I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World, Special 75th Anniversary Edition (Martin Luther King, Jr., born January 15, 1929)

Book Description

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial looking out over thousands of troubled Americans who had gathered in the name of civil rights and uttered his now famous words, "I have a dream . . ." It was a speech that changed the course of history.

This anniversary edition honors Martin Luther King Jr.'s courageous dream and his immeasurable contribution by presenting his most memorable words in a concise and convenient edition. As Coretta Scott King says in her foreword, "This collection includes many of what I consider to be my husband's most important writings and orations." In addition to the famed keynote address of the 1963 march on Washington, the renowned civil rights leader's most influential words included here are the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," the essay "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," and his last sermon, "I See the Promised Land," preached the day before he was assassinated.

Editor James M. Washington arranged the selections chronologically, providing headnotes for each selection that give a running history of the civil rights movement and related events. In his introduction, Washington assesses King's times and significance.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing Collection of Speeches.......2007-01-15

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of America's greatest heroes and this is a collection of his wonderful writings and speeches. Often people stop at "I Have a Dream" but this shows the complete evolution of Dr. King. A wonderful read that has been part of my library for the past 10 years -- and I've read it three times and often use it for reference and store it next to the Bible.

AMERICANS SHOULD REALIZE THIS 'DREAM' TO THE FULLEST!.......2002-11-28

Dr. Martin Luther King's collection of writings and speeches, "I Have A Dream", brings aspiration to light. The events that surrounded the life and death of this true hero reveals the shameful fact that no matter how great the United States of America is today, it is one country that was nurtured with inhumane machinery: slavery, racism, injustice, Mickey-Mouse freedom, and Mickey-Mouse democracy. I hate to think about it, but it is an honest fact, which we should all come to terms with. Nobody can rewrite history.
The 256 pages that is "I Have A Dream" was enough to highlight the wickedness and the violence that were deliberately sustained in America, for a full century, after a bloody Civil War ended her tenacity on slavery.
One question that will always beg for answer is: How on earth did U.S. Presidents who presided over the ruthless color-bar era qualified for those Nobel Peace Prizes that they received? Knowing what life was like in the U.S.A. just a couple of decades ago melts my heart. "I Have A Dream" is a big eye-opener!

The essential King.......2001-10-26

"I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World," by Martin Luther King, Jr., is a fine collection of texts by this important figure. The book has been edited by James M. Washington. Coming in at less than 300 pages, this is a concise but meaty book.

Washington includes King's most important texts: the "Letter from Birmingham Jail"; the "I Have a Dream" speech; his Nobel Prize acceptance speech; "My Trip to the Land of Gandhi"; "A Time to Break Silence," his 1967 speech criticizing the United States war in Vietnam, and more. These writings and speeches cover King's great themes: nonviolent resistance, the African-American civil rights movement, etc.

Those seeking a more comprehensive collection of Kings' work should seek out "A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr." also edited by James M. Washington. At more than 700 pages, this is a truly monumental collection, and includes much material not found in "I Have a Dream": the 1965 "Playboy" interview, transcripts of television interviews, and more. But for those who want a shorter text that cuts to the heart of King's life and work, "I Have a Dream" is perfect.

"I Have a Dream" reveals King to be a true Christian prophet, and a man with a global vision. As literature, these texts also show King to be the heir of such American thinkers as Henry David Thoreau and W.E.B. DuBois. Highly recommended.

Excellent introduction to Dr. King's works.......2000-10-21

This collection of Dr. King's writings includes all the major speeches -- such as I Have A Dream and I See the Promised Land, as well as important writings such as Letter from A Birmingham Jail. It also has great essays on the lessons Dr. King learned from Ghandi and a wonderful introduction from Mrs. King. This is a great collection to get started learning about Dr. King -- from his own pen. I highly reccomend it.

Inspirational.......2000-06-21

Reading the speeches of Dr. King are inspiring. You get a glimpse into his mind and to genuinely understand the struggle he was up against. I'm not just refering to the Civil Rights movement. you also get insights into the responsibilities and pressure he felt as the leader of this movement. He was a man who changed history. This book offers glimpses into his humanity as well as his motivational and inspirational speeches. A must for anyone interested in American history, the Civil Rights movement or in biographys. It will continue to effect you long after you have put the book down.

A Ranger Born: A Memoir of Combat and Valor from Korea to Vietnam

Average customer rating:

North Vietnamese Parachute Regiment ?
Great Reading
What movies are made of....Not your run of the mill soldier!
A Ranger Born
Better than 'Band of Brothers'; a good read for anyone

A Ranger Born: A Memoir of Combat and Valor from Korea to Vietnam
Robert W. Black
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0345452410
Release Date: 2002-07-30

Book Description

Even as a boy growing up amid the green hills of rural Pennsylvania, Robert W. Black knew he was destined to become a Ranger. With their three-hundred-year history of peerless courage and independence of spirit, Rangers are a uniquely American brand of soldier, one foot in the military, one in the wilderness—and that is what fired Black’s imagination. In this searing, inspiring memoir, Black recounts how he devoted himself, body and soul, to his proud service as an elite U. S. Army Ranger in Korea and Vietnam—and what those years have taught him about himself, his country, and our future.

Born at the start of the Great Depression, Black grew up on a farm at a time of great hardship but also tremendous national determination. He was a kid who toughened up fast, who learned the hard way to rely on his strength and his wits, who saw the country go to war with Germany and Japan and wept because he was too young to serve. As soon as the army would take him, Black enlisted. And as soon as he could muscle his way in, he became a Ranger.

