Imani Perry wrote in the "Financial Times": "Anthologies can read as mere assortment or collection. But their function, particularly when well composed — as is the case with this book — can be much more deliberate. Busby's choice to organise the writers by generation, rather than region or date of publication, has a powerful effect. From the 18th century to the present, the location of black women across borders — yet always in the winds of political, economic and social orders — emerges. Questions of freedom, autonomy, family, race and social transformation present themselves in generational waves. Thus, with more than 200 contributors, this anthology is also a social and cultural world history."


The review by in the Kenyan "Daily Nation" said: "It is the kind of literary compendium that many prospective African women writers need to have today..."New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent" is a collection that the expert on literature, women studies, gender studies, African history; the feminist reader/scholar; or even the general reader will find refreshing considering the scope of the writing, as well as helpful as a reference source."


In the opinion of the reviewer for the "New York Journal of Books": "Here is the book so many have been waiting for. The book to make sense of so many others...The topics are just as varied and shine bright lights on the lives of critically underrepresented women of color, and on the contributions of these gifted literary scholars: motherhood, slavery, love, work, immigration, assimilation, friendship, thwarted aspiration, infidelity, racism, marriage, poverty, and on and on.


In fact, the only thing that is not varied here is the gloriously even quality of the writing. These are stories for crying and laughing and thinking. They are narratives for understanding, for seeking, for finding, yes, because it is a catalogue of lives that are not shown as much and as consistently as we need them to be.


...It is, perhaps, this bulk, this excess, this non-superfluous surplus, this literal and literary embarrassment of riches that sends the strongest of messages. Yes, there is this much talent and achievement here in the literature of people of color, the roots of these writers in Africa, but their immense contribution extends to every continent. It is this good. It is this great. So, how is it that it continues to be such a low percentage of all that is published, widely distributed, critiqued, discussed, taught, and shared?"


Connected with the new anthology, the Margaret Busby "New Daughters of Africa" Award was announced by the publisher, Myriad Editions, in partnership with SOAS, University of London, that will benefit an African woman student, with accommodation provided by International Students House, London. The launch of the award was made possible by the fact that, as well as Margaret Busby and her publisher donating to the fund from the anthology's earnings, all the contributors waived their fees in support of the cause. The first recipient of the award was announced in July 2020 as Idza Luhumyo from Kenya.


Also in 2020, Busby and Myriad teamed with community-interest organization The Black Curriculum – founded to address the lack of black British history being taught – to donate 500 copies of "New Daughters of Africa" to schools in the UK.


"New Daughters of Africa" was nominated for a 2020 NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work, alongside books by Petina Gappah, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jacqueline Woodson, and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, who was the eventual winner for Fiction.


In this charged collection, Lorde challenges sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and classism with determination. She propounds the recognition of difference as an empowering vehicle for action and creative change and emphasizes the necessity for applying these concepts to the next generation of feminism - a response to the current lacking thereof between women in the mainstream feminist movement. Lorde also explores the fear and suspicion that arises among African American men and women, lesbians, feminists, and white women that ultimately creates an isolating experience for African American women - constructing a social institution that dehumanizes lives. Throughout these essays, Lorde confronts this problem of institutional dehumanization plaguing American culture during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and provides with philosophical reasoning, messages of hope.


Lorde signed a contract with The Crossing Press on November 19, 1982 with a projected publication date of May 31, 1984. She was the first major lesbian author the press was to sign, despite the firm's policy of not taking books represented by agents. Lorde expressed to her agent that she felt rushed into signing the contract that provided an advance against royalties of a mere $100. The book was ultimately a huge financial success for the firm. It was republished in 2007 by The Crossing Press with a new forward provided by scholar and essayist, Cheryl Clarke.


The book is composed of essays and talks by Lorde, including the following:


"Sister Outsider" received critical reception, as well. The book challenges readers' unacknowledged privileges and complicity in oppression. Negative reviewers tended to focus on how "Sister Outsider" caused them discomfort with confronting their guilt as individuals whose identities occupy dominant positions within the United States, specifically through whiteness, maleness, youth, thinness, heterosexuality, Christianity, and financial security. While some reviewers claimed that the work is hard to identify with if they are not similar to Lorde, others refute this, claiming that Lorde uses a "flexible model of subject positioning" that allows readers of various backgrounds to determine points of similarity and difference, challenging their standard notions of selfhood and subjectivity.


In "The Man Question," Kathy Ferguson questions Lorde's employment of what she defines as "Cosmic Feminism", a feminism that relies on a feminine primitivism and values feelings that are more intense and seemingly deep-rooted.


Callaloo, A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, is a quarterly literary magazine that was established in 1976 by Charles Rowell, who remains its editor-in-chief. It contains creative writing, visual art, and critical texts about literature and culture of the African diaspora, and is probably the longest continuously running African-American literary magazine.. It has been published by the Johns Hopkins University Press since 1986.


In addition to receiving grants of support from agencies such as the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the magazine has garnered a number of honors, including the best special issue of a journal from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for "The Haitian Issues" in 1992 (volume 15.2 & 3: "Haiti: the Literature and Culture" Parts I & II); an honorable mention for the "Best Special Issue of a Journal" in 2001 from the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the American Association (volume 24.1: "The Confederate Flag Controversy: A Special Section"); and recognition for the Winter 2002 issue from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals as one of the best special issues of that year (volume 25.1: "Jazz Poetics").


"Callaloo" is abstracted and indexed in the following bibliographic databases:


According to Scopus, it has a 2018 CiteScore of 0.04, ranking 479/736 in the category "Literature and Literary Theory".


The Afro-Hispanic Review is an English-Spanish bilingual peer-reviewed academic journal published by Vanderbilt University's Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center. The journal focuses on promoting the study of Afro-Latino literature and culture, both in the United States and internationally. Published twice annually, it has been described as the "premier literary journal in Afro-Hispanic studies." Its editor is the Vanderbilt professor William Luis.


The journal was founded in January 1982 at Howard University, with Stanley Cyrus as its founding editor. Beginning in 1986, it was published at the University of Missouri, as a collaboration between the departments of Black studies and Romance languages. It was transferred to Vanderbilt and its Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center in 2005.


Journal of Black Studies is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the fields of social sciences and ethnic studies concerning African-American culture. The journal's editors-in-chief are Molefi Kete Asante (Temple University) and Ama Mazama (Temple University). The journal was established in 1970 and is currently published by SAGE Publications.


The "Journal of Black Studies" is abstracted and indexed in, among other databases: SCOPUS, and the Social Sciences Citation Index. According to the "Journal Citation Reports", its 2017 impact factor is 0.571, ranking it 70th out of 98 journals in the category "Social Sciences" and 15 out of 16 journals in the category "Ethnic Studies".


African American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture is a 2003 book by Michael Hecht, Ronald L. Jackson II and Sidney A. Ribeau.


its interactional approach and its subject matter".


Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, authored by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Jr., is an anthropological and sociological study of the African-American urban experience in the first half of the 20th century. Published in 1945, later expanded editions added some material relating to the 1950s and 1960s. Relying on massive research conducted in Chicago, primarily as part of a Works Progress Administration program, Drake and Cayton produced, according to the "Encyclopedia of African American History", a "foundational text in African American history, cultural studies, and urban sociology."


The original text begins with an introduction by novelist Richard Wright in which he relates some of the research to the themes of his work, particularly the novel, "Native Son." The preface of the book, authored by Drake and Cayton, provides an overview of the Black Metropolis. The first section of the book then sketches the history of African-Americans in Chicago, up to the early years of the Great Migration, when millions of African-Americans left the Southern United States for Northern cities.


The book was expanded by Drake and Cayton in later editions in the 1950s and 1960s. It has been reissued by the University of Chicago Press in 1993 and 2015.


In the "American Sociological Review", Samuel Strong wrote, "[t]he style of the volume alternates between systematic analysis, literary excursions, and journalistic protest writing. In spite of any critical observations one may direct against this book, it represents a real contribution to the literature. ..." The reviewer for "The Journal of Politics", Rosalind Lepawsky, noted the breadth of the book but found it confusing, and thought it was missing an emphasis on psychology and would benefit from a more popular treatment. Carter Woodson, writing in "The Journal of Negro History", found the book a creditworthy and commendable effort.


Aimee Cox, in her 2015 study of a group black girls in Detroit, states that although she was not interested in critiquing "Black Metropolis", she denotes it as beginning a trend in urban sociology of focusing on the success of black men, and excluding black women. She also argues that the ideas of 'success' assumed in "Black Metropolis" for "advancing the race" are primarily economic and class based.


According to James N. Gregory, writing in 2007, the book emphasized physical segregation and social disorganization theory, tending to diminish the achievements of the Black community and "introduc(ing) the ghetto story that would guide (perceptions for) the next half century." Gregory also argues there is irony that the very concept of the "Black Metropolis," which had been a "celebratory terminology" among Black journalists, was eroded by the study because, in Gregory's view, the study emphasized the limits of urban Black life, rather than its achievements.


African American Review (AAR) is a scholarly aggregation of essays on African-American literature, theatre, film, the visual arts, and culture; interviews; poetry; fiction; and book reviews.


The journal has featured writers and cultural critics including Trudier Harris, Arnold Rampersad, Hortense Spillers, Amiri Baraka, Cyrus Cassells, Rita Dove, Charles Johnson, Cheryl Wall, and Toni Morrison. It is the official publication of the Modern Language Association's LLC African American. Between 1967 and 1976, the journal appeared under the title Negro American Literature Forum and until 1992 as Black American Literature Forum before obtaining its current title. It is based in St. Louis.


"AAR" has received three American Literary Magazine Awards for Editorial Content, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.


The Journal of Black Psychology is a quarterly psychology journal published by the Association of Black Psychologists. The journal publishes original research from an international array of authors in a variety of areas:


The journal was founded in 1974 and its editor-in-chief is Beverly Vandiver (Western Michigan University).


The journal is abstracted and indexed in Social Science Citation Index, Academic Search Premier, ERIC, PubMed, and PyscInfo among others.


According to "Journal Citation Reports", the journal has a 2017 impact factor of 1.551 ranking in 54 out of 135 in Psychology, Multidisciplinary.


Phylon (subtitle: "the Clark Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture") is a semi-annual peer-reviewed academic journal covering culture in the United States from an African-American perspective. It was established in 1940 by W. E. B. Du Bois, at what was then known as Atlanta University, as a magazine dedicated to race and culture. In 1957, the magazine was renamed "The Phylon Quarterly", and in 1960 it was renamed again, this time to its original title. It resumed publication in 2015 as an online-only journal, as a result of a collaboration between Atlanta University Center and Clark Atlanta University (formerly Atlanta University). The editor-in-chief is Obie Clayton (Clark Atlanta University).


Afro-Americans in New York Life and History


Afro-Americans in New York Life and History is an academic journal organized and distributed by Buffalo, New York's Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier.


Founded in 1977, the journal's mission statement informs readers that its purpose is "to publish analytical, historical, and descriptive articles dealing with the life and history of Afro-Americans in New York State." The Articles featured, deal with methodology and trends in local and regional African-American studies, historical and current. Additionally, documents are frequently published that have historical significance to the African-American in the state of New York, specifically. Finally, book reviews are published pertaining to aspects of the life, history, and culture of people of African descent and race relations.


At the time of the journal's first publication, the success of Alex Haley's novel "" (1976) had created an immense, new found interest in the African-American community for the discovery, preservation, and presentation of the often-overlooked rich cultural heritage that African Americans had established in the United States.


The plight of African Americans in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries can be connected to many different issues. The barriers of racism, economics and politics have greatly contributed to the oppression of people of color. These barriers continue to do so today. Whether purposefully or unknowingly actions in today's world due to these have left scars on society that have yet to heal. "Afro-Americans in New York Life and History" has played an important role in merging academic and community perspectives of African-American history and culture.


As of July 2013, Seneca Vaught, professor of history and African Studies at Kennesaw State University, is the journal's Editor, aided by Associate Editors Clarence Williams of CUNY, Lillian Williams of SUNY at Buffalo, and Oscar R. Williams of SUNY at Albany. A variety of scholars who are interested in furthering the field of African-American history serve as Contributing Editors.


In addition to Editorial supervision, the twenty-three member Board of Directors that oversees the Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier also has input into the operation and contents of the journal.


The issues concerning this journal are aimed towards African Americans in New York, with prevalent issues brought to light and discussed in the volumes of "Afro-Americans in New York Life and History".


In 2005, the New York Historical Society held an exhibition titled "Slavery in New York". An issue regarding "Slavery in Albany, New York" by Oscar Williams, Vol. 34, No. 2 (July 2010) emphasized that slavery was not limited to the south. In 1991, human remains by construction workers in lower Manhattan raised awareness of the African Burial Ground, where slaves in New York City were buried. Slavery was practiced into the 19th century. Most studies on slavery in New York have mentioned other New York cities sparingly. There is a failure on an understanding that slavery was widespread throughout New York. The capital, Albany, houses a special relationship of slavery beginning with the establishment of the Dutch West India Company in 1621.


The Carter G. Woodson essay contest is a scholarship awarded to students, ranging from grades 4-12, that show significant ability in writing. These essays are themed and students must be a resident from the western New York area. Cash prizes and certificates are presented to the winner. The winners' essays will be published in "Historically Speaking" and read at the African American History Program.


Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America is a 2000 book by American linguist and political commentator John McWhorter in which he argues that it is not external racial prejudice and discrimination but instead elements of black culture that are more responsible for the social problems faced by black Americans several decades after the Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, McWhorter points to anti-intellectualism, separatism, and a self-perpetuated identity of victimhood as factors limiting them as a group.


The book was a "New York Times" bestseller and received mixed reactions. McWhorter considers it the work that first made him known to larger audiences and contributed to the perception of him being a conservative commentator.


