In Black Families: A Systems Approach, Anthony James convenes the voices of social scholars to examine the multifaceted nature of black family life. Grounded in family systems theory, the book provides readers with a unique lens through which to better understand the structures of, and processes within, black families. Through interaction with valuable literature and nuanced perspectives, readers learn to embrace a multidimensional perspective of black family life. The text begins by presenting theory, history, and methods of engaging in research with black family life. Chapters explore belief systems and contextual influences, including perspectives on fatherhood, the dynamics of military and interracial families, and the effects of mass incarceration on black families. The text examines family processes and structures, addressing racial socialization, marriage, divorce, interfaith relationships, and more. Readers learn about mental health and well-being from a clinician's perspective and how economics and politics impact black families systems. The final section speaks to the future, with suggestions for expanding and improving research, practice, theory, and policy related to black family life. Featuring relevant social inquiry and scholarly perspective, Black Families is an ideal textbook for courses that explore family theories and diverse family systems and structures.

Slavery on the Periphery focuses on nineteen counties on the Kansas-Missouri border, tracing slavery's rise and fall from the earliest years of American settlement through the Civil War along this critical geographical, political, and social fault line. Kristen Epps explores slavery's emergence from an upper South slaveholding culture and its development into a small-scale system characterised by slaves' diverse forms of employment, close contact between slaves and slaveholders, a robust hiring market, and the prevalence of abroad marriages. She demonstrates that space and place mattered to enslaved men and women most clearly because slave mobility provided a means of resistance to the strictures of daily life. Mobility was a medium for both negotiation and confrontation between slaves and slaveholders, and the ongoing political conflict between proslavery supporters and antislavery proponents opened new doors for such resistance. Slavery's expansion on the Kansas-Missouri border was no mere intellectual debate within the halls of Congress. Its horrors had become a visible presence in a region so torn by bloody conflict that it captivated the nineteenth - century American public. Foregrounding African Americans' place in the border narrative illustrates how slavery's presence set the stage for the Civil War and emancipation here, as it did elsewhere in the United States.

Most histories of the Civil Rights Movement start with all the players in place--among them organized groups of African Americans, White Citizens' Councils, nervous politicians, and religious leaders struggling to find the right course. Anderson, however, takes up the historical moment right before that, when small groups of black and white Catholics in the city of New Orleans began efforts to desegregate the archdiocese, and the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) began, in fits and starts, to integrate quietly the New Orleans Province.

Anderson leads readers through the tumultuous years just after World War II when the Roman Catholic Church in the American South struggled to reconcile its commitment to social justice with the legal and social heritage of Jim Crow society. Though these early efforts at reform, by and large, failed, they did serve to galvanize Catholic supporters and opponents of the Civil Rights Movement and provided a model for more successful efforts at desegregation in the '60s.

As a Jesuit himself, Anderson has access to archives that remain off-limits to other scholars. His deep knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church also allows him to draw connections between this historical period and the present. In the resistance to desegregation, Anderson finds expression of a distinctly American form of Catholicism, in which lay people expect Church authorities to ratify their ideas and beliefs in an almost democratic fashion. The conflict he describes is as much between popular and hierarchical models of the Church as between segregation and integration.
This book has been made possible through a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"A fascinating biography of a fascinating woman." - Booklist, starred review "This definitive look at a remarkable figure delivers the goods." - Publishers Weekly, starred review "A brilliant analysis." - Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize winner Featured in Ms. Magazine's "Most Anticipated Reads for the Rest of Us 2022" (books by or about historically excluded groups) Born in New Orleans in 1875 to a mother who was formerly enslaved and a father of questionable identity, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was a pioneering activist, writer, suffragist, and educator. Until now, Dunbar-Nelson has largely been viewed only in relation to her abusive ex-husband, the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. This is the first book-length look at this major figure in Black women's history, covering her life from the post-reconstruction era through the Harlem Renaissance. Tara T. Green builds on Black feminist, sexuality, historical and cultural studies to create a literary biography that examines Dunbar-Nelson's life and legacy as a respectable activist - a woman who navigated complex challenges associated with resisting racism and sexism, and who defined her sexual identity and sexual agency within the confines of respectability politics. It's a book about the past, but it's also a book about the present that nods to the future.

African-American author Langston Hughes was a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and interest in his works increases daily. Though remembered primarily as a poet, Hughes was active in almost every genre imaginable. He wrote newspaper articles and short stories, contributed to drama and musical theater, and penned lyrics for the blues and popular songs. He also collaborated with some of the most gifted individuals of his time, including Zora Neale Hurston, Arna Bontemps, Kurt Weill, and Elmer Rice. Through hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries, this encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of his life and writings.

