Despite being far from the norm, interracial relationships are more popular than ever. ""Racing Romance"" sheds special light on the bonds between whites and Asian Americans, an important topic that has not garnered well-deserved attention until now. Incorporating life-history narratives and interviews with those currently or previously involved with an interracial partner, Kumiko Nemoto addresses the contradictions and tensions - a result of race, class, and gender - that Asian Americans and whites experience. Similar to black/white relationships, stereotypes have long played crucial roles in Asian American/white encounters. Partners grapple with media representations of Asian women as submissive or hypersexual and Asian men are often portrayed as weak laborers or powerful martial artists. ""Racing Romance"" reveals how allegedly progressive interracial relationships remain firmly shaped by the logic of patriarchy and gender inherent to the ideal of marriage, family, and nation in America, even as this ideal is juxtaposed with discourses of multiculturalism and color blindness.

Drawing on 15 years of research in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Suriname, and the Netherlands, Sansone explores the very different ways that race and ethnicity are constructed in Brazil and the rest of Latin America. He compares Latin American conceptions of race to US and European notions of race that are defined by clearly identifiable black-white ethnicities. Sansone argues that understanding more complex, ambiguous notions of culture and identity will expand international discourse on race and move it away from American definitions that inadequately describe racial difference. He also explores the effects of globalization on constructions of race.

In 2006, the contemporary American Pentecostal movement celebrated its 100th birthday. Over that time, its African American sector has been markedly influential, not only vis-a-vis other branches of Pentecostalism but also throughout the Christian church. Black Christians have been integrally involved in every aspect of the Pentecostal movement since its inception and have made significant contributions to its founding as well as the evolution of Pentecostal/charismatic styles of worship, preaching, music, engagement of social issues, and theology. Yet despite its being one of the fastest growing segments of the Black Church, Afro-Pentecostalism has not received the kind of critical attention it deserves.

Afro-Pentecostalism brings together fourteen interdisciplinary scholars to examine different facets of the movement, including its early history, issues of gender, relations with other black denominations, intersections with popular culture, and missionary activities, as well as the movement's distinctive theology. Bolstered by editorial introductions to each section, the chapters reflect on the state of the movement, chart its trajectories, discuss pertinent issues, and anticipate future developments.

Contributors: Estrelda Y. Alexander, Valerie C. Cooper, David D. Daniels III, Louis B. Gallien, Jr., Clarence E. Hardy III, Dale T. Irvin, Ogbu U. Kalu, Leonard Lovett, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Cheryl J. Sanders, Craig Scandrett-Leatherman, William C. Turner, Jr., Frederick L. Ware, and Amos Yong

"...Smith examines the expression of the centuries-old framework of white supremacy in contemporary white attitudes, individual white racist actions, institutional patterns of societal racism, and black responses to racism. He provides an outright refutation of the notion, omnipresent in scholarly and journalistic writing over the last decade, of a 'declining significance of race' in the United States". -- Joe R. Feagin, Graduate Research Professor, University of Florida

This is the first book to assess in a systematic and theoretically informed way the course and status of racism in the post-civil rights era. It convincingly demonstrates that racism continues to exist in contemporary American society twenty-five years after the civil rights revolution.

Smith clarifies the concept of racism through a historical analysis of the doctrine and practice of white supremacy. Then drawing on a variety of data -- surveys, court cases, the academic literature, government and privately collected statistical reports and studies, and personal experiences -- Smith traces the present-day manifestations of racism ideologically, attitudinally, behaviorally, and institutionally. The final chapter presents a detailed critique of the literature on the black underclass and of William Julius Wilson's thesis on the declining significance of racism in explaining the underclass.

The two volumes edited by Dr Wilson, Director of the John Memorial Foundation, make an important body of Johnson's writings more readily available to scholars in African-American studies. Volume II comprises literary essays, political essays, and song lyrics. The critical introduction places Johnson in relation to other black artists, the development of African-American literature and early integrationist movements.

