One More River to Cross: Black & Gay in America
Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
  • A Brilliant Book that is indeed LIFE CHANGING!!
  • I am a rapper
  • Danm Good
  • This book states the obvious without adding much.
  • Thought Provoking and Well Written
One More River to Cross: Black & Gay in America
Keith Boykin
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385479832
Release Date: 1997-12-29

Book Description

In the aftermath of the historic 1993 March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights, Keith Boykin, in One More River to Cross, clarifies the relationship between blacks and gays in America by portraying the "common ground" lives of those who are both black and gay.



Against a backdrop of civil rights and the black experience in America, Boykin interviews Baptist ministers, gay political leaders, and other black gays and lesbians on issues of faith, family, discrimination, and visibility to determine what differences--real and imagined--separate the two communities. Boykin points to evidence of African and precolonial same-sex behavior, as well as figures like James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, to dispel the myth that homosexuality is a "white thang," while his research suggests that blacks are less homophobic than whites, despite the rhetoric of rap and religion. With stories from his own experience as well as that of other black gays and lesbians, Boykin targets gay racism and black homophobia and suggests that conservative forces have substituted the common language of racism for homophobia in order to prevent a potentially powerful coalition of blacks and gays.



By portraying what it means to be black and gay, One More River to Cross offers an extraordinary window into a community that challenges this country's acceptance of its minorities, both racial and sexual.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Book that is indeed LIFE CHANGING!!.......2007-02-18

Mr. Boykin has done an outstanding job of relating the issues that challenge gay men and women of color in America. And I very much appreciated that many of Mr. Boykin's observations and analysis stem from personal experiences that he relates to such an honest degree that in some instances I felt uncomfortable (as if I was an intruder - albeit welcomed) while reading them. This book should be REQUIRED reading in every high school in America! While we are likely decades away from this ever being a real possibility - I am very thankful that Mr. Boykin took the time to weave together a story - a record - if you will - of a REALITY that is as AMAZING as it is PAINFUL for many of us at this point and time in American history.

1 out of 5 stars I am a rapper.......2005-07-26

I am a rapper. I hate this book. It's wack and stupid.

5 out of 5 stars Danm Good.......2005-06-08

This book is a page turner, you feel yourself actually wanting to coniue reading it.

2 out of 5 stars This book states the obvious without adding much........2001-08-23

Kudos to Boykin for writing the book, but in all honesty, the work seems written for an audience that is either non-black or black but non-gay. For black gays, most of Boykin's observations will seem obvious, and he doesn't offer much new insight.

After a while, books like this grow tiresome and seem almost cynical in their opportunism.

4 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking and Well Written.......2001-01-31

Keith Boykin's One More River to Cross offers a wonderful discussion on issues that arise with being African American and gay in today's society. He does a wonderful job of making relevant issues known and connects the African American struggle from Frederic Douglass to Audre Lorde's Zami. Read it, you'll love it.
One More River to Cross (Standing on the Promises, Book 1)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Review from "Dunbar on Black Books"
  • Not Just Promises--But a Real Delivery!!
One More River to Cross (Standing on the Promises, Book 1)
Margaret Blair Young , and Darius Aidan Gray
Manufacturer: Deseret Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1573456292

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Review from "Dunbar on Black Books".......2004-01-15

The following review appeared in November 2000 online in "Dunbar on Black Books" (http://www.queenhyte.com/dobb/dobb_archives/dobb_00/nov_00.htm ):

One More River to Cross by Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray (Bookcraft, ISBN 1-57345-629-2) is the first of a trilogy entitled Standing on the Promises. It is a historical novel about black Mormon pioneers. With it "Dunbar on Black Books" (DOBB) makes an exception to its custom of reviewing only nonfiction books. We do this for two reasons. First, this book, albeit a novel, observes canons of history more dutifully than some works that hold themselves out as pure works of history. In the author's notes, the reader is told: "We have been true to all the facts that we could find but have freely fictionalized the spaces between the facts." Second, this book deals convincingly with an important subject about which very little has been written: black Mormon adherents whose membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City dates back as far as 1832.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes much of the point that this book is not an official publication of the church. Bookcraft, its publisher, states that the book does not represent its position. One must know that Deseret Books publishes doctrinal works by Latter-day Saint leaders, biographies, and "enlightening" church historical books and that Bookcraft is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company. It is in this context that DOBB reviews One More River to Cross.