The Covenant with Black America is a 2006 political, non-fiction book edited by the American talk-show host and writer Tavis Smiley. Its theme is power relations between Black and White Americans. In 2006, the anthology was listed as The New York Times' number one bestseller. Smiley has stated that this was one of his goals for the book and by placing on the list it would make people discuss the book and its contents, as it would "force everyone to talk about it".


The book consists of a collection of ten essays written by scholars and activists who are fighting to balance the scale between White and Black America. They offer a call to action for Black Americans, filled with "practical advice", to close the gap between them and White America. The overall message of the anthology recalls the 1970s campaigns of Jesse Jackson” The anthology's ultimate goal was to help Black America gain social, economic, and political power because without that power, the disparities between Black and White America will continue to grow.


"The Covenant"s ten essays, all focused on different areas of social and political disparities, offer theories to help alleviate these disparities. Listed as "Covenants", the ten essays are as follows: “Securing the Right to Health Care and Wellbeing,” “Establishing a System of Public Education in Which All Children Achieve at High Levels and Reach Their Full Potential,” “Correcting the System of Unequal Justice,” “Fostering Accountable Community-Centered Policing,” “Ensuring Broad Access to Affordable Neighborhoods That Connect to Opportunity,” “Claiming Our Democracy,” “Strengthening Our Rural Roots,” “Accessing Good Jobs, Wealth, and Economic Prosperity,” “Assuring Environmental Justice for All,” and “Closing the Racial Digital Divide.” Cornel West concludes the book with a final call to action.


I: "Securing the Right to Health Care and Wellbeing".


As the sixteenth Surgeon General of the United States, Satcher defines health as reflective of both mind and body. In this essay, he elucidates the needs of Black America to have a culture between healthcare provider and patient; in addition, he focuses on the disproportionate representation of Black America in the healthcare system and justice system.


II: "Establishing a System of Public Education in Which All Children Achieve at High Level and Reach Their Full Potential".


Edmund Gordon illuminates, in this essay, the relationship between educational opportunity with "race, ethnicity, gender, etc." He attributes this the title of the "Black-White achievement gap."


III: "Correcting the System of Unequal Justice".


As the president (and founder) of the W. Haywood Burns Institute, an institute to help communities (like Black America) reach equality, James Bell advocates for justice within the juvenile system and adult justice system in his essay. He calls for help in liberating the members of the Black community that have been imprisoned by the "flawed justice system."


V: "Ensuring Broad Access to Affordable Neighborhoods That Connect to Opportunity".


By Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald & Sarah Bobrow-Williams.


VIII: "Accessing Good Jobs, Wealth, and Economic Prosperity".


The Journal of African American Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of African American studies. The journal is edited by Judson L. Jeffries (The Ohio State University) and published quarterly by Springer.


The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index, Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Social services abstracts, and Sociological abstracts.


The journal has a 2019 SCImago Journal Rank of 0.174.


The Journal of African American History, formerly The Journal of Negro History (1916–2001), is a quarterly academic journal covering African-American life and history. It was founded in 1916 by Carter G. Woodson. The journal is owned and overseen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and was established in 1916 by Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland. The journal publishes original scholarly articles on all aspects of the African-American experience. The journal annually publishes more than sixty (60) reviews of recently published books in the fields of African and African-American life and history. As of 2018, the "Journal" is published by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of the ASALH.


Woodson and the Journal's impact on Black History Month.


"The Journal of African American History" is owned by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In 2018, the editor V. P. Franklin, who began working for his alma mater, Harvard University along with Harvard's Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, a well-known historian in African-American studies decided to sign a deal with the University of Chicago Press to have it publish the journal on behalf of the ASLAH.


Pero. G. Dagbovie is an acclaimed history professor at Michigan State University focused primarily on black history, black women's history, and Black Power. He is also a well known author of countless books including African American History Reconsidered and the biography of Carter G. Woodson, the founder of "The Journal of African American History". Because of Dagbovie's work and his unique background on African-American history, he has been appointed as the next editor of the Journal, replacing V.P Franklin.


As mentioned above, "The Journal of African American History" was essential for starting the effort to document and fill the need for the study of black history. However, it also gave black scholars opportunities to challenge the status quo, fight stereotypes, and attempt to create a more favorable perception of African Americans. It also gave people of color the chance to publish their works and be recognized in the academic field. It really encouraged and fostered the academic success of black Americans, especially black historians.


The Journal of Negro Education is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Howard University, established in 1932 by Charles Henry Thompson, who was its editor-in-chief for more than 30 years. The journal's aim is to identify and define the problems that characterize the education of Black people in the United States and elsewhere, to provide a forum for analysis and solutions, and to serve as a vehicle for sharing statistics and research on a national basis. Ivory A. Toldson has served as editor-in-chief since 2008.


The journal lists three aims as its mission: first, to stimulate the collection and facilitate the dissemination of facts about the education of Black people; second, to present discussions involving critical appraisals of the proposals and practices relating to the education of Black people; and third, to stimulate and sponsor investigations of issues incident to the education of Black people.


Notable contributors in the fields of education, sociology, history, and other disciplines over the years have included Horace Mann Bond, Ralph J. Bunche, Kenneth B. Clark, James P. Comer, W. E. B. Du Bois, E. Franklin Frazier, Edmund W. Gordon, Robert J. Havighurst, Dorothy Height, Dwight O. W. Holmes, Charles S. Johnson, Alain Locke, Thurgood Marshall, Benjamin E. Mays, James Nabrit, Jr., Dorothy B. Porter, and others.


The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore


The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore is a three-volume set of books published in December 2005 by Greenwood Press. It contains roughly 700 alphabetically arranged entries by more than 100 contributors. It serves as a comprehensive overview of all aspects of African-American folklore, including folktales, music, foodways, spiritual beliefs, and art.


"The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore" is unique in being the definitive encyclopedia relating to African-American traditions, background, and mores; a comprehensive overview of African-American culture and folklore. It contains alphabetically arranged entries and expert contributors on topics such as folktales, music, art, foodways, spiritual beliefs, proverbs, and many other subjects. Entries cite works for further reading and the encyclopedia concludes with a bibliography of major works.


The set of books also gives attention to the Caribbean and African roots of traditional African-American culture. The three volumes are intended to help scholars and students understand the heart of African-American culture and provides a comprehensive context for African-American history, literature, music, and art.


"The fact that more than 100 entries are devoted to scholars and collectors, among them Imamu Amiri Baraka, Zora Neale Hurston, and Melville J. Herskovits, supports a statement Prahlad makes in the introduction. The encyclopedia seeks 'to provide a significant overview of the current study of African American folklore... [This] first comprehensive general reference work' on African American folklore is highly recommended for academic and public libraries."


"The multidisciplinary nature of folklore studies is reflected in the list of 140 or so primarily academic contributors, whose areas of expertise include art, literature, anthropology, religion, and more...(the entries) make fascinating reading on topics as diverse as samba, the Sea Islands, sermons, Tupac Shakur, Stagolee, and the steel pan drum..."