A thoughtful, articulate exploration of the moral and intellectual issues surrounding the perception of blacks within American society at the turn of the century In a very personal document, Du Bois examines the veiled nature of black life and black 'invisibility' within society. Believing that one can know the "soul" of a race by knowing the souls of individuals, he seeks to establish the relations not only between blacks and whites but also among blacks themselves - rich and poor, educated and uneducated - by describing his own encounters, from his upbringing in a northern city through his days at college, to his journeys through the South. Throughout, Du Bois is concerned with the separation of the races, both literally, through segregation, and psychologically, through the attitudes of whites towards blacks. First published in 1903, Du Bois's book raised new questions and concerns; today, it remains an important document of American social and political history.

One out of every seven working age African Americans has an impairment that affects functioning in activities of daily living. These statistics suggest that most African Americans are touched by disability. This book examines the psychosocial aspects of disability and chronic illness using a culturally congruent framework. Chapters address prevalance, health and rehabilitation utilization patterns, the role of culture, empirical research, and strategies for improving mental health and functional outcomes. This book will be useful to professionals who work with people with disabilities, policymakers, and consumers, as well as faculty and students in rehabilitation, health, and African American courses.

The two volumes edited by Dr Wilson, Director of the John Memorial Foundation, make an important body of Johnson's writings more readily available to scholars in African-American studies. Volume I comprises editorials from "The New York Age" organized thematically, and a critical introduction discusses Johnson's role in the history of the black press.

An excellent resource on the changing population distribution of antebellum Black Americans, this book covers census data by region and state. Two-thirds of the book consists of tables and graphs providing dimensional representations of black populations, both free and slave, in pre-Civil War America. The book opens with a discussion of the limitations of the census data, then goes on to provide an overview of the progress of manumission, abolition, and restrictions on black migration. The book also examines the 1840 census controversy. It will be a particularly useful resource for scholars concerned with changes in the black population.

On Harbour Hill, in the picturesque seaside town of Cobh, Co. Cork, Ireland, where four roads converged together, Jim Hayes's journey of dreams began.Hayes begins by tracing his experiences as boy growing up in Ireland in the late 1940s, where he fished for mackerel at Lynch's Quay, witnessed one of the last human flights to freedom from post war-torn Europe, and played ball in the street. But after his father made the announcement that the family would emigrate to America in the early 1950s, Hayes details how his life abruptly changed as he attempted to acclimate to a new culture and wondered if he would ever see Harbour Hill again. Years later, his dream of returning home to work and live would come true as he disembarked from the tender in Cobh, began his career, and married the love of his life. As he details his continuing journey from Ireland to America to Germany and back again, it soon becomes evident that Hayes embraced life with a determination to never let anything stand in the way attaining his dreams.The Road from Harbour Hill relays the fascinating life story of a man who learned valuable lessons, realized love, and achieved much success through his immersion in three distinct cultures on both sides of the Atlantic.

This volume of essays examines the forced dispossession caused by the Middle Passage. The book analyzes the texts, religious rites, economic exchanges, dance, and music it elicited, both on the transatlantic journey and on the American continent. The totality of this collection establishes a broad topographical and temporal context for the Passage that extends from the interior of Africa across the Atlantic and to the interior of the Americas, and from the beginning of the Passage to the present day. A collective narrative of itinerant cultural consciousness as represented in histories, myths, and arts, these contributions conceptualize the meaning of the Middle Passage for African American and American history, literature, and life.

In this edited collection, the authors grapple with both the strengths and challenges that HBCUs face as the nation's demographics change, from their place in American society and growing diversity on HBCU campuses to class and elitism issues to study abroad and honors programs.

The debate over race in this country has of late converged on the contentious issue of affirmative action. Although the Supreme Court once supported the concept of racial affirmative action, in recent years a majority of the Court has consistently opposed various affirmative action programs.

