Tyler Perry has made over half a billion dollars through the development of storylines about black women, black communities and black religion. Yet, a text that responds to his efforts from the perspective of these groups does not exist.

In Necessary Spaces: Exploring the Richness of African American Childhood in the South, Saundra Murray Nettles takes the reader on a journey into neighbourhood networks of learning at different times and places. Using autobiographical accounts, Nettles discusses the informal instructional practices of community "coaches" from the perspective of African American adults who look back on their childhood learning experiences in homes, libraries, city blocks, schools, churches, places of business, and nature. These eyewitness accounts reveal ""necessary spaces," the metaphor Nettles uses to describe seven recurring experiences that converge with contemporary notions of optimal black child development: connection, exploration, design, empowerment, resistance, renewal, and practice. Nettles weaves the personal stories with social scientific theory and research and practical accounts of community-based initiatives to illuminate how local communities contributed human, built, and natural resources to support children's achievement in schools. The inquiry offers a timely and accessible perspective on how community involvement for children can be developed utilising the grassroots efforts of parents, children, and other neighbourhood residents; expertise from personnel in schools, informal institutions (such as libraries and museums); and other sectors interested in disparities in education, health, and the quality of physical settings. Grounded in the environmental memories of African American childhood, Necessary Spaces offers a culturally relevant view of civic participation and sustainable community development at the local level. Educational researchers and policy makers, pre-service and in-service teachers, and people who plan for and work with children and youth in neighbourhoods will find this book an engaging look at possibilities for the social organisation of educational resources. Qualitative researchers will find a model for writing personal scholarly essays that use the personal to inform larger issues of policy and practice. In Necessary Spaces, local citizens in neighbourhoods across the United States will find stories that resonate with their own experiences, stimulate their recollections, and inform and inspire their continuing efforts to create brighter futures for children and communities.

This book presents a comprehensive history of lynching and mob violence in North and South Carolina, focusing on seven specific case studies from the region. Lynching marked the violent outer boundaries of race and class relations in the American South between Reconstruction and the civil rights era. Everyday interactions could easily escalate into mob violence, and did so thousands of times. Bruce Baker examines this important aspect of American history by taking seven lynchings in North Carolina and South Carolina and studying them in detail. He succeeds in getting behind the superficial accounts and explanations provided at the time to explain the deeper causes and wider contexts of these events.Many studies of lynching begin only after Reconstruction had ended and African Americans found themselves with little political power. However, this book provides the most thorough study yet written of the Ku Klux Klan's most violent episode - the killing of thirteen black militia members in Union, South Carolina, in 1871 - to argue that this act of mob violence set the conditions in important ways for the entire lynching era. Enmities born in Reconstruction lingered afterwards and lay behind an 1887 lynching in York County, South Carolina. As lynching became an unsurprising part of life in the South, African Americans even found that they could use it themselves, in once case to punish a child's killer and in another to settle a church's factional squabbles. In addition, a variety of forces opposing lynching was rising and by the 1930s their efforts would begin to make a difference.

By examining the minister who helped inspire the founding of the Harlem Unitarian Church Reverend Ethelred Brown, Floyd-Thomas offers a provocative examination of the religious and intellectual roots of Black humanist thought.

This book is a study of black masculinity in the twenty-first century. Through a series of critical and interdisciplinary essays, this work examines the image of the black male in American society as a Toby Waller stereotype. Toby Waller is the fictional, yet symbolic character from Alex Haley's highly acclaimed book and mini-series, Roots. It is a richly detailed, fictional story about slavery and one enslaved African man's struggle to regain freedom. The parallel of the life of enslaved Toby Waller is similar to present day black males. Both are individuals who are often stripped of their cultural identity and exist within an institutional and systemic framework that devalues black male life. This dichotomy is the historical platform to discuss how those in the annals of white America demarcate which embodiment merits inclusion into societal acceptance.

Based on an ethnographic study of the traditional medicine of African Americans in the rural southern United States, this work concentrates on the original Louisiana Territory, with its Native and African American indigenous traditions, and the French migration and Black Haitian freed and enslaved population influx during the 1700s and 1800s. Fontenot finds strong ties between rural Louisiana practices and Haitian and West African medicine. The ethnographer, a native of the region where she did her research, is respected among local practicing secret doctors and is able to give a unique insider's view. Aside from documenting a rare treasure of our American cultural diversity, this study has a wider purpose in the field of health practices and policy. The high cost of Western medicine, lack of access to quality care, and the patient-doctor ratio are areas of major national concern, and rural residents and people of color are recognized to be the most at-risk populations. The alternative health-care system presented here can strengthen mainstream medicine's understanding of such patient populations while preserving valuable knowledge of healing plants and culturally sensitive therapies.