Although Hughes was remarkably versatile, poetry is indisputably the core of his achievement. Thus, this book includes separate entries for each of his more than 850 published poems and for collections of his poetry. His short stories and songs are also covered in detail. The encyclopedia additionally provides entries for numerous topics related to his life and writings, including Marxism, McCarthyism, Modernism, Jazz, and Religion, and for the many individuals who were associated with his literary career. Most of the entries close with brief bibliographies, and the volume closes with a list of works for further reading.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Foreword.

"The thirteen essays in this important collection examine grass-roots struggles for racial justice throughout the United States from 1940-1980...Read together, these essays remind us that activism changes people as much as society."
--"Journal of American History"

"The essays in "Groundwork" assert individually and collectively that at the root of any national movement for change are local activists working from the bottom up to change their communities first, then the world. This excellent and invigorating collection is crucial reading in an election year."
--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, and author of "America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans"

"A major contribution to the ever expanding historical literature of the modern African American freedom struggle. This book brings together outstanding examples of detailed and thoughtful studies of northern as well as southern local movements."
--Clayborne Carson, Professor of History and Director, Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project, Stanford University

"Brilliantly conveys the vibrancy and creativity of community-based movements that transformed America's racial and civic landscape in the decades following World War II."
--Patricia Sullivan, author of "Freedom Writer: Virginia Foster Durr, Letters from the Civil Rights Years"

"Required reading for anyone who wants to understand what the Civil Rights Movement actually was - a national movement conceived and executed by local people in cities and towns across this country. They are the people who made the movement that madeMartin Luther King, Jr.--not the other way around."
--Julian Bond, Professor of History, University of Virginia, American University, and Chairman of the NAACP

"This work demonstrates again and again how local movements complicate the standard civil rights narrative of nonviolence, black power, busing, and the nature of leadership."
--Tracy E. K'Meyer, Associate Professor US History, University of Louisville

"These essays enrich understanding of the valiant struggles to make real the promise of a more democratic US."
--"CHOICE," highly recommended

Over the last several years, the traditional narrative of the civil rights movement as largely a southern phenomenon, organized primarily by male leaders, that roughly began with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has been complicated by studies that root the movement in smaller communities across the country. These local movements had varying agendas and organizational development, geared to the particular circumstances, resources, and regions in which they operated. Local civil rights activists frequently worked in tandem with the national civil rights movement but often functioned autonomously from--and sometimes even at odds with--the national movement.

Together, the pathbreaking essays in Groundwork teach us that local civil rights activity was a vibrant component of the larger civil rights movement, and contributed greatly to its national successes. Individually, the pieces offer dramatic new insights about the civil rights movement, such as the fact that a militant black youth organization in Milwaukee was led by a white Catholic priest and in Cambridge, Maryland, by amiddle-aged black woman; that a group of middle-class, professional black women spearheaded Jackson, Mississippi's movement for racial justice and made possible the continuation of the Freedom Rides, and that, despite protests from national headquarters, the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality staged a dramatic act of civil disobedience at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.

No previous volume has enabled readers to examine several different local movements together, and in so doing, Groundwork forges a far more comprehensive vision of the black freedom movement.

In the United States miscegenation is not merely a subject of literature and popular culture. It is in many ways the foundation of contemporary imaginary community. The Romance of Race examines the role of minority women writers and reformers in the creation of our modern American multiculturalism. The national identity of the United States was transformed between 1880 and 1930 due to mass immigration, imperial expansion, the rise of Jim Crow, and the beginning of the suffrage movement. A generation of women writers and reformers-particularly women of color-contributed to these debates by imagining new national narratives that put minorities at the center of American identity. Jane Addams, Pauline Hopkins, Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton), Maria Cristina Mena, and Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket) embraced the images of the United States-and increasingly the world-as an interracial nuclear family. They also reframed public debates through narratives depicting interracial encounters as longstanding, unacknowledged liaisons between white men and racialized women that produced an incestuous, mixed-race nation. By mobilizing the sexual taboos of incest and miscegenation, these women writers created political allegories of kinship and community. Through their criticisms of the nation's history of exploitation and colonization, they also imagined a more inclusive future. As Jolie A. Sheffer identifies the contemporary template for American multiculturalism in the works of turn-of-the century minority writers, she uncovers a much more radical history than has previously been considered.

