The inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation's first HBCUs In The Devil's Half Acre, New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the "Devil's Half Acre." When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into "God's Half Acre," a school where Black men could fulfil their dreams. It still exists today as Virginia Union University, one of America's first Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A sweeping narrative of a life in the margins of the American slave trade, The Devil's Half Acre brings Mary Lumpkin into the light. This is the story of the resilience of a woman on the path to freedom, her historic contributions, and her enduring legacy.

Family Stress, Coping, & Resilience: The Challenges and Experiences of Modern Families presents research and scholarship on different family stressors and the challenges and experiences of families as they try to cope and bounce back from adversity. The text presents work from an array of disciplines and authors that serve to highlight the various complexities of stressors in our modern society and how families adjust and make attempt to reach equilibrium. The text is organized into seven parts, each featuring multiple chapters on topics including family stress concepts, theories, parenting and mental health stressors, substance abuse and family violence induced stressors, vulnerable and transitional population stress, caregiving stressors across the life course, health and environmental stressors, and the future of families in a stressful societal context. Each part of the text has original introductions and conclusions that create context along with questions to stimulate class discussion or as opportunities for writing more broadly by topic. Various stressors and burdens related to the social, psychological, biological, cognitive, cultural, and economic aspects of daily life will serve as fundamental vantage points for relevant research explored in this textbook. The textbook presents current and salient research on the impact of family stressors across the life span with special emphasis on those family life events that pose a threat to the short term or long term positive functioning of the family system. Relevant research from family studies, human development, sociology, psychology, economics, psychiatry, child studies, criminology, gerontology, social work, and gender/ethnic studies is presented.