When we overhear Delilah Abel whispering to her sleeping son Eli[jah] on the plantation just before they flee, we may think that they are fictional characters. We later learn from citations of the records of baptisms in the Nauvoo Temple Church of the Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City that they were living people and that Eli[jah] Abel was baptized there. So that while we may have reservations about the dialogue between the persons in the book, or even the accounts of events that took place on the journey to Salt Lake City from Maryland or from Alabama, or from wherever, we know that Elijah Abel made it to Salt Lake. More than that, we are provided with evidence that he was one of the very few blacks to receive the priesthood in the early church and that he was ordained by the Prophet himself.

This book is one of the first, if not the very first, that this reviewer read by starting with the end notes. Quite frankly, to me the notes are a most significant part of this book. The authors make excellent use of records in the Missionary Record Books of the church, of information from conversations of Joseph Smith, as reported in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, from U.S. Census records in Salt Lake City, and from Brigham Young's Journal, to mention a few of their sources. They have given us a book providing information about African Americans in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is not widely available.

A word about the authors is in order. Heber G. Wolsey, former managing director, public communications, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says of Darius Gray, the black co-author, "I know of no one who can express a more objective, more compassionate, more honest portrayal of blacks in the Mormon Church than Darius Gray." Gray is a former journalist and presides over the Genesis Group, an official arm of the Mormon Church. The Genesis Group was organized in 1971 to support church members of African descent. Coauthor Margaret Blair Young is a lifelong white member of the church, "with pioneer heritage," Mr. Wolsey points out. "She has felt deeply over the past few years the inspiration of her pioneer forebears, many of whom knew the Saints of color portrayed in this novel," he says.

This is an important book. It ought to be read by everyone as it throws light on some little-known facts about the history of the membership of African Americans in the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this era in which Protestants are looking to their roots after decades of ecumenism, Darius Gray, as a black Mormon should not be on the defensive because of widely held, erroneous perceptions of the history of black membership in his church.

If this book were a nonfiction work, I would make the observation that an index would have been useful. The bibliography is excellent. William G. Hartley, associate professor of history, Smith Institute, Brigham Young University, says it all when he says, "In a way that pure history cannot do, this story attaches us to black Saints who deserve to be known about and appreciated by our generation."

With two more volumes to come, the contributions of African Americans to the Mormon Church should be well documented for the general public. It has been said that the best way to keep information from black men is to put it in a book and classify it as nonfiction. Perhaps Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray have found a formula to set this situation right.

5 out of 5 stars Not Just Promises--But a Real Delivery!!.......2001-03-13

Anthony and Joan both could not put this book down! Anthony read it first, then read parts of it to Joan, then Joan read it. In the spirit of The Work and the Glory series by Lund, Standing on the Promises, combines factual history and characters with an outstanding story. The characters really come alive and the reader can truly imagine themselves right in the story and experiencing the events portrayed. The actual events and research are documented after each chapter and provide a wonderful historical review of the evidence. After, becoming acquainted with Elijah, Jane and Isaac in other publications, being able to read their stories was truly inspiritational. We are eagerly awaiting the next book in this series!
One More River to Cross: An African American Photograph Album
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Snapshots of a lost legacy in America...
  • A Stunning Chronicle of Americans!
  • Historic Photographs of African-American Experience
One More River to Cross: An African American Photograph Album
Walter Dean Myers
Manufacturer: Browndeer Press Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0152020217

Amazon.com

Winner of the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, One More River to Cross is essentially a photographic history of black America. Walter Dean Myers, a celebrated writer of young adult books, writes that he wanted to show black Americans as they're not always shown. Thus there are photographs of former slaves, black soldiers in the Civil War, black cowboys, baseball players, sailors, aviators, farmers, field hands, and just plain folks. Myers's text is minimal, leaving the emphasis on the photographs, which are sometimes haunting and sometimes inspiring, but always moving.

Book Description

This intimate collection of photographs documents the African American experience, a journey from captivity to freedom, from south to north, east to west. It celebrates the courageous achievements of men and women whose defiant rejection of inequality and subjugation put their own lives at risk.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Snapshots of a lost legacy in America..........2006-11-10

One More River to Cross, by Walter Dean Myers displays endless research that is organized revealing a brillant reflection of Black American portraits in such a pique way that the historical snapshots reveal the struggles to freedom that led to hope and resilent faith in the promise land America the Beautiful.
Excellent photographs that capture the emotional ties of the past to the present.

