African American Atheists and Political Liberation: A Study of theSociocultural Dynamics of Faith

This study of atheist African American writers poses a substantive challenge to those who see atheism in despairing and nihilistic terms. Lackey argues that while most white atheists mourn the loss of faith, many black atheists--believing the “God-concept” spawns racism and oppression--consider the death of God a cause for personal and political hope. Focusing on a little-discussed aspect of African American literature, this full-length analysis of African American atheists’ treatment of God fills a huge gap in studies that consistently ignore their contributions. Examining how a belief in God and His “chosen people” necessitates a politics of superiority and inferiority, Lackey implicitly considers the degree to which religious faith is responsible for justifying oppression, even acts of physical and psychological violence. In their secular vision of social and political justice, black atheists argue that only when the culture adopts and internalizes a truly atheist politics--one based on pluralism, tolerance, and freedom--will radical democracy be achieved. Of primary interest to scholars of African American studies, this volume also will appeal to religious scholars, philosophers, anthropologists, freethinkers, and religious and secular humanists. Download Link

The Challenge of Blackness: The Institute of the Black World andPolitical Activism in the 1970s

The Challenge of Blackness examines the history and legacy of the Institute of the Black World (IBW), one of the most important Black Freedom Struggle organizations to emerge in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A think tank based in Atlanta, the IBW sought to answer King's question "Where do we go from here?" Its solution was to organize a broad array of leading Black activists, scholars, and intellectuals to find ways to combine the emerging academic discipline of Black Studies with the Black political agenda. Throughout the 1970s, debates over race and class in the Unites States grew increasingly hostile, and the IBW's approach was ultimately unable to challenge the growing conservatism. By using the IBW as the lens through which to view these turbulent years, Derrick White provides an exciting new interpretation of the immediate post-civil rights years in America. Download Link

The Quarters and the Fields: Slave Families in the Non-Cotton South

"A fresh and inventive method of presenting some lesser-known aspects of slavery to both scholars and students."--Ronald Traylor, Southeastern Louisiana University "Pargas redefines the meaning of 'slave agency' to examine the varying ability of enslaved workers to shape and protect their domestic arrangements."--Larry Hudson, University of Rochester The Quarters and the Fields offers a unique approach to the examination of slavery. Rather than focusing on slave work and family life on cotton plantations, Damian Pargas compares the practice of slavery among the other major agricultural cultures in the nineteenth-century South: tobacco, mixed grain, rice, and sugar cane. He reveals how the demands of different types of masters and crops influenced work patterns and habits, which in turn shaped slaves' family life. By presenting a broader view of the complex forces that shaped enslaved people's family lives, not only from outside but also from within, this book takes an inclusive approach to the slave agency debate. A comparative study that examines the importance of time and place for slave families, The Quarters and the Fields provides a means for understanding them as they truly were: dynamic social units that were formed and existed under different circumstances across time and space. Download Link

After Freedom Summer: How Race Realigned Mississippi Politics, 1965–1986

"A brilliant history of black politics and white resistance in post-civil rights era Mississippi. Danielson’s work helps to fill the yawning gap in the black politics historiography between the Black Power movement and contemporary black politics. Additionally, he makes a critical contribution to the literature of the racial realignment of the two major political parties. A must-read!"--G. Derek Musgrove, University of the District of Columbia "A sobering account of what happened after the singing and marching stopped. Danielson's masterful analysis of Mississippi's racially divided electorate proves that, despite the election of hundreds of blacks to public office, whites still hold all the levels of political power."--John Dittmer, author of Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi No one disagrees that 1964--Freedom Summer--forever changed the political landscape of Mississippi. How those changes played out is the subject of Chris Danielson’s fascinating new book, After Freedom Summer . Prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, black voter participation in Mississippi was practically zero. After twenty years, black candidates had made a number of electoral gains. Simultaneously, white resistance had manifested itself in growing Republican dominance of the state. Danielson demonstrates how race--not class or economics--was the dominant factor in white Mississippi voters' partisan realignment, even as he reveals why class and economics played a role in the tensions between the national NAACP and the local Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (an offshoot of SNCC) that limited black electoral gains. Using an impressive array of newspaper articles, legal cases, interviews, and personal papers, Danielson's work helps fill a growing lacuna in the study of post-civil rights politics in the South. Download Link

Comparative Perspectives on Afro-Latin America

“This volume is long overdue, and at the cutting edge of scholarship. It is sure to become a standard reference.”—Jerome Branche, author of Race, Colonialism, and Social Transformation in Latin American and the Caribbean “A powerful and original collection of essays. Provides a much needed overview of the development of the Afro-Latin American rights movement.”—Nicola Foote, coeditor of Military Struggle and Identity Formation in Latin America As academic interest in Afro-Latin America increases, so, too, does the need for a fresh text detailing the cultural and political issues facing black populations throughout the region. With existing literature focused on populations in individual countries, editors Kwame Dixon and John Burdick have encouraged their contributors to move beyond borders in this wide-ranging study. Comparative Perspectives on Afro-Latin America offers a new, dynamic discussion of the experience of blackness and cultural difference, black political mobilization, and state responses to Afro-Latin activism throughout Latin America. Its thematic organization and holistic approach set it apart as the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of these populations and the issues they face currently available. Download Link

Higher Education and the Civil Rights Movement: White Supremacy, BlackSoutherners, and College Campuses

