Spirituals were an intrinsic part of the African-American plantation life and were sung at all important occasions and events. This volume is the first index of African-American spirituals to be published in more than half a century and will be an important research tool for scholars and students of African-American history and music. The first collection of slave songs appeared in 1843, without musical notation, in a series of three articles by a Methodist Church missionary identified simply as "c." Collections that included musical notation began appearing in the 1850s. The earliest book-length collection of spirituals containing both lyrics and music was published in 1867 and entitled Slave Songs of the United States. Not since the 1930s, with the publication of the Index to Negro Spirituals by the Cleveland Public Library, has an index of spirituals been compiled. The spirituals are neatly organized in four indexes: a title index, first line index, alternate title index and a topical index that includes twenty major categories. A bibliography of indexed sources serves as a guide for further research.

At one time, Asa Philip Randolph (1889-1979) was a household name. As president of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), he was an embodiment of America's multifaceted radical tradition, a leading spokesman for Black America, and a potent symbol of trade unionism and civil rights agitation for nearly half a century. But with the dissolution of the BSCP in the 1970s, the assaults waged against organized labor in the 1980s, and the overall silencing of labor history in U.S. popular discourse, he has been largely forgotten among large segments of the general public before whom he once loomed so large. Historians, however, have not only continued to focus on Randolph himself, but his role (either direct, or via his legacy) in a wide range of social, political, cultural, and even religious milieu and movements. The authors of Reframing Randolph have taken Randolph's dusty portrait down from the wall to reexamine and reframe it, allowing scholars to regard him in new, and often competing, lights. This collection of essays gathers, for the very first time, many genres of perspectives on Randolph. Featuring both established and emergent intellectual voices, this project seeks to avoid both hagiography and blanket condemnation alike. The contributors represent the diverse ways that historians have approached the importance of his long and complex career in the main political, social, and cultural currents of twentieth-century African American specifically, and twentieth-century U.S. history overall. The central goal of Reframing Randolph is to achieve a combination of synthetic and critical reappraisal.

Previous works on Frederick Douglass have focused either on his life or the literary genre in which his life is framed. Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader is unique in that it explores his work by way of the field of philosophy to show that Douglass offered a wealth of arguments throughout his many texts and speeches. The writers in this work examine the explicit and implicit philosophical themes and arguments that resonate through his texts. Philosophically, Douglass' work seeks to establish better ways of thinking especially in the light of his conviction about our genuine shared humanity and the value of a democratic political life. His experience of, and straggle against, the institution of American slavery shaped these views. This understanding of Douglass' writing resonates in the essays written by contributors to this volume who include Angela Davis, Bernard Boxill, Howard McGary, and Lewis Gordon, to name a few. The result is a critical anthology of note, giving more than ample demonstration of the philosophical magnitude of Frederick Douglass' work.

In "Teaching Equality," Adam Fairclough provides an overview of the enormous contributions made by African American teachers to the black freedom movement in the United States. Beginning with the close of the Civil War, when "the efforts of the slave regime to prevent black literacy meant that blacks . . . associated education with liberation," Fairclough explores the development of educational ideals in the black community up through the years of the civil rights movement. He traces black educators' connection to the white community and examines the difficult compromises they had to make in order to secure schools and funding. Teachers did not, he argues, sell out the black community but instead instilled hope and commitment to equality in the minds of their pupils. Defining the term teacher broadly to include any person who taught students, whether in a backwoods cabin or the brick halls of a university, Fairclough illustrates the multifaceted responsibilities of individuals who were community leaders and frontline activists as well as conveyors of knowledge. He reveals the complicated lives of these educators who, in the face of a prejudice-based social order and a history of oppression, sustained and inspired the minds and hearts of generations of black Americans.

