus Reviews Prize * An American Library Association Notable Book "Every bit as moving as To Kill a Mockingbird, and in some ways more so . . . a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields."--David Cole, The New York Review of Books "Searing, moving . . . Bryan Stevenson may, indeed, be America's Mandela."--Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times "You don't have to read too long to start cheering for this man. . . . The message of this book . . . is that evil can be overcome, a difference can be made. Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful."--Ted Conover, The New York Times Book Review "Inspiring . . . a work of style, substance and clarity . . . Stevenson is not only a great lawyer, he's also a gifted writer and storyteller."--The Washington Post "As deeply moving, poignant and powerful a book as has been, and maybe ever can be, written about the death penalty."--The Financial Times "Brilliant."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope. Praise for Stamped from the Beginning: "We often describe a wonderful book as 'mind-blowing' or 'life-changing' but I've found this rarely to actually be the case. I found both descriptions accurate for Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning... I will never look at racial discrimination again after reading this marvellous, ambitious, and clear-sighted book." - George Saunders, Financial Times, Best Books of 2017 "Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism." --Seattle Times "A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society." --The Atlantic Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller On President Obama's Black History Month Recommended Reading List Finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Review of Books, The Root, Buzzfeed, Bustle, and Entropy

The abolition of slavery after the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked 'a new birth of freedom' in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America? Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African-Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a 'New Negro' to force the nation to recognise their humanity and unique contributions to the United States.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this "vital, necessary, and beautiful book" (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and "allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people' (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively. Download readers guides at www.beacon.org/whitefragility.

National Book Critics Circle Award WinnerNew York Times BestsellerA New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the YearA Boston Globe Best Book of 2016A Chicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016From the Civil War to our combustible present, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America.As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as "black rage," historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in The Washington Post suggesting that this was, instead, "white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames," she argued, "everyone had ignored the kindling." Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House, and then the election of America's first black President, led to the expression of white rage that has been as relentless as it has been brutal. Carefully linking these and other historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.

From the author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, the New York Times Bestseller and Best Book of the Year at NPR, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, and many more A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink--all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics.

Drawn from the life narratives of more than seventy African American queer women who were born, raised, and continue to reside in the American South, this book powerfully reveals the way these women experience and express racial, sexual, gender, and class identities--all linked by a place where such identities have generally placed them on the margins of society. Using methods of oral history and performance ethnography, E. Patrick Johnson's work vividly enriches the historical record of racialized sexual minorities in the South and brings to light the realities of the region's thriving black lesbian communities. At once transcendent and grounded in place and time, these narratives raise important questions about queer identity formation, community building, and power relations as they are negotiated within the context of southern history. Johnson uses individual stories to reveal the embedded political and cultural ideologies of the self but also of the listener and society as a whole. These breathtakingly rich life histories show afresh how black female sexuality is and always has been an integral part of the patchwork quilt that is southern culture.

"So many historical novels read like connect-the-dots puzzles or costume dramas, so one that is fresh, original and time-travels to an undiscovered past is a real discovery...Jam On The Vine stands on its own as a powerful coming-of-age novel, and it is also a sharp reminder of the critically important role played by the African-American newspaper in American history."--Chicago Tribune "A captivating saga...The verdict: 'unforgettable'; 'gripping'; 'instant classic.'"--Elle "As addictive as your mom's fresh-baked buttermilk biscuits, and just as delicious."--Essence "A vivid depiction of the black experience during one of the ugliest periods in American race relations."--Knoxville News Sentinel A dynamic and compulsive debut, Jam on the Vine chronicles the life of trailblazing African American woman journalist, Ivoe Williams, through the start of the twentieth century. In unflinching prose, we follow Ivoe and her family from the Deep South to the Midwest. Jam on the Vine is both an epic vision of the injustices that defined an era and a compelling story of a complicated history we only thought we knew. "Ivoe is a splendid character, mouthy, determined, crusading and irrepressibly cheerful." -Wall Street Journal "A major work of fiction that entertains and edifies us, while it rescues a little-known story from the back pages of history."--Dallas Morning News "[A] big, bold bildungsroman of a debut."--The Guardian.com "If a historical fiction author's purpose is to give a reader a better understanding and empathy for the people of the time and place, then Barnett hit the mark."-The Missourian

