With an introduction by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright' s journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man' s coming off age during a particular time and place, Black Boy remains a seminal text in our history about what it means to be a man, black, and Southern in America. Superb...The Library of America has insured that most of Wright' s major texts are now available as he wanted them to be tread...Most important of all is the opportunity we now have to hear a great American writer speak with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the center of our lives. --Alfred Kazin, New York Time Book Review The publication of this new edition is not just an editorial innovation, it is a major event in American literary history. --Andrew Delbanco, New Republic
It was perhaps the most wretchedly aspersive race and gender scandal of recent times: the dramatic testimony of Anita Hill at the Senate hearings on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court Justice. Yet even as the televised proceedings shocked and galvanized viewers not only in this country but the world over, they cast a long shadow on essential issues that define America.
In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power, Toni Morrison contributes an introduction and brings together eighteen provocative essays, all but one written especially for this book, by prominent and distinguished academicians--black and white, male and female. These writings powerfully elucidate not only the racial and sexual but also the historical, political, cultural, legal, psychological, and linguistic aspects of a signal and revelatory moment in American history. With contributions by:Homi K. Bhabha, Margaret A. Burnham, Kimberl Crenshaw, Paula Giddings, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Claudia Brodsky Lacour, Wahneema Lubiano, Manning Marable, Nellie Y. McKay, Toni Morrison, Nell Irvin Painter, Gayle Pemberton, Andrew Ross, Christine Stansell, Carol M. Swain, Michael Thelwell, Kendall Thomas, Cornel West, Patricia J. Williams
In this spiritual, moving autobiography, Wilma Mankiller, former Chief of the Cherokee Nation and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, tells of her own history while also honoring and recounting the history of the Cherokees. Mankiller's life unfolds against the backdrop of the dawning of the American Indian civil rights struggle, and her book becomes a quest to reclaim and preserve the great Native American values that form the foundation of our nation. Now featuring a new Afterword to the 2000 paperback reissue, this edition of Mankiller completely updates the author's private and public life after 1994 and explores the recent political struggles of the Cherokee Nation.
First published in 1971, Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky's impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know "the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one." Written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.
A major study...one that thorougly interweaves the philosophies and fads, the people and movements that combined to give a small segment of Afro America a brief place in the sun.--The New York Times Book Review.
The phenomenal New York Times bestseller for over 100 weeks is an unforgettable memoir of McBride's mother and his interracial family.
"Magisterial . . . in Williams' richly detailed portrait, Marshall emerges as a born rebel."--Jack E. White, Time
Thurgood Marshall was the twentieth century's great architect of American race relations. His victory in the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the landmark Supreme Court case outlawing school segregation in the United States, would have made him a historic figure even if he had never been appointed as the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court. He had a fierce will to change America, which led to clashes with Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, and Robert F. Kennedy. Most surprising was Marshall's secret and controversial relationship with the FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. Based on eight years of research and interviews with over 150 sources, Thurgood Marshall is the sweeping and inspirational story of an enduring figure in American life who rose from the descendants of slaves to become an American hero.