Nowhere else can one read about how "Brown v. Board of Education" transformed higher education on campus after campus, in state after state, across the South. And no other book details the continuing struggle to change each school in the years that followed the enrollment of the first African American students. Institutions of higher education long functioned as bastions of white supremacy and black exclusion. Against the walls of Jim Crow and the powers of state laws, black southerners--prospective students, their parents and families, their lawyers and their communities--struggled to gain access and equity. "Higher Education and the Civil Rights Movement "examines an understudied aspect of racial history, revealing desegregation to be a process, not an event. Download Link

Living Spirits With Fixed Abodes: The Masterpieces Exhibition Papua NewGuinea National Museum and Art Gallery

On the eve of Papua New Guinea's attainment of independence from Australia, Chief Minister Michael Somare referred to the new nation's cultural treasures as "living spirits with fixed abodes." He was referring to the prevailing belief of Papua New Guineans that everything is invested with spirit, not least the objects carved, modeled, or constructed for ceremonial, and often everyday, use. The Masterpieces Exhibition includes the most significant cultural treasures on display at the Papua New Guinea's national museum. This book gives the reader a thorough account of each of the exhibition's 209 pieces. An introduction aims to give the general reader an idea of the significance of the objects and how they are to be understood. Other chapters provide a brief history of the museum and its role in forging national identity. Editor Barry Craig sets the individual works in their local context with historical and field photographs. The objects are dealt with under various headings: Watercraft, Architecture, Household Items, Gardening and Fertility Figures, Hunting and Warfare, Musical Instruments, Masks and Mortuary Objects. Download Link

Ride, Red, Ride: The Life of Henry "Red" Allen (Bayou)

A biography of jazz trumpeter and singer Henry "Red" Allen exploring his place as Armstrong's chief rival. Both men were born in New Orleans and shared an African-American heritage, but their backgrounds were very different. Chilton brings to light Allen's personality and analyzes his recordings. Download Link

Race, Colonialism, and Social Transformation in Latin America and theCaribbean

This collection of essays offers a comprehensive overview of colonial legacies of racial and social inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. Rich in theoretical framework and close textual analysis, these essays offer new paradigms and approaches to both reading and resolving the opposing forces of race, class, and the power of states. Download Link

The Reordering of Culture: Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada inthe Hood

Political, economic and social barriers among Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada are giving way to global forces and the "global dreams" they inspire. This collection of original articles and essays examines popular culture, literature, theatre, belief systems, indigenous practices and questions of identity, exile and alienation. The interconnectedness and distinction of cultural production throughout the Americas, "transplanted" interests, the mediation of African and European influences, and the expression of shifting identities, all reflect the development of a new American neighbourhood. Download Link

The Ethiopian Prophecy in Black American Letters

For centuries, Psalm 68:31 "Princes shall come forth out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God," also known as the Ethiopian prophecy, has served as a pivotal and seminal text for those of African descent in the Americas. Originally, it was taken to mean that the slavery of African Americans was akin to the slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt, and thus it became an articulation of the emancipation struggle. However, it has also been used as an impetus for missionary work in Africa, as an inspirational backbone for the civil rights movement, and as a call for a separate black identity during the twentieth century. Utilizing examples from Richard Allen, Maria W. Stewart, Kate Drumgoold, Phillis Wheatley, Martin Delany, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and Ralph Ellison, Kay reveals the wide variety of ways this verse has been interpreted and conceptualized in African American history and letters for more than two hundred years. Download Link

The Complete Muhammad Ali

Including material and photographs not included in most of the 100 other books about the champion, Ishmael Reed’s The Complete Muhammad Ali is more than just a biography—it is a fascinating portrait of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. An honest, balanced portrayal of Ali, the book includes voices that have been omitted from other books. It charts Ali’s evolution from Black Nationalism to a universalism, but does not discount the Nation of Islam and Black Nationalism’s important influence on his intellectual development. Filipino American author Emil Guillermo speaks about how “The Thrilla’ In Manila” brought the Philippines into the 20th century. Fans of Muhammad Ali, boxing fans, and those interested in modern African American history and the Nation of Islam will be fascinated by this biography by an accomplished American author. Download Link

The Ticket to Freedom: The NAACP and the Struggle for Black PoliticalIntegration

After many years of neglect and misplaced criticism by contemporary activists, historians and the media, Berg restores the NAACP to its rightful place at the heart of the civil rights movement. Where others have dismissed the NAACP’s goals and methods as half-hearted, ineffective and irrelevant, Berg challenges the legalistic and bureaucratic image of the NAACP and reveals a resourceful, dynamic, and politically astute organization that did much to open up the electoral process to greater black participation. Readers interested in the African American freedom struggle will find a nuanced and judicious portrait of America’s veteran civil rights organization. Download Link

Black American Money by Dr. Boyce Watkins

In this book, Dr. Boyce Watkins breaks down how black power can thrive in a capitalist society. In his standard down-to-earth style, Dr. Watkins explains how capitalism works in America and why money stands in the way of true racial equality. This is a must-read for those seeking to understand the next generation in the pursuit of Civil Rights. Download Link