The follow-up to the groundbreaking Black Queer Studies, the edited collection No Tea, No Shade brings together nineteen essays from the next generation of scholars, activists, and community leaders doing work on black gender and sexuality. Building on the foundations laid by the earlier volume, this collection's contributors speak new truths about the black queer experience while exemplifying the codification of black queer studies as a rigorous and important field of study. Topics include "raw" sex, pornography, the carceral state, gentrification, gender nonconformity, social media, the relationship between black feminist studies and black trans studies, the black queer experience throughout the black diaspora, and queer music, film, dance, and theater. The contributors both disprove naysayers who believed black queer studies to be a passing trend and respond to critiques of the field's early U.S. bias. Deferring to the past while pointing to the future, No Tea, No Shade pushes black queer studies in new and exciting directions. Contributors. Jafari S. Allen, Marlon M. Bailey, Zachary Shane Kalish Blair, La Marr Jurelle Bruce, Cathy J. Cohen, Jennifer DeClue, Treva Ellison, Lyndon K. Gill, Kai M. Green, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Kwame Holmes, E. Patrick Johnson, Shaka McGlotten, Amber Jamilla Musser, Alison Reed, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Tanya Saunders, C. Riley Snorton, Kaila Story, Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley, Julia Roxanne Wallace, Kortney Ziegler  

This compelling book recounts the history of black gay men from the 1950s to the 1990s, tracing how the major movements of the times--from civil rights to black power to gay liberation to AIDS activism--helped shape the cultural stigmas that surrounded race and homosexuality. In locating the rise of black gay identities in historical context, Kevin Mumford explores how activists, performers, and writers rebutted negative stereotypes and refused sexual objectification. Examining the lives of both famous and little-known black gay activists--from James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin to Joseph Beam and Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald--Mumford analyzes the ways in which movements for social change both inspired and marginalized black gay men. Drawing on an extensive archive of newspapers, pornography, and film, as well as government documents, organizational records, and personal papers, Mumford sheds new light on four volatile decades in the protracted battle of black gay men for affirmation and empowerment in the face of pervasive racism and homophobia.

Nella Larsen (1891-1964) occupies a central place in African-American and Modernist literature, and her status as a Harlem Renaissance woman writer is rivaled only by Zora Neale Hurston's. This Norton Critical Edition of Larsen's electrifying 1929 novel is accompanied by Carla Kaplan's insightfully detailed introduction, explanatory annotations, and a Note on the Text "Backgrounds and Contexts" connects Passing to the historical events of the day, most notably the sensational Rhinelander/Jones case of 1925. Fourteen contemporary reviews are reprinted, including those by Alice Dunbar-Nelson, W. B. Seabrook, Mary Griffin, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Little-known documents, including those by Juanita Ellsworth and Caleb Johnson, reveal America's fascination with-and fear of-the cultural phenomenon of passing. Also included are Larsen's statements on the novel and on passing, as well as a generous selection of her letters. The theme of "The Tragic Mulatto(a)" in American literature is explored through related writings by Lydia Maria Child, William Wells Brown, Kate Chopin, Mark Twain, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes, among others. Finally, Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr., Jessie Redmon Fauset, Countee Cullen, W. E. B. Du Bois, Allen Semi [Nella Larsen], George S. Schuyler, Carl Van Vechten, and Langston Hughes voice their impressions of passing from the perspective of the Harlem Renaissance. "Criticism" provides sixteen diverse interpretations of Passing by, among others, Deborah E. McDowell, Judith Butler, Cheryl A. Wall, Thadious M. Davis, George Hutchinson, Mary Helen Washington, Ann duCille, Gayle Wald, Claudia Tate, and Jennifer DeVere Brody. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. Book jacket.

Welcomed into the world as her parents' firstborn son, Mock set out early on to be her own person-no simple feat for a young person like herself. She struggled as the smart, determined child in a deeply loving, yet ill-equipped family that lacked money, education, and resources. Mock had to navigate her way through her teen years without parental guidance but luckily with a few close friends and mentors she overcame extremely daunting hurdles. This powerful memoir follows Mock's quest for identity, from her early gender conviction to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that found her transitioning through the halls of her school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. Ever resilient, Mock emerged with a scholarship to college and moved to New York City, where she earned her master's degree, basked in the success of an enviable career, and told no one about her past. It wasn't until Mock fell for a man who called her the woman of his dreams that she felt ready to finally tell her story, becoming a fierce advocate for girls like herself. A profound statement of affirmation from a courageous woman, Redefining Realnessshows as never before what it means to be a woman today and how to be yourself when you don't fit the mould created for you.