The Law of Affirmative Action provides a comprehensive chronicle of the evolution of the Supreme Court's involvement with the racial affirmative action issue over the last quarter century. Starting with the 1974 "DeFunis v. Odegaard" decision and the 1978" Bakke" decision, which marked the beginnings of the Court's entanglement with affirmative action, Girardeau Spann examines every major Supreme Court affirmative action decision, showing how the controversy the Court initially left unresolved in DeFunis has persisted through the Court's 1998-99 term.

Including nearly thirty principal cases, covering equal protection, voting rights, Title VII, and education, The Law of Affirmative Action is the only work to treat the Court decisions on racial affirmative action so closely, tracing the votes of each justice who has participated in the decisions. Indispensable for students and scholars, this timely volume elucidates reasons for the 180 degree turn in opinion on an issue so central to the debate on race in America today.

Black conservatism is no oxymoron. Recent polls have indicated that an increasing number of black Americans identified themselves as conservatives, favoring smaller government, lower taxes, tougher crime laws, welfare reform, and personal initiative. While applauding the moral and legal victories of the Civil Rights Movement, the conservative spokespeople in this dynamic new collection reject the claims of inequities and what they consider to be the self-serving agenda of the present civil rights establishment. National leaders such as Justice Clarence Thomas and former Representative Gary Franks and writers such as Shelby Steele and Glenn Loury appear either as contributors or as subjects in this volume. They emphasize the grassroots aspects of black conservatism with a reliance on common sense and common humanity. The strength of the black conservative voice lies in the growth of its numbers and social influence. As more African-Americans shift to the right and embrace conservative ideology, they are signalling what may be one of the most politically significant trends in American public life as the 20th century draws to a close. This provocative collection of essays shatters the myth that black Americans are uniformly left of center and that conservatism is an ideology with a white face. Unique in its personal and political portrait of black conservatives in America, this book shows the remarkable diversity of ideas from one of the most talked-about political movements to emerge in recent years.

After World War II, writers and literary critics - black and white - engaged in heated debates centred on the literary and imaginative problem of representing African-Americans in American literature. As the Cold War unfolded, many of these debates began to appear in journals, conferences and other events, including those directly sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom and other organisations funded by U.S. and British intelligence agencies. Ralph Ellison, who would eventually join the American Congress for Cultural Freedom, was one of the most famous and frequently published critics on the 'Negro Problem' in literature during this period. Using never before published materials from Ralph Ellison's papers at the Library of Congress, Purcell contextualises his thinking on the Negro Problem - in particular its bearing on American literary history, Modernism and broader American geo-politics - within the shadow of the CCF's influence. Therefore, not only does the book explore how the Cold War's ideological battles influenced these debates, it illuminates the important role 'race' and more specifically African-American writers and intellectuals played in the cultural Cold War.

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.

Literary and Sociopolitical Writings of the Black Diaspora in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries traces the historiography of literary and sociopolitical movements of the Black Diaspora in the writings of key political figures. It comparatively and dialogically examines such movements as Pan-Africanism, Garveyism, Indigenisme, New Negro Renaissance, Negritude, and Afrocriollo. To study the key ideologies that emerged as collective black thought within the Diaspora, particular attention is given to the philosophies of Black Nationalism, Black Internationalism, and Universal Humanism. Each leader and writer helped establish new dimensions to evolving movements; thus, the text discerns the temporal, spatial, and conceptual development of each literary and sociopolitical movement. To probe the comparative and transnational trajectories of the movements while concurrently examining the geopolitical distinctions, the text focuses on leaders who psychologically, culturally, and/or physically traveled throughout Africa, the Americas, and Europe, and whose ideas were disseminated and influenced a number of contemporaries and successors. Such approach dismantles geographic, language, and generation barriers, for a comprehensive analysis. Indeed, it was through the works transmitted from one generation to the next that leaders learned the lessons of history, particularly the lessons of organizational strategies, which are indispensable to sustained and successful liberation movements.