The Nigger Bible is a book by Robert H. deCoy, originally self-published by deCoy and then reissued by Holloway House in 1967, and again in 1972 (). Described as a "key statement" in the Black Power movement, it is a social and linguistic analysis of the word "nigger" and of the origins and contemporary circumstances of the black peoples of America.


The form is varied and might be described as a series of reflections. In the preface, Dick Gregory (whose autobiography was entitled "Nigger") writes: "In abolishing and rejecting the Caucasian-Christian philosophical and literary forms while recording his 'Black Experiences,' this writer has removed himself from their double-standard, hypocritical frames of reference".


It attempts to tease apart the cultural, philosophical, and scriptural origins of what the author calls an "Alabaster Man", one that experienced the conclusions and prejudices at the root of their oppression. It examines, among other texts, the Christian bible and its terminology. the book explores the power of words, and re-interprets and critiques core western religious and philosophical constructs, including those that are central to much of the modern African-American religious experience. In one of the chapters he discusses "the genealogy of Jody Grind"; Eugene B. Redmond remarks deCoy is one of many African-American writers who "continues a tradition by seeking out folk epics and ballads as sources of poetry".


DeCoy re-examines the word "nigger", demystifies it, and attempts to embed critical thinking skills about black personality types and categories. The author deconstructs the Christianity of "Niggers" (including, in his view, Black Muslims) as well as the values of the New Left. The book contains an analysis of the cultural and racial significance of Mardi Gras.


DeCoy also published "Cold Black Preach" (1971, ). "The Black Scholar" summarized: "Noted author of the explosive best seller "The Nigger Bible" takes on the black preaching establishment".


The Minds of Marginalized Black Men is a non-fiction book written by Alford A. Young Jr. Young explores the lives of impoverished young black men living in the near New West Side of Chicago, Illinois, in order to get a better understanding of how they view their lives and what they want for their futures. The book was first published in 2004 by Princeton University Press.


The book received a generally positive reception, garnering reviews from academic journals including "Contemporary Sociology", "Gender & Society", "Journal of Urban Affairs", and the "American Journal of Sociology".


Larry - A 24-year-old male who has never held a full-time job for longer than a month or two. Because he cannot find and hold a job he still lives at home with his parents and siblings.


Devin - A 21-year-old active gang member who is on parole for possession of narcotics. He has been a part of many illicit activities such as selling drugs and theft. Devin has never held any form of a job in his life.


Casey - A 25-year-old ex-convict who just got out of drug rehabilitation for an addiction that started when he was a teenager. He had a job as a bag boy at a local supermarket but besides that the majority of his income came from hustling and drug dealing.


Lester - Grew up with both parents, and had a plan to excel in his future. Unfortunately his parents were criminals, and once his father was incarcerated he had to stop focusing on school and start focusing on survival. It was then that he resorted to becoming a drug dealer.


Earl - Comes from a family that was unfamiliar with college because nobody was fortunate enough to have experienced it. He moved to Near West from Mississippi, and was often teased and picked on as an adolescent. Eventually Earl found a sense of security from being an outsider by joining a gang.


Jake - Was one of few to receive his high school diploma. Unfortunately, college was out of the question as his family did not have the finances to help him out. Eventually Jake fell into the easy money-making system of drug dealing.


Barry - He stayed away from gangs growing up, and was able to receive his high school diploma, but he got caught up in drug dealing to make quick and easy cash during the summer shortly following his graduation. He eventually stopped when the police were catching on to him, and drug dealing gangs wanted him dead.


Donald - Worked many different jobs during his adolescent years, but was unable to keep any of them for very long. Eventually being desperate for money led him down the path of drug dealing.


Gus - A high school football star who had plans to participate in the army. Unfortunately his addiction to cocaine hurt his athleticism, and got him kicked out of the military. He eventually came back to Near West, where he began dealing drugs.


Tito - A survivor of Near West Side who was able to work with a moving company for a short period of time. Eventually he began gangbanging, and was incarcerated.


Introduction - Making New Sense of Poor Black Men in Crisis


The introduction gives insight on what is to come later in the book. It also describes the setting and how Young did his research.


Young conducted his research in several public housing developments in the Near West Side of Chicago. Young describes the area as "geographically and socially isolated from downtown Chicago and the opulent western suburbs, and resembles a holding pen for the economically immobile."


The first development that Young went to was the Governor Henry Horner Homes. The development had "19 buildings with 1,774 units, almost all of which are occupied by African Americans." In these households over 85% received public assistance, and only 8% were able to be supported by the employment of a member of the household.


The second development was the ABLA homes located one and a half miles away from the Henry Horner Homes. This development contains 160 buildings with 3,505 units and, like the Henry Horner homes, is almost all African-American. ABLA occupants do a little better financially, with 75% needing public assistance and just over 8% able to support themselves.


The second half of the introduction talks about what made Young want to research and write this book and what the main themes of the book are. Young says that the main goal of this book is to "uncover these men's worldviews on issues such as mobility, opportunity, and future life chances." The book is not about what was going through these men's heads when they were dealing drugs or carrying a firearm but instead about how they view their place in American society and what they think about their futures.


Chapter 1 - The Past and Future of the Cultural Analysis of Black Men


Chapter 1 starts off by going into the idea of "the crisis of the black male", which is the idea that the rate of crime and incarceration among blacks is directly connected to their high rate of unemployment. Young attributes the crisis to two key factors: structural factors such as race-based residential segregations and mobility prospect, and cultural factors such as attitudes and behaviors that prevent acceptance into the work world.


Young then talks about how most research on poor black males only focuses on behavioral traits and their value systems. He says that good research would also include a deep analysis of how these men create their worldviews and beliefs regarding the present and future. Cultural analysis is the topic of a huge debate right now. On one side "the debate asks whether black men adopt or promote distinct cultural patters that contribute to, if not cause altogether, their demise."


The other side questions "whether these men, who are taken to be cultural actors in the ways that other groups of Americans are, might simply experience unique life circumstances and conditions that overdetermine the social outcomes comprising their everyday lives." Young then finishes off the chapter talking about "social isolation" which is the idea that these poor young black men are unable to get jobs because their class standing keeps them away from mainstream society. They are isolated from the areas where the jobs and opportunities are.


Chapter 2 - Time, Space, and Everyday Living


Chapter 2 looks at the everyday lives of these men. Uncertainty is a common feeling for them because each day they must worry about whether they will have a job or even make it through the day. One thing in this chapter that really surprised Young was the men's inability to manage time. They would show up late, extremely early, or even on the wrong days to interviews. These men do not have to deal with appointments on an everyday basis because on the majority of their days they have nothing to do, so they do not know how to handle appointments.


Young brings up the concept of "Habitus", which is a "system of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them." Essentially, the way people think and act is related to the social constraints and structures around them.