The Silencing of Ruby McCollum: Race, Class, and Gender in the South

The Silencing of Ruby McCollum refutes the carefully constructed public memory of one of the most famous—and under-examined—biracial murders in American history. On August 3, 1952, African American housewife Ruby McCollum drove to the office of Dr. C. LeRoy Adams, beloved white physician in the segregated small town of Live Oak, Florida. With her two young children in tow, McCollum calmly gunned down the doctor during (according to public sentiment) “an argument over a medical bill.” Soon, a very different motive emerged, with McCollum alleging horrific mental and physical abuse at Adams’s hand. In reaction to these allegations and an increasingly intrusive media presence, the town quickly cobbled together what would become the public facade of Adams’s murder—a more “acceptable” motive for McCollum’s actions. To ensure this would become the official version of events, McCollum’s trial prosecutors voiced multiple objections during her testimony to limit what she was allowed to say. Employing multiple methodologies to achieve her voice—historical research, feminist theory, African American literary criticism, African American history, and investigative journalism—Evans analyzes the texts surrounding the affair to suggest that an imposed code of silence demands not only the construction of an official story but also the transformation of a community’s citizens into agents who will reproduce and perpetuate this version of events, improbable and unlikely though they may be. Download Link

Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santeria: Speaking a SacredWorld

How do Santería practitioners in Cuba create and maintain religious communities amidst tensions, disagreements, and competition among them, and in the absence of centralized institutional authority? What serves as the "glue" that holds practitioners of different backgrounds together in the creation of a moral community? Examining the religious lives of santeros in Santiago de Cuba, Wirtz argues that these communities hold together not because members agree on their interpretations of rituals but because they often disagree. Religious life is marked by a series of "telling moments"--not only the moments themselves but their narrated representations as they are retold and mined for religious meanings. Long after they occur, spiritually elevated experiences circulate in narratives that may express skepticism or awe and hold the promise of more such experiences. The author finds that these episodes resonate in gossip and other forms of public commentary about the experiences of their fellow Santería practitioners. Drawing on ethnographic research about Santería beliefs and practices, Wirtz observes that practitioners are constantly engaged in reflection about what they and other practitioners are doing, how the orichas (deities) have responded, and what the consequences of their actions were or will be. By focusing their reflective attention on particular events, santeros re-create, moment to moment, what their religion is. Wirtz also argues that Santería cannot be considered in isolation from the complex religious landscape of contemporary Cuba, in which African-based traditions are viewed with a mix of fascination, folkloric pride, and suspicion. [ Interactions among the conflicting discourses about these religions—as sacred practices, folklore, or dangerous superstitions, for example—have played a central role in constituting them as social entities. ] This book will interest scholars of religion, the African diaspora, the Caribbean, and Latin America, as well as linguistic and cultural anthropologists. Download Link

Afro-Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales ofTransnational Movements in Racialized Space

Born of the union between African maroons and the Island Carib on colonial St. Vincent, and later exiled to Honduras, the Garifuna way of life combines elements of African, Island Carib, and colonial European culture. Beginning in the 1940s, this cultural matrix became even more complex as Garifuna began migrating to the United States, forming communities in the cities of New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. Moving between a village on the Caribbean coast of Honduras and the New York City neighborhoods of the South Bronx and Harlem, England traces the daily lives, experiences, and grassroots organizing of the Garifuna. Concentrating on how family life, community life, and grassroots activism are carried out in two countries simultaneously as Garifuna move back and forth, England also examines the relationship between the Garifuna and Honduran national society and discusses much of the recent social activism organized to protect Garifuna coastal villages from being expropriated by the tourism and agro-export industries. Based on two years of fieldwork in Honduras and New York, her study examines not only how this transnational system works but also the impact that the complex racial and ethnic identity of the Garifuna have on the surrounding societies. As a people who can claim to be black, indigenous, and Latino, the Garifuna have a complex relationship not only with U.S. and Honduran societies but also with the international community of nongovernmental organizations that advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples and blacks. Download Link

A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow: South Carolina's GeorgeWashington Murray

Born a slave in 1850s South Carolina and elected to Congress in the 1890s, George W. Murray appeared to be the antithesis of the African American male in the Jim Crow South and served as a beacon for African Americans who saw their hopes crushed in the aftermath of the Civil War. Early in the twentieth century, however, tragically defeated by corrupt Reconstruction politics and white supremacist attitudes he could not escape, Murray was driven from office and from the state. Drawing on extensive research to reconstruct Murray’s life story, Marszalek defines an age and its people through the compelling battle of one man and shows how and why the nation’s efforts to reconstruct the South into a biracial democracy failed. Murray’s career, which spanned a quarter of a century, included two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and leadership of South Carolina’s Republican party. He was an investor as well as a landed property owner who sold tracts to poor blacks in order for them to qualify to vote. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, with his party in shambles, he found himself on trial for alleged forgery in a land deal with two of his black land purchasers. Murray was found guilty, and the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the verdict. Sentenced to hard labor on a chain gang, he escaped to Chicago where he spent the rest of his life in obscurity. Download Link

The Culture War in the Civil Rights Movement

From Aretha Franklin and James Baldwin to Dick Gregory and Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement deliberately used music, art, theater, and literature as political weapons to broaden the struggle and legitimize its appeal. Joe Street places these cultural forms at the center of the civil rights struggle, arguing that the time has come to recognize the extent to which African American history and culture were vital elements of the movement, calculated to broaden the movement's appeal within the larger black community. He places considerable emphasis on Amiri Baraka's interpretation of the importance of music and art to the development of black nationalist thought in the 1960s, especially as expressed in his jazz criticism and plays. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, from the Free Southern Theater to freedom songs, from the Cuban radio broadcasts of Robert F. Williams to the art of the Black Panther Party, Street encourages us to consider the breadth of forces brought to bear as weapons in the struggle for civil rights. Doing so also allows us to reconsider the roots of Black Power, recognizing that it emerged both from within and as a critique of the southern integrationist movement. Download Link

