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.

During and after the Civil War, four presidents faced the challenge of reuniting the nation and of providing justice for black Americans--and of achieving a balance between those goals. This first book to collectively examine the Reconstruction policies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes reveals how they confronted and responded to the complex issues presented during that contested era in American politics.

Brooks Simpson examines the policies of each administration in depth and evaluates them in terms of their political, social, and institutional contexts. Simpson explains what was politically possible at a time when federal authority and presidential power were more limited than they are now. He compares these four leaders' handling of similar challenges--such as the retention of political support and the need to build a Southern base for their policies--in different ways and under different circumstances, and he discusses both their use of executive power and the impact of their personal beliefs on their actions.

Although historians have disagreed on the extent to which these presidents were committed to helping blacks, Simpson's sharply drawn assessments of presidential performance shows that previous scholars have overemphasized how the personal racial views of each man shaped his approach to Reconstruction. Simpson counters much of the conventional wisdom about these leaders by persuasively demonstrating that considerable constraints to presidential power severely limited their efforts to achieve their ends.

"The Reconstruction Presidents" marks a return to understanding Reconstruction based upon national politics and offers an approach to presidential policy making that emphasizes the environment in which a president governs and the nature of the challenges facing him. By showing that what these four leaders might have accomplished was limited by circumstances not easily altered, it allows us to assess them in the context of their times and better understand an era too often measured by inappropriate standards.

This collection of papers encourages social and biological scientists to question their presentations of African Americans and to recognize that afrocentricity is important in refocusing portrayals of African Americans. It contrasts the production of these cultural portrayals by the majority of the U.S. population with those by African Americans themselves. It shows the process of creating a racial identity as well as the historical background related to a new evaluation of what it is to be African American in the United States.

Gibbs and Bankhead examine the history and current situation in California as it struggles to deal with the ethnic and racial change that will make it the first American state to have a non-white majority in the first decade of the 21st century. From shock and denial, to bargaining to change the outcome, they analyze the impact in California and what this may mean for the rest of the country.

They begin by tracing the major historical, social, economic and political events of the past 50 years that laid the foundation for the impetus of such ethnically and racially divisive initiatives as the efforts to strengthen anti-crime measures, remove illegal immigrants, limit affirmative action measures, and eliminate bilingual education. Each of these ballot propositions is examined, detailing the pro and con arguments of their advocates and opponents, their major financial contributors, campaign strategies, ethnic voting patterns, implications of implementation, and their impact on people of color. Gibbs and Bankhead then look at parallels from a national and international perspective. They conclude with a discussion of the values that should guide public policy debates in a multiethnic, multicultural society, and they propose specific policy alternatives to address the issues of crime prevention and control, illegal immigration, affirmative action, and bilingual education. A thoughtful analysis that will be of value to concerned citizens as well as policy makers, scholars, and students of contemporary American issues.

Maxine Smith's Unwilling Pupils is the authorized biography of Maxine Atkins Smith. As such it tells the story of the civil rights movement in Memphis from Smith's viewpoint. Primarily based on newspaper accounts from the 1960s and 1970s and on Smith's papers housed at the Memphis Public Library, the book also draws from a rich source of interviews conducted by the coauthors and others. This book presents a well-balanced historical background of the civil rights era even while serving as a tribute to Maxine Smith and her work. A panoramic view of Maxine's life, Maxine Smith's Unwilling Pupils, presents one woman's struggle as a prism for understanding the human dimensions of the fight for equality. The biography portrays Smith's lifelong focus on education as she tried to enlighten both blacks and whites about equality and the inalienable rights of all races. Along the way she became the face of the civil rights movement in Memphis during a critical time in the movement's history. Maxine's unwilling pupils often hated her for her outspoken and tenacious advocacy for those rights; her followers loved her for her unwavering commitment to ensure the rights of African Americans. Smith's selfless struggles as chronicled in this biography will leave no doubt that her influence on the progress of civil rights in Memphis was profound. Moreover, her example of tireless commitment should inspire the efforts of new generations of equal rights activists to come.

After Haiti's 2010 earthquake, over half of U.S. households donated to thousands of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in that country. Yet we continue to hear stories of misery from Haiti. Why have NGOs failed at their mission?
Set in Haiti during the 2004 coup and aftermath and enhanced by research conducted after the 2010 earthquake, "Killing with Kindness" analyzes the impact of official development aid on recipient NGOs and their relationships with local communities. Written like a detective story, the book offers rich enthnographic comparisons of two Haitian women's NGOs working in HIV/AIDS prevention, one with public funding (including USAID), the other with private European NGO partners. Mark Schuller looks at participation and autonomy, analyzing donor policies that inhibit these goals. He focuses on NGOs' roles as intermediaries in "gluing" the contemporary world system together and shows how power works within the aid system as these intermediaries impose interpretations of unclear mandates down the chain--a process Schuller calls "trickle-down imperialism."