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published. These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own words, a call to "never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is..." "[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware." --New York Times 

 The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom brings together more than two decades of literary criticism and political thought about gender, race, sexuality, power, and social change. As one of the first writers in the United States to claim black feminism for black women, Barbara Smith has done groundbreaking work in defining black women's literary traditions and in making connections between race, class, sexuality, and gender. Smith's essay "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism," is often cited as a major catalyst in opening the field of black women's literature. Pieces about racism in the women's movement, black and Jewish relations, and homophobia in the Black community have ignited dialogue about topics that few other writers address. The collection also brings together topical political commentaries on the 1968 Chicago convention demonstrations; attacks on the NEA; the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Senate hearings; and police brutality against Rodney King and Abner Louima. It also includes a never-before-published personal essay on racial violence and the bonds between black women that make it possible to survive.

Once the home of poor Irish and Italian immigrants, Brewster Place, a rotting tenement on a dead-end street, now shelters black families. This novel portrays the courage, the fear, and the anguish of some of the women there who hold their families together, trying to make a home. Among them are: Mattie Michael, the matriarch who loses her son to prison; Etta Mae Johnson who tries to trade the 'high life' for marriage with a local preacher; Kiswana Browne who leaves her middle-class family to organize a tenant's union.

This book argues for the rights of women with disabilities, who live on the periphery of society, and seeks to eradicate the exclusion and stigma that are part of their lives. It brings together the perspectives of academicians and activists in trying to understand the various social issues faced by women with disabilities and argues for a society where they are not denied respect, equality, and justice. Filling the gap in the existing feminist research, this book seeks to influence the way in which society treats women with disabilities and will be of interest to scholars and researchers in the field of women's rights, disability rights, and rehabilitation.

Building on the insights of both disability studies and civil rights scholars, Mark C. Weber frames his examination of disability harassment on the premise that disabled people are members of a minority group that must negotiate an artificial yet often damaging environment of physical and attitudinal barriers. The book considers courts’ approaches to the problem of disability harassment, particularly the application of an analogy to race and sex harassment and the development of legal remedies and policy reforms under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While litigation under the ADA has addressed discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and education, Weber points out that the law has done little to combat disability harassment. He recommends that arguments based on unused provisions of the ADA should be developed and new legal remedies advanced to address the problem.Disability Harassmentalso draws on case law to explore special problems of harassment in the public schools, and closes with an appeal to judges and lawmakers for expanded legal protection against harassment.

Although there has been an increase in literature regarding children of color with disabilities, it mainly focuses on their experiences in one social context. Crises of Identifying: Negotiating and Mediating Race, Gender, and Disability within Family and Schools includes narratives on the familial and educational experiences in public, private, and institutional educational settings of five African American adults who have disabilities associated with blindness, cerebral palsy, and speech impairment. As a deaf African American female, the author and researcher also highlights her familial and educational experiences throughout the book as a frame of analysis. This book can serve as a literary resource to academics and educational programs and/or institutions as well as an informational guide to parents, teachers, administrators, and paraprofessionals/caregivers of children with disabilities regarding the significance of leadership, advocacy, activism, and identification development within familial and educational contexts on the experiences of children including the impact of complex dynamics that exist within and between families and schools. Hopefully, this book will provide parents, teachers, administrators, and paraprofessionals with an understanding and comprehension of complexities concerning disability, gender, and race within family and schools including their association with crises of identifying, essentialist discourses, as well as power and privilege dynamics. This book consists of nine chapters which are organized into three parts. Part I focuses on background, rationale, theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the research this book is based on. Part II introduces the reader to the narratives of five African Americans with disabilities. Each narrative provides insights into the lived experiences and leadership qualities of two males and three females. Part III presents the concluding chapters of the book and highlights the significance of this research for the educational field including disability studies, teacher education programs, and special education.

