Biography and Memoir

Powerful prose, poetry, and jazz riffs chronicle the first 21 years of the life of Haki R. Madhubuti, formerly Don L. Lee: poet, publisher, editor, and activist. He was raised by his mother Maxine, whose life is also recounted--including gritty details of how she used her body to feed, house, and shelter her children without help from their absentee father. Despite the obstacles in his childhood, music and literature molded the young Don Lee, effectively saving his life.

White supremacy and its troubling endurance in American life is debated in these personal essays by two veteran political activists. Arguing that white supremacy has been the dominant political system in the United States since its earliest days--and that it is still very much with us--the discussion points to unexamined bigotry in the criminal justice system, election processes, war policy, and education. The book draws upon the authors' own confrontations with authorities during the Vietnam era, reasserts their belief that racism and war are interwoven issues, and offers personal stories about their lives today as parents, teachers, and reformers.

Dr. Lewis gives instructions on how to teach by recounting some of her personal experiences in brief and pointed paragraphs.

The daughter of Oliver Golden, an African American expatriate and agrarian activist of the early 1900's, and Bertha Bialek, youngest daughter of Polish American emigres of Jewish descent, Lily Golden has a special place in history. In this account of her experience, Golden provides a connection between the contemporary and historical relationships of America to Russia. Golden offers a distinctly different and refreshing point of view of the lives and experiences of Russia in her often alluring and romantic, sometimes bitterly painful, yet always vivid and intimate details of her life as a dark-skinned Russian surviving in and struggling against turbulent changes. She brings her tale of a sometimes charmed sometimes challenged existence full circle in her descriptions of her ultimate contact with distant relatives in the United States. Lily Golden allows the reader access into her lifelong revelation that family and community ties are boundless by time and geography.