"Before I wanted to write the world, I sought to right it," declares Michael Eric Dyson. As one of America's most visible, inspirational, and quotable public intellectuals, Dyson has weighed in on a vast array of issues. In his books and newspaper articles, over television and radio waves, and from podiums to pulpits, Dyson has brought awareness and insight to questions of culture, race, gender, and politics. Now, twenty years into his illustrious career, Michael Eric Dyson offers his fans and admirers a compendium of new and classic writing.

The field of medical anthropology is a discipline that incorporates the perspective of a wide range of approaches--from anthropologists, sociologists, epidemiologists, physicians, nurses, public health administrators, biologists, and many others, including the general public--to health care. This approach places culture and cultural relativism at the forefront and center of every model, and examines the ethics and fairness of health care issues associated with the African American population.

The author examines data on mortality, census, preventive health, alternative medical practices, clinical research, and intervention from a comprehensive perspective. Finally, fieldwork in a public health department setting provides the medical anthropologist with a unique opportunity to investigate cultural and health issues of a particular population in a public health setting. The author explains the steps and procedures for conducting an applied medical anthropological study, based on his experience doing fieldwork projects over the past 15 years.

Bringing the wisdom of generations of black Catholics into conversation with contemporary scholarly accounts of racism, Christ Divided diagnoses "antiblackness supremacy" as a corporate vice that inhabits the body of Christ. To truly understand racial inequality, theologians must acknowledge the existence of "antiblackness supremacy" and recognize its uniquely foundational role in prevailing processes of racialization and racial hierarchy. In addition to introducing a new framework of racial analysis, this book proposes a new approach to virtue ethics. The theory of corporate virtue outlined here provides a framework through which to evaluate the habits of antiblackness supremacy and propose new ones-to be made to "do the right thing."

Within American religion today, there is confusion and chaos as people and denominations have turned away from the Bible. Without the anchor of divine truth, religion finds itself being tossed about by every new form of teaching. Liberal religionists have successfully promoted the opium that there is no absolute truth. Arge Brockles lived in that religious haze for 32 years before his salvation. From a pot washer to a pastor, he writes of his journey out of darkness and death into light and life everlasting, a transformation based solely in the authority of the Word of God. Arge Brockles was born and raised in Dallas, Texas into a prominent family both in the business world and in the Greek community. He attended Texas A&M University, class of 1952, became president of Brockles Restaurant, Inc., and vice-president of Brockles Foods Company. By the sovereign grace of God, he became a Christian in 1962 and left the family business to enter Dallas Theological Seminary. After graduating in 1968, he pastored Mesquite Bible Church before starting Northlake Bible Church in 1972, where he continues as pastor. He wrote "The Doctrines of the Sovereignty and Grace of God" in 1974, which was later translated into Greek. He is listed in The Marquis Who's Who in America, 54th edition. He married Pauline Menos in 1952 and has two children and two grandchildren.

In the 1930s, John Steinbeck published "In Dubious Battle." a novel based on union organizing and anti-union sentiment in the rich central valleys of California. He followed that with a series of articles in The San Francisco News about poverty and starvation among the migrants in California. In 1939, he published "The Grapesof Wrath," which became an instant American classic and the premier moral vision of the 1930s. The themes were: homelessness; joblessness; poverty; starvation and the greed of the banks. Now, 73 years later, it is all back. Lost jobs, and lost homes by the hundreds of thousands, poverty, starvation and the greed of the banks. Steinbeck's vision of the 1930s is with us again,

Franklin's book urges direct engagement by African American and other churches with America's mounting social problems and details programs for children, elders, and economic action.

Why do students who belong to racial minority groups-particularly black students-fall short in school performance? This book provides a comprehensive and critical examination of black identity and its implications for black academic achievement and intellectualism. No other group of students has been more studied, more misunderstood, and more maligned than African American students. The racial gap between White and African American students does exist: a difference of roughly 20 percent in college graduation rates has persisted for more than the past two decades; and since 1988, the racial gap on the reading and mathematics sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) has increased from 189 points to 201 points. What are the true sources of these differences? In this book, psychology professor and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Black Psychology Kevin Cokley, PhD, delves into and challenges the dominant narrative regarding black student achievement by examining the themes of black identity, the role of self-esteem, the hurdles that result in academic difficulties, and the root sources of academic motivation. He proposes a bold alternate narrative that uses black identity as the theoretical framework to examine factors in academic achievement and challenge the widely accepted notion of black anti-intellectualism. This book will be valuable to all educators, especially those at the high school through undergraduate college/university level, as well as counselors associated with academic and community institutions, social service providers, policy makers, clergy and lay staff within the faith-based community, and parents. Uses African American identity as the framework to understand academic achievement and to expose the biases of "deficit thinking" that presumes that under-achievement among black students is related to deficiencies in motivation, intelligence, culture, or socialization Presents information and viewpoints informed by empirical research in a manner that is accessible to general readers and non-specialists Uses personal anecdotes and examples from popular culture to connect with readers and better illustrate the validity of the author's strengths-based approach rather than the conventional deficit-based approach Challenges the idea that black students are inherently anti-intellectual and do not value school as much as their non-black peers