From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, Haiti, and PanAmericanism, 1870-1964

"A remarkable new analysis of how African Americans and Haitians interacted over the long term. It asserts bold new methods and conclusions on inter-American relations, Pan Americanism, and U.S.-Haitian relations."--David Sheinin, Trent University "Polyné has provided a clearly written, nuanced, deeply researched study about the multiple efforts among the Haitian and African American elite to advance both their national agendas and larger global commitments to the diaspora. No one has focused on Haiti the way he has." --Carol Anderson, Emory University "Adds an important and much-needed layer to our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of diasporic relations."--Carol Anderson, Emory University Haiti has long been both a source of immense pride--because of the Haitian Revolution--and of profound disappointment--because of the unshakable realities of poverty, political instability, and violence--to the black diasporic imagination. Charting the long history of these multiple meanings is the focus of Millery Polyne's rich and critical transnational history of U.S. African Americans and Haitians. Stretching from the thoughts and words of American intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass, Robert Moton, and Claude Barnett to the Civil Rights era, Polyne's temporal scope is breathtaking. But just as impressive is the thematic range of the work, which carefully examines the political, economic, and cultural relations between U.S. African Americans and Haitians. From Douglass to Duvalier examines the creative and critical ways U.S. African Americans and Haitians engaged the idealized tenets of Pan Americanism--mutual cooperation, egalitarianism, and nonintervention between nation-states--in order to strengthen Haiti's social, economic, and political growth and stability. The depth of Polyne's research allows him to speak confidently about the convoluted ways that these groups have viewed modernization, "uplift," and racial unity, as well as the shifting meanings and importance of the concepts over time. Download Link

Soul Searching: Black-Themed Cinema from the March on Washington to theRise of Blaxploitation

The sixties were a tremendously important time of transition for both civil rights activism and the U.S. film industry. Soul Searching examines a subject that, despite its significance to African American film history, has gone largely unexplored until now. By revisiting films produced between the march on Washington in 1963 and the dawn of the "blaxploitation" movie cycle in 1970, Christopher Sieving reveals how race relations influenced black-themed cinema before it was recognized as commercially viable by the major studios. The films that are central to this book--Gone Are the Days (1963), The Cool World (1964), The Confessions of Nat Turner (never produced), Uptight (1968), and The Landlord (1970)--are all ripe for reevaluation and newfound appreciation. Soul Searching is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics and cultural movements of the 1960s, cinematic trends like blaxploitation and the American "indie film" explosion, or black experience and its many facets. Download Link

Osogbo and the Art of Heritage: Monuments, Deities, and Money

Why has the home of a Yoruba river goddess become a UNESCO World Heritage site and a global attraction? Every year, tens of thousands of people from around the world visit the sacred grove of Osun, Osogbo’s guardian deity, to attend her festival. Peter Probst takes readers on a riveting journey to Osogbo. He explores the history of the Osogbo School, which helped introduce one style of African modern art to the West, and investigates its intimate connection with Osun, the role of art and religion in the changing world of Osogbo, and its prominence in the global arena. Download Link

Opening Minds, Improving Lives: Education and Women's Empowerment inHonduras

Juanita was seventeen years old and pregnant with her first child when she began an activity that would "open" her mind. Living in a remote Garifuna village in Honduras, Juanita had dropped out of school after the sixth grade. In 1996, a new educational program, Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (Tutorial Learning System or SAT), was started in her community. The program helped her see the world differently and open a small business. Empowering women through education has become a top priority of international development efforts. Erin Murphy-Graham draws on more than a decade of qualitative research to examine the experiences of Juanita and eighteen other women who participated in the SAT program. Their narratives suggest the simple yet subtle ways education can spark the empowerment process, as well as the role of men and boys in promoting gender equality. Drawing on in-depth interviews and classroom observation in Honduras and Uganda, Murphy-Graham shows the potential of the SAT program to empower women through expanded access and improved quality of secondary education in Latin America and Africa. An appendix provides samples of the classroom lessons. Download Link

Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healingfor Inmates and Their Loved Ones

A compelling, important addition to Hill Harper’s bestselling series, inspired by young inmates who write to him seeking guidance. After the publication of the bestselling Letters to a Young Brother, accomplished actor and speaker Hill Harper began to receive an increasing number of moving letters from inmates who yearned for a connection with a successful role model. With disturbing statistics on African-American incarceration rates on his mind, Harper set out to address the specific needs of inmates. Harper’s powerful message from the heart provides advice and inspiration in the face of despair along with encouraging words for restoring a sense of self-worth. Uplifting and insightful, Letters to an Incarcerated Brother provides the hope and inspiration inmates and their families need. Download Link

Oscar Peterson: The Man and His Jazz

Called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, received the Order of Canada and is considered to have been one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. This new biography from award-winning author Jack Batten, promises to tell Oscar Peterson's story in acomplete, compelling and sympathetic way. This is first biography of Oscar Peterson for young people. This book is the story of a black kid from a Montreal ghetto who reached accliam in the great music halls of the world. Download Link

