"I hope my story will do nothing if not inspire. If I can overcome the hurdles of poverty, abuse, and racism, then so can anyone. If life throws you a lemon, turn it into lemonade. Now is the time to follow your inner voice over the din of a world bombarded with the sounds of discouragement and pessimism. In our nation we spend foolish amounts of time trying to separate under the guise of skin color or race. But if you look at the last four letters in the designations African American, Puerto Rican American, Mexican American, or white American, you will notice the words I can. The individual can place this phrase into an assertive context: I can overcome the most formidable of barriers to achieve success. The individual is essential to a wider humanity, and lives nurtured in faith and determination can prove indomitable against astronomical odds. As I always say, Life is hard by the yard, but it's a cinch by the inch."
-from THE ROAD SOUTH

A true story in the tradition of A Child Called It and Angela's Ashes, this is one man's remarkable struggle to survive poverty and the most horrifying abuse to forge unheard-of success — and the strength to heal his life.

THE ROAD SOUTH

From the start, young Shelley Stewart knew only hard times and worse breaks. When he was five, he saw his alcoholic father murder his mother with an ax. His stepmother fed him and his siblings fried rat for Sunday dinners, and his attempts to escape led him to a viciously abusive aunt who swore black boys needed to be "broken in" like mules. Even an attempt to gain respect and justice through military service resulted in electroshock treatments and a medical discharge. Up against a dysfunctionally cruel family and the strictly segregated Alabama of the 1940s, Shelley's only refuge was education and talent for communicating. He became determined to make a better life for himself — to prove he was a person of value and dignity...

As rhythm and blues swept across America, Shelley found his moment. One of the first African American radio personalities, he discovered hot new talents while scorching the airwaves with incendiary social commentary — and information vital to Martin Luther King Jr. and the rising civil rights movement. He helped launch the careers of now — legendary artists Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Gladys Knight even as he faced depression and a growing dependence on alcohol. And he eventually parlayed savvy and experience into radio-station ownership and a $40-million company. But he would have to battle to help his troubled siblings deal with their past. And he would at last have to come to terms with his own personal demons to secure life's true success.

Inspiring and moving, THE ROAD SOUTH is about one man's perseverance in the face of brutal obstacles — and an unforgettable tribute to the healing bonds of friendship, tolerance, and love.

This volume is the Tenth Anniversary Edition of a book that was honored in 1992 as an "Outstanding Book" by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States. Reprinted many times since its first publication in 1991, Who Is Black? has become a staple in college classrooms throughout the United States, helping students understand this nation's history of miscegenation and the role that the "one-drop rule" has played in it. In this special anniversary edition, the author brings the story up to date in an epilogue. There he highlights some revealing responses to Who Is Black? and examines recent challenges to the one-drop rule, including the multiracial identity movement and a significant change in the census classification of racial and ethnic groups.

Carroll contends that race is brought to the consciousness of African Americans every day through interaction with employers, service providers, landlords, the police, and the media, and examines the stress experienced by blacks merely as a result of being African American.

Micro-aggressions include experiences such as being denied service, being falsely accused, being negatively singled out on account of one's race. The author labels the stress that results from such micro-aggressions as Mundane Extreme Environmental Stress--which she says is a daily experience, has a significant impact on one's psychological well being and world view, is environmentally induced, and is detracting and energy consuming.

This book examines contemporary Afro-Latin@ literature and its depiction of the multifaceted identity encompassing the separate identifications of Americans and the often-conflicting identities of blacks and Latin@s. The Afro-Latin@ Experience in Contemporary American Literature and Culture highlights the writers' aims to define Afro-Latin@ identity, to rewrite historical narratives so that they include the Afro-Latin@ experience and to depict the search for belonging. Their writing examines the Afro-Latin@ encounter with race within the US and exposes the trauma resulting from the historical violence of colonialism and slavery.

Originally published in 1867, this book is a collection of songs of African-American slaves. A few of the songs were written after the emancipation, but all were inspired by slavery. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in the life after, to which their eyes seem constantly turned.

The underground is a multi-faceted concept in African American culture. Peterson uses Richard Wright, KRS-One, Thelonius Monk, and the tradition of the Underground Railroad to explore the manifestations and the attributes of the underground within the context of a more panoramic picture of African American expressivity within hip-hop.

