Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Complex story told clearly, concisely and compellingly
As Rooks relates, the "creation story"of Black Studies departments revolves around violence, upheaval, and successful demands by Black Power students. Yet even the ugly and protracted student strike which gave birth to the first Black Studies program at San Francisco State College in 1969 involved students of all races - 80% of the total student population, in fact. If we are to understand the state of Black Studies (morphing into African American and Diaspora Studies) today, she says it's time we honestly examined the racial diversity of the historical record - even if that makes us uncomfortable.

Over the years, Black Studies has meant different things to different people. To the black radicals,it meant separatism, empowerment, making education relevant to black students. To white administrators, it was a way to increase black enrollment or to address (or appear to address) a racial crisis. And to the Ford Foundation - whose money and vision are primarily responsible for the institutionalization of Black Studies as we know it today on many campuses - it was a means of integrating and diversifying higher education, but within the traditional model.

Though touching many of these bases, the book's central focus is the Ford Foundation's involvement because, as Rooks convincingly argues, their vision is largely responsible for the current legacy. And no small part of that legacy is the fact that the majority of enrollees in Black Studies classes on some campuses are white, and that in too many cases, Black Studies (indeed, blackness itself) has become "everything and nothing at all."

This is a complex and important story, told clearly, concisely and compellingly. I can't imagine anyone who cares about the future of Black Studies not reading this book and discussing it - perhaps even arguing about it -with their colleagues. ... Read more

Product Description
Nationwide study of the proposal and adoption of minority-opportunity districts at the local level. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the untold story of a generation that experienced one of the most extraordinary chapters in our nation's history--school desegregation. Many have attempted to define desegregation, which peaked in the late 1970s, as either a success or a failure; surprisingly few have examined the experiences of the students who lived though it. Featuring the voices of blacks, whites, and Latinos who graduated in 1980 from racially diverse schools, Both Sides Now offers a powerful firsthand account of how desegregation affected students--during high school and later in life. Their stories, set in a rich social and historical context, underscore the manifold benefits of school desegregation while providing an essential perspective on the current backlash against it. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume presents the proceedings of the Fourth Conference for African-American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences held at the Center for Research on Parallel Computation at Rice University (Houston). The included talks and poster presentations offer a broad perspective to the critical issues involving minority participation in mathematics. The issues explored are relevant not only to African American researchers, but also to the mathematical community in general.

This volume is the second published by the AMS (see DIMACS series, volume 34) presenting expository and research papers by distinguished African American mathematicians. In addition to filling the existing gap on African American contributions to mathematics, this book provides leadership direction and role models for students. ... Read more

Product Description

Following the collapse of Reconstruction in 1877, African Americans organized a movementÂ--distinct from the white Populist movementÂ--in the South and parts of the Midwest for economic and political reform: Black Populism. Between 1886 and 1898, tens of thousands of black farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian workers created their own organizations and tactics primarily under black leadership.

As Black Populism grew as a regional force, it met fierce resistance from the Southern Democrats and constituent white planters and local merchants. African Americans carried out a wide range of activities in this hostile environment. They established farming exchanges and cooperatives; raised money for schools; published newspapers; lobbied for better agrarian legislation; mounted boycotts against agricultural trusts and business monopolies; carried out strikes for better wages; protested the convict lease system, segregated coach boxes, and lynching; demanded black jurors in cases involving black defendants; promoted local political reforms and federal supervision of elections; and ran independent and fusion campaigns.

Growing out of the networks established by black churches and fraternal organizations, Black Populism found further expression in the Colored Agricultural Wheels, the southern branch of the Knights of Labor, the Cooperative Workers of America, the Farmers Union, and the Colored Farmers Alliance. In the early 1890s African Americans, together with their white counterparts, launched the PeopleÂ's Party and ran fusion campaigns with the Republican Party. By the turn of the century, Black Populism had been crushed by relentless attack, hostile propaganda, and targeted assassinations of leaders and foot soldiers of the movement.The movementÂ's legacy remains, though, as the largest independent black political movement until the rise of the modern civil rights movement.