Young gives the example of how the use of violence in order to defend oneself is a justifiable in certain situations. Young was surprised by how much these people have to deal with violence. He talks about how in most communities violence is rare but in the Near West Side it has become part of the daily lives of the people. Most people only feel unsafe when they go out late at night but people in the Near West Side fear violence all day, even in their own homes.


Coming Up Poor addresses the issue of young African-American men developing their futures through the obstacles of growing up in Near West Side. The most common obstacles that most of the men experienced were the lack of decent finances, a father figure, a sense of security, and the proper information to lead them to college. Young men are interviewed and asked to describe what it was like trying to grow up in the community and what kind of support they received from their family to pursue an education beyond high school.


Some parents overprotected their children to the point where the children would sneak out to the streets and be exposed to gang violence. One often found a sense of safety and security only in joining a gang to avoid being the recipient of a soft reputation. To find security in the streets one had to gain the respect of one's peers. When kids are bullying, stealing, and dealing drugs when in elementary school, the future for that generation is limited to those who can stay away and deal with the conflicts another way. The local high school had an enrollment of 97 percent African Americans, and during the 1980s the percent who received a high school diploma only ranged from 15 percent to no more than 30 percent.


The high school could not provide what one would call a safe and educational learning environment for many different reasons. During daily instruction students would have to halt their studies and duck beneath their desks because of gunfire in the streets. With instability such as this one can only imagine the quality of an education that a student could receive, which is why the percent of students who went on to attend college ranged from 10 percent to no more than 40 percent. This does not mean that those eligible to go to college were able to afford it, considering that 95 percent of the students came from low-income families that needed financial assistance to survive.


Once these boys became men and were still stuck in the city, they believed that they had survived the most challenging part of growing up. Now they were off to the workforce, where many were unable to keep steady jobs. With the morals and mindsets that the men had acquired growing up, they faced difficulty keeping their jobs as they valued the respect of their employees more than the importance of getting the job done. The men are extremely affected by their adolescent years and are now struggling to provide for children of their own. This cycle seems to continue as the elders always stress the importance of a quality education; the only challenge is learning how to get it.


Chapter 4 - Framing Social Reality: Stratification and Inequality


Chapter 4 focuses on determining what the men's interpretive thoughts are on characteristics of society such as power, hierarchy, and social relations across race and class lines. The author mainly focuses on each of the men's personal experiences. By analyzing their differences in opinions, the author strives to figure out how differences in personal experiences connect to the kinds of interpretations that the men have.


Donald, another man who was interviewed, had a completely different outlook on these questions. Donald grew up working small jobs at a variety of businesses and although he was not a part of the wealthier society, he viewed it from his position. He stated that he witnessed racism and discrimination all the time, and he believes that was why he was fired from some of his jobs. He believes that as long as there are different wealth classes these unfortunate aspects of society are always going to remain.


Chapter 5 - Framing Individual Mobility and Attainment


Chapter 5 addresses the recurring thoughts about how low-income African-American men make sense of mobility and attainment in American society. Its main focus is to help determining what we can do to enhance these men's thoughts on advancement in society. Through the information acquired during the interviews, it seems as though the men's ability to imagine aspects of life that are present further out in society such as mobility barriers and discrimination are often limited by what they have experienced in Near West Side.


The men were asked about their thoughts of mobility and attainment in the country, and they were mostly split into two categories. Those who knew little about it and did not have much to say, and those who had passionate responses towards why they believed there were barriers and discrimination in society. Half of the men had not been fortunate enough to have a job because of their lack of motivation or qualifications.


These men who had always been unemployed were least likely to speak of the role that outside forces play in shaping a person's chances in life. On the other hand, the men that were a part of some sort of employment had completely different thoughts on mobility and attainment. Often, the men with more work experience had experienced social conflicts themselves and were able to talk thoroughly about their beliefs on how the role of external factors affect an individual's chances in life.


Chapter 6 - Looking Up from Below: Framing Personal Reality


Chapter 6 focuses on self-identification: discovering and stating who you are as a person; understanding what you want your mission in life and goals to be; and how to mobilize oneself in society in order to achieve these goals. Different aspects of the stereotypical ideal future or "good life" are mentioned. This ideal future mentioned touches on the three spheres of life: work, home, and individual well-being. In this stage of self-identification, a specific profession is not addressed; instead the goal is to attain whatever fits the individual's definition of a well-paying job.


There is a strong emphasis on personal mobility and opportunity as the basis for aspirations or the 'ideal" future. The author touches on the essential points of using any resources that are possible in order to mobilize yourself on a small scale, and to in time give yourself and opportunity on a larger scale. An example given is of Arthur working at a liquor store to get an idea of how to set up his own business. The author analyzes the men's lack of social capital in the world of work, and says the men are disadvantaged in the human capital of strategic skills and talents.


The world of work is shown as a world of education, brainpower, skill, and credentials, which are resources for success in the working world. The attributes of strength and physical stamina have very little importance in the white-collar environment. The author notes that the men's perceptions of their own skills would limit them to minimally skilled positions.


Chapter 7 - Getting There: Navigating Personal Mobility


Chapter 7 focuses on aspects of personal mobility, personal impediments to getting ahead, and the special place of race in class. Chapter seven briefly touches on and concludes the men's discussion on the modern-day America and the American Dream. They touch on the emphasizing factors of discipline, hard work, education, and motivation.


The men believe that a high school diploma is a bare essential towards minimal success in the working world, but that the only useful education was direct training to one's career interests. The men then move on to confronting and acknowledging their own self-induced barriers. Men like Gus and Casey talk about their struggles with substance abuse, and the problems that it caused for them regarding motivation and finding work.


The men who had been previously incarcerated such as Devin, Earl, Lester, and Casey, talk about the difficulty of finding work with a criminal record. The men then discuss the difficulty of personal mobility. They discuss how being African-American puts them in a lower class, with fewer resources and opportunities, thus making it harder for them to mobilize and to make something of themselves.


Chapter 8 - Recasting the Crisis of Poor Black Men


Chapter 8 starts off with some funny yet interesting words from a man by the name of Vance Smith. Smith said: "That's retarded to think that [black men do not know how to take control of their lives]. People actually think like that? I mean, people with Ph.D's and shit." People who think that black men cannot be responsible for their lives are extremely wrong. This book has shown us that these poor black men have plans to improve themselves and have hopes and dreams they just lack the skills and capital to better themselves. They are many things that need to be done before these people can live better lives.


A key one would be a stable labor market with good job training. But the likelihood of that happening is small because the majority of people view this community with the idea of "three strikes and you're out." That these people had their chance and chose to cheat and therefore put themselves in the situation that they are in and we should not have to help them. The last main point in the book is that as times change and their situation changes the way researchers and people view that area needs to change with it otherwise they will never be able to get out of the hole that they are in.


The Rich and the Rest of Us


The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto is a 2012 political, non-fiction book written by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. The book examines poverty in America and how to eliminate it.


Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America is a 2017 non-fiction book by Michael Eric Dyson.


A look into the state of race relations in the United States, delivered as "a hard-hitting sermon on the racial divide, directed specifically to a white congregation."