"By turn sad, hilarious, shocking, and touching, these conversations are always revealing: May makes good use of them in suggesting what they tell us about how these men experience, for example, racism and class bias and ho they behave in various social contexts."
--"Library Journal"

"An engaging text. May shows why a space like Trena's is essential and why people become regulars."
--"The Southern Communication Journal"

"A face-paced book...[that's] hard to put down...May should be applauded for his excellent work as he taps into and reveals the lifestyles and attitudes of the customers who patronize Trena's"
-- "Black Issues Book Review"

Talking at Trena's is an ethnography conducted in a bar in an African American, middle-class neighborhood on Chicago's southside. May's work focuses on how the mostly black, working- and middle-class patrons of Trena's talk about race, work, class, women, relationships, the media, and life in general. May recognizes tavern talk as a form of social play and symbolic performace within the tavern, as well as an indication of the social problems African Americans confront on a daily basis.

Following a long tradition of research on informal gathering places, May's work reveals, though close description and analysis of ethnographic data, how African Americans come to understand the racial dynamics of American society which impact their jobs, entertainment--particularly television programs--and their social interactions with peers, employers, and others. Talking at Trena's provides a window into the laughs, complaints, experiences, and strategies which Trena's regulars share for managing daily life outside the safety and comfort of thetavern.

While African American dress has long been noted as having a distinctive edge, many people may not know that debutante balls - a relatively recent phenomenon within African American communities - feature young women and men dressed, respectively, in conventional symbols of female purity and male hegemony, and conforming to gender stereotypes that have tended to characterize such events traditionally. Within the Hmong American community, mothers and aunts of teenagers use bangles, lace and traditional handwork techniques to create dazzling displays reflecting the gender and ethnicity of their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, as they participate in an annual courtship ritual. This book examines these events to show how dress is used to transform gender construction and create positive images of African American and Hmong American youth. Coming-of-age rituals serve as arenas of cultural revision and change. For each of these communities, the choice of dress represents cultural affirmation. This author shows that within the homogenizing context of American society, dress serves as a site for the continual renegotiation of identity - gendered, ethnic and otherwise.

A collection of 11 chapters by Nigerian professors, this book covers such issues as the dignity of intellectual labor; how colonial writings on Africa helped Africans decide to become the interpreters of their cultures; what Nigerian playwrights and poets have in common with authors from other parts of the world; the need to write literature in indigenous Nigerian languages; and critical examinations of the themes of victimization, bad governance, and Igbo social behavior as they are handled in select African and Nigerian literary texts. In discussing the issues, the contributors maintain a historical perspective which allows them to examine very critically the achievements of the founding fathers of Modern African Literatures, and the progress made in the development of African literatures. Also, they suggest what needs to be done to develop the national and ethnic literatures of Africa, as well as indigenous African languages that not only promote further development of the literatures, but also make it easier for Africans to read and appreciate their literatures more fully. Because of its content and developmental perspectives, The Gong and the Flute is a useful reference book for teachers and students of African literatures, and for research institutes and libraries interested in African, Nigerian, and Igbo Studies.

This book looks at the misappropriation of African American popular culture through various genres. Hip-hop, the current most dominant African American popular culture creation, serves as the underpinning for the core areas of this book which delineates music, dance, television and film, sports, technology, fashion, sexuality, and religion. However, Soul Thieves is a historically inclusive documentation of the misappropriation of black popular culture, thus spanning other areas and genres besides the current craze. Perhaps the most daring and unique charge here is that most African American cultural creations have the inherent potential to be healing agents, and while many whites acknowledge these potential curative inclinations, they exploit the art for commercial purposes and to maintain and expand white ruling class hegemony over the black and white masses. However, Soul Thieves moves beyond victimization to analyze the roles that some African Americans play in the exploitation of African American popular culture.

It can hurt to hear someone tell it like it is. But sometimes you need to get the truth, straight up. And the truth is that it's not about you--it's about God. Maybe you have relied on your own strength for far too long. You haven't been able to count on other people, so you just do your own thing. But God has bigger plans for you. God wants to use you to change the world. Rebecca Osaigbovo, conference speaker and author of Chosen Vessels, shows how black women can stand up to Satan's lies and face tough problems, not in your own strength but by finding God's strength in the midst of your weaknesses. She says this to women who want to be the keys to change in their homes, churches and communities: "If you want things to be different, then stop going your own way and follow God's lead. Lean not on your own understanding, and he'll make your paths straight."