As a private first class in the 82d Airborne Division headquarters, Black withstood the humiliations of enlisted service in the peacetime brown-shoe army. When the Korean War began, he volunteered and trained to be an Airborne Ranger. In Korea, this young warrior, his mind and body bursting with the lusts of adolescence, grew up fast, literally in the line of fire. In clean, vivid prose, Black describes the hell of giving his all for a country that lacked the political resolve to give its all to a war against the North Koreans and the Chinese.

If Korea was frustrating, Vietnam was maddening. The heart of this book is devoted to the years of action that Black saw in Long An Province starting in 1967. Black writes of the perplexity of collaborating with South Vietnamese officers whose culture and motives he never fully understood; he conjures up the sudden shock of the Tet Offensive and the daily horror of seeing fellow soldiers and innocent civilians slaughtered—sometimes by stray bullets, often by carelessness or treachery. Vietnam challenged everything Black had come to believe in and left him totally unprepared for the hostility he would face when he returned to a war-weary America.

Written with extraordinary candor and passion, A Ranger Born is the memoir of a man who dedicated the best of his life to everything that is great and enduring about America. At once intimate in its revelations and universal in its themes, it is a book with profound relevance to our own troubled time in history.

Customer Reviews:

North Vietnamese Parachute Regiment ?.......2004-06-02

On page 207 of the paperback edition, Black writes about "sappers believed to have been drawn from a North Vietnamese parachute regiment." After I inquired to well over 100 Vietnam (in-country) veterans about a North Vietnamese parachute regiment, I was met with blank stares. A high percentage of these individuals served in combat units (i.e. Special Forces, 173rd, 101st, 1st Aviation Brigade). NO ONE EVER HEARD of a North Vietnamese parachute regiment. I was curious, so I contacted the author (Black) via telephone on Saturday (30 May, 2004). Black stated that he obtained the information from the military archives at Carlisle Barracks. When I checked the archives, no hits were obtained on this subject from their site, however they are now closed for the summer due to an ongoing physical location move. As a former combat Special Forces soldier and a retired homicide detective, I smell embellishment on this subject!

Great Reading.......2002-10-08

Unlike the technical, detailed Ranger books written by Col. Black, this one is from a personal standpoint and draws you into the story from page one until the last word is read. The book starts with Col. Black as a child and the desire to be a Ranger is obvious; to what it takes to qualify for Ranger training; what it takes to endure the training and what drives a Ranger to stay a Ranger. A story about being an American in the war ravaged country of Korea and Viet Nam. You read about betrayal, unrequited love, the guts and glory of war; the survival of war, and at times with a sense of humor. You laugh, you cry. It grips your heart; it grips your soul, but most of all it makes you proud to be an American; proud to have men of his calibar fighting for your freedom and that of our Country.

What movies are made of....Not your run of the mill soldier!.......2002-09-29

As a child born during the Vietnam war, I was embarrassed that I knew little about it. I could not have picked a better teacher. Learning about this time in history was decorated with the amazing story of one extraordinary man. I could not have picked a better character to guide me through the US military and Asian conflicts of my childhood. As the words of Robert Black carried me into worlds of the misunderstood, I came out of the the autobiography with an educated understanding of a troubled time in our history. Robert Black is the "Dr Phil" or our US Armed Forces. He tells it like it is, whether you are ready or not. In A Ranger Born, he writes for all those who care to learn and laugh on a journey that explores an unsafe time in history escorted by a Ranger that will protect and entertain you through the entire tour.
I hope Col. Black is deciding who will play him in the movie. I have a few suggestions...does anyone else? Read the book and you will see unforgetable characters come to life. Col. Black is the man everyone wants in their foxhole!!! Reading his book is as close as you will get!

A Ranger Born.......2002-08-17

This is the best book yet in Robert Black's series about the U. S. Rangers. It is the remarkable story of a young boy who knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up and who worked toward that goal from then on. Black has revealed in his series that he is a true soldier/scholar. This book traces his story through triumph and sadness. His love for his fellow Rangers shines from the story as does his love for his country. He writes with compassion and wit. The man who is the soldier and the soldier who is the man will live with you for a long time.

Better than 'Band of Brothers'; a good read for anyone.......2002-08-09

With all the `Band of Brothers' hoopla last year, this is a better book.

It's a simple story of a man trying to be the best there is -in this case an Army Ranger during two wars (Korea & Vietnam) - but he tells it in a way anyone can understand. No military credentials are needed. The sign of a good storyteller is getting the reader to have the same feelings the author does...I found myself full of pride, anger, frustration alongside Black; sometimes I wanted to cry and sometimes I wanted to pat this guy on the back. Sometimes I just went "Phew!"

This isn't a gung-ho book on "How I won the war". Its full of frailties, shortcomings, and reality. If you are looking for Gen. Patton's story, its not here. If you are looking for a coming of age story that includes finding identity, a successful path in life, and learning of the larger world around us, that is here. Black simply has the "good" misfortune of growing up in time that led him down a path to two wars, and his base of battle knowledge -- thick as a rocket launch pad - is the heart of the book.

The book includes also includes a fair amount of background of his early years as a farm kid, which is a good laugh. It's when the book takes off into his early training in Army is when this book really runs.

Anyone who ever protested the Vietnam War should read this - not to attack an agenda but to understand more about how the war affected us all. (This is coming from someone who remembers Walter Kronkite's reports from Saigon and whose Mom would have taken me to Canada had I been of draft age).

Customer Reviews:

Foreign Born African Americans . . ........2002-05-14

An invaluable collection of empirical testimonies!

Silenced Voices.......2002-04-13

It is great to finally hear the silenced voices of the foreign born African Americans. These voices became loud and clear in this unique work of Obiakor and Grant. It is healthy when the tongue ceases to be docile. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of many good things to come and more and more silenced voices will snap out of docility. This is the beauty of America!

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New Florida Crime Writer!!
James O. Born just keeps getting better with Shock Wave
James Born Just Gets Better
James Born Scores Again!!!!
Shock Wave is awesome

Shock Wave
James O. Born
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0399152636

Book Description

Florida lawman James Born follows one of the most highly praised crime debuts of the year with a literally explosive novel of hunter and hunted.

FDLE agent Bill Tasker, still smarting from a run-in with the FBI that almost got him killed, reluctantly teams up with the bureau again on a case involving a stolen Stinger missile. The op goes smoothly enough (though the feds take all the credit-what else is new?), but something about the whole setup just doesn't feel right to him. Tasker pokes around a bit-and stirs up more trouble than a nest of rattlesnakes: with his boss, with the FBI, with the ATF, and, worst of all, with a certain gentleman who loves to see things blow up . . . bigger and bigger things,as it turns out. The bomber hasn't killed anybody yet, but if this FDLE agent keeps interfering-well, there's always a first time, isn't there?

Customer Reviews:

New Florida Crime Writer!!.......2007-05-15

Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent Bill Tasker has a grudge against the FBI since a corrupt agent tried to frame him. When he sees the FBI zealously pursuing the wrong man in a missile transaction, he doesn't hesitate to set things right. The action doesn't earn him any friends at the agency, so when he uncovers evidence that family man Daniel Wells may not have been guilty of trafficking a Stinger missile, but probably was guilty of a cruise ship bombing that resulted in the death of a baggage handler two years ago, the FBI isn't very willing to help. Tasker isn't without friends, however, and he and his partner from the Miami PD, Derek Sutter, team up with attractive ATF agent Camy Parks and her racially challenged boyfriend, FBI agent Jimmy Lail. Together, they scour Miami for any trace of the suddenly missing Daniel Wells, his lovely wife Alicia, or his three children. Every time they think they're making progress tracking Wells, the bomber is one step ahead of them, and they're running out of time because Bill Tasker knows he's got something big and explosive planned for Miami; he just isn't sure what, when, or where. Meanwhile, Daniel Wells prepares to create the chaotic scene of a lifetime, something much more terrifying and disruptive than any team of terrorists could put together after years of planning.

While a newcomer on the crowded Florida crime fiction writer block, Born has created an engaging cast of characters, managing to show the points of view of both the cops and their quarry with equal aplomb. Daniel Wells isn't normal, but he's also not a raving, hateful bad guy. He's even almost likeable. The cop characters are also shown close up, quirky and flawed, from Jimmy Lail, whose racist parents pushed him to defy them in a way that annoys everyone, Camy Parks, who's always on the make and has trouble choosing from the array of possibilities, Derek Sutter, who bemusedly watches everyone else's interactions between strip club surveillance, to Bill Tasker, whose obsessive nature helps him solve cases but also destroyed his marriage. There are just as many tense moments as chuckles interspersed throughout a fairly well-drawn mystery with a couple twists and turns. Everything from the story line to the characters works here, woven together into a Florida police procedural crime caper. Fans of Dorsey and Hiaasen, as well as fans of more mainstream mysteries should all find something to like here. I eagerly await Mr. Born's next novel.

James O. Born just keeps getting better with Shock Wave.......2006-02-20

I loved James O. Born's first book, Walking Money, which managed to successfully combine a wonderful writing style, a unique and creative plot and a refreshingly natural sense of humor. Shock Wave is even better! Without being a typical "macho" tough guy, Jim Born manages to draw upon his many years of law enforcement experience to write an authentic tale of an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement racing against the clock to ferret out a bomber whose explosions are becoming increasingly deadly. And, once again, Born manages to combine excellent writing and a terrific plot with a wonderful sense of humor to create both an authentic, satisfying thriller and a laugh-out-loud funny book. I can't wait to read Born's latest book, Escape Clause!

James Born Just Gets Better.......2005-08-27

I really liked Born's first effort, Walking Money and commented at the time that he was joining the cadre of writers such as Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey who write about characters that seem to populate many funny and interesting Florida novels. He has cemented that reputation with Shock Wave.

Special FDLA agent Jim Tasker is back as are several of the folks that we met in the first novel. He isn't having any more luck in trying to get his ex-wife to return and even less luck in getting along with the FBI. The loose cannon in this story is a guy named Daniel Welles. Welles is mistakingly arrested as part of a joint law enforcement effort to bring down the seller of a Stinger missile. While he had nothing to do with that sale other than return a repaired possum trap to the seller, he soon becomes very much on their radar screen after Tasker manages to get him freed from custody on the missile charge.

Welles likes to blow things up. So far it has been relatively harmless unless you count a guy who was killed when a bomb he made on a cruise ship killed a baggage handler. The FBI agent in charge of that investigation wasn't too concerned ("The guy wasn't even an American") However, Welles has bigger and better plans and most of the book is spent watching his plans develop and the efforts of the Florida law enforcement community try to bring him down. The action is steady, the characters are truly characters and you willl finish the book eagerly awaiting the next one. Oh, yes! There will be a next one.

James Born Scores Again!!!!.......2005-06-06

James O. Born has scored another winner with Shock Wave. His first book was a huge success and this one is even better. Mr. Born brings characters to life that everyone can relate to in a setting and story that will have you on the edge of your seat. The underlying humor by the members of law enforcement in his book will have every law enforcement member who reads this book laughing till they cry.