The book grapples with the social construct of "whiteness" and challenges the readers to "reject the willful denial of history and to live fully in the complicated present with all of the discomfort it brings." Dyson's 'sermon' addresses "five dysfunctional ways that those regarded as white respond when confronted with the reality that whiteness is simultaneously artificial and powerful," as well as "dysfunctional ways that black people sometimes respond to white racism."


Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed or discounted.


Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution is a history book by Simon Schama. It was the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award winner for general nonfiction. A 2007 drama-documentary television programme was based on it.


"Rough Crossings" gives an account of the history of thousands of African-American slaves who escaped slavery in the American colonies to fight for the British cause during the American Revolutionary War. It tells of the legal battles which established that slavery was not valid in England itself, and how the British government offered freedom to enslaved African Americans if they would fight for Britain and King George III. The book discusses the many ambiguities involved—some white Loyalists were slaveowners, some blacks were recruited for the War of Independence.


"Rough Crossings" then follows the fate of the Black Loyalists after the war's end, who, following the British defeat, were sent to Nova Scotia (then still a colony within British North America), where they received a cold welcome, including suffering the first race riots on the continent. Some remained in Nova Scotia, but others returned to Africa to settle in what was to become Sierra Leone. The descendants of those who settled in Freetown are part of the Sierra Leone Creole people, with strong ancestral ties with the United States, the Caribbean, and Canada.


The early chapters of Rough Crossings still bear traces of the television habit - the scene-setting rhetoric, a tendency to over-emphasis [sic] vivid 'moments', precise character thumbnail ... As the book weaves through London, America, Nova Scotia and Africa, though, Schama's technique relaxes, to be laid, most strikingly, at the service of the book's black characters. ... At the end of this immaculately controlled, brave and important work, only the most callous of readers could fail to shed a tear.


James Walvin, in his "Guardian" review, stated:


Parts of the story have been well rehearsed by earlier historians, but never like this. One of Schama's great talents is the ability to fit together distinct episodes into a much broader and more telling narrative. He also brings to the story his characteristic flair and historical imagination.


"The New York Times" Brent Staples praised the book as well, describing it as "a stirringly ambitious reconsideration of the Revolution with the question of slavery set at the very heart of the matter".


In 2007, BBC Two aired the drama-documentary "Rough Crossings", based on Schama's book. A reviewer stated that the "success of this endeavour is unfortunately limited as the programme fails to inform its audience which this history should be remembered apart from its perceived strangeness and neglect". "The programme's weakness in delivering an effective message is also let down in its use of Schama's pieces to camera and the dramatic reconstructions of the story." The two halves of the production, with "different styles", "do not sit well together".


It was released to DVD by BBC Home Entertainment.


In 2007, Headlong Theatre produced a stage adaptation, adapted by Caryl Phillips, which toured the UK. "The British Theatre Guide" review stated, "This play attempts to take a big book with many strands and meld them into a satisfying three hour play", but "is too diffuse to make for a coherent drama".


I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings


I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a mother at the age of 16. In the course of "Caged Bird", Maya transforms from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to prejudice.


Angelou was challenged by her friend, author James Baldwin, and her editor, Robert Loomis, to write an autobiography that was also a piece of literature. Reviewers often categorize "Caged Bird" as autobiographical fiction because Angelou uses thematic development and other techniques common to fiction, but the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography, a genre she attempts to critique, change, and expand. The book covers topics common to autobiographies written by black American women in the years following the Civil Rights Movement: a celebration of black motherhood; a critique of racism; the importance of family; and the quest for independence, personal dignity, and self-definition.


"Caged Bird" was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and remained on "The New York Times" paperback bestseller list for two years. It has been used in educational settings from high schools to universities, and the book has been celebrated for creating new literary avenues for the American memoir. However, the book's graphic depiction of childhood rape, racism, and sexuality has caused it to be challenged or banned in some schools and libraries.


When selecting a title, Angelou turned to Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet whose works she had admired for years. Jazz vocalist and civil rights activist Abbey Lincoln suggested the title. According to Lyman B. Hagen, the title pulls Angelou's readers into the book while reminding them that it is possible to both lose control of one's life and to have one's freedom taken from them. Angelou has credited Dunbar, along with Shakespeare, with forming her "writing ambition". The title of the book comes from the third stanza of Dunbar's poem "Sympathy":


I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,When he beats his bars and would be free;It is not a carol of joy or glee,But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings – I know why the caged bird sings.


"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" follows Marguerite's (called "My" or "Maya" by her brother) life from the age of three to seventeen and the struggles she faces – particularly with racism – in the Southern United States. Abandoned by their parents, Maya and her older brother Bailey are sent to live with their paternal grandmother (Momma) and disabled uncle (Uncle Willie) in Stamps, Arkansas. Maya and Bailey are haunted by their parents' abandonment throughout the book – they travel alone and are labeled like baggage.


A turning point in the book occurs when Maya and Bailey's father unexpectedly appears in Stamps. He takes the two children with him when he departs, but leaves them with their mother in St. Louis, Missouri. Eight-year-old Maya is sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. He is found guilty during the trial, but escapes jail time and is murdered, presumably by Maya's uncles. Maya feels guilty and withdraws from everyone but her brother. Even after returning to Stamps, Maya remains reclusive and nearly mute until she meets Mrs. Bertha Flowers, "the aristocrat of Black Stamps," who encourages her through books and communication to regain her voice and soul. This coaxes Maya out of her shell.


Later, Momma decides to send her grandchildren to their mother in San Francisco, California, to protect them from the dangers of racism in Stamps. Maya attends George Washington High School and studies dance and drama on a scholarship at the California Labor School. Before graduating, she becomes the first Black female cable car conductor in San Francisco. While still in high school, Maya visits her father in southern California one summer and has some experiences pivotal to her development. She drives a car for the first time when she must transport her intoxicated father home from an excursion to Mexico. She experiences homelessness for a short time after a fight with her father's girlfriend.


During Maya's final year of high school, she worries that she might be a lesbian (which she confuses due to her sexual inexperience with the belief that lesbians are also hermaphrodites). She ultimately initiates sexual intercourse with a teenage boy. She becomes pregnant, which on the advice of her brother, she hides from her family until her eighth month of pregnancy in order to graduate from high school. Maya gives birth at the end of the book.


Angelou's prose works, while presenting a unique interpretation of the autobiographical form, can be placed in the long tradition of African-American autobiography. Her use of fiction-writing techniques such as dialogue, characterization, and thematic development, however, often lead reviewers to categorize her books, including "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", as autobiographical fiction. Other critics, like Lupton, insist that Angelou's books should be categorized as autobiographies because they conform to the genre's standard structure: they are written by a single author, they are chronological, and they contain elements of character, technique, and theme. In a 1983 interview with African-American literature critic Claudia Tate, Angelou calls her books autobiographies.