The Black Chicago Renaissance

Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The contributors to this volume analyze this prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression. Unlike Harlem, Chicago was an urban industrial center that gave a unique working-class and internationalist perspective to the cultural work being done in Chicago. This collection's various essays discuss the forces that distinguished the Black Chicago Renaissance from the Harlem Renaissance and place the development of black culture in a national and international context. Contributors will also provoke explorations of renaissances in other cities. Among the topics discussed in this volume are Chicago writers Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright, The Chicago Defender and Tivoli Theater, African American music and visual arts, and the American Negro Exposition of 1940. Contributors are Hilary Mac Austin, David T. Bailey, Murry N. DePillars, Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Erik S. Gellman, Jeffrey Helgeson, Darlene Clark Hine, John McCluskey Jr., Christopher Robert Reed, Elizabeth Schlabach, and Clovis E. Semmes. Download Link

Natural Beauty Alchemy: Make Your Own Organic Cleansers, Creams,Serums, Shampoos, Balms, and More

If you've spent hundreds of dollars looking for the perfect moisturizer, or shampoo, or anti-aging serum, but had no luck, then this book is for you. Written by a licensed pharmacist and expert healthcare professional, it contains not only more than 100 easy, all-natural recipes for face, hair, and body, it will also help you to determine if a store-bought product is truly organic or natural by reviewing and explaining ingredients found in most of them. It's a comprehensive guide to understanding and making natural beauty products. Author Fifi Maacaron explains the basics, answers questions, and discusses techniques. 50 Color Photographs Download Link

Wealth Accumulation and Communities of Color in the United States:Current Issues

"Congratulations to Drs. Nembhard and Chiteji and the authors included in this much needed volume of work! Their book offers the perspective and insight of scholars of color that are too often missing from information produced by the asset building field (people and organizations seeking to help low-income people develop assets). Communities served by the asset building field are disproportionately made up of people of color. This book captures work produced by scholars representing these communities and offers innovative and thought provoking analyses of wealth inequality. Decision-making on research, policy, and practice that fails to incorporate the knowledge of these and other asset accumulation experts of color runs the risk of being fatally flawed and irrelevant to the communities the asset building field intends to serve." --Kilolo Kijakazi, Ph.D., The Ford Foundation Download Link

Money in Africa

The study of monetary systems in the history of Africa is a subject that by its nature crosses disciplinary boundaries, covering more than 4,000 years of African history and a huge and varied geographical and cultural area.1 There is a clear need to bring together evidence from fields of study including numismatics, ethnography, archaeology, geography, politics and history, as well as linguistics, literature, religion, and other disciplines. In some of these areas the empirical evidence needs building, and in others there is a need to develop better theoretical understanding. Download Link

Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City

In February 1999 the tragic New York City police shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed street vendor from Guinea, brought into focus the existence of West African merchants in urban America. In Money Has No Smell, Paul Stoller offers us a more complete portrait of the complex lives of West African immigrants like Diallo, a portrait based on years of research Stoller conducted on the streets of New York City during the 1990s. Blending fascinating ethnographic description with incisive social analysis. Stoller shows how these savvy West African entrepreneurs have built cohesive and effective multinational trading networks, in part through selling a simulated Africa to African Americans. These and other networks set up by the traders, along with their faith as devout Muslims, help them cope with the formidable state regulations and personal challenges they face in America. As Stoller demonstrates, the stories of these West African traders illustrate and illuminate ongoing debates about globalization, the informal economy, and the changing nature of American communities. Download Link

Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil

Blacks of the Rosary tells the story of the Afro-Brazilian communities that developed within lay religious brotherhoods dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Minas Gerais. It shows how these brotherhoods functioned as a social space in which Africans and their descendants could rebuild a communal identity based on a shared history of an African past and an ongoing devotional practice, thereby giving rise to enduring transnational cultures that have survived to the present day. In exploring this intersection of community, identity, and memory, the book probes the Portuguese and African contributions to the brotherhoods in Part One. Part Two traces the changes and continuities within the organizations from the early eighteenth century to the end of the Brazilian Empire, and the book concludes in Part Three with discussion of the twentieth-century brotherhoods and narratives of the participants in brotherhood festivals in the 1990s. In a larger sense, the book serves as a case study through which readers can examine the strategies that Afro-Brazilians used to create viable communities in order to confront the asymmetry of power inherent in the slave societies of the Americas and their economic and social marginalization in the twentieth century.

Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans

Celebrating the African contribution to Mexican culture, this book shows how religious brotherhoods in New Spain both preserved a distinctive African identity and helped facilitate Afro-Mexican integration into colonial society. Called confraternities, these groups provided social connections, charity, and status for Africans and their descendants for over two centuries. Often organized by African women and dedicated to popular European and African saints, the confraternities enjoyed prestige in the Baroque religious milieu of 17th-century New Spain. One group, founded by Africans called Zapes, preserved their ethnic identity for decades even after they were enslaved and brought to the Americas. Despite ongoing legal divisions and racial hierarchies, by the end of the colonial era many descendants from African slaves had achieved a degree of status that enabled them to move up the social ladder in Hispanic society. Von Germeten reveals details of the organization and practices of more than 60 Afro-Mexican brotherhoods and examines changes in the social, family, and religious lives of their members. She presents the stories of individual Africans and their descendants—including many African women and the famous Baroque artist Juan Correa—almost entirely from evidence they themselves generated. Moving the historical focus away from negative stereotypes that have persisted for almost 500 years, this study is the first in English to deal with Afro-Mexican religious organizations. Download Link

Dr. Dre (Hip-Hop Biographies)