Experience the birth of the first support group for sexual minorities with developmental disabilities! Reflecting an unprecedented development in the disabled and sexual minority communities, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People with Developmental Disabilities and Mental Retardation: Stories of the Rainbow Support Group describes the founding, achievements, and history of a unique group providing support for people with developmental disabilities or mental retardation (DD/MR) who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. In this pathbreaking book, group founder John D. Allen describes the Rainbow Support Group's beginnings in 1998 at the New Haven Gay & Lesbian Community Center in Connecticut and the ways in which it has been shattering myths and stereotypes surrounding people with mental retardation ever since. From the author: "Not only are people with DD/MR full human beings with the same needs and desires for intimacy and healthy sexual expression as people without intellectual disabilities, but the group is evidence that some people with DD/MR have an understanding of sexual orientation as well. Acknowledging that people with mental retardation are sexual is a new development in the human service field, but one that is still in the pre-Stonewall days regarding those who are gay. Although people with mental retardation are given unprecedented freedom to make personal vocational decisions, there is an unfounded expectation that they do not have a sexuality--let alone a homosexuality. Members of the Rainbow Support Group discuss the same concerns as other gay people, but in a support system that recognizes their unique perspective." This insightful book shows how membership in the Rainbow Support Group addresses the very real fears and concerns of its members, including: being forced into heterosexual social situations, since that is the only available option for socialization dealing with being "outed" to peers and staff--since many DD/MR people are not their own legal guardians, this can lead to removal of privileges, various kinds of abuse, and other negative consequences in their day-to-day lives being ridiculed by unsupportive staff being excluded from family functions because of their sexual orientation It also illustrates the purely positive aspects of membership in the group, which provides: a place to learn appropriate ways to meet others, hear messages about safe sex, and feel empowered to advocate for their own intimacy needs an increased chance of finding a like-minded partner (although the group is certainly not a "dating service") an avenue for members to connect with others like them and with the larger gay community in the area events to participate in, such as holiday parties, field trips, movie nights, and gay pride celebrations The author continues: "What is exciting are the positive outcomes displayed once an individual enters the group. Members quickly develop a sense of ownership and wear rainbow-emblazoned clothing to meetings. Everyone has joined the host community center to begin receiving regular mailings and event discounts. Supervising staff report that members perform better at work, have fewer behavioral issues, and experience a greater feeling of contentment. For people with mental retardation, just to be able to say the words 'gay,' 'lesbian,' 'bisexual,' and 'transgender' in an affirming environment is a cutting-edge breakthrough. What the group has accomplished and will hopefully continue to illuminate is the understanding that people with DD/MR are entitled to a whole life experience, including discovering and enjoying their sexuality."

This book is an effort to bring to the attention of helping professionals the need to give significant consideration to cultural factors in their efforts to develop effective rehabilitation plans for persons of color with disabilities. This book goes beyond increasing awareness by offering information with regard to intervention strategies. It is hoped that this book will assist helping professionals become better acquainted with the impact that culture has on the client and the impact it will have in the helping process. This second edition continues the theme of providing information with regard to factors that impact the lives of racial/ethnic minorities as well as women and the elderly in America. The book is divided into four parts: Culture and Multicultural-ism, Disability, Disabilities and Multiculturalism, and Helping. In addition to updating information that was presented in the first edition, the section on'Helping'provides considerable new information with regard to methods of assisting minorities with disabilities. The three new chapters in this section are respectively titled'The Helping Relationship,''Individual Therapies,'and'Family Counseling.'The discussion of these chapters further emphasizes the fact that helping professionals must be aware of the variable of culture in implementing these helping tools. Also, a new chapter on'Religion'has been included to assist professionals in considering their clients'religious beliefs when assisting them. This new edition will make the text a more complete discussion of cultural information needed by professional helpers in their efforts to assist multicultural persons in the rehabilitation process.

Caring for people with disabilities often becomes an all-encompassing responsibility for one or more family members. To manage the multifaceted demands, caregivers must possess strong multitasking skills, including the ability to assist with daily life tasks; provide emotional support; help with financial affairs; mediate and advocate with health care providers. Maintaining balance within their own lives can become incredibly challenging for caregivers. More often than not, providing care for family members or loved ones occurs at the expense of the caregivers' well-being. And for caregivers who themselves have disabilities, it further complicates matters. Multiple Dimensions of Caregiving and Disability addresses concerns that have been long familiar to the caregiver population and examines the current state of family care for individuals with disabilities. With a lifespan perspective, this concise reference reviews the literature on specific problems of caregivers and explores which care strategies are effective, promising, or lacking in available resources and support interventions. Contributors also explore the more fluid and subjective aspects of caregiving, such as feelings, spirituality, and family roles. Suggestions for future policy improvements, particularly within the public health sector, are discussed as well. Topics covered include: * Family dynamics and caregiving for people with disabilities. * Parent caregiving of children with disabilities. * Race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and caregiving. * Educational, training, and support programs for caregivers. * Emerging technologies to aid caregivers. * Developing partnerships between caregivers and health care providers. Multiple Dimensions of Caregiving and Disability is a must-have resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners, policy makers, and graduate students across such disciplines as clinical psychology, nursing, social work, public health, medicine, and social and education policy. 