"Caged Bird" has been called "perhaps the most aesthetically satisfying autobiography written in the years immediately following the Civil Rights era". Critic Pierre A. Walker expresses a similar sentiment, and places it in the African-American literature tradition of political protest. Angelou demonstrates, through her involvement with the Black community of Stamps, as well as her presentation of vivid and realistic racist characters and "the vulgarity of white Southern attitudes toward African Americans", her developing understanding of the rules for surviving in a racist society. Angelou's autobiographies, beginning with "Caged Bird", contain a sequence of lessons about resisting oppression. The sequence she describes leads Angelou, as the protagonist, from "helpless rage and indignation to forms of subtle resistance, and finally to outright and active protest".


Walker insists that Angelou's treatment of racism is what gives her autobiographies their thematic unity and underscores one of their central themes: the injustice of racism and how to fight it. For example, in Angelou's depiction of the "powhitetrash" incident, Maya reacts with rage, indignation, humiliation, and helplessness, but Momma teaches her how they can maintain their personal dignity and pride while dealing with racism, and that it is an effective basis for actively protesting and combating racism. Walker calls Momma's way a "strategy of subtle resistance" and McPherson calls it "the dignified course of silent endurance".


Angelou's description of being raped as an eight-year-old child overwhelms the autobiography, although it is presented briefly in the text. Scholar Mary Vermillion compares Angelou's treatment of rape to that of Harriet Jacobs in her autobiography "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl". Jacobs and Angelou both use rape as a metaphor for the suffering of African Americans; Jacobs uses the metaphor to critique slaveholding culture, while Angelou uses it to first internalize, then challenge, twentieth-century racist conceptions of the Black female body (namely, that the Black female is physically unattractive). Rape, according to Vermillion, "represents the black girl's difficulties in controlling, understanding, and respecting both her body and her words".


Angelou was also powerfully affected by slave narratives, spirituals, poetry, and other autobiographies. Angelou read through the Bible twice as a young child, and memorized many passages from it. African-American spirituality, as represented by Angelou's grandmother, has influenced all of Angelou's writings, in the activities of the church community she first experiences in Stamps, in the sermonizing, and in scripture. Hagen goes on to say that in addition to being influenced by rich literary form, Angelou has also been influenced by oral traditions. In "Caged Bird", Mrs. Flowers encourages her to listen carefully to "Mother Wit", which Hagen defines as the collective wisdom of the African-American community as expressed in folklore and humor.


"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is the most highly acclaimed of Angelou's autobiographies. The other volumes in her series of seven autobiographies are judged and compared to "Caged Bird." It became a bestseller immediately after it was published. Angelou's friend and mentor, James Baldwin, maintained that her book "liberates the reader into life" and called it "a Biblical study of life in the midst of death". According to Angelou's biographers, "Readers, especially women, and in particular Black women, took the book to heart".


By the end of 1969, critics had placed Angelou in the tradition of other Black autobiographers. Poet James Bertolino asserts that "Caged Bird" "is one of the essential books produced by our culture". He insists that "[w]e should all read it, especially our children". It was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970, has never been out of print, and has been published in many languages. It has been a Book of the Month Club selection and an Ebony Book Club selection. In 2011, "Time Magazine" placed the book in its list of 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923.


Critic Robert A. Gross called "Caged Bird" "a "tour de force" of language". Edmund Fuller insisted that Angelou's intellectual range and artistry were apparent in how she told her story. "Caged Bird" catapulted Angelou to international fame and critical acclaim, was a significant development in Black women's literature in that it "heralded the success of other now prominent writers". Other reviewers have praised Angelou's use of language in the book, including critic E. M. Guiney, who reported that "Caged Bird" was "one of the best autobiographies of its kind that I have read". Critic R. A. Gross praised Angelou for her use of rich and dazzling images.


Educator Daniel Challener, in his 1997 book "Stories of Resilience in Childhood", analyzed the events in "Caged Bird" to illustrate resiliency in children. Challener states that Angelou's book provides a useful framework for exploring the obstacles many children like Maya face and how a community helps these children succeed as Angelou did. Psychologist Chris Boyatzis has used "Caged Bird" to supplement scientific theory and research in the instruction of child development topics such as the development of self-concept and self-esteem, ego resilience, industry versus inferiority, effects of abuse, parenting styles, sibling and friendship relations, gender issues, cognitive development, puberty, and identity formation in adolescence. He has called the book a highly effective tool for providing real-life examples of these psychological concepts.


"Caged Bird" has been criticized by many parents, causing it to be removed from school curricula and library shelves. The book was approved to be taught in public schools and was placed in public school libraries through the U.S. in the early-1980s, and was included in advanced placement and gifted student curricula, but attempts by parents to censor it began in 1983. It has been challenged in fifteen U.S. states. Educators have responded to these challenges by removing it from reading lists and libraries, by providing students with alternatives, and by requiring parental permission from students. Some have been critical of its sexually explicit scenes, use of language, and irreverent religious depictions.


"Caged Bird" appeared third on the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000, sixth on the ALA's 2000–2009 list, and one of the ten books most frequently banned from high school and junior high school libraries and classrooms.


The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, is an autobiography by science fiction author Samuel R. Delany in which he recounts his experiences as growing up as a gay African American man, as well as some of his time in an interracial and open marriage with Marilyn Hacker. It describes encounters with Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Stokely Carmichael and Stormé DeLarverie, a dinner with W. H. Auden, and a phone call to James Baldwin.


Among many cultural events of the decade that he witnessed, Delany recounts his attendance at the first New York City performance of artist Allan Kaprow's "18 Happenings in 6 Parts", the 1959 performance piece that, for many, marks the end of modernism and the beginning of postmodernism. In section 17.4 of the University of Minnesota Press edition, he describes the event and its venue, and speculates on its artistic significance. The introduction puts an emphasis on the idea of the unreliable narrator; Delany's accounts often contrast his life as it "felt" to ways in which it actually occurred.


Hazel Carby called it one of two contemporary autobiographies that are "absolutely central to any consideration of black manhood" (the other being that of Miles Davis).


In the chapter, "The Future Is in the Present" of the book "Cruising Utopia" by José Esteban Munoz, Delany's "The Motion of Light in the Water" serves to explain how the future, as a formed of utopia, can be "glimpsed" in the present through what Delany employed as "the massed bodies" of sexual dissidence.


Masha Gessen in O, The Oprah Magazine selected this title as a pick for the "Best LGBTQ Books of All Time," describing it as "a textbook in observing the self, thinking about sex and love, and the best writing manual I know."


The first edition is subtitled "1957–1965", the revised 1993 edition is subtitled "1960–1965".


Live from Death Row, published in May 1995, is a memoir by Mumia Abu-Jamal, an American journalist and activist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is known for having been convicted of the murder of a city police officer and sentenced to death in 1982, in a trial that Amnesty International suspected of lacking impartiality. Abu-Jamal wrote this book while on death row. He has always maintained his innocence. Publishers Addison-Wesley paid Abu-Jamal a $30,000 advance for the book.