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work/Biography. In turbulent times Americans look to the Civil Rights Movement as the apotheosis of political expression. As we confront a startling rise in racism and hate speech and remain a culture scarred by social inequality, there's no better time to revisit the lessons of the '60s and no better leader to learn from than the late Representative John Lewis. In the final book published before his passing, Across That Bridge, Congressman John Lewis draws from his experience as a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement to offer timeless wisdom, poignant recollections, and powerful principles for anyone interested in challenging injustices and inspiring real change toward a freer, more peaceful society. The Civil Rights Movement gave rise to the protest culture we know today, and the experiences of leaders like Congressman Lewis, a close confidant to Martin Luther King, Jr., have never been more relevant. Despite more than forty arrests, physical attacks, and serious injuries, John Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the discipline and philosophy of nonviolence. Now, in an era in which the protest culture he helped forge has resurfaced as a force for change, Lewis' insights have never been more relevant. In this heartfelt book, Lewis explores the contributions that each generation must make to achieve change. Now featuring an updated introduction from the author addressing the Trump administration, Across that Bridge offers a strong and moral voice to guide our nation through an era of great uncertainty.

The Education of Black Males in a Post-Racial World examines the varied structural and discursive contexts of race, masculinities and class that shape the educational and social lives of Black males. The contributing authors take direct aim at the current discourses that construct Black males as disengaged in schooling because of an autonomous Black male culture, and explore how media, social sciences, school curriculum, popular culture and sport can define and constrain the lives of Black males. The chapters also provide alternative methodologies, theories and analyses for making sense of and addressing the complex needs of Black males in schools and in society. By expanding our understanding of how unequal access to productive opportunities and quality resources converge to systemically create disparate experiences and outcomes for African-American males, this volume powerfully illustrates that race still matters in 'post-racial' America.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Race Ethnicity and Education.

First published in 1980, this groundbreaking Routledge Revival is a reissue of an original and authentic anthropological account of Pukhtun society by Professor Akbar Ahmed. Combining extensive fieldwork data collected among the Mohmand tribe in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan with historical and literary sources, Professor Ahmed 's study seeks to construct an ideal-type model of Pukhtun society based on the ideal Code of the Pukhtuns and to analyse the conditions of its maintenance and transformation.

The author 's thesis is that this ideal model exists within Pukhtun society when interaction with larger state systems is minimal and in poor economic zones. In this way he posits an opposition between the Tribal Agencies along the border with Afghanistan, where ecological conditions are poor and state influence minimal, and the Settled Areas under state administration where Pukhtun society is forced away from its ideals.

The nine chapters in this volume provide a clear and accessible overview of the 20th-century history of the American South. Topics covered include labour, intellectual and women's history as well as an analysis of the impact of Federal government policy on economic and social affairs. While embracing several fields, the authors all address the same theme: the slow loss of Southern distinctiveness and the effect this process has had on issues of race and class.

William Still 's encyclopaedic collection of slave narratives.

Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life. Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students. Here, she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that inspired the stunning oratory of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the inventive artistry of Romare Bearden and many more. Exploring these works through such themes as justice, rage, self-determination, beauty, joy and mercy allows her to move from her aunt's love of yellow roses to Gil Scott-Heron's "Winter in America". Griffin entwines memoir, history and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy. She challenges us to reckon with our commitment to all the nation's inhabitants and our responsibilities to all humanity.

In the decades between the Berlin Conference that partitioned Africa and the opening of the African Hall at the American Museum of Natural History, Americans in several fields and from many backgrounds argued that Africa had something to teach them. Jeannette Eileen Jones traces the history of the idea of Africa with an eye to recovering the emergence of a belief in "Brightest Africa"--a tradition that runs through American cultural and intellectual history with equal force to its "Dark Continent" counterpart.
Jones skillfully weaves disparate strands of turn-of-the-century society and culture to expose a vivid trend of cultural engagement that involved both critique and activism. Filmmakers spoke out against the depiction of "savage" Africa in the mass media while also initiating a countertradition of ethnographic documentaries. Early environmentalists celebrated Africa as a pristine continent while lamenting that its unsullied landscape was "vanishing." New Negro political thinkers also wanted to "save" Africa but saw its fragility in terms of imperiled human promise. Jones illuminates both the optimism about Africa underlying these concerns and the racist and colonial interests these agents often nevertheless served. The book contributes to a growing literature on the ongoing role of global exchange in shaping the African American experience as well as debates about the cultural place of Africa in American thought.