As an African American woman born in 1943, Maxine Childress Brown possessed a unique vantage point to witness the transformative events in her parents'lives. Both came from the South -- her father, Herbert Childress, from Nashville, TN, and her mother, Thomasina Brown, from Concord, NC. The oldest of three daughters, Maxine was fascinated by her parents'stories. She marveled at how they raised a well-respected, middle-class family in the midst of segregation with the added challenge of being deaf. Her parents met in Washington, DC, where they married and settled down. Her father worked as a shoe repairman for $65 per week for more than 15 years. A gifted seamstress, her mother gave up sewing to clean houses. Because of their modest means, Maxine and her sisters lived more than modest lives. When Maxine's tonsils became infected, her parents could not afford the operation to have them removed. For her high school prom, her mother bought her a dress on credit because she had no time to sew. Herbert Childress showed great love for his young daughters, but events turned him to bitterness and to drink. Throughout all, Thomasina encouraged her girls, always urging them to excel. She demanded their honest best with her signature phrase, her flat hand raised from her mouth straight up in the air, “on the beat of truth.”

In Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds, Parin Dossa explores the lives of Canadian Muslim women who share their stories of social marginalization and disenfranchisement in a disabling world.

This edited book reflects a much needed area of scholarship as the voices of African American (AA) or Black students defined by various labels such as learning disability, blindness/visual impairment, cognitive development, speech or language impairment, and hearing impairment are rare within the scholarly literature. Students tagged with those identifiers within the Pk-20 academic system have not only been ignored, and discounted, but have also had their learning framed from a deficit perspective rather than a strength-based perspective. Moreover, it was uncommon to hear first person narratives about how AA students have understood their positions within the general education and special education systems. Therefore, with a pervasive lack of knowledge when it comes to understanding the experiences of AA with disabilities, this book describes personal experiences, and challenges the idea that AA students with disabilities are substandard. While this book will emphasize successful narratives, it will also provide counter-narratives to demystify the myth that those with disabilities cannot succeed or obtain terminal degrees. Overall, this edited book is a much needed contribution to the scholarly literature and may help teachers across a wide array of academic disciplines in meeting the academic and social needs of AA students with disabilities. ENDORSEMENTS: Dr. Shawn Robinson's collection of personal narratives raises critical questions about the U. S. public education system. Written by African Americans compartmentalized in special education programs because of actual or perceived disabilities, these stories will impel readers even tangentially affiliated with educational institutions to consider testing, placement, mainstreaming, retention and promotion, and other assessment policies that determine grade-level readiness. Thanks to Robinson, the perspectives of these graduates who surmounted barriers to more positive and accommodating learning environments now receive proper attention. ~ John Pruitt, University of Wisconsin-Rock County With a bold vision, Dr. Shawn Anthony Robinson enters the discussion of Special Education with a collection of narratives that highlight the struggles and triumphs of marginalized students. In America, we have a long, contested history of “inclusion” of students of color and difference in our public, mainstream institutions. When these students are invited to the education table, they still must overcome persistent and pernicious barriers to true and equal educational opportunities. Consequently, students are left to “sink or swim” in oceans disparity and inequity. This collection of narratives and counter-narratives, confront the absence of adequate research and other empirical evidence of pedagogy and practice that would be essential to 21st Century progress in educational praxis. This volume represents one, important step towards adding new voices to the continuing struggle of meaningful inclusion. How might students of color and difference succeed in an education system that provides “no room to bloom? The authors address this challenge by exploring topics such as Aspirational Capital, Linguistic Capital, Familial Capital, Social Capital, Navigational Capital and Resistance Capital. The reader will be exposed to ideas that will help students “make a way out of no way” by working both within and against educational systems full of barriers and opportunities. Congratulations to Dr. Robinson and his colleagues as the content of this volume represents an important contribution to the extant literature. ~ Gregory A. Diggs, Denver, Colorado

This thoughtful collection addresses the issues faced by women with disabilities, examines the social construction of disability, and makes suggestions for the development and modification of culturally relevant therapy to meet the needs of disabled women. Written in an accessible style with a minimum of jargon, this book provides clinical material from the perspectives of psychotherapists, clients, personal assistants, and health administrators. Women with Visible and Invisible Disabilities also highlights the importance of considering age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation in its examination of feminist approaches to assessment, psychotherapy, disability management (coping), and discusses how the Americans with Disabilities Act impacts employment and education for women.