Reports that Abu-Jamal would be paid for the book resulted in protests. In a case decided in Federal appeals court, it ruled that he had the right to be paid for commentary and writings. This is the first of several books that he has published which were completed in prison. His sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole in 2011, after he had been held for 29 years on death row.


A former Black Panther, Abu-Jamal recalls some of his past experiences with the organization; his one-time role as bodyguard for Huey P. Newton, whom he regards as a hero; the feuding between the Newton-led West Coast members and the Eldridge Cleaver-led East Coast and, ultimately, its decline. He recounts his protest of a George Wallace rally with three other black teens, their subsequent beatings at the hands of white attendees, and his appeal for help to a police officer. The man kicked him in the face while he was on the ground.


Abu-Jamiah frequently refers to the MOVE organization, its founder John Africa, and the massacre of 11 people (5 of them children) in a bombing attack on May 13, 1985 and fire caused by the Philadelphia Police Department. He compares this to the Waco siege, which resulted in 82 deaths. He also explores the 1992 trial of Los Angeles officers for the beating of Rodney King, and riots in the city after the officers were acquitted. He said that he believed each of the indicted officers had their constitutional right of double jeopardy violated by being twice put on trial for the same offense.


Abu-Jamal structures the book as anecdotes, most exploring the prison system. In an end section titled "Musings, memories, and prophecies", he discusses past events in his life, and he commemorates some prominent black people in America.


Abu-Jamal had started providing commentaries to Prison Radio and other outlets. Addison-Wesley paid Abu-Jamal a $30,000 advance for the book.


The notoriety of Abu-Jamal for his case and protests related to his book deal resulted in considerable coverage of this book at publication.


Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave


Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.


"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" encompasses eleven chapters that recount Douglass's life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man. It contains two introductions by well-known white abolitionists: a preface by William Lloyd Garrison, and a letter by Wendell Phillips, both arguing for the veracity of the account and the literacy of its author.


Douglass begins by explaining that he does not know the date of his birth (he later chose February 14, 1818), and that his mother died when he was 7 years old. He has very few memories of her (children were commonly separated from their mothers), only of the rare nighttime visit. He thinks his father is a white man, possibly his owner. At a very early age he sees his Aunt Hester being whipped. Douglass details the cruel interaction that occurs between slaves and slaveholders, as well as how slaves are supposed to behave in the presence of their masters, and even when Douglass says that fear is what kept many slaves what they were, for when they told the truth they were punished by their owners.


At the age of ten or eleven, Douglass's master dies and his property is left to be divided between the master's son and daughter. The slaves are valued along with the livestock, causing Douglass to develop a new hatred of slavery. He feels lucky when he is sent back to Baltimore to live with the family of Master Hugh.


He is then moved through a few situations before he is sent to St. Michael's. His regret at not having attempted to run away is evident, but on his voyage he makes a mental note that he traveled in the North-Easterly direction and considers this information to be of extreme importance. For some time, he lives with Master Thomas Auld who is particularly cruel, even after attending a Methodist camp. Douglass is pleased when he eventually is lent to Mr. Covey for a year, simply because he would be fed. Mr. Covey is known as a "negro-breaker", who breaks the will of slaves.


Giant Steps: The Autobiography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bantam Books, 1983) is a best-selling book by basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Written with former "Crawdaddy" magazine editor Peter Knobler, it covers Abdul-Jabbar's career, his conversion to Islam, his social growth, and his feelings about American racial politics. The title "Giant Steps" pays tribute to the 1960 album of the same name by jazz musician John Coltrane.


Gather Together in My Name (1974) is a memoir by American writer and poet Maya Angelou. It is the second book in Angelou's series of seven autobiographies. The book begins immediately following the events described in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", and follows Angelou, called Rita, from the ages of 17 to 19. Written three years after "Caged Bird", the book "depicts a single mother's slide down the social ladder into poverty and crime." The title of the book is taken from the Bible, but it also conveys how one black female lived in the white-dominated society of the U.S. following the Second World War.


Angelou expands upon many themes that she started discussing in her first autobiography, including motherhood and family, racism, identity, education and literacy. Rita becomes closer to her mother in this book, and goes through a variety of jobs and relationships as she tries to provide for her young son and find her place in the world. Angelou continues to discuss racism in "Gather Together", but moves from speaking for all Black women to describing how one young woman dealt with it. The book exhibits the narcissism of young people, but describes how Rita discovers her identity. Like many of Angelou's autobiographies, "Gather Together" is concerned with Angelou's on-going self-education.


"Gather Together" was not as critically acclaimed as Angelou's first autobiography, but received mostly positive reviews and was recognized as being better written than its predecessor. The book's structure, consisting of a series of episodes tied together by theme and content, parallels the chaos of adolescence, which some critics feel makes it an unsatisfactory sequel to "Caged Bird". Rita's many physical movements throughout the book, which affects the book's organization and quality, has caused at least one critic to call it a travel narrative.


The title of "Gather Together" is inspired by Matthew 18:19-20: "Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (King James Version). While Angelou acknowledged the title's biblical origin, she also stated that the title counteracted the tendency of many adults to lie to their children about their pasts. Scholar Sondra O'Neale states that the title is "a New Testament injunction for the traveling soul to pray and commune while waiting patiently for deliverance".


Critic Hilton Als believes that the title of this book may have an additional significance. A prevailing theme in "Gather Together" is how one Black female was able to survive in the wider context of post-war America, but it also speaks for all Black women, and how they came to survive in a white-dominated society. Critic Selwyn R. Cudjoe agrees: "The incidents in the book appear merely gathered together in the name of Maya Angelou".


The book opens in the years following World War II. Angelou, still known as "Marguerite," or "Rita," has just given birth to her son Clyde, and is living with her mother and stepfather in San Francisco. The book follows Marguerite from the ages of 17 to 19, through a series of relationships, occupations, and cities as she attempts to raise her son and to find her place in the world. It continues exploring the themes of Angelou's isolation and loneliness begun in her first volume, and the ways she overcomes racism, sexism, and her continued victimization.


Rita goes from job to job and from relationship to relationship, hoping that "my charming prince was going to appear out of the blue". "My fantasies were little different than any other girl of my age", Angelou wrote. "He would come. He would. Just walk into my life, see me and fall everlastingly in love ... I looked forward to a husband who would love me ethereally, spiritually, and on rare (but beautiful) occasions, physically".


Another event of note described in the book was, in spite of "the strangest audition", her short stint dancing and studying dance with her partner, R. L. Poole, who became her lover until he reunited with his previous partner, ending Rita's show business career for the time being.


The end of the book finds Rita defeated by life: "For the first time I sat down defenseless to await life's next assault". The book ends with an encounter with a drug addict who cared enough for her to show her the effects of his drug habit, which galvanizes her to reject drug addiction and to make something of her life for her and her son.


Halfway through "Gather Together", an incident occurs that demonstrates the different ways in which Rita and her grandmother handle racism. Rita, when she is insulted by white clerk during a visit to Stamps, reacts with defiance, but when Momma hears about the confrontation, