The purpose of this book is to understand the lived experiences of Black women diversity practitioners at historically white higher education, healthcare, and corporate institutions before, during, and after the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and the racial reckoning of 2020. There is limited research on Black women's experiences in these positions outside of higher education. The stories and research provided in this book offers crucial information for institutions to look inward at the cultures and practices of their organizations that directly impact Black women diversity practitioners. In addition, implications for culture shifts and policy transformation would support Black women currently in these positions and women looking to break into the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is a essential text for higher education staff and administration, CEOs, and leadership in corporate America and healthcare.

This innovative book examines how African Americans in the South made sense of the devastating loss of life unleashed by the Civil War and emancipation. During and after the war, African Americans died in vast numbers from battle, disease, and racial violence. While freedom was a momentous event for the formerly enslaved, it was also deadly. Through an investigation into how African Americans reacted to and coped with the passing away of loved ones and community members, Ashley Towle argues that freedpeople gave credence to their free status through their experiences with mortality. African Americans harnessed the power of death in a variety of arenas, including within the walls of national and private civilian cemeteries, in applications for widows' pensions, in the pulpits of black churches, around seance tables, on the witness stand at congressional hearings, and in the columns of African American newspapers. In the process of mourning the demise of kith and kin, black people reconstituted their families, forged communal bonds, and staked claims to citizenship, civil rights, and racial justice from the federal government. In a society upended by civil war and emancipation, death was political.

A key figure in contemporary speculative fiction, Jamaican-born Canadian Nalo Hopkinson (b. 1960) is the first Black queer woman as well as the youngest person to be named a "Grand Master" of Science Fiction. Her Caribbean-inspired narratives-Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, The New Moon's Arms, The Chaos, and Sister Mine-project complex futures and complex identities for people of color in terms of race, sex, and gender. Hopkinson has always had a vested interest in expanding racial and ethnic diversity in all facets of speculative fiction from its writers to its readers, and this desire is reflected in her award-winning anthologies. Her work best represents the current and ongoing colored wave of science fiction in the twenty-first century. In twenty-one interviews ranging from 1999 until 2021, Conversations with Nalo Hopkinson reveals a writer of fierce intelligence and humor in love with ideas and concerned with issues of identity. She provides powerful insights on code-switching, race, Afrofuturism, queer identities, sexuality, Caribbean folklore, and postcolonial science fictions, among other things. As a result, the conversations presented here very much demonstrate the uniqueness of her mind and her influence as a writer.

"You Got Anything Stronger? continues the project of unshackling. It's soul-baring work." - The Washington Post So. Where were we? Right, you and I left off in October 2017. When I released We're Going to Need More Wine, the response was so great people asked when I would do a sequel. Frankly, after being so open and honest in my writing, I wasn't sure there was more of me I was ready to share. But life happens with all its plot twists. And new stories demand to be told. A lot has changed in four years-I became a mom to two amazing girls. My husband retired. My career has expanded so that I have the opportunity to lift up other voices that need to be heard. But the world has also shown us that we have a lot we still have to fight for-as women, as black women, as mothers, as aging women, as human beings, as friends. In You Got Anything Stronger?, I show you how this ever-changing life presents challenges, even as it gives me moments of pure joy. I take you on a girl's night at Chateau Marmont, and I also talk to Isis, my character from Bring It On. For the first time, I truly open up about my surrogacy journey and the birth of Kaavia James Union Wade. And I take on racist institutions and practices in the entertainment industry, asking for equality and real accountability. You Got Anything Stronger? is me at my most vulnerable.

It is said that crisis is the true test of a leader. The leaders who contributed to this volume and their peers at HBCUs nationwide were tested in unprecedented ways by the events of 2020 and 2021. The crisis caused by COVID-19 was unique in its wide-ranging effects, its duration, and the need for a multi-pronged and comprehensive response. This was a test to challenge even the strongest leaders. Accustomed to challenges and to adversity, the leaders of our nation's HBCUs stepped up, marshalled their forces, and developed and implemented plans to mitigate and to combat the impact of COVID-19 on their institutions and on African American higher education. While each president who contributed to this volume brought their own unique perspective, skills, and experience to the crisis on their particular campus, they confronted common challenges. Racial disparities in the United States affect every aspect of life, and the pandemic magnified and exacerbated those disparities. The racial disparities that we see in our health and health care in this country are evident in the numbers of African Americans, including college students, who contracted the virus and who suffered significant health ramifications and even death. At the same time, COVID-19 forced our nation online and the racial and economic digital divide which some thought had been bridged turned out to be wider than ever. As jobs were lost, particularly in service industries and other key sectors, people of color, especially Black and Brown people, took a disproportionate economic hit. Not only did HBCU leaders have to develop and implement plans to mitigate COVID's deadly threat to the health and safety of their students, faculty, and staff, they also had to address the challenges associated with trying to provide remote learning for students who lacked computers and internet access at home; transporting students back home who didn't have the resources to pay for transportation; and in some cases finding housing for students who could not return home or didn't have a home or sufficient food, among other issues.