The Black Handbook is the authoritative guide to the people, history and politics of Africa and the African Diaspora up until the end of the 20th century. Who were Black Moses, the Black Seminoles, the Black shots and the Black Pimpernel? Which Pope gave the King of Portugal permission to invade, conquer and submit to perpetual slavery the people of Africa? What was the African Blood Brotherhood? Why was a Jamaican the last man to be beheaded in Britain? Who were the Talented Tenth? Why did Egypt invade Ethiopia in 1875? Who was the first black American woman to become a millionaire? Who were the Mangrove Nine? Spanning three continents, The Black Handbook describes and analyses, in an accessible way, the essential events, ideas and personalities of the African world.

Dead Weight chronicles the improbable turnaround of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight years in state prison, returned to society to earn a PhD in creative writing and become the only tenured professor in the United States with seven felony convictions. Horton's visceral essays highlight the difficulties of trying to change one's life for the better, how the weight of felony convictions never dissipates. The memoir begins with a conversation between Horton and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man statue in New York City. Their imagined dialogue examines the psychological impact of racism on Black men and boys, including Horton's separation from his mother, immediately after his birth, in a segregated Alabama hospital. From his current life as a professor and prison reformer, Horton looks back on his experiences as a drug smuggler and trafficker during the 1980s-1990s as well as the many obstacles he faced after his release. He also examines the lasting impact of his drug activity on those around him, reflecting on the allure of economic freedom and the mental escapism that cocaine provided, an allure so strong that both sellers and users were willing to risk prison. Horton shares historical context and vivid details about people caught in the war on drugs who became unsuspecting protagonists in somebody else's melodrama. Lyrical and gripping, Dead Weight reveals the lifelong effects of one man's incarceration on his psyche, his memories, and his daily experience of American society.

In Are You Mixed?, Sonia Janis explores the spaces in-between race and place from the perspective of an educator who is multi-racial. As she reflects on her own experiences as a seventh grade student up to her eventual appointment as a school administrator, she learns of the complexity of situating oneself in predetermined demographic categories. She shares how she explores the intricacies of undefined spaces that teach her to embrace differences, contradictions, and complexities in schools, neighborhoods and communities. Exploring the in-betweenness (Anzaldua & Keating, 2002; He, 2003, 2010) of her life as a multi-race person problematizes imbedded notions of race, gender, class, and power. The power of this memoir lies in its narrative possibilities to capture the contradictions and paradoxes of lives in-between race and place, "to honor the subtleties, fluidities, and complexities of such experience, and to cultivate understanding towards individual ... experience and the multicultural/multiracial contexts that shape and are shaped by such experience" (He, 2003, p. xvii). This memoir creates new ways to think about and write about in-between experience and their relevance to multicultural and multiracial education. Janis challenges educators, teachers, administrators, and policy makers to view the educational experience of students with multiracial, multicultural, and multilingual backgrounds by shattering predetermined categories and stereotyped classifications and looking into unknown and fluid realms of the in-betweenness of their lives. This challenge helps create equitable and just opportunities and engender culturally responsive and inspiring curricular and learning environments to bring out the best potential in all diverse schools, communities, neighborhoods, tribes and societies.

More than one million people from all walks of life have been uplifted and entertained by Heaven Bound, the folk drama that follows, through song and verse, the struggles between Satan and a band of pilgrims on their way down the path of glory that leads to the golden gates. Staged annually and without interruption for more than seventy years at Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Heaven Bound is perhaps the longest running black theater production. Here, a lifelong member of Big Bethel with many close ties to Heaven Bound recounts its lively history and conveys the enduring power and appeal of an Atlanta tradition that is as much a part of the city as Coca-Cola or Gone with the Wind.

A volume in Contemporary Perspectives on Access, Equity and Achievement Series Editor Chance W. Lewis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, The field of education has been and will continue to be essential to the survival and sustainability of the Black community. Unfortunately, over the past five decades, two major trends have become clearly evident in the Black community: (a) the decline of the academic achievement levels of Black students and (b) the disappearance of Black teachers, particularly Black males. Today, of the 3.5 million teachers in America's classrooms (AACTE, 2010) only 8% are Black teachers, and approximately 2% of these teachers are Black males (NCES, 2010). Over the past few decades, the Black teaching force in the U.S. has dropped significantly (Lewis, 2006; Lewis, Bonner, Byrd, & James, 2008; Milner & Howard, 2004), and this educational crisis shows no signs of ending in the near future. As the population of Black students in K-12 schools in the U. S. continue to rise- currently over 16% of students in America's schools are Black (NCES, 2010)-there is an urgent need to increase the presence of Black educators. The overall purpose of this edited volume is to stimulate thought and discussion among diverse audiences (e.g., policymakers, practitioners, and educational researchers) who are concerned about the performance of Black students in our nation's schools, and to provide evidence-based strategies to expand our nation's pool of Black teachers. To this end, it is our hope that this book will contribute to the teacher education literature and will inform the teacher education policy and practice debate.

One of the most relevant social problems in contemporary American life is the continuing HIV epidemic in the Black population. With vivid ethnographic detail, this book brings together scholarship on the structural dimensions of the AIDS epidemic and the social construction of sexuality to assert that shifting forms of sexual stories--structural intimacies--are emerging, produced by the meeting of intimate lives and social structural patterns. These stories render such inequalities as racism, poverty, gender power disparities, sexual stigma, and discrimination as central not just to the dramatic, disproportionate spread of HIV in Black communities in the United States, but to the formation of Black sexualities.
Sonja Mackenzie elegantly argues that structural vulnerability is felt--quite literally--in the blood, in the possibilities and constraints on sexual lives, and in the rhetorics of their telling. The circulation of structural intimacies in daily life and in the political domain reflects possibilities for seeking what Mackenzie calls "intimate justice" at the nexus of cultural, economic, political, and moral spheres. "Structural Intimacies" presents a compelling case: in an era of deepening medicalization of HIV/AIDS, public health must move beyond individual-level interventions to community-level health equity frames and policy changes

Discover how facing your underlying pain will allow you to overcome it and move forward. With practical insights and biblical teaching about what it takes to break the cycle of addiction and shame, Reframe Your Shame will set you on the path to freedom. Irene Rollins knows what it means to walk through shame, especially as a leader. She enjoyed a seemingly perfect life as a wife, mom, and leader of a megachurch while she hid a secret addiction to alcohol that almost destroyed everything. With vulnerability and wisdom, Irene offers strategies and biblical teaching to break free of the suffocating cycle of sin and shame. Many people aren't even aware that they live in an addiction cycle, unaware of how unmanageable their lives have become. Their relationships feel distant, difficult, or dysfunctional, but they often don't know why. Reframe Your Shame provides awareness and resources to help readers recognize the warning signs of toxic shame and addiction; accept truth and take responsibility for their own journey of emotional healing and growth; find freedom from shame, self-defeating hurts, hang-ups, and habits; learn to communicate, connect with others, and resolve both internal and relational conflicts; and discover practical tools to live with purpose, free from the baggage of the past. Perfect for those fighting a personal battle, or for family members and counselors walking with them, Reframe Your Shame sets them on a path to freedom.

The Life of William Grimes offers an eye-opening account of a life during and after slavery, written by a man who experienced and witnessed the worst. Unlike other slave memoirs, The Life of William Grimes has not been sanitized or otherwise edited for the benefit of what, at the time, was a mostly white readership. The tone set by Grimes in his recollections is one of bitter resentment and indignation at an experience which was demeaning, physically and mentally torturing, and an insult to his very humanity. Intelligent and perceptive, it was only through luck and trusting his own wits that William was able to escape his enslavement. The son of a white plantation owner and a black mother who worked as his father's slave, Grimes variously worked around the plantation grounds as a coach driver, stable boy, and in the fields.

It helps to know where we came from in order to understand ourselves. We have eight branches or four generations in our family tree as far back as our great-grandparents. The author was able to trace her ancestors even further back. Though she knew a lot about her ancestors, she did not know a lot about their struggles and little about the contributions they made toward advancing the African American race. This book will be of particular interest to those who find they are connected to this family tree. For those unrelated, it will serve immensely as a blueprint for one's own ancestral journey. For others, it is simply interesting and historical and a point of reference in time. Some prominent and determined people are a part of this family tree. In addition to portraying this particular family, this book captures ancient and historical events focused particularly on the enslavement, servitude, segregation and the ultimate success of the African American people. The author's goal is to document her family history and to locate her distant relatives. Simultaneously she desires to help others in search of their past since our past is a part of who we are as a people.

This thought-provoking work examines the dehumanizing depictions of black males in the movies since 1910, analyzing images that were once imposed on black men and are now appropriated and manipulated by them. Moving through cinematic history decade by decade since 1910, this important volume explores the appropriation, exploitation, and agency of black performers in Hollywood by looking at the black actors, directors, and producers who have shaped the image of African American males in film. To determine how these archetypes differentiate African American males in the public's subconscious, the book asks probing questions-for example, whether these images are a reflection of society's fears or realistic depictions of a pluralistic America. Even as the work acknowledges the controversial history of black representation in film, it also celebrates the success stories of blacks in the industry. It shows how blacks in Hollywood manipulate degrading stereotypes, gain control, advance their careers, and earn money while making social statements or bringing about changes in culture. It discusses how social activist performers-such as Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Spike Lee-reflect political and social movements in their movies, and it reviews the interactions between black actors and their white counterparts to analyze how black males express their heritage, individual identity, and social issues through film. Discusses the social, historical, and literary evolution of African American male roles in the cinema Analyzes the various black images presented each decade from blackface, Sambo, and Mandingo stereotypes to archetypal figures such as God, superheroes, and the president Shows how African American actors, directors, and producers manipulate negative and positive images to advance their careers, profit financially, and make social statements to create change Demonstrates the correlation between political and social movements and their impact on the cultural transformation of African American male images on screen over the past 100 years Includes figures that demonstrate the correlation between political and social movements and their impact on cultural transformation and African American male images on screen