Atlanta is blanketed with snow just before Christmas, but the warmth of young love just might melt the ice in this novel of interwoven narratives, Black joy, and cozy, sparkling romance-by the same unbeatable team of authors who wrote the New York Times bestseller Blackout! As the city grinds to a halt, twelve teens band together to help a friend pull off the most epic apology of her life. But will they be able to make it happen, in spite of the storm? No one is prepared for this whiteout. But then, we can't always prepare for the magical moments that change everything. From the bestselling, award-winning, all-star authors who brought us Blackout-Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon-comes another novel of Black teen love, each relationship within as unique and sparkling as Southern snowflakes.

"The Meaning of the Beginning" is a mosaic of timeless wisdom hidden in nature and encapsulated in the folklores of the Igbo of sub-Saharan Africa. This book is a philosophical jab, a moral punch line, and a social commentary on the human condition. Curious minds, teachers and students of Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology and Religious studies will find this collection useful. In "The Meaning of the Beginning," the author has produced a work that is outstanding both in the simplicity of its language and presentation and depth of its philosophical insight ... In the short "as it is" commentaries, there are rich and deep philosophical reflections of a moral or religious nature which qualify this work as a serious effort at another type of African Philosophy. Monsignor Theophilus Okere, Ph-D This is a beautiful piece of work, a combination of simple tales with uncommon lofty ideals in a flowing and very readable language, picturesquely descriptive of the images desired to evoke, in a manner matching Chinua Achebe's. Rev Dr. Emmanuel Odirachukwunma Udechukwu

In this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future. The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies. Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities.

White, Red, and Black examines and compares the three races who lived in Virginia during the seventeenth century. Each is described according to its origin and cultural background, its population in America, its settlement locations, and its relations with the other two races. Extensive notes amply document the author's conclusions and provide a helpful summary of other scholarship on the subject. Craven's lectures present an accurate and fully documented picture of the seventeenth-century Virginian. They correct many assumptions long held by historians, and they open the way to a greater understanding of the beginning years of our nation.

The rich history of encounters prior to World War I between people from German-speaking parts of Europe and people of African descent has gone largely unnoticed in the historical literature-not least because Germany became a nation and engaged in colonization much later than other European nations. This volume presents intersections of Black and German history over eight centuries while mapping continuities and ruptures in Germans' perceptions of Blacks. Juxtaposing these intersections demonstrates that negative German perceptions of Blackness proceeded from nineteenth-century racial theories, and that earlier constructions of "race" were far more differentiated. The contributors present a wide range of Black-German encounters, from representations of Black saints in religious medieval art to Black Hessians fighting in the American Revolutionary War, from Cameroonian children being educated in Germany to African American agriculturalists in Germany's protectorate, Togoland. Each chapter probes individual and collective responses to these intercultural points of contact.

From the origins of the city in the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of World War II, Seattle's urban workforce consisted overwhelmingly of migrant laborers who powered the seasonal, extractive economy of the Pacific Northwest. Though the city benefitted from this mobile labor force-consisting largely of Indigenous peoples and Asian migrants-municipal authorities, elites, and reformers continually depicted these workers and the spaces they inhabited as troublesome and as impediments to urban progress. Today the physical landscape bears little evidence of their historical presence in the city. Tracing histories from unheralded sites such as labor camps, lumber towns, lodging houses, and so-called slums, Seattle from the Margins shows how migrant laborers worked alongside each other, competed over jobs, and forged unexpected alliances within the marine and coastal spaces of the Puget Sound. By uncovering the historical presence of marginalized groups and asserting their significance in the development of the city, Megan Asaka offers a deeper understanding of Seattle's complex past.