To effectively serve minority clients, clinicians require a double understanding: of both evidence-based practice and the cultures involved. This particularly holds true when working with Asian-Americans, a diverse and growing population. The Guide to Psychological Assessment with Asians synthesizes real-world challenges, empirical findings, clinical knowledge and common-sense advice to create a comprehensive framework for practice. This informed resource is geared toward evaluation of first-generation Asian Americans and recent immigrants across assessment methods (self-report measures, projective tests), settings (school, forensic) and classes of disorders (eating, substance, sexual). While the Guide details cross-cultural considerations for working with Chinese-, Japanese-, Korean and Indian-American clients, best practices are also included for assessing members of less populous groups without underestimating, overstating or stereotyping the role of ethnicity in the findings. In addition, contributors discuss diversity of presentation within groups and identify ways that language may present obstacles to accurate evaluation.Among the areas covered in this up-to-date reference: * Structured and semi-structured clinical interviews.* Assessment of acculturation, enculturation and culture.* IQ testing.* Personality disorders.* Cognitive decline and dementia.* Mood disorders and suicidality.* Neuropsychological assessment of children, adolescents and adults.* Culture-bound syndromes. Designed for practitioners new to working with Asian clients as well as those familiar with the population, the Guide to Psychological Assessment with Asians is exceedingly useful to neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, health psychologists and clinical social workers.

This book explores cultural conceptions of the child and the cinematic absence of black children from contemporary Hollywood film. Debbie Olson argues that within the discourse of children's studies and film scholarship in relation to the conception of "the child," there is often little to no distinction among children by race-the "child" is most often discussed as a universal entity, as the embodiment of all things not adult, not (sexually) corrupt. Discussions about children of color among scholars often take place within contexts such as crime, drugs, urbanization, poverty, or lack of education that tend to reinforce historically stereotypical beliefs about African Americans. Olson looks at historical conceptions of childhood within scholarly discourse, the child character in popular film and what space the black child (both African and African American) occupies within that ideal.

As the Preface states, this book is a result of a research project for the History Department of the University of the West Indies. It is a work which sought to examine the way in which the slave policy of the British government was implemented in a new slave colony. Faced with recalcitrance on the part of the older West Indian colonies, the Colonial Office did not accord Trinidad an independent legislature because it felt it could more easily implement its slave policy. Trinidad proved to be no more compliant than the other colonies, and logistically was not easy to supervise. No study has previously been done of the slave process in Trinidad. A statistical analysis of the registration was undertaken by A. Meredith John in 1988. The present study is important because it has focussed on an area that needed to be examined, and one which illustrates that one cannot generalise on the West Indies. It shows how easily a policy can fail, if administrators are not in sync - as those in London were not during this seminal period. The baneful effects of the British experiments extended to persons like the free coloured and black people, who were on the periphery of the system, but who were materially affected by it. This book is significant because it fills a gap in knowledge about an important aspect of the island's history. It also affords an opportunity to look at the attempt to make changes in a society that, for the most part, was not English. As such it stands as a warning of the need to understand the cultures of those for whom systems are devised before they are imposed.

Many of the authors in this collection have never been assembled together before. They represent both black and white voices, of different cultural backgrounds, from the beginnings of American history through the Dawn of the Harlem Renaissance.

Until the late 1960s, the traditional American literary canon was segregated. Moreover, writings of widely anthologized authors rarely touched on race. Not until the 1980s did studies begin to reflect the multicultural diversity of the United States. Ironically, while mainstream anthologies became more inclusive and integrated, Afro-American literature collections concentrated on black authors excluded from the traditional Anglo-American canon.

From Bondage to Liberation attempts a literary and cultural bridge across the racial divide. This book represents new and important views, through the lens of Faith Berry's narratives, of such well-known figures as Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, and many others. It presents an unflinching, multifaceted examination of the literary history of race relations in the United States, and thereby gives us a better understanding of where we have come from spiritually, socially, and economically -- and where we may be going.