5 out of 5 stars A Stunning Chronicle of Americans!.......2005-01-16

Highly successful and popular children's author Walter Dean Myers has crafted a work of strength and power as he takes the reader on a photographic journey of the African-American from slavery to the present. The photographs assembled, mixed with the author's prose, effectively exhibit the numerous triumphs and tragedies that have been a part of the African-American experience.

Scenes of blacks toiling in the South's cotton fields are blended with rare looks at the black soldier throughout the various conflicts of which this country was involved. There are pictures of the famous (Madame C. J. Walker, Duke Ellington, and Joe Louis, to name a few) interspersed with the not so famous (members of an old "Negro League" baseball team, an unnamed soldier in the rice paddies of Viet Nam, to cite just two).

Professionals do some of the pictures while the amateur for family remembrances has taken others. It is no wonder that the book received a Golden Kite honor award, an accolade presented to authors by authors and artists.

This book comes highly recommended for its historical significance as well as its artistic and social merit.

5 out of 5 stars Historic Photographs of African-American Experience.......2001-06-26

This book is woooonnnnderful!! You will not be sorry you bought this book. One-of-a-kind.

This is a story told through photographs, with text providing some framework for the pictures. Dignified, moving, insightful. The photographs date back to the 1800s and focus specifically on photographs of African-Americans. Only the very last few pages of the album have contemporary photographs of adults and children.

There are formal portraits of black families in their finest attire, pictures of black intellectuals, candid pictures of black families, children, social life, families on their homesteads, in large metropolitan cities, working in fields, upper-class black people.

More photographs than I have ever seen before of past generations of African-Americans in all of their variety. Photographs are worth a thousand words; more clear and illuminating than a dry volume of essays on the African-American experience. This history is in living color.

I have seen some libraries classify this album as a children's book, but it is not one. This is a full-size album, with stories told through photographs. This is a book to show to your children, to display and to cherish. A beautiful record of the past.
One More River
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • The Suspensful Plot !
  • Learning To Fit In
  • A Remarkable Novel
  • enjoyable
  • Absolute garbage
One More River
Lynne Reid Banks
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0380715635

Book Description

"Were going to emigrate", The words dropped into Lesley's mind innocently...and exploded like a bomb. Emigrating meant leaving home for-ever. She couldn't beleive it. But her father had made up his mind."We're going where we can live on an edge...without challenges, We rot, mind, soul and body."Life on border Kibbutz in Isreal turns out to be one challenge after another for Lesley, who has always taken "the good life" for granted. At home she was popular, successful at school, and trendily dressed. Now it's all gone. A stranger in a strange land , she has to start from scratch, and that includes learning a new language, doing manual work and sharing sleeping quarters with three others -- one of them a boy. And just across the river Jordan she can see the enemy. Lesley doesn't think she'll ever adjust, or that she even wants to. But that's before the ultimate challenge of a full-scale war brings her to a new undestanding of her family, her people, and herself.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars The Suspensful Plot !.......2006-02-04

The story " One More River" includes 4 suspenseful moments. Lesley a rich, happy, girl has to move from her beloved hometown in Canada to a Kibbutz, or shelter, In Israel. She is having to from her beloved brother who has been rejected from the family because he has disregarded his Jewish Heritage. She also has to move away from her boyfriend and other friends that she has. When Lesley gets to Israel she is having a lot of trouble adjusting to her entirely new "world." Lesley is also struggling with the fact that she has to work which she has never done in her life, get dirty, and share a room with a boy with o absolute privacy. Lesley finally made some new friends, got used to the language, and has been doing well in school. During this time that Lesley is going through there is a war going on between the Israelis, Egyptians, and other bordering countries. Later on the Israelis win and take over the country of Jordan. Since they have won the war they have been doing the normal sort of things now.
-Lani 7th Grade student

5 out of 5 stars Learning To Fit In.......2006-02-01

Rich girl Lesley Shelby has just been told by her parents that she'll have to move to Israel. She doesn't want to go. She'll have to leave everything behind, including her new-found, long-lost brother. Once she gets to Israel she has no privacy, has to learn a new language, and work in the fields! Lesley learns and has just fit in when a war breaks out and she's on the border! Will she survive the Six-Day War?