Product Description
In this landmark effort to understand African American people in the New World, Gunnar Myrdal provides deep insight into the contradictions of American democracy as well as a study of a people within a people. The title of the book, An American Dilemma, refers to the moral contradiction of a nation torn between allegiance to its highest ideals and awareness of the base realities of racial discrimination. The touchstone of this classic is the jarring discrepancy between the American creed of respect for the inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and opportunity for all and the pervasive violations of the dignity of blacks.The appendices are a gold mine of information, theory, and methodology. Indeed, two of the appendices were issued as a separate work given their importance for systematic theory in social research. The new introduction by Sissela Bok offers a remarkably intimate yet rigorously objective appraisal of Myrdal-a social scientist who wanted to see himself as an analytic intellectual, yet had an unbending desire to bring about change. An American Dilemma is testimonial to the man as well as the ideas he espoused.When It first appeared An American Dilemma was called "the most penetrating and important book on contemporary American civilizations by Robert S. Lynd; "One of the best political commentaries on American life that has ever been written" in The American Political Science Review; and a book with "a novelty and a courage seldom found in American discussions either of our total society or of the part which the Negro plays in it" in The American Sociological Review. It is a foundation work for all those concerned with the history and current status of race relations in the United States. ... Read more

Product Description
Quincy Troupe's candid account of his friendship with Miles Davis is a revealing portrait of a great musician and an intimate study of a unique relationship. It is also an engrossing chronicle of the author's own development, both artistic and personal. As Davis's collaborator on Miles: The Autobiography,Troupe--one of the major poets to emerge from the 1960s--had exceptional access to the musician. This memoir goes beyond the life portrayed in the autobiography to describe in detail the processes of Davis's spectacular creativity and the joys and difficulties his passionate, contradictory temperament posed to the men's friendship. It shows how Miles Davis, both as a black man and an artist, influenced not only Quincy Troupe but whole generations.
Troupe has written that Miles Davis was "irascible, contemptuous, brutally honest, ill-tempered when things didn't go his way, complex, fair-minded, humble, kind and a son-of-a-bitch." The author's love and appreciation for Davis make him a keen, though not uncritical, observer. He captures and conveys the power of the musician's presence, the mesmerizing force of his personality, and the restless energy that lay at the root of his creativity. He also shows Davis's lighter side: cooking, prowling the streets of Manhattan, painting, riding his horse at his Malibu home. Troupe discusses Davis's musical output, situating his albums in the context of the times--both political and musical--out of which they emerged. Miles and Me is an unparalleled look at the act of creation and the forces behind it, at how the innovations of one person can inspire both those he knows and loves and the world at large. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

miles and me , and me too .
voila le livre comporte un fabuleux passage où l'on découvre que au delà des critiques les musiciens communiques et son humain et consciens de leurs faiblesse , mais ils ne peuvent se battre contre certaine chose qui sont au-delà de leur seul capacité .
A lire pour le passage stratosphérique sur Mc coy tyner .

Gets just about as close as you can get to a legend.
I just picked up the "Bitches Brew Complete Sessions" on CD. Troupe has a long essay in the liner notes that are seemingly taken right from this book (or vice versa). Given there are so many Miles Davis books out there, I have to say I really like Quincy Troupe's approach because he is not some music professor or cultural critic analyzing or deconstructing Miles and "the meaning" of his music, blah, blah, blah. Rather, Troupe was there with Miles in the same room, in the car, eating dinner, wherever. That's the real value of this book. If you put Miles on that high pedestal you may not want to read the book: Troupe details some incredibly awkward and tense situations with Miles's temper which made everyone run for cover; but there are also moments of showing Miles with his force field down. One can only imagine how fascinating and frustrating it would be to meet, let alone have a friendship with, one of your idols.

