Black Comics by
Bringing together contributors from a wide-range of critical perspectives, Black Comics- Politics of Race and Representation is an analytic history of the diverse contributions of Black artists to the medium of comics. Covering comic books, superhero comics, graphic novels and cartoon strips from the early 20th century to the present, the book explores the ways in which Black comic artists have grappled with such themes as the Black experience, gender identity, politics and social media. WC Black Comics- Politics of Race and Representation introduces students to such key texts as- The work of Jackie Ormes Black women superheroes from Vixen to Black Panther Aaron McGruder's strip The Boondocks
Black Families by
Following the success of its best-selling predecessors, the Fourth Edition of Harriette Pipes McAdoo's Black Families retains several now classic contributions while including updated versions of earlier chapters and many entirely new chapters. The goal through each revision of this core text has been to compile a book that focuses on positive dimensions of African American families. The book remains the most complete assessment of black families available in both depth and breadth of coverage. Cross-disciplinary in nature, the book boasts contributions from such fields as family studies, anthropology, education, psychology, social work, and public policy.
Known for My Work by
"Demonstrates that the 'emancipation generation' bequeathed values, ethical frameworks, and identities to multiple ensuing generations, shaping religious, educational, and cultural institutions as well as labor and political organizations."--Peter Rachleff, editor of Starving Amidst Too Much and Other IWW Writings on the Food Industry "Shows how far off the mark arguments are that claim that black Americans generally have internalized inferiority and engage in self-defeating behaviors."--William A. Darity Jr., coeditor of Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational Comparisons of Inter-Group Disparity In Known for My Work, Lynda Morgan looks beyond slavery's legacy of racial and economic inequality and counters the idea that slaves were unprepared for freedom. By examining African American social and intellectual thought, Morgan highlights how slaves built an ethos of "honest labor" and collective humanism. As moral economists, slaves and their descendants insisted that economic motives formed the foundation of their exploitation and made sophisticated arguments about the appropriate role of labor in a just and democratic society. Morgan considers how slaves evaluated the violence, coercions, and deceits employed by slaveholders as means to maintain power, as well as the ways in which fugitive slaves active in the abolition movement stressed to nonslaveholding audiences how they were complicit in a regime fraught with moral decay. She also points to the racial rhetoric of Jim Crow architects and how it was readily identified as elaborating on slave-era racial propaganda in new ways for an old reason: to establish a rigid economic inequality in the Industrial Revolution. From the late antebellum era through Reconstruction, labor organizing in the 1930s and 1940s, the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the reparations movement of the twenty-first century, Morgan offers an unprecedented view of African America. What emerges from the literature is a clear critique of racism, an embrace of self-defense, and the belief that they deserved reparations for lost labor. Enslaved laborers thought for themselves, imagined themselves, and made themselves. Moreover, their descendants share this moral legacy as a foundation for citizenship and participation in democracy.
Black August by
William Harrison is the author of nine novels, three collections of short stories, two major screenplays, essays and travel pieces. He was the co-founder of the writing program at the University of Arkansas and still lives in Fayetteville. Six couples from Austin, Texas, have vacationed on Lake Como in Italy during the month of August for the last seven years. This year they learn that during this month for the last seven years little girls have gone missing around the lake. One of them, Harry, the photographer, suspects that one of their group is the killer. His accusations eventually alienate him from the group--and even his wife. When they all return to Texas he continues his investigations until he discovers the identity of the killer and faces him in the violent climax. A mystery with a set of vivid characterizations, Black August explores Americans abroad, the question of evil, and the story of a marriage in crisis.
NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement by
Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature AwardAs NASA prepared for the launch of Apollo 11 in July 1969, many African American leaders protested the billions of dollars used to fund ?space joyrides? rather than help tackle poverty, inequality, and discrimination at home. This volume examines such tensions as well as the ways in which NASA?s goal of space exploration aligned with the cause of racial equality. It provides new insights into the complex relationship between the space program and the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow South and abroad.Essays explore how thousands of jobs created during the space race offered new opportunities for minorities in places like Huntsville, Alabama, while at the same time segregation at NASA?s satellite tracking station in South Africa led to that facility?s closure. Other topics include black skepticism toward NASA?s framing of space exploration as ?for the benefit of all mankind,? NASA?s track record in hiring women and minorities, and the efforts of black activists to increase minority access to education that would lead to greater participation in the space program. The volume also addresses how to best find and preserve archival evidence of African American contributions that are missing from narratives of space exploration.NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement offers important lessons from history as today?s activists grapple with the distance between social movements like Black Lives Matter and scientific ambitions such as NASA?s mission to Mars.
From Here to Equality, Second Edition by
Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household holds in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents. This compelling and sharply argued book addresses economic injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War and offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. This new edition features a new foreword addressing the latest developments on the local, state, and federal level and considering current prospects for a comprehensive reparations program.