Shock Wave is awesome.......2005-05-09

I bought the first book in the series, Walking Money, as a father's day gift for my dad and ended up reading it before giving it to him. I couldn't wait to get the next book and was even more impressed with this one since it was better than the first. Born's books just keep on getting better and I can't wait to read the third.

Average customer rating:

fifth and fabulous
A Must Read!
jFifth Born
fifith born
Fifth Born

Fifth Born: A Novel
Zelda Lockhart
Manufacturer: Atria
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0743412656

Book Description

As Odessa grows, so do her troubles. She ultimately separates herself from her parents and siblings into a new reality that prompts memory and revelation. Her choices for survival provoke an outcome that will forever alter the carefully maintained lies of her childhood.

Zelda Lockhart's Fifth Born is lyrically written, poignant and powerful in its exploration of how secrets can tear families apart and unravel people's lives. Set in rural Mississippi and St. Louis, Missouri, Fifth Born is a story of loss and redemption, as Odessa walks away from those who she believes to be her kin to discover the meaning of family.

Download Description

When Odessa Blackburn is three years old, she sees her grandmother for the last time, and so begins her story as the fifth born of eight children in a troubled family. Molested by her father, Odessa is also the sole witness to a murder he commits. Her mother guards both secrets and joins her husband in ostracizing their fifth born from the rest of her siblings. As Odessa grows, so do her troubles. She ultimately separates herself from her parents and siblings into a new reality that prompts memory and revelation. Her choices for survival provoke an outcome that will forever alter the carefully maintained lies of her childhood. Zelda Lockhart's Fifth Born is lyrically written, poignant and powerful in its exploration of how secrets can tear families apart and unravel people's lives. Set in rural Mississippi and St. Louis, Missouri, Fifth Born is a story of loss and redemption, as Odessa walks away from those who she believes to be her kin to discover the meaning of family.

Customer Reviews:

fifth and fabulous.......2007-06-27

"Fifth Born" was one of the best books I read recently. It did remind me of Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eyes", as another reviewer mentioned, except I think I enjoyed it more. I loved how the end of the book came together. It brought a tear to my eye. I to am from Mississippe and the trips they made back south each summer reminded me of my childhood. Odessa's love for her grandmother brought back memories of my favorite aunt. I will be looking forward to Zelda Lockhart's next piece of work.

A Must Read! .......2007-06-12

Author Zelda Lockhart takes us on a journey into the complicated life of the Blackburn/Lacey family. The novel is narrated by the fifth born Blackburn Odessa. Odessa lives the childhood that begins nice and somewhat normal and after the death of her maternal grandmother life becomes unbearable and pure hell. Odessa is a charactor that is hard to forget with circumstances that are hard to swallow. There are many times in the book when you literally want to scream outloud "DO SOMETHING!" I wanted Odessa to find her voice and use it. Overall this is a great quick read. The plot though depressing is still very intresting. Very well written. I am in hopes there is a part two coming soon.

jFifth Born.......2007-02-15

Fifth Born was an excellent read with unexpected twists and turns thru out the entire novel.

fifith born.......2006-12-16

fifth born is a poigniantly told tale of a young girl who is trapped in a woefully dysfunctional family. the author zelda lockhardt,brings to light
the unfortunate situation of odessa, a girl who hails from a large southern family that migrates south in search of a better life.
in the story odessa's family is no stranger to dark secrets, as she at an early age learns the harsh realities of life. being shunned by an inefectual mother along with her older siblings and being brutaly raped
by an abusive and alcoholic father, odessa turns retreats deep within her self to escape the inferno she's in. constantly she remebers the trips to
mississippi, there she shared fond memories with her grandmother. but soon
these rare moments end with her sudden suicide. the world turns slowly for this girl as she unwittingly stumbles across even more secrets as she witnesses her uncle being murdered by her father and even enduring a second molestation. all through the book it is would seem hopeless for odessa until the family commutes back to mississppi for the summer.
no longer the fifth born, odessa is largely ignored and feeling the weight of all this she wanders into the company of a long shunned relaitve.
there she learns the beginning of her family's secrets, and even some darker ones of her beloved grandmother.

Fifth Born.......2006-11-20

This book was very moving. The title; very fitting you will have to read the book to get the just of the title. A job will done and very touching. This author is a great story teller.

Average customer rating:

Another great one
Excellent!!!!!

Born to Rebel: An Autobiography
Benjamin Elijah Mays
Manufacturer: University of Georgia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

African-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0820325236

Book Description

Born the son of a sharecropper in 1894 near Ninety Six, South Carolina, Benjamin E. Mays went on to serve as president of Morehouse College for twenty-seven years and as the first black president of the Atlanta School Board. His earliest memory, of a lynching party storming through his county, taunting but not killing his father, became for Mays an enduring image of black-white relations in the South. Born to Rebel is the moving chronicle of his life, a story that interlaces achievement with the rebuke he continually confronted.

Customer Reviews:

Another great one.......2006-08-24

This was a wonderful book, its a wonder how Dr. Mays overcame all the things that was holding him back. This is one you should read.

Excellent!!!!!.......2001-02-09

Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays (1894-1984) was one of the most prominent educators, social reformists and civil rights and religious leaders of his time. This book magnificently captures a time in American history that is far too scarcely documented: the Post-Civil War segregation era, leading up to 1970. This book gives a very personal description of Dr. Mays's struggles for dignity, respect and integrity, while simultaneously touching upon the collective struggle of African-Americans. I recommend this book for anyone seeking a greater understanding of African-American and American history. Mr. Mays was a pioneer in social reform and civil rights, was the President of Morehouse College from 1940-67, was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and held the honor of being the "First" to hold several important and powerful positions in private and public organizations. He was a giant among men. I assure you that this is one of the best autobiographies that you will read.