I think this book is good for eleven and a half-year olds and up.

5 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Novel .......2005-05-02

Banks writes about a complete, real-life situation about a Jewish family moving to find their genuine way of life. "A large part of the novel--set during the days before, during, and after the 1967 Six-Day War--chronicles Lesley's gradual, difficult adjustment, and her growing friendship from afar with Mustapha, an Arab boy. The story is fleshed out with numerous details about kibbutz life, farming, and military maneuvers, which bring a sense of realism." (Fader). Fader provides a perfect description of the plot of the book. Banks also includes Yiddish words with a glossary, which enhances the reading comprehension of the book for knowledge of a different language. This is a top rate novel for kids or teens, especially whom are interested in the Jewish religion, traveling, and war. "The story is set just before and during the 1967 Six Day War and helps to provide younger readers with an insight into the history of and politics of the time. It is simplistic in some ways but this is to be expected given the target age of its readers. It also helps to explain the optimism of the time and the assumption that Israeli occupation of the territories would be a short term thing - highly relevant given the ongoing conflict as many readers no doubt have questions about how it all started." (Shapiro).

5 out of 5 stars enjoyable.......2004-04-27

An intriguing kids'-eye view of events surrounding the 1967 war--considerably less violent and more hopeful than Broken Bridge. Also just a good account of the trials and tribulations of dealing with life in a new country. This definitely should be paired with Naomi Shihab Nye's Habibi.

1 out of 5 stars Absolute garbage.......2003-12-04

Nothing but lies. What give a Canadian the right to go and live on a Palestinian land? It shows nothing but deleberate twist of the truth. She made the Arab look like a bunch of uncivilized tribes because they are fighting invaders. She gave herself the right to go and live on a land owned by Palestinians and she wants the Palestinian to welcome her with open arms. This is the kind of propaganda that is targeting young children that have no knowledge of what the real story is. School districts that put this kind of trash on their reading list are irresponsible and should immediately remove such readings.
METZ 1944: One More River
Average customer rating: Not rated
    METZ 1944: One More River
    Anthony Kemp
    Manufacturer: Heimdal
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

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    ASIN: 2840481693

    Book Description

    The author concentrates on the Battle of Metz which was to be decisive for the operations in Lorraine which followed.

    The history of the battle is told step by step, constructed from the testimony of numerous veterans giving a unique first hand account of the fighting by the men who were on the ground

    Photos taken at the time are juxtaposed with photos taken at the present day and accompanied by documents and artifacts from the veterans themselves.

    This is a huge book, in the typical Heimdal fashion, packed with hundreds of photos, maps and graphics. It will be the ultimate book on this important battle

    This memorial to the Battle of Metz is a prequel to the earlier publication in 1984 by Heimdal, Memorial Lorraine.
    One More River to Cross (Large Print)
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • An Extraordinary author!
    One More River to Cross (Large Print)
    S. E. Summers
    Manufacturer: Ulverscroft Large Print
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

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    ASIN: 070892686X

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars An Extraordinary author!.......1999-03-29

    One of my favourite books from this author. Her books are always light, yet written with such wisdom, compassion and understanding. An Essie Summers tale would be incomplete without some twists and misunderstandings along the way. I have 43 of her books and plan to complete my library one day. An old-fashioned writer in the best sense of the world - how she will be missed.
    One More River: The Rhine Crossings of 1945
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      One More River: The Rhine Crossings of 1945
      Peter Allen
      Manufacturer: Encore Editions
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover
      ASIN: 0684175614
      Harlequin Romance
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Harlequin Romance
        Essie Summers
        Manufacturer: Harlequin Books
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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        ASIN: 0373023227

        Product Description

        It had been her own impulsive decision to help her look-alike cousin, Becky, by taking her place at Craigievar. Becky had promptly vanished. Then the river had flooded, cutting off access to the remote sheep station. So Rebecca was forced to continue the deception. To make matters worse, Rebecca had fallen in love with Darrock Fordyce, the autocratic owner of Craigievar. But what use was that when he thought she was Becky-- and engaged to his cousin Lennox?
        One River More
        Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
        • A wistful, even sad, must-read for the devoted flyfisher.
        One River More
        W. D. Wetherell
        Manufacturer: The Lyons Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover

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        2. Upland Stream: Notes on the Fishing Passion Upland Stream: Notes on the Fishing Passion

        ASIN: 1558216987

        Book Description

        This essay collection, which celebrates the delights of fly-fishing, the beauty of rivers, and the splendor of the natural world, completes Wetherell's trilogy of fishing.