An intriguing view of a Legend.
I enjoyed both books written about Miles by Quince Troupe.In my opinion Troupe has the uncanny ability to write from a perspective that allows a reader to see the personal side of his subject.Troupe's "no holds barred" approach permits the reader to form their own opinion and paint their own picture.This book portrays Miles as both a legend and human being who confronts life's challenges in both positive and negative ways.Be sure to read this book with an open mind.Sometimes it hurts to see our heroes, who we've placed on such a high level fail in some areas of life.

Very interesting
I picked up this book not knowing what to expect, hoping mainly to get some insight into one of my favorite musicians. On that level this book delivers. The author was very close friends with Miles through the later stages of his life and the book centers around the time they spent together and Troupe's perceptions of Miles during this time.We learn that Miles, while a brilliant and influencial musician, had his share of flaws and Troupe makes no attempt to cover these up - this book is not for those who cannot conceive seeing their hero portrayed in a sometimes negative light.The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars was because sometimes the author let his personal views and beliefs get in the way. Personally I would rather read about Miles than Troupe, but oh well, it is his book.

A MUST READ FOR MILES FANS!
I've been a fan of Miles Davis since hearing "Kind of Blue" in1992.Miles legend precedes him and this book helped me gain a betterunderstanding of him as an artist, musician and man.

I especially likedthe way the author used Miles music to recollect his own life--what he wasdoing and how he felt about each new release.For a fan like me, that gaveme a idea of how it would have been to anxiously await each new Miles Davisalbum.

Quincy Troupe was obviously a fan and a friend.I'm glad he wrotethis book. ... Read more

Product Description
On average, black Americans are sicker and die earlier than white Americans. Uncertain Suffering provides a richly nuanced examination of what this fact means for health care in the United States through the lens of sickle cell anemia, a disease that primarily affects blacks. In a wide ranging analysis that moves from individual patient cases to the compassionate yet distanced professionalism of health care specialists to the level of national policy, Carolyn Moxley Rouse uncovers the cultural assumptions that shape the quality and delivery of care for sickle cell patients. She reveals a clinical world fraught with uncertainties over how to treat black patients given resource limitations and ambivalence. Her book is a compelling look at the ways in which the politics of racism, attitudes toward pain and suffering, and the reliance on charity for healthcare services for the underclass can create disparities in the U.S. Instead of burdening hospitals and clinics with the task of ameliorating these disparities, Rouse argues that resources should be redirected to community-based health programs that reduce daily forms of physical and mental suffering. ... Read more

Product Description
Lockstep and Dance: Images of Black Men in Popular Culture examines popular culture’s reliance on long-standing stereotypes of black men as animalistic, hypersexual, dangerous criminals, whose bodies, dress, actions, attitudes, and language both repel and attract white audiences. Author Linda G. Tucker studies this trope in the images of well-known African American men in four cultural venues: contemporary literature, black-focused films, sports commentary, and rap music.

Through rigorous analysis, the book argues that American popular culture’s representations of black men preserve racial hierarchies that imprison blacks both intellectually and physically. Of equal importance are the ways in which black men battle against, respond to, and become implicated in the production and circulation of these images.

Tucker cites examples ranging from Michael Jordan’s underwear commercials and the popular Barbershop movies, to the career of rapper Tupac Shakur and John Edgar Wideman’s memoir Brothers and Keepers. Lockstep and Dance tracks the continuity between historical images of African American men, the peculiar constitution of whites’ anxieties about black men, and black men’s tolerance of and resistance to the reproduction of such images. The legacy of these stereotypes is still apparent in contemporary advertising, film, music, and professional basketball. Lockstep and Dance argues persuasively that these cultural images reinforce the idea of black men as prisoners of American justice and of their own minds but also shows how black men struggle against this imprisonment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Un-locksteped understanding
In a nation where the mythology of freedom is so doggedly written in the minds and hearts of its citizens, an unusual gift and talent is required to see beyond the slogans of sublime intentions or constant political artifice. And to further have the courage to staple that vision or idea to the public bulletin boards, where it is sure to provoke harsh criticism from the many who will not be free enough in their minds and thoughts to begin to understand, is honorable.
Lock Step and Dance speaks to the contemporary context of bondage. It shows us the prisons we see and do not see by illuminating the inmates, the wardens, and the governors, and why they are and do what they do. In it we see the struggle for language and representation and the struggle for ownership of one's person.
The book ferries us aptly across a number of cultural enclaves, while explaining the author's position; however, even with the obvious affinity and knowledge shown for areas of Hip Hop, I would like to have seen the issues explored further still through her foray into this significant cultural explosion.
Lockstep and Dance, by examining the modern imprisonment of African American men, and the literal and the unseen "prison writ large," points to the way to make the reality of freedom closer to the cherished mythology. By examining the historical inhumanities of America, it opens us to greater possibilities of humanity. If we have the courage to read with open minds as the author has the courage to write, we may find a deeper meaning in a 21st century obligation to define ourselves as a species that improves upon our transgressions rather than a species that continues to live them out.
I think the book is right on the mark.

Well worth reading
The other review posted so far for this work resorts to ad hominem attacks on Tucker and does readers the disservice of a review so distasteful, they might accidentally hold the critic's words against this text.

Dr. Tucker's insights into such interesting topics as advertising and athletics required extensive research--and her approach is thoughtful and intelligent.Her work will likely strike a cord with anyone interested in the fields of popular culture or African American studies.I sincerely hope that Tucker turns her academic lens toward African American women; such a work would further the strides that _Lockstep and Dance_ makes as it explores what black and white mean in visual and verbal representations in the U.S.

Pure garbage
This woman was an instructor at the Arkansas University where I was also employed. I read portions of this several years ago. It was a tremendous waste of time. Her syllabus read like something out of an asylum. Did a vanity press publish this drivel?? ... Read more

Product Description
Three contemporary novels of slavery-Margaret Walker's Jubilee (1966), Sherley Anne Williams's Dessa Rose (1986), and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987)-are the central focus of Liberating Narratives. Reflecting their individual and sociopolitical contexts of origin, these three novels can be read as critiques of historical representation and as alternative spaces for remembrance-"sites of memory"-that attempt to shift the conceptual ground on which our knowledge of the past is based. Within a theoretical framework informed by recent black feminist and narrative discussions, the book analyzes the textual strategies that these authors use to conceptualize and authorize these liberating imaginative spaces-spaces in which African American women are central historical agents. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Pan African Studies, published by Journal of Pan African Studies on March 1, 2008. The length of the article is 1792 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: White Money/Black Power The Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Race in Higher Education.(Book review)
Author: Ibram Rogers
Publication: Journal of Pan African Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2008
Publisher: Journal of Pan African Studies
Volume: 2Issue: 2Page: 74(5)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
No descriptive material is available for this title. ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, American Society of African Culture. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Great MigrationCivil Rights Movements 18961954 and19551968Second Great MigrationAfrocentrism The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is a an organization dedicated to the study and appreciation of African-American History. It is a non-profit organization founded in Chicago, Illinois, on September 9, 1915 and incorporated in Washington, D.C. on October 2, 1915 as the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) by Carter G. Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland. The association is based in Washington, D.C. ASNLH was renamed the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History in 1973. ASALH's official mission is "to promote, research, preserve, interpret, and disseminate information about Black life, history, and culture to the global community." American Historical Association ASALH's official vision is " to be the premier Black Heritage and learned society with a diverse and inclusive membership supported by a strong network of national and international branches to continue the Woodson legacy." American Historical Association ASALH created Negro History Week in 1926. Woodson selected the week to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Each year, Woodson established a national theme for the celebration. Since 1976, ASALH extended the celebration for the entire month of February. The organization publishes The Journal of African American History (formerly The Journal of Negro History), and the Black History Bulle... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=3026963 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Pan African Studies, published by Journal of Pan African Studies on March 1, 2008. The length of the article is 4466 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Transdisciplinary African American studies approaches and implications: a collective interview with James Stewart.(Interview)
Author: Itibari M. Zulu
Publication: Journal of Pan African Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2008
Publisher: Journal of Pan African Studies
Volume: 2Issue: 2Page: 85(11)

Article Type: Interview

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
African America can be found throughout North America. The essays included in this volume take the creation of an African American world as a single object of study, tracing significant routes and contacts, using comparisons and contrasts. This book reworks traditional approaches to the study of history, critiques of literature and culture, and the production of knowledge. Each essay locates the African American experience within a wider pan-African vision that links the colonial with the postcolonial, the past with the present, and the African with the Western. Mapping African America sketches lines that extend our knowledge of the African influence on and participation in what is generally called "Western'' culture. This creative challenge to traditional disciplines will not only enhance the reader's understanding of African American studies, but will also help forge links with other academic fields of inquiry. ... Read more

Product Description
Paul Bontemps decided to move his family to Los Angeles from Louisiana in 1906 on the day he finally submitted to a strictly enforced Southern custom--he stepped off the sidewalk to allow white men who had just insulted him to pass by. Friends of the Bontemps family, like many others beckoning their loved ones West, had written that Los Angeles was "a city called heaven" for people of color. But just how free was Southern California for African Americans?
This splendid history, at once sweeping in its historical reach and intimate in its evocation of everyday life, is the first full account of Los Angeles's black community in the half century before World War II. Filled with moving human drama, it brings alive a time and place largely ignored by historians until now, detailing African American community life and political activism during the city's transformation from small town to sprawling metropolis.
Writing with a novelist's sensitivity to language and drawing from fresh historical research, Douglas Flamming takes us from Reconstruction to the Jim Crow era, through the Great Migration, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the build-up to World War II. Along the way, he offers rich descriptions of the community and its middle-class leadership, the women who were front and center with men in the battle against racism in the American West.
In addition to drawing a vivid portrait of a little-known era, Flamming shows that the history of race in Los Angeles is crucial for our understanding of race in America. The civil rights activism in Los Angeles laid the foundation for critical developments in the second half of the century that continue to influence us to this day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Definitive History of Black Los Angeles
Douglas Flamming has done scholars, historians, and the public a favor by putting out the first in-depth and fully accessible history of African Americans in Los Angeles.

In his work, Flamming focuses on the life of Charlotta Bass, the editor and publisher of the California Eagle newspaper.She came to Los Angeles in 1910 and died in 1969, and saw the world change around her.She was also an activist who sought to improve the lives of African Americans in southern California.But she did not do it alone.Flamming also tells us the stories of Fred Roberts, John and Vada Somerville and the indefatigable Betty Hill.

He also describes the famous places, such as the busy life on Central Avenue before it became known as South Central.There was the Dunbar Hotel, the only place black people could stay in during those years, and the nationally famous jazz club, the Club Alabam, which was a magnet for the biggest names in the country.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.If you are a student of Black history, California history, or life in Los Angeles just before and after World War II, get this book.Even if you are not, it is still a great read (aside from being thoroughly documented). ... Read more

Product Description
Not Only the Master's Tools: African American Studies in Theory and Practice brings together new essays on the ongoing value of black thought. In the service of what the editors call epistemological decolonization of African American studies, the first part examines the grounding of theoretical reason from various perspectives such as Africana philosophy, philosophical anthropology, and black literary theory. The second part offers theoretical explorations of practical reason as it unfolds in the study of slavery, education, queerness, politics, and ethics. Responding to Audre Lorde's famous dictum that "The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house", the editors and these internationally renowned scholars ask: "Why not instead devote attention to using those and other tools to build new, more open houses?"

Important for anyone interested in the ongoing importance of ideas, the book is well suited for students and scholars of Africana studies, philosophy, literary theory, educational theory, social and political thought, and postcolonial studies. ... Read more