Born in a Mighty Bad Land: The Violent Man in African American Folklore and Fiction (Blacks in the Diaspora)

Average customer rating:

Thug culture threatens Black America
Brisk and Original Study
a most compelling study
a most compelling study
From the Author

Born in a Mighty Bad Land: The Violent Man in African American Folklore and Fiction (Blacks in the Diaspora)
Jerry H. Bryant
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Folklore & Mythology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0253215781

Customer Reviews:

Thug culture threatens Black America.......2006-03-17

My title comes from the 1/16/2006 newspaper article by Cynthia Tucker in the San Francisco Chronicle. This book by Jerry Bryant gives historical background on the "bad man" image and why it finds support in the Black community. "The popularity of thug culture is among the most serious of modern-day threats to Black America . . ." says Cynthia Tucker. The sad fact is that the victims are likely to be young black men.

This is a great book that should be read by all people interested in reducing violence in their communities.

Brisk and Original Study.......2003-07-03

A really interesting overview and analysis of the "baad man" as a central figure in African-American literature, tracing the origins from his earliest appearances in myth and folklore. Lively, literate without being pedantic, and full of interesting and surprising examples. Real insights into such major figures as Richard Wright and Toni Morrison, along with a fascinating section on the sources and achievements of Ice-T and the contemporary rappers that I, never a rap fan, found really eye-opening..

a most compelling study.......2003-07-02

Jerry Bryant has written a most compelling study of the African-American male using history, poetry, song, literature, along with myth and fact. This is a must read for anyone interested in, deeply or just superficially, the ways and the cultural whys and wherefors of the black man in american...yesterday and today. It is done with sensitivity and thoughtfulness and worth anyone's time...and it is damned readable!

a most compelling study.......2003-07-02

From the Author.......2003-04-06

This is a book about African American "badmen" like Stagolee, John Hardy, Railroad Bill, and Devil Winston and how this archetypal figure gets taken up by black novelists, convict "toasters" and gangsta rappers. It tells the story of the defiance of this black folk hero and how middle class novelists and commercial rap artists soften and exploit an originally spontaneous figure of freedom that first emerges at the end of the nineteenth century. Jerry Bryant is professor emeritus of English, California State University, Hayward. By the way, the 5-star rating isn't vanity, it's just that some rating is required by Amazon and I figured it would be counter-productive to give my book anything less. JB

Blacks Found in the Deeds of Laurens & Newberry Counties, Sc: 1785-1827: Listed in Deeds of Gift, Deeds of Sale, Mortgages Born Free and Freed, Abstracted ... Deed Books A-L and Newberry County, Sc Deed

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Blacks Found in the Deeds of Laurens & Newberry Counties, Sc: 1785-1827: Listed in Deeds of Gift, Deeds of Sale, Mortgages Born Free and Freed, Abstracted ... Deed Books A-L and Newberry County, Sc Deed
Margaret Pecham Motes
Manufacturer: Clearfield Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Genealogy | Reference | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 080635156X

Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830

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Good Work on Religious Appropiation

Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830
Sylvia R. Frey
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0807846813
Release Date: 1998-02-18

Book Description

The conversion of African-born slaves and their descendants to Protestant Christianity marked one of the most important social and intellectual transformations in American history. Come Shouting to Zion is the first comprehensive exploration of the processes by which this remarkable transition occurred. Using an extraordinary array of archival sources, Sylvia Frey and Betty Wood chart the course of religious conversion from the transference of traditional African religions to the New World through the growth of Protestant Christianity in the American South and British Caribbean up to 1830.

Come Shouting to Zion depicts religious transformation as a complex reciprocal movement involving black and white Christians. It highlights the role of African American preachers in the conversion process and demonstrates the extent to which African American women were responsible for developing distinctive ritual patterns of worship and divergent moral values within the black spiritual community. Finally, the book sheds light on the ways in which, by serving as a channel for the assimilation of Western culture into the slave quarters, Protestant Christianity helped transform Africans into African Americans.

Customer Reviews:

Good Work on Religious Appropiation.......2000-04-29

It is almost impossible for the reader to miss the central theme of Come Shouting to Zion. The authors made sure that its composite but unifying motif recurs constantly within its pages. Divided into its three thematic parts, the book argues that African-American conversion to Protestantism did not happen in a vacuum; that African religious traditions influenced the new form of Protestantism created among the slaves; and that the role of women, as in African traditions, was vital in the process of conversion and transformation of their form of Protestantism. In a more basic way, the authors convincingly contend that African-Americans, in the South and British Caribbean, were propelled by their own experiences and cultural backgrounds to actively participate in the process of their Christianization.