There's no doubt about it, today's students listen to an average of 2.5 hours of music every day. Guess what they are listening to? Hip-hop is mainstream, continually topping Billboard's Hot 100 charts. These hi-lo biographies engage striving readers from the very beginning with blinged-out covers, stunning four-color photographs, modern and graphic page design, and high-interest informational text. Biographies highlight the unique characteristics of each mega-rapper, including childhood struggles, personal style, rivalries, giving back, and more. Each 48-page paperback book includes a timeline and glossary, with vocabulary words highlighted throughout. Download Link

Fela: This Bitch of a Life

African superstar, composer, singer, and musician, as well as mystic and political activist, Nigerian Fela Kuti, born in 1938, was controversy personified. He was swept to international celebrity on a wave of scandal and flamboyance, and when he died of AIDS in 1997, more than a million people attended his funeral. But what was he really like, this man who could as easily arouse violent hostility as he could unswerving loyalty? Download Link

African Art

The art of the Fang, the BaTeke, the BaKota, and other African peoples is extraordinarily vigorous and shows a brilliant sense of form. The substantial aesthetic impact that their works have had on the development of twentieth-century Western art—on Picasso, Derain, Braque, and Modigliani, among others—continues to this day. This classic study reveals the astonishing variety and expressive power of the art of a continent that contains more distinct peoples and cultures than any other. The revised edition has been updated throughout, incorporating recent research and additional illustrations, plus a new chapter and extended bibliography. It remains an invaluable resource for students and for anyone interested in African art. Download Link

African Royal Court Art

Grounding its analysis in the social and historical context of traditional royalty systems, this text examines the diverse roles played by artisans, nobles, and kings in the production and use of royal objects. From the precolonial kingdoms of the Edo and the Yoruba, the Ashanti and the Igbo, Michele Coquet reconstructs from a comparativist view the essential cultural connections between art, representation and the king. More than ornamentation, royal objects embodied the strength and status of African rulers. The gold-plated stools of the Ashanti, the delicately carved ivory bracelets of the Edo - these objects were meant not simply to adorn but to affirm and enhance the power and prestige of the wearer. Unlike the abstract style frequently seen in African ritual art, realism became manifest in courtly arts. Realism directly linked the symbolic value of the object - a portrait or relief - with the physical person of the king. The contours of the monarch's face, his political and military exploits rendered on palace walls, became visual histories, the work of art in essence corroborating the ruler's sovereign might. Download Link

Early Art and Architecture of Africa

This new history of over 5000 years of African art reveals its true diversity for the first time. Challenging centuries of misconceptions that have obscured the sophisticated nature of African art, Peter Garlake uses the latest research and archaeological findings to offer exciting new insights. All the main regions are covered: southern Africa, Nubia, Aksum, the Niger River, West Africa, Great Zimbabwe, and the East African coast. Acknowledging the universal allure of the African art object, this book restores it to its original social and historical context, helping us to understand more about the ways in which this art was produced, used, and received. Download Link

A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten

Less than a decade ago, Forten remained a footnote in books on U.S. and African-American history. This new critical biography, the first serious work on his life and legacy, not only restores him to his rightful place in American history, but also presents readers with an invigorating and challenging new portrait of pre- and post-Revolutionary race relations and identities. Forten was born in 1766 into a free-born African-American family in Philadelphia, and his ideas and politics were formed by ideals of freedom espoused by Thomas Paine and other colonial writers. He went to sea as a privateer under Stephen Decatur, was captured by the British and, after a stay in London, became apprentice to a sail maker; in 1798, he took over the business, which prospered. His obituary in 1842 noted that he was "the leading sailmaker in the city." But Forten was also noted for his role in public life, particularly his intense involvement in the abolition movement, his close association with William Lloyd Garrison and the 1813 publication of his influential book, Letters from a Man of Colour. Winch, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, has done a masterful job of researching and piecing together Forten's life from family and business records, newspapers, tax rolls, letters and journals. But the strength of the book aside from rediscovering Forten is the careful and often surprising research into the complexity of African-American life in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Winch never skirts difficult issues: Forten's aunt owned slaves and may have even been involved in the slave trade. And whether she is explicating the role of black freemasonry or how intermarriage with whites and Indians created endlessly complicated social and racial identities for "black" Americans, her scholarship is both outstanding and vital. Download Link

Woman of Color, Daughter of Privilege: Amanda America Dickson, 1849-1893

This fascinating story of Amanda America Dickson, born the privileged daughter of a white planter and an unconsenting slave in antebellum Georgia, shows how strong-willed individuals defied racial strictures for the sake of family. Kent Anderson Leslie uses the events of Dickson's life to explore the forces driving southern race and gender relations from the days of King Cotton through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and New South eras. Although legally a slave herself well into her adolescence, Dickson was much favored by her father and lived comfortably in his house, receiving a genteel upbringing and education. After her father died in 1885 Dickson inherited most of his half-million dollar estate, sparking off two years of legal battles with white relatives. When the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the will, Dickson became the largest landowner in Hancock County, Georgia, and the wealthiest black woman in the post-Civil War South. Kent Anderson Leslie's portrayal of Dickson is enhanced by a wealth of details about plantation life; the elaborate codes of behavior for men and women, blacks and whites in the South; and the equally complicated circumstances under which racial transgressions were sometimes ignored, tolerated, or even accepted. Download Link

Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1980

While the impact of a colonising metropole on subjected territories has been widely scrutinized, the effect of empire on the colonising country has long been neglected. Recently, many studies have examined the repercussions of their respective empires on colonial powers such as the United Kingdom and France. Belgium and its African empire have been conspicuously absent from this discussion. This book attempts to fill this gap. Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1980 examines the effects of colonialism on the domestic politics, diplomacy and economics of Belgium, from 1880 - when King Leopold II began the country's expansionist enterprises in Africa - to the 1980s, well after the Congo's independence in June of 1960. By examining the colonial impact on its mother country Belgium, this study also contributes to a better understanding of Congo's past and present. Download Link

The Book of Luke: My Fight for Truth, Justice, and Liberty City byLuther Campbell

The raw and powerful true story of how one man invented Southern Hip-Hop, saved the First Amendment, and became a role model for his disenfranchised Miami neighborhood—living proof that one person can make a difference in the world. A rap artist, wealthy musical entrepreneur, high school coach, and involved, active citizen—Luther Campbell’s life is a reflection of modern America. His is a tale that touches on the most pressing issues of our time: sex, creativity versus the corporate bottom line, conservative values and artistic freedom, personal rights, the gangster mentality of music companies, the rise of entrepreneurship, and the power—and responsibilities—of individuals to care for their neighborhoods, their country, and the people around them. Born in Miami’s notorious Liberty City neighborhood, Campbell saw firsthand poverty, despair, and crime. He also discovered the gift of transformation we all possess—knowledge that has made him a passionate fighter willing to take on the most powerful forces in the name of justice and what’s right. His rap group 2 Live Crew and successful independent label made him a superstar and a multi-millionaire—and the center of enormous controversy. The “King of Dirty Rap” who helped pioneer the worldwide phenomenon known as the Miami Bass sound infuriated the conservative mainstream and became Public Enemy #1 when hip hop crossed the color line into white America. Campbell spent over a million dollars of his own money fighting cops and prosecutors all the way to the Supreme Court to protect his—and every other artist’s—right to free speech, setting landmark legal precedents that continue to shape the entertainment industry today. Twenty years later, Campbell uses his fame and fortune to give back to the community, saving young men from the street corners and fighting for his people. Passionate, transformative, and inspiring, The Book of Luke is his story—a living testament to hope and change. Download Link

Incredible African-American Jazz Musicians

Readers will learn about a variety of African American jazz musicians including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock. Download Link

The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921

On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a black community then celebrated as one of America's most prosperous. 34 square blocks of Tulsa's Greenwood community, known then as the Negro Wall Street of America, were reduced to smoldering rubble. And now, 80 years later, the death toll of what is known as the Tulsa Race Riot is more difficult to pinpoint. Conservative estimates put the number of dead at about 100 (75% of the victims are believed to have been black), but the actual number of casualties could be triple that. The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, formed two years ago to determine exactly what happened, has recommended that restitution to the historic Greenwood Community would be good public policy and do much to repair the emotional as well as physical scars of this most terrible incident in our shared past. With chilling details, humanity, and the narrative thrust of compelling fiction, The Burning will recreate the town of Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explore the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its black residents and neighboring Tulsa's white population, narrate events leading up to and including Greenwood's annihilation, and document the subsequent silence that surrounded the tragedy. Download Link

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (TheFabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1)

Classical civilisation, Martin Bernal argues, has deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures. But these Afro-Asiatic influences have been systematically ignored, denied, or suppressed since the eighteenth century - chiefly for racist reasons. The popular view is that Greek civilisation was the result of the conquest of a sophisticated but weak native population by vigorous Indo-European speakers--or Aryans--from the North. But the Classical Greeks, Bernal argues, knew nothing of this "Aryan model." They did not see their political institutions, science, philosophy, or religion as original, but rather as derived from the East in general, and Egypt in particular. Black Athena is a three-volume work. Volume 1 concentrates on the crucial period between 1785 and 1850, which saw the Romantic and racist reaction to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the consolidation of Northern expansion into other continents. In an unprecedented tour de force, Bernal makes meaningful links between a wide range of areas and disciplines--drama poetry, myth, theological controversy, esoteric religion, philosophy, biography, language, historical narrative, and the emergence of "modern scholarship." Download Link

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (Volume2: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence)

This volume is the second in a projected four-part series concerned with the competition between two historical models for the origins of Greek civilization. The model current today is the Aryan Model, according to which Greek culture arose as the result of the conquest from the north by Indo-European speakers or "Aryans" of the native "pre-Hellenes." The Ancient Model, which was the model maintained in Classical Greece, held that the native population of Greece had initially been civilized by Egyptian and Phoenician colonists and that more Near Eastern culture had been introduced to Greece by Greeks studying in Egypt and Southwest Asia. In these and later volumes, Martin Bernal proposes a Revised Ancient Model. According to this, the Indo-European aspects of Greek language and culture should be recognized as fundamental and the considerable non-Indo-European elements should be seen largely as Egyptian and Levantine additions to this basis. Volume II is concerned with the archaeological and documentary evidence for contacts between Egypt and the Levant on the one hand and the Aegean on the other, during the Bronze Age from c. 3400 B.C. to c. 1100 B.C. These approaches are supplemented by information from later Greek myths, legends, religious cults, and language. The author concludes that contact between the two regions was far more extensive and influential than is generally believed. In the introduction to this volume, Bernal also responds to some reviews and criticisms of Volume I of Black Athena. Download Link

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: TheLinguistic Evidence, Vol. 3