The triple crown of Oscars awarded to Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, and Sidney Poitier on a single evening in 2002 seemed to mark a turning point for African Americans in cinema. Certainly it was hyped as such by the media, eager to overlook the nuances of this sudden embrace. In this new study, author David Leonard uses this event as a jumping-off point from which to discuss the current state of African-American cinema and the various genres that currently compose it. Looking at such recent films as Love and Basketball, Antwone Fisher, Training Day, and the two Barbershop films--all of which were directed by black artists, and most of which starred and were written by blacks as well--Leonard examines the issues of representation and opportunity in contemporary cinema. In many cases, these films-which walk a line between confronting racial stereotypes and trafficking in them-made a great deal of money while hardly playing to white audiences at all. By examining the ways in which they address the American Dream, racial progress, racial difference, blackness, whiteness, class, capitalism and a host of other issues, Leonard shows that while certainly there are differences between the grotesque images of years past and those that define today's era, the consistency of images across genre and time reflects the lasting power of racism, as well as the black community's response to it.

This is a comprehensive guide to the black experience both on film and behind the camera. More than 6,000 entries documenting global film activity from 1919 to 1990 offer historical perspective on the black image in film, bibliographical material on filmmakers and individual artists, and exciting information on newly emerging talent throughout the world. Drawing on a wide variety of resource materials, the study furnishes extensive coverage of developments in filmmaking in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean, followed by a thorough examination of the African-American film experience. Two appendixes provide supplementary data on reference works, and names and addresses of notable film resource centers. Four indexes keyed by artist, title, subject, and author complete the work, which proves to be a valuable reference work for scholars and historians in the field of blacks in film.

African Americans have come a long way in the difficult upward struggle from slavery to the relatively broad freedoms enjoyed today. Together, as a potent and well-knit group, they have battled endlessly in their march toward freedom. Finally, according to psychologist James Davison Jr, the last step to freedom for black Americans has arrived. But, that last step must be taken as individuals - not as a collective. In this assessment of the problems and potentials facing African Americans, Dr Davison argues that in order for achieving individuals to advance to the final step of freedom, they must break free from the mental shackles created by the black community.The central theme of "Sweet Release" is that the forces that impinge most upon psychological freedom for black Americans come from within. Guilt for being successful, shame in reaction to the misbehaviours of race peers, demands to give back to the community, and accusations of trying to be white are just a few of the mechanisms that thwart psychological freedom for black persons. Dr Davison argues that individual lifestyles, aspirations, even identities are constrained by the spectre of racial unity. As a result, for black advancers, what remains to be overcome is not 'the system' or 'them', but internalised community attitudes that put a choke hold on individual freedom. Unafraid of controversy or candid assessment, Dr Davison addresses these and other thorny issues with psychological insight while offering strategies to move beyond group constrictions toward personal freedom.

This edited collection describes and discusses the advances of African Americans since the 1960s in the context of political philosophy, specifically, utilitarian liberalism revisited as 1980s and 1990s conservatism. Identifying the basic assumptions of utilitarian liberalism with respect to governance and representation, it uses these constructs to explain public policy outcomes in African-American communities. The three core themes are: governance and the role of the state; African American responses and strategies for empowerment; and policy adjustments of the state. It is a major contribution to the discourse on a problem central to contemporary public policy debate: the appropriate role of government in the regulation of public and private behavior to achieve a balance between freedom and justice.

During the past two decades, one of the most significant political and social changes has been the transfer of urban political leadership from aging ethnic-dominated political machines to coalitions led by blacks in cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Newark, and New Orleans. Bette Woody's analysis of modern urban government examines the political transformation of the 1970s and 1980s in the context of the failures of machine politics, traditional reforms, and racial policies of the prior two decades. Also discussed is the rise of neighborhood-based political coalitions to support black candidates, business elite support that these new leaders acquired, and the aggressive reform platforms they developed. In analyzing possibilities and strategies for current reform Woody focuses on five black mayors of big cities. A detailed case study of the success and failure of reform during Kenneth Gibson's administration in Newark reveals the importance of reorganizing city agencies and tax and budget structures in successful innovation.