DescriptionNo fiction could be more unique and uplifting than this real-life biography of Rachel Deborah Shilsky, the daughter of an angry Orthodox Jewish rabbi in the South who runs off to Harlem, marries a black man, becomes a Baptist, and founds an all-black church. And puts 12 children through college! James McBride recalls his confusion as a black child of a white mother, the hardships of his childhood, and his own flirtation with drugs and violence, in the struggle to make peace with his own identity. Performed by Andre Braugher and Lainie Kazan, this extraordinary and best selling memoir offers a special reflection on race and identity, a beautiful tribute to a mother from her son.
DescriptionIn five autobiographical vignettes, Charlayne Woodard tells the moving and inspirational tale of her African-American family through three generations of love, struggle, and triumph. A one-woman tour de force.
DescriptionIn Neat, writer/performer Charlayne Woodard shares her memories of growing up black in America in the '60s and '70s. The play focuses around the life of Woodard's Aunt Beneatha, Neat, who was mistakenly fed camphor oil as a baby, resulting in permanent brain damage. Alternating between Neat's home in Savannah, GA and Albany, NY, where Woodard was raised, stories of family and of time spent with Neat are weaved together with touching results.
DescriptionAmerica's leading young black intellectual reveals the hidden rules of race that dominate politics, society, and cultural life. The author discusses the state of Black leadership; the Black Church and sex; Black youth, pop culture, and the politics of nostalgia; why in a color-blind society race will continue to rule; and other important issues. Michael Eric Dyson, former welfare father, and now an ordained Baptist Minster and Princeton Ph.D., is professor of Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina.
DescriptionVirginia Hamilton (1936-2002), a giant in the world of children's literature, was the first African-American woman to win a Newbery Medal and the first children's book author to be awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. In her prize-winning anthology of American Black folktales, The People Could Fly, Hamilton has gathered and retold a collection of stories that teach us much, move us deeply, and make us laugh out loud. Savor this bridge to both the past and the future of a people and a nation as you hear these timeless tales brilliantly performed by Andrew Barnes.
DescriptionAs powerful as Zora Neale Hurston is in print, hearing her as narrated by Renee Joshua-Porter makes her work dance and soar with an unfettered vigor. Hurston's best known work is the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, but her short stories are a sort of spontaneous combustion of energy, emotion, and provocation - like the author herself. A pillar of the Harlem Renaissance and an authority on African-American folklore, her award-winning career reached its peak in the early 1940s, but she died in obscure poverty in 1960. Out of print for decades, Hurston's works are again receiving the attention they deserve, and this collection, which includes "Drenched in Light, " "The Conscience of the Court, " "Muttsy, " "The Gilded Six-Bits, " John Redding Goes to Sea, " and "Sweat, " is part of her legacy - a gift to the listener, and a celebration of the rich African-American culture.
DescriptionFrederick Douglass was born a slave, and it seemed likely that he would live and die a slave since he was uncertain of his date of birth or the identity of his father. But young Douglass promised himself a different future - he would teach himself to read and write, and one day he would be free from slavery. When he was sent to work as a field hand on a plantation in St. Michael's in 1832, his life was so dispiriting and exhausting that he nearly forgot his dreams of freedom. His journey out of bondage was mental, as well as physical, but he did escape from slavery to become one of the most passionate and persuasive speakers of the abolitionist movement and a strong proponent for women's rights. His autobiography, compelling in its honest and forceful eloquence, is performed by Charles Turner.
DescriptionBooker T. Washington fought his way out of slavery to become an educator, statesman, political shaper and proponent of the "do it yourself" idea. In Up from Slavery, his autobiography, he describes his childhood of slavery on a Virginia plantation, his struggle for education, his schooling at Hampton Institute, and his founding and presidency of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He gives an account of his travels, speeches, and meetings with various leaders including Theodore Roosevelt in the White House. Employing a didactic tone, Washington deftly sets forth his belief that the black man's salvation lay in education, industriousness, and self-reliance. This it the true life story of a man of real courage and dedication.
DescriptionA master teacher and preeminent analyst of America's racial dilemma bridges the gulf between races in this national best seller. Cornel West is a professor at Harvard's Divinity School and Department of Afro-American Studies. He is the author of many books, including Prophetic Fragments, and with bell hooks, Breaking Bread .