This long-awaited third and final volume of the series is concerned with the linguistic evidence that contradicts the Aryan Model of ancient Greece. Bernal shows how nearly 40 percent of the Greek vocabulary has been plausibly derived from two Afroasiatic languages-Ancient Egyptian and West Semitic. He also reveals how these derivations are not limited to matters of trade, but extended to the sophisticated language of politics, religion, and philosophy. This evidence, according to Bernal, greatly strengthens the hypothesis that in Greece an Indo-European-speaking population was culturally dominated by Ancient Egyptian and West Semitic speakers. Provocative, passionate, and colossal in scope, this volume caps a thoughtful rewriting of history that has been stirring academic and political controversy since the publication of the first volume. Download Link

Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics

Undoubtedly, Martin Bernal is an exceptional in the international world of contemporary historical writing. His historiographical enterprise is deservedly termed "epoch making." The first two volumes of his monumental work—Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785-1985, (London: Free Association Books, 1987); and II: The Archaeological and DocumentaryEvidence (NewBrunswick,N.J.: RutgersUniversityPress,1991) —spawned an unprecedented quantity of responses in the media and in professional journals (some of which dedicated an entire issue to the subject), academic conferences, on-line deliberation, studies, debates, and so forth. The responders came from myriad academic disciplines: classicists, archeologists and Egyptologists, specialists in the history of science, the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Europe, African American studies, and others. These are broad fields of knowledge, and distant from one another, indicating the wide scope of Bernal's inquiry and his unique knowledge and erudition. As if this were not enough, instead of conceding to his critics Bernal's Black Athena indeed "never sleeps" but rebuffs almost every point of criticism. Black Athena Writes Back is only the first volume of Bernal's counterattack (Debating Black Athena is set to appear), and reflects underlying power struggles within academia. It should be noted to Bernal's credit that his responses are mainly pertinent. This book is intended for readers familiar with at least some of the criticism, primarily that in the book edited by Lefkowitz and Rogers (see note 1), while others will have trouble following the complicated discourse. Needless to say, not many readers are equipped with knowledge of the relevant topics sufficient to assess the merits and validity of the claims and counterclaims. In any event, the book provides fascinating and informative reading, whether as a study of historical evidences and their interpretation, a methodological study, or an intellectual and cultural event. Precisely what it was in Black Athena that provoked such a deluge of reactions is an issue in itself. Surely it was not only the challenge posed to the paradigm prevailing, in Bernal's opinion, in the study of the ancient Near East and particularly the study of Greek history. According to this paradigm, Greek culture—the alma mater of Western culture—was patently a product of that unique development known as the "Greek miracle" or an offspring of Indo-European culture. Were these the underlying reasons, we could have expected the debate to remain within the boundaries of academia. Rather, the principal source of the outburst of opinion is that Bernal's monumental books joined the inundation of books attacking Eurocentrism, that is, the approach portraying the history of mankind from a European point of view, assuming a sense of superiority on one hand and ignoring the role of non-European civilizations in the development of human culture—even refuting this role—on the other hand. In this respect Bernal's book resembles Edward Said's Orientalism, which also aroused great response and generated many offshoots. The fundamental difference between the two is that Said is concerned with the link between the image of the "Orient" in Western culture and European (British and French) imperialism. Said addresses the influence this image has on attitudes toward living cultures and on Middle Eastern politics of the last two centuries. Bernal, on the other hand, focuses on attitudes toward dead cultures—although some of their cultural legacy remains active—and the link between these attitudes and the racial and anti-Semitic ideologies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe. Criticism of Bernal's work necessitates knowledge commensurate with his own, yet one would be hard pressed to find a candidate able to meet this requirement in all areas of research. As a result, each responder chose an aspect of Bernal's multifarious work to critique in accordance with his or her respective specialty and training. Conversely, there were also reactions dealing with Bernal's historical worldview and the fundamental methodological issues... Download Link

Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color

Living Color is the first book to investigate the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present, showing how our body’s most visible trait influences our social interactions in profound and complex ways. In a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, Nina G. Jablonski begins with the biology and evolution of skin pigmentation, explaining how skin color changed as humans moved around the globe. She explores the relationship between melanin pigment and sunlight, and examines the consequences of rapid migrations, vacations, and other lifestyle choices that can create mismatches between our skin color and our environment. Richly illustrated, this book explains why skin color has come to be a biological trait with great social meaning— a product of evolution perceived by culture. It considers how we form impressions of others, how we create and use stereotypes, how negative stereotypes about dark skin developed and have played out through history—including being a basis for the transatlantic slave trade. Offering examples of how attitudes about skin color differ in the U.S., Brazil, India, and South Africa, Jablonski suggests that a knowledge of the evolution and social importance of skin color can help eliminate color-based discrimination and racism. Download Link

Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African MarketWomen

In the most comprehensive analysis to date of the world of open air marketplaces of West Africa, Gracia Clark studies the market women of Kumasi, Ghana, in order to understand the key social forces that generate, maintain, and continually reshape the shifting market dynamics. Probably the largest of its kind in West Africa, the Kumasi Central Market houses women whose positions vary from hawkers of meals and cheap manufactured goods to powerful wholesalers, who control the flow of important staples. Drawing on more than four years of field research, during which she worked alongside several influential market "Queens", Clark explains the economic, political, gender, and ethnic complexities involved in the operation of the marketplace and examines the resourcefulness of the market women in surviving the various hazards they routinely encounter, from coups d'etat to persistent sabotage of their positions from within. Download Link