        Customer Reviews:

        4 out of 5 stars A wistful, even sad, must-read for the devoted flyfisher........1999-01-27

        "One River More," the third flyfishing book by New England novelist and short story writer W.D. Wetherell, is very definitely a writer's book. If you enjoy evocative writing, writing that paints a sense of place so tangible you feel are there, you most likely will enjoy this book.

        Wetherell is a remarkable writer. A precise writer. An artist with words. One whose talent I would dearly love to have. Indeed, I can picture him mining his vocabulary and our entire literary heritage, for that mater, for the just the right word to put the finishing brushstroke on his verbal canvas. As fellow writer John Gierach says on the dust jacket, "Wetherell writes about fishing with an angler's love for the sport and a novelist's eye for detail. `One River More' is his best yet.'"

        I agree with Gierach ... except for the final sentence.

        I enjoyed "One River More," don't get me wrong. But I cannot say I enjoyed it more than or even as much as either of the two earlier books in his now-complete flyfishing trilogy. The earlier books are "Vermont River," named by Trout Unlimited's Trout magazine as one of the best fishing books of the past 30 years, and "Upland Stream."

        What separates this work from the earlier books? I recall them being more buoyant. They generated loads of smiles. They made me feel as if I was wading alongside the author. I felt the rod load with each cast and delighted in each fly taken whether it was sipped, attacked or just plain gulped.

        In "One River More," Wetherell dishes up a tasty bouillabaisse to be sure. The ingredients include an unabashed love of flyfishing, trout, ferociously pugnacious smallmouth bass and his home water (the Connecticut River), startlingly somber reflection, and a dash or two of a cantankerousness -- about crowded rivers, flyfishing's trendiness, and newcomers ignorant of or oblivious to the sport's etiquette -- that I don't recall from his earlier books. This mix he spices up with flourishes of down-home boyish enthusiasm, especially the section celebrating recent adventures on Yellowstone's rivers. The tales of experiences on the famous rivers - the Yellowstone, Madison, Gallatin, Firehole and Gibbon - and waters previous unknown to me -- Grayling Creek, Nez Perce Creek and the Bechler -- are my favorites in this book.

        So, what's there not to like?

        Maybe it is the overall tone. Simply put, it left me sad. This book, in many ways, acknowledges his having entered the autumn of life and the realization that his finest days of flyfishing are likely behind him.

        He writes: "As a man nears fifty ... everything takes on a burnish, a retrospective glow, and it becomes harder to that vernal kind of brightness that makes you want tot throw your hands up and shout in sheer delight. Your eyes begin noticing how the pines all seem to be dying from roadside salt or acid rain; you see the houses going up too close to the river, the wanton disregard for all you hold dear; the fishing doesn't seem quite so good anymore; rapids you would have pushed aside in disdain only a few years ago now seem dangerous; the river in little ways, seems out to get you. If you're lucky, there still enough boy in you to bull past this sunset kind of vision, but it takes effort now; it's not something your genes do instinctively on their own."

        Perhaps it's that 40 grows a more-distant memory with each day, but I find this tone too melancholy. My wish is to prolong indefinitely the "sheer delight" I find in flyfishing. "One River More," however, is an all-too-sober reminder of how the meandering, irresistible river of time can erode and undercut that wish.
        End of the Chapter : Maid in Waiting; Flowering Wilderness; One More River (ENGLISH LITERATURE)
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          End of the Chapter : Maid in Waiting; Flowering Wilderness; One More River (ENGLISH LITERATURE)
          John Galsworthy
          Manufacturer: Charles Scribner's Sons
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Hardcover
          ASIN: B000H72950

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          9. Saving Adam Smith: A Tale of Wealth, Transformation, and Virtue
          10. Season on the Brink

          Books Index

          Books Home

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