Black and Asian Theatre in Britain is an unprecedented study tracing the history of The Other' through the ages in British theatre. The diverse and often contradictory aspects of this history are expertly drawn together to provide a detailed background to the work of African, Asian, and Caribbean diasporic companies and practitioners. Colin Chambers examines early forms of blackface and other representations in the sixteenth century, through to the emergence of black and Asian actors, companies and theatre groups in their own right. Thorough analysis uncovers how they led to a flourishing of black and Asian voices in theatre at the turn of the twenty-first century. Figures and companies studied include: * Ira Aldridge * Henry Francis Downing * Paul Robeson * Errol John * Mustapha Matura * Dark and Light Theatre * The Keskidee Centre * Indian Art and Dramatic Society * Temba * Edric and Pearl Connor * Tara Arts * Black Theatre Forum * Tamasha * Talawa Black and Asian Theatre in Britain is an enlightening and immensely readable resource and represents a major new study of theatre history and British history as a whole.

The Routledge Handbook of South Asian Economics addresses the recent economic transformation in South Asia. Leading experts in the field look at the major economic achievements and challenges for the region and examine why economic development across the South Asia region has diverged so significantly since the early 1990s. Providing a cutting-edge review of the economies of South Asia, the Handbook analyzes key growth areas as well as key structural weaknesses and policy challenges facing these economies. Furthermore, it anticipates trends and suggests corrective measures for the South Asian economic region. Sections focus on issues of human development, such as inequality, poverty and quality of schooling, and monetary and fiscal issues, particularly in light of the ongoing global financial crisis. Further sections discuss issues relating to employment and infrastructure, and on the experience of the region with international trade and financial flows, and environmental challenges. Written by renowned and respected experts on South Asian economics, this Handbook will be an invaluable reference work for students and academics as well as policy makers interested in South Asian Studies, Economics and Development Studies.

African religions, as well as those religions that derive much of their cosmology, beliefs, and rituals from African religions, are becoming more international in scope and appeal. Yet they continue to be viewed either as indiscriminately adaptable or as static traditions. Neither view suggests much spiritual or psychological value outside their original milieu when compared with the so-called world religions.

The chapters in this volume focus on African and African-derived religions, and challenge many of these positions. They examine how these religions display themselves in the contemporary world, particularly in the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe. These religions' continued dynamism and their relationship with other religious traditions, especially through the process of syncretism, are also explored. This multidisciplinary collection makes a major contribution not only to a better understanding of African and African-derived religions, but it also contributes to the wider and ongoing debate on syncretism that continues to engage those in anthropology, history, and sociology of religion.

It seems as if black women across the globe are continuously having their hearts broken by black men. And every time they begin believing in love again, they end up heartbroken once more. If you, the reader, are a black woman who yearns for beautiful black love but is fed up with black men who seem to cause nothing but heartbreak, then this book is for you. Within these pages, you will discover why many black men are mindless regarding matters of beautiful black love, how to rekindle true love in black relationships, what will happen if stupid black men remain stupid, and much more. This book encourages black women to not give up on love just yet. It also provides black men with the knowledge they need to earn black women's forgiveness and give them reasons to love again. There is still hope for finding true love in black relationships In this book, the author leaves no stone unturned. He believes every black woman should read it

The reason for writing this book was to let the African-American in America read about my experience in Africa.The excitement in traveling there and what I really experience in living there in the Country.

In this innovative treatment of the ethics of war, Ryan P. Cumming brings classical sources of just war theory into conversation with African American voices. Drawing on the Black press of the early twentieth century and modern writers like Cornel West, James Cone, and Manning Marable, this volume develops new questions about the authority to wage war, the causes that can justify war, and the economic costs of war. The result is a new direction in just war thought that challenges dominant interpretations of just war theory by looking to the perspectives of those on the underside of history and politics.