This collection of essays examines the relationship of women of color's armed resistance to their aesthetic struggles, tension and transformation in feminist practice, and the impact of the gender-based design of state-sponsored terror, human rights debates, and the economic development for women of color. Athey brings together new scholarship testing the possibility of transnational feminist action and theorizing historical and contemporary aspects of resistance for women of color. Included are essays by and about women of Africa, India, and the Americas, including women of African American, Chicana, Puerto Rican, and Yaqui origins. Essays examine regional and historical contexts to demonstrate the central role of women of color in armed resistance struggle and in sustaining cultures of resistance, despite the fact that the agency, speech, and writing of women of color have received the least attention in studies of resistance. Contributors challenge thinking across many disciplines: sociology, literary and cultural studies, history, political science, and education. Resistance struggles examined include women in armed struggle for national self-determination, political and economic struggle for human rights and against state-sponsored repression; and women sustaining political and cultural resistance against specific religious, feminist, or nationalist doctrines, and against the repression of multiple forms of political, sexual, intellectual, and artistic expression.

This volume builds on scholarship by scholars of African American religion that emphasizes the centrality of the body in religion and religious experience. The argument is grounded in Anthony Pinn's understanding of religion as an embodied quest for complex subjectivity, or push for more life meaning. But if Pinn's theory gets at what religion is, this volume picks up where he left off by giving careful consideration to religion's forms. It interrogates the embodied nature of the quest for complex subjectivity. Through placing different theories of the body in conversation with specific case studies that reflect the variety of ways in which bodies are entangled and engaged in struggles for life meaning, the authors argue that African American religion takes on various forms, including modes of cultural production as well as mundane, everyday rituals and practices. The volume expands current scholarship on African American religion and embodiment by going beyond an understanding of black religion as the "Black Church" and underscoring the variety of religious experiences, in both marginal religious traditions and in non-traditional forms of religion. The sustained and rigorous attention to theories of the body in this volume allows for a more robust understanding of what the body is and takes scholarship beyond the implicit understandings of the body as solely discursive. Finally, the approach is interdisciplinary. While grounded in Religious Studies, this book puts various theories and methodologies-from the social sciences to philosophy, and from visual studies to literary studies-in conversation with the religious experiences of African Americans.

Life is a Story Ernestine Meadows May Herstory is a memoir of life depicting southern cultures and traditions, growing up in the 60's, educated in light of "defacto" segregation, living under "Jim Crow Laws," and experiencing a non-typical lifestyle full of hopes for the future in a small country town. Life began for her when a marriage between a father from Homer, LA, and a mother frm Kosciusko, MS, came together in Biscoe, AR, producing the last offspring of seven children and this one was determined to take a different course in life from working in cotton fields and being denied the full advantage of an education. She would begin to dream an impossible dream in spite of all the stirkes against her from birth. It is her desire that others would be inspired to know that one's past need not determine one's future.

The more citizens trust their government, the better democracy functions. However, African Americans have long suffered from the lack of equal protection by their government, and the racial discrimination they have faced breaks down their trust in democracy. Rather than promoting democracy, the United States government has, from its inception, racially discriminated against African American citizens and other racial groups, denying them equal access to citizenship and to protection of the law. Civil rights violations by ordinary citizens have also tainted social relationships between racial groups-social relationships that should be meaningful for enhancing relations between citizens and the government at large. Thus, trust and democracy do not function in American politics the way they should, in part because trust is not color blind. Based on the premise that racial discrimination breaks down trust in a democracy, Trust in Black America examines the effect of race on African Americans' lives. Shayla Nunnally analyzes public opinion data from two national surveys to provide an updated and contemporary analysis of African Americans' political socialization, and to explore how African Americans learn about race. She argues that the uncertainty, risk, and unfairness of institutionalized racial discrimination has led African Americans to have a fundamentally different understanding of American race relations, so much so that distrust has been the basis for which race relations have been understood by African Americans. Nunnally empirically demonstrates that race and racial discrimination have broken down trust in American democracy.

A comprehensive, compelling, and clearly written title that provides a rich examination of the history of Asians in the United States, covering well-established Asian American groups as well as emerging ones such as the Burmese, Bhutanese, and Tibetan American communities. History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots supplies a concise, easy-to-use, yet comprehensive resource on Asian American history. Chronologically organized, it starts with Chinese immigration to the United States and concludes with coverage of the most recent Asian migrant populations, describing Asian American lives and experiences and documenting them as an essential part of the continuously evolving American experience and mosaic. The book discusses domestic as well as international influencing factors in Asian American history, thereby providing information within a transnational framework. An ideal resource for high school and undergraduate level students as well as general readers interested in learning about the history of Asian Americans, the chapters employ critical racialization and ethnic studies discourses that put Asian and Asian Americans subjects in an insightful comparative perspective. The book also specifically addresses the important roles played by Asian American women across history. Examines Asian migration to the United States and the resulting formation of diverse Asian American communities that include Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, South Asian, and Vietnamese and new emerging Asian American communities such as the Burmese, Bhutanese, and Tibetan American Compares 19th-century Asian American history in Hawaii with that on the American mainland Employs racialization and push-pull theories as well as a transnational approach to document the rich and diverse experiences of Asians in the United States