This book starts with the 16th century Italian Cappuccinos in Africa and ends around the 1830s Antebellum. The purpose of starting in Africa was to draw parallelisms between African religious traditions and African-American religious experiences. The authors also dealt with a plethora of primary sources, beginning with missionary records in African, and ending with American churches' official documents. Probably most importantly is that the authors also considered a large number of recent (and not so recent) scholarly works in related areas. Indeed, we might say that this book is better understood if we consider the scholarly context in which it was conceived. This book, for example, consistently referred to Jon Butler's "Awash in a Sea of Faith." This is so because the authors were concerned with disproving one of Butler's more daring thesis: that the African-American conversion to Protestantism starting with the Great Revival happened because the African slaves experienced a spiritual holocaust. This holocaust, Butler argued, was the annihilation of the African religious cosmology right in the midst of the time when they needed it the most: in their slavery. Consequently, when Methodists and Baptists enthusiastically came to share their religion to the slaves, the spiritually deprived slaves were eager and open to the new message. Frey and Wood asserted that Butler's thesis is without foundation and that African religious traditions resisted and survived despite coercion and the advances of the SPG. The authors show plenty of evidence that African religions were alive and well after the slaves arrival to America. Among their examples are the fearful "Obeah," and the proliferation of women mediums. Following the chronology of the events, the authors move into explaining why the Anglican Church failed to produce inroads among the slaves: "because their version of Christianity found no confirmation in the reality of daily life in the quarters." (80) For example, Anglicanism provided no convincing answer to the question of their suffering. On the other hand, John Wesley, George Whitefield, and many Baptists were able not only to identify themselves with the slaves, but to impart a message of assurance with its emphasis on social justice and hope (i.e., the promise of the millennium, spiritual regeneration and attacks on slavery). Furthermore, the structural flexibility of these dissident religions, the availability for African-American leadership, the attraction of the written word, and the "fact that they revolved around a constant cultural core [that] provided continuity with the African past, [made] the transition to evangelical Protestant Christianity possible." (101)

It is nothing new that Evangelicalism provided a platform for the new American identity being formed among the African slaves at the turn of the 19th century. But Frey and Wood made this point pivotal in their quest to prove the Africanization of Protestantism. Among the characteristics that gave African-American Protestantism a tone of its own was their type of worship, and more specifically the shouting for conversion. Furthermore, another of the traits that made African-American Protestantism unique was the important role of women in evangelism and church management. These and other characteristics plus the development of a form of Christianity supportive of slave-owners' ideology, however, served to separate gradually whites from blacks by the Second Great Awakening. Despite its multiple origin, lively worship and shouting became associated with undisciplined and unintelligent African behavior. Already by 1790 and more so by 1830s, African-American Protestantism had developed its own religious identity, which was "both similar to and different from their African past and from evolving white religious culture." (181) This new form of Protestantism contrasted with the individualistic and egocentric message favored by white leaders. Their exuberant and participatory worship also differed from the white Protestant community. In sum, the development of African-American Protestantism came into being upon a "continual negotiation" between black and white church members.

Overall, this book is a marvelous scholarly work. It draws from previous works as Mechal Sobel, John Thornton, and many others, and put in place a picture that was intrinsically previewed by many, namely, that African-Americans were not passive, but active in the formation of their form of Christianity. Its extended perspective, in time and space, was much needed to provide a convincing periodization. However, it is here that the book is more open to criticism.

The intend of providing a comparative approach between the British Caribbean and the North American South, was to trace similarities among closely related patterns. Yet, the way that the book is organized, it does not lend itself to an easy-to-follow comparison. The moving from Antigua, for example, to Georgia, is often made without warning and without enough circumstantial support. The reader might easily think that some of the British islands are brought only to prove a forced parallelism, while their collective experience is being ignored. Furthermore, it is difficult to follow how the chronological patterns are similar in the majority of cases presented.

These, and others, are weak-links common to works that aim to cover such a broad subject without using case studies as anchor examples. Nevertheless, the main achievements of the book are not darkened by these shortcomings. It is very probable that many of the future works in African-American religious history will be motivated by the thesis and arguments that Frey & Wood present in this book.

Average customer rating:

best little known author i've come across.

A Clarifying Lens of Satire

A Time for Dawn Powell to be RE-Born -- Check This Out!

A New Life

A Hurricane In The Halls Of Power

A Time to Be Born
Dawn Powell
Manufacturer: Zoland Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Powell, Dawn | ( P ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
20th Century | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1883642418
Release Date: 1998-06-01

Book Description

Set against an atmospheric backdrop of New York City in the months just before America’s entry into World War II, A Time To Be Born is a scathing and hilarious study of cynical New Yorkers stalking each other for various selfish ends. At the center of the story are a wealthy, self-involved newspaper publisher and his scheming, novelist wife, Amanda Keeler. Powell always denied that Amanda Keeler was based upon the real-life Clare Boothe Luce, until years later when she discovered a memo she’d written to herself in 1939 that said, “Why not do a novel on Clare Luce?” Which prompted Powell to write in her diary “Who can I believe? Me or myself?”

Customer Reviews:

best little known author i've come across........2007-02-06

i am neither smart enough, nor do i have the time to write some long impressive essay on this book (like the other amazon reviewers have done here), but i absolutely want to give this fantastic book another 5 star vote to its total. after reading this I purchased every book that i could with the name Dawn Powell on it. she is simply a wonder to her craft. great writing combined with winning storytelling made this entire book a joy to read. fans of P.G. Wodehouse should love Dawn Powell, though she is much tougher minded, with a strong satiric bite to her tone that is mild, by comparison, in Wodehouse. I highly, highly recommend this book to lovers of literature.

A Clarifying Lens of Satire.......2006-05-27

Gore Vidal, admired and respected Dawn Powell and wrote a long article called,"Dawn Powell, The American Writer". Here he explains her writing "The novels of Dawn Powell have no truck with hypocrisies. She does not judge, excuse or sentimentalize, viewing her characters with a fine indifference to their manifold failings. Her almost Flaubertian aesthetic morality was often misread as sour detachment, but it was anything but. As she noted in her diary, "The satirist who really loves people loves them so well the way they are that he sees no need to disguise their characteristics -- he loves the whole, without retouching. Yet the word used for this unqualifying affection is 'cynicism. To feel, really feel, the heartbreak of an objectively contemptible character is an exquisitely mixed literary experience." For his part, Gore Vidal offered a simple reason for Powell's sudden popularity: "We are catching up to her."

Dawn Powell came to New York City from Ohio. Many of her characters also were transplanted Midwesterners in the big city. The characters she writes about with her perfect economy, the writers and gallery owners, the publishers and businessmen juggling their mistresses, the gold diggers and sexual misfits and those that just slum, she offers no judgment about but is amused by their actions. We are all wise about these people, we see that virtue goes unrewarded and that luck smiles and frowns. However, her characters are rarely wise about themselves. We see through these people but at the same time understand their actions, they are not unworthy. Lisa Zeidner, writing in The New York Times Book Review, tells us Powell "is wittier than Dorothy Parker, dissects the rich better than F. Scott Fitzgerald, is more plaintive than Willa Cather in her evocation of the heartland, and has a more supple control of satirical voice than Evelyn Waugh." Ernest Hemingway called her his "favorite living writer." She was one of America's great novelists, and yet when she died in 1965 she was buried in an unmarked grave in New York's Potter's Field. It has only been recently that Dawn Powell's legacy has come to fruition. Her satire is perfect and biting and humorous.

"A Time To Be Born" is a study of cynical new Yorkers stalking each other. The story centers around a wealthy, self involved publisher, Julian Evans and his novelist wife, Amanda Keeler. Amanda Keeler has always been thought to be based on real life Clare Boothe Luce, who married Henry R Luce, cofounder of "Time" magazine. Her character is a monster of sexual deception, and a liar and user, yet we seem to agree that her actions are understandable. Dawn Powell always denied that Amanda Keeler was based upon the real-life Clare Boothe Luce, until years later when she discovered a memo she'd written to herself in 1939 that said, "Why not do a novel on Clare Luce?" Which prompted Powell to write in her diary "Who can I believe? Me or myself?" When Vicky Haven shows up in NYC from Ohio, Amanda assists her with a flat that Amanda uses as her love hideaway. Vicky falls in love with Amanda's lover, and thus all these characters in pre-war America 1942, are in "for a bumpy ride". We feel the heartbreak of all of these characters and that keeps us off-stride. A fast paced and literary novel, the like of which I have not read in a long time. Dawn Powell has written twelve novels, and I am set to read them all . She is an extraordinary satirical novelist and one to be admired. As she aptly states:

"Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." --Dawn Powell

Highly Recommended. prisrob 5-27-06

A Time for Dawn Powell to be RE-Born -- Check This Out! .......2004-09-19

**********
Dawn Powell, Ohioan by birth, sophisticated Manhattanite by choice, is one of America's biggest cultural hang-fires. This unfortunately still-too-little known writer who died in 1962 deserves a far wider audience; pity that the publishing of most of her novels in a two-volume set by the Library of America in 2001 didn't put her in the cultural Panetheon where she belongs.

"A Time to be Born" is a good starter piece. Powell's novels tend to break into two camps--sentimental and sharp--and this 1941 novel, set among Manhattan's cultural elite just before World War II broke out in 1939--is a great introduction to the latter, more satirical work.

The core of the plot deals with the curious relationship between two women who grew up in the same fictional Ohio small town. Amanda Keeler Evans is a thinly disguised version of Clare Booth Luce (she who married TIME magazine's publisher and quickly became a nationally known journalist, not to be confused with Claire Luce, author of the bee-witchy movie classic THE WOMEN). Amanda is more than happy to let her provincial Midwestern past lie in the past but, though a mutual hometown acquaintance, plays Lady Bountiful to her naive high-school acquaintance Vicky Haven, who is about to move to the Big Apple.

Amanda secures Vicky an entry-level job at a publishing house with her big-time bullying and clout. Although she and Vicky are definitely not of the same social set, she wants to keep Vicky close--we suspect that in her cynicism Amanda is so nice to Vicky as a matter of spin control; she doesn't want Vicky blabbing too intimately about their hick background.

Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer bully: Amanda's every good deed never goes unpunished. Amanda, on the sly, rents a studio apartment for a trysting place with her twentysomething lover, but tries to justify this pied-a-terre to her vapid husband by saying she rented it for Vicky so that her pseudo-protegee could have a ready-made place to hang her hat upon arrival in the Big City--while Amanda cunningly retains daytime-hours occupancy privilege for her "work."

During a routine dinner party, to which Vicky has been invited as a matter of protocol, Vicky meets Amanda's lover (not knowing he is anything other than a professional contact); and eventually, to save her hide, Amanda is forced to offer Vicky the flat for real while keeping her right to its daytime use.

When boyfriend drops by the flat Amanda rented for Vicky, Vicky wonders why he's so familiar with the place and assumes all Manhattan studio apartments follow a common scheme . . .

Dawn Powell is truly an American original but a few comparative metaphors won't hurt. Think of her as a midcentury Jane Austen with a sharp, Dorothy Parkerish writing style and an appalling, almost Evelyn Waugh-type perspective on human greed and folly.

All this makes A TIME TO BE BORN first-rate social comedy (not just routine satire), a great view into the protocol of that era's Manhattan networking professional life; and a darn good farce where almost everyone except clueless Vicky is living a lie and struggling to maintain it all despite the inevitable cognitive dissonance.

I strongly recommend this book--and if it isn't available by itself, the first volume of Powell's novels as collected by the Library of America contains it and four other gems.

For further background on Powell, look up a feature piece in the September 2001 Atlantic concurrent with the Library of America's publication of the two-work set.

.

A New Life.......2003-02-09

This magical novel was published in 1942. Unlike most of Dawn Powell's earlier novels, it sold well and went through several printings. Although Powell denied it, one of the major characters of the book, Amanda Keeler Evans, is based in part on and satirizes Claie Boothe Luce.

These external details say little about the appeal of this novel.
As with most of Dawn Powell's books, "A Time to be Born" talks about New York City and its effect on young men and women who meet their chances there from small towns in the Midwest. The book's two main characters, Amanda Keeler Evans and Vickie Haven, come to New York City under different circumstances and with different results after being girlhood friends in the town of Lakeville, Ohio.

On the verge of WW II, Amanda has become a success by publishing a schmaltzy romantic novel and hobnobbing with the powerful under the guidance of her husband, Julian, a newspaper magnate. Amanda has married her way to success with Julian but with success will not touch much less sleep with him.

Vicky Haven comes to New York at the peak of Amanda's success to escape the memory of a failed affair in which she has lost
her love to her business partner. She is put up, begrudgingly, by Amanda who uses her pad to entertain the lover, Ken Sanders, that she jilted to marry Julian. Amanda takes the fancy pad for Vicky to have an excuse to have an affair with Ken on the side.

The climax of the book occurs when Vicky decides to leave Amanda's fancy pad and lease an apartment of her own. No luxury this. It is a cold-water flat on the fourth floor of a dilapated building surrounded by warehouses and with a pet shop on the lower floor. But it is Vicky's and it is where her life begins. Powell writes: "She only wanted to be alone with her new house so definitely hers, because nobody, Amanda, Ethel, brother Ted, Eudora Brown, Ethel Carey, nobody would ever have selected it for her, and so it was the beginning of her own life." There is magic here, in life beginning anew, with self-affirmation and choice, even if, and especially if in Powell, the outcome is uncertain and the scene itself is partially ironic.

In addition to the theme of having one's own start at life, the book paints a memorable picture of New York on the eve of WW II. The book juxtaposes the lives of the rich, famous and powerful -- their self-importance, their officiousness, their concern for the weighty matters of peace and war -- with the lives of the "little people" who, as Powell describes them, "can only think that they are hungry, they haven't eaten, they have no money, the have lost their babies, their loves, their homes, and their sons mock them from prisons and insane asylums, so that rain or sun or snow or battles cannot stir their selfish personal absorption.". The little people have little to do with the fate of nations. Specifically in the book, Vicky is concerned not with affairs of state or with the rich and famous. She is concerned with love -- with the love she lost in Lakeville -- and with finding herself and a new love in New York City.

The characters in the book are masterfully drawn from Amanda and Vicky to many of the secondary characters such as Amanda's assistant Bemel and vicky's elderly would-be lover Rockman. New York City is depicted memorably, as elsewhere in Dawn Powell's writings. In this book, the best depictions are those of the cold water flats of Grenwich Village -- of the place that Vicky finally finds to try to find a life.

As with most of Powell's novels, this book is a satire. But in this book it is more delicate, more tinged with understanding and compassion, than is the case in some of her novels. The feelings that the book brings for its characters is the source of its magic. There is a sense of foreboding and irony in the book, but little cynicism and anger. The book occupies that fragile point at which a person is able to act on her ideals and attempt to find a life for herself -- without moving into the line that determines whether or not the effort will end in success or failure.

This is a wonderful, little-known American novel.

A Hurricane In The Halls Of Power.......2002-08-07

Despite its awkward title, Dawn Powell's A Time To Be Born is, after Washington Irving's A Knickerbocker's History of New York, the funniest book in American literature.

The story of the rise and fall of ruthless self-promoter, arch manipulator, and glamour girl Amanda Evans Keeler, the novel seamlessly propels the reader through its deliciously involving plot, dropping brisk, barbed, and piercing bombs of cutting humor all the way. Every other line in this New York City-based minefield is cause for bursts of healthy, uproarious laughter, as one character after another finds their egos and intentions rebuked and thwarted by fate in sardonically appropriate fashion.

While mildly cynical about human nature, the novel's humor thankfully never collapses into cattiness or camp; though sometimes approaching the brittle artifice of Saki or Firbank, Powell continually steers herself back in humanity's direction whenever she veers too far towards improbability or outright farce. And humanity, in Powell's vision as expressed here, exists only among those in the lower ranks--the novel's 'Little Men'--who are naive, gullible, and ignorant, but hopeful.

Powell's understanding of what happens to human beings and human relationships as people rise or force their way through the hierarchies of the power elite is wonderfully astute. Though the story takes place just before World War II, the book is timelessly relevant in its illustration of power structures, protocol, and propriety among the powerful and power-mad. Powell also excels here in illustrating how shrewd, calculating and talented individuals go about creating shining, influential, publically-adored and much-venerated if entirely artificial media personalities for themselves.

Though Powell's work is often compared to that of Muriel Spark, there's literally a world of difference between their novels, though each filled their books with large casts of odd-ball characters and believable eccentrics. Spark's novels always take place in a world where God and the possibility of grace are always present, though sometimes only remotely so. Powell's comic novels take place in a universe in which the question of God has never even been raised; certainly none of Powell's characters ever give the idea of god or grace a first or second thought. In Powell's work, there is little more to the world than what meets the eye, and it is around these glittering prizes that her often phlegmatic characters circle relentlessly.

However, both Powell and Spark write brilliantly about servants and masters, and Powell does a hilarious job here of portraying Hurricane Amanda's servant, frustrated power monger Miss Bemel, who tries to seize control over events even as Amanda insist she buy herself a girdle.

Insightful, perceptive, and almost perfectly structured, A Time To Be Born is also entertainment of the highest form.

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