It can hurt to hear someone tell it like it is. But sometimes you need to get the truth, straight up. And the truth is that it's not about you--it's about God. Maybe you have relied on your own strength for far too long. You haven't been able to count on other people, so you just do your own thing. But God has bigger plans for you. God wants to use you to change the world. Rebecca Osaigbovo, conference speaker and author of Chosen Vessels, shows how black women can stand up to Satan's lies and face tough problems, not in your own strength but by finding God's strength in the midst of your weaknesses. She says this to women who want to be the keys to change in their homes, churches and communities: "If you want things to be different, then stop going your own way and follow God's lead. Lean not on your own understanding, and he'll make your paths straight."

A Matter of Black and White is the personal story of an Oklahoma woman whose fight to gain an education formed a crucial episode in the civil rights movement. Born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, of parents only one generation removed from slavery, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher became the plaintiff in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that laid the foundation for the eventual desegregation of schools (and much else) in America.

A Matter of Black and White resounds with almost universal human themes-childhood, school, friends, colleagues, community, and a love that lasted a lifetime.

The Constitution of the United States, writes Bryan Fair, was a series of compromises between white male propertyholders: Southern planters and Northern merchants. At the heart of their deals was a clear race-conscious intent to place the interests of whites above those of blacks.

In this provocative and important book, Fair, the eighth of ten children born to a single mother on public assistance in an Ohio ghetto, combines two histories--America's and his own- -to offer a compelling defense of affirmative action. How can it be, Fair asks, that, after hundreds of years of racial apartheid during which whites were granted 100% quotas to almost all professions, we have now convinced ourselves that, after a few decades of remedial affirmative action, the playing field is now level? Centuries of racial caste, he argues, cannot be swept aside in a few short years.

Fair ambitiously surveys the most common arguments for and against affirmative action. He argues that we must distinguish between America in the pre-Civil Rights Movement era--when the law of the land was explicitly anti-black--and today's affirmative action policies--which are decidedly not anti- white. He concludes that the only just and effective way in which to account for America's racial past and to negotiate current racial quagmires is to embrace a remedial affirmative action that relies neither on quotas nor fiery rhetoric, but one which takes race into account alongside other pertinent factors.

Championing the model of diversity on which the United States was purportedly founded, Fair serves up a personal and persuasive account of why race-conscious policies are the most effective way to end de facto segregation and eliminate racial caste.

Table of Contents

A Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments
Preface: Telling Stories
Recasting Remedies as Diseases
Color-Blind Justice
The Design of This Book
Pt. 1. A Personal Narrative
Not White Enough
Dee
Black Columbus
Racial Poverty
Man-Child
Colored Matters
Coded Schools
Busing
Going Home
Equal Opportunity
The Character of Color
Diversity as One Factor
The Deception of Color Blindness
Pt. 2. White Privilege and Black Despair: The Origins of Racial Caste in America
The Declaration of Inferiority
Marginal Americans
Inventing American Slavery
The Road to Constitutional Caste
Losing Second-Class Citizenship
Reconstruction and Sacrifice
Separate and Unequal
The Color Line
Critiquing Color Blindness
Pt. 3. The Constitutionality of Remedial Affirmative Action
The Origins of Remedial Affirmative Action
The Court of Last Resort
The Invention of Reverse Discrimination
The Politics of Affirmative Action: Myth or Reality?
Racial Realism
Eliminating Caste
Afterword
Notes
Index

Telling Our Stories investigates the continuities and divergences in selected Black autobiographies from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. The selected autobiographies of slaves, creative writers, and political activists are discussed both as texts produced by individuals who are in turn products of specific societies at specific periods and as interconnected books. The book pays particular attention to the various societies that produce the autobiographies directly to identify influences of environmental and cultural differences on the texts. To foreground the network these autobiographies form, on the other hand, the study adopts cross-cultural and postcolonial reading approaches to examine the continuities and divergences in them.

Death was sleeping all around us. I could feel her in the high cries of uncomfortable babies and the low moans of old men as they fight the pain and discomfort of dysentery. This would be a trip through hell, and perhaps some unfortunate souls on this boat would make not make it out alive as is often the case on the Congo River. Perhaps, we all knew that some of us wouldn't all arrive at our destination and that we would meet our Lord, our Maker, here on this black river of death and hope. Death and hope. Can it be one and the same? With this river, the answer is yes. People lived and died under the power of this powerful river every single day. It was now my turn to make this journey on its surface. Despite my deepest fears, I feel the warm breeze of God's grace lingering around me in the air. Yes, hope is a powerful element in each of our hearts and that is what everyone here now clings onto tightly and with both fists, even if it means kissing death right on the lips.