Marshall Keeble (1878-1968) stands as one of the Church of Christ's most influential and celebrated African American evangelists. His impact was felt throughout the South and well beyond as he helped establish over two hundred churches and baptized approximately forty thousand individuals during his nearly seventy years of ministry. His charismatic and dynamic speaking style earned him a devoted following. Despite his impact on the religious culture of the South, there has been scant information available about this extraordinary individual-until now. Edward J. Robinson brings to light over forty years of Keeble's writings. This collection shows the human side of Keeble, revealing his concern for the souls of his faithful followers and the pragmatic way in which he ran his ministry. The sermons and other writings give great insight into the struggles of a prominent African American trying to navigate his way through the challenges of conducting his ministry in the segregated world of the Jim Crow South. Robinson draws on a variety of sources in which Keeble was published, including the Gospel Advocate and the Christian Echo, as well as lectures Keeble gave to students at Abilene Christian College. Through these pages, the reader will learn more about this articulate, passionate, and intelligent man. A Godsend to His People is the first scholarly treatment of this evangelist and will appeal to those interested in the history of the Church of Christ and religious studies.

A comprehensive bibliographic survey of the West Indian presence in the United States, this book covers over 500 articles, books, and other studies on the West Indian immigrant experience. The primary goal is to cite titles examining both the impact of the immigration experience on West Indians and the way West Indians have changed the nature of many communities in the United States. The work outlines the long history in the United States economic life, education, ethnicity and race relations, family relationships, health care, patterns of immigration and settlement, and political expression.

Drawing on books, scholarly journal articles, dissertations, research reports, and significant articles from general interest magazines and newspapers, the book's goal is to lead interested students to material that examines how the United States does and does not meet the hopes and dreams of Caribbean immigrants of African descent. Providing bibliographic leads for exploring new avenues of research on West Indian Americans, the book will be especially valuable for those seeking to expand their knowledge base on this major component of our country's urban landscape.

From the time of his birth in California in 1972 to the present, author Bryant G. Parrish has experienced an eventful and colorful life. In this memoir, he narrates the many details of an existence marked by racial prejudice and discrimination.

"In The Last African Amerik.k.k.an Slave, i/>, Parrish shares events from his childhood when he was the only black child in his California neighborhood, coming of age in his sexuality, being charged with his first felony at age fourteen, earning money both legally and illegally, and spending time in prison.

But more than a recollection of the highlights of his life, "The Last African Amerik.k.k.an Slave" addresses how Parrish believes the Ku Klux Klan, to this day, keeps a stronghold over the country by carrying out white power propaganda through the American judicial system. Parrish contends that everyone in that system- from the court appointed public defenders to the judges to the Department of Corrections-carries out an agenda against people of color, and he offers his firsthand experiences as examples.

Is jazz a universal idiom or is it an African-American art form? Although whites have been playing jazz almost since it first developed, the history of jazz has been forged by a series of African-American artists whose styles caught the interest of their musical generation--masters such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker. Whether or not white musicians deserve their secondary status in jazz history, one thing is clear: developments in jazz have been a result of black people's search for a meaningful identity as Americans and members of the African diaspora. Blacks are not alone in being deeply affected by these shifts in African-American racial attitudes and cultural strategies. Historically in closer contact with blacks than nearly any other group of white Americans, white jazz musicians have also felt these shifts. More importantly, their careers and musical interests have been deeply affected by them. The author, an active participant in the jazz world as composer, performer, and author of several books on jazz and Latin music, hopes that this book will encourage jazz lovers to take a rhetoric-free look at the charged issue of race as has affected the world of jazz.

A work about the formulation of identity in the face of racial difference, the book considers topics such as the promotion of black Southern culture and inner-city styles like rhythm and blues and rap as a means of achieving black racial solidarity. It discusses the body of music fostered by an identification to Africa, the conversion of black jazz musicians to Islam and other Eastern religions, and the impact of a jazz community united by heroin use. White jazz musicians who identify with black culture in an unsettling form by speaking black dialect and calling themselves African-American is examined, as is the assimilation of jazz into the wider American culture.