Writings of the Black heroes and musicians and the intellectual and physical environment that shaped their lives and those of the Black community.
Alice J. Palmer
The World is Watching
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This valuable book, with contributors who are both practitioners and theoreticians, arrives with seriousness, containing essays and interviews of men and women with workable answers which have been refined over the years as a result of decades of grassroots, governmental, corporate, university, NGO, and other real-world experiences and confrontations. I use the word confrontations advisedly, Buzz, Alice and their son David have long and unblemished histories of working with all people. I have never known them to shy away from progressive struggles and to always be intimately involved with the burning and drowning issues of our planet. -From Foreword by Haki R. Madhubuti
Quraysh Ali Lansana
They Shall Run
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These poems trace the journeys of the great Black historical figure Harriet Tubman and her fugitives through the backwoods of America.
Keorapetse Kgositsile
To the Bitter End
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South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile rejuvenates the African spirit and continues the quest for total and uncompromised liberation.
B. J. Bolden
Urban Rage in Bronzeville
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An examination of the work of Gwendolyn Brooks with the background of the current socio-political scene in Chicago's Bronzeville in its heyday.
Abe Thompson
My Thoughts Your Journal Our Book
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This journal is full of uplifting life lessons from motivational speaker Abe Thompson. Thompson not only shares his wisdom with those seeking to make positive change in their lives, but also encourages readers to write in the book. The book is designed with wide margins and journaling pages for readers to jot down their thoughts.
Sterling Plumpp
Velvet Bebop Kente Cloth
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This collection is the third in a trilogy of poetic works created by Sterling Plumpp to allow audiences to explore the language of music articulated through the nuances of jazz, blues, and bebop. The poetry in Velvet Be Bop Kente Cloth utilizes distinct rhythms and a non-conventional use of line and line breaks. It also draws upon the musical innovations established by Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillispie, and others.
Ramona Hoage Edelin
We the Village: Achieving our Collective Greatness Now
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We the Village: Achieving Our Collective Greatness Now was developed from Ramona Hoage Edelin’s scholarship, teaching, mentoring, policy development, and leadership; and was established on a proven cultural foundation. In this book she asks, what are the best ways to engage young people in conversations about history and culture, politics and economic, or even music and sports? In We the Village, Edelin finds that the best strategy for engaged dialogue and increased learning requires a simple get back to basics and “connect the dots” methodology. This book—designed for educators, students, parents and all who are involved in the nurturing of young people—is meant to help build the foundation for those who will lead what Edelin calls the 21st Century Movement.
Kalamu ya Salaam
What Is Life?
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An eclectic group of poems and essays using the theme of Black culture as the thread. Salaam engages in a self assessment of his life and work using the template of Black culture.
Joyce Ann Joyce
Warriors, Conjurers and Priests (Paperback)
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In Warriors, Conjurers and Priests: Defining African-centered Literary Criticism, Joyce Ann Joyce brilliantly merges her vision of African American literary criticism with her understanding of the politics of higher education. Collected together, these essays depict the literary critic as a shaman and literary conjurer, steeped in the spirituality and history of Black culture. Her analysis offers perceptive readings of major Black literary figures of the 20th century - including Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, James Baldwin, Ann Petry, Terry McMillan, Ishmael Reed and others. Professor Joyce demonstrates extensive research, while illustrating the interconnectedness of fiction and poetry to historical, political and cultural reality. At the same time, she provides balanced critiques rather than one-sidedness posing as universality. Most importantly, hers is a voice that recognizes the heterogeneity of the Black community and, in hopes of heightening understanding, does not fear discussing the strengths and weaknesses of diverse views.
Joyce Ann Joyce
Warriors, Conjurers and Priests (Hardcover)
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In Warriors, Conjurers and Priests: Defining African-centered Literary Criticism, Joyce Ann Joyce brilliantly merges her vision of African American literary criticism with her understanding of the politics of higher education. Collected together, these essays depict the literary critic as a shaman and literary conjurer, steeped in the spirituality and history of Black culture. Her analysis offers perceptive readings of major Black literary figures of the 20th century - including Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, James Baldwin, Ann Petry, Terry McMillan, Ishmael Reed and others. Professor Joyce demonstrates extensive research, while illustrating the interconnectedness of fiction and poetry to historical, political and cultural reality. At the same time, she provides balanced critiques rather than one-sidedness posing as universality. Most importantly, hers is a voice that recognizes the heterogeneity of the Black community and, in hopes of heightening understanding, does not fear discussing the strengths and weaknesses of diverse views.
Kahil El' Zabar
Mis Taken Brilliance
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Mis Taken Brilliance is percussionist extraordinaire Kahil El'Zabar's debut poetry collection. El'Zabar's many moods are expressed in an ecology of rhythm and rifts, harmony and phraseology. El'Zabar is the talking drummer who revels in the textures, the tonality, and beat of life.
Angela Jackson
Miracle and the Fellas
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Thaddeus and Kwane were the children of sisters. That made them officially first cousin's but in fact, they felt more like brothers. Members of their close-knit family simply referred to the cousins as "the Fellas". The Fellas and the entire family were devastated when the unthinkable happened. Thad's little sister, Maria Miracle Darling, was snatched. After 5 years, the Darling disappearance became a cold case. The Fellas, now in the 7th grade never forgot about their little sister/cousin. They vowed that one day they would find her.
Maulana Karenga
Million Man March/Day of Absence
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A comprehensive treatment of the 1996 Million Man March using essays, photographs, and poetry.
Useni Eugene Perkins
Memories & Images
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Perkins reveals his personal development into his present philosophy as he recounts his childhood, extols his heroes, and sings about the jazz greats.
Mzee Lasana Okpara (Fred Lee Hord)
Longer Than Breath
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When I met Toussaint, I was struck instantly by both his name and demeanor. Over the years, it became clear my son-in-law was a new Toussaint, principled warrior, and community leader. This book of poems is an extended conversation between me and his widowed wife, my daughter. So how many Black women have lost life partners, this, however, was not the result of external violence, just the wearing away of his body. Their love remains intact.
Mzee Lasana Okpara (Fred Lee Hord)
Life Sentences
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Life Sentences: Freeing Black Relationships is a Black man's response to the devastating effect of the Euro-Western concept of love on Black relationships. Author Mzee Lasana Okpara (formerly Fred Hord) demonstrates keen insight and confronts complex contemporary and historical issues which thwart efforts towards genuine bonding between the Black man and woman. Okpara's voice is intimate, challenging, and resolute.
Cranston Knight
La Brigada
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The poems in ""La are"" are about the impact of Spain on La Brigada, the American unit that fought in the Spanish Civil War. As Cranston Knight states, the poems are about ""those who struggled in a time vortex to save millions in a forgotten war, a forgotten country."" To bridge the cultural and language gap in the telling of these stories, Knight includes a selection of the book's poems in both English and Spanish.
Haki R. Madhubuti
Killing Memory, Seeking Ancestors
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Written in the tradition and style of the Black Arts Movement, this collection contains lyrical poems, laced with satirical allusions and political exhortations to Black readers.
Wade Hudson
Journey
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Estella Conwill Majozo
Jiva Telling Rites
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This is a collection of poems in verse and short prose that tells the story of a woman's anguish and growth in a hostile environment. The poems move into praise songs for people deemed worthy of recognition.
Mzee Lasana Okpara (Fred Lee Hord)
Into Africa, Being Black
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This precious volume of new and selected poems justly widens Dr. Hord's space among the poets of the Black Arts Movement. He remains, as John O. Killers would state, one of the long distance runners. He is in a league with Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure, Jayne Cortez, Eugene Redmond, Lucille Clifton, Kalamu ya Salaam, and others who created a movement that helped to change America and the world for the literate and liberated majority.
Cranston Knight
In the Garden of the Beast
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Chronicling the lives of an African American soldier, his Vietnamese lover, and their child, this poetry collection deals painfully and poignantly with the reality of the Vietnam war.
Patti Renee Rose
In Search of Serenity
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Rose chronicles her family's pain, hope, courage, and determination as they explore possibilities for a cure to AIDS offered by holistic medicine, vegetarianism, AZT, and Kemron.
Keith Gilyard
Impressions
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The heart of this ambitious and energetic collection is the conscientious and trusted mind of a giving and loving Black artist who in his own way understands history, psychology, economics, politics, and, most of all, the unique power of language in his application of “chord inversions” in the use of serving the urgent needs of Black lives. As a poet and empirical scientist who dances with words, ideas, real life, practical clarifications, and humor, Gilyard challenges his readers to act.
Joyce Ann Joyce
Ijala (Hardcover)
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A landmark critical approach to the study of African American poetry, this seminal work sanctions the view that the voices of the Black Arts Movement are valid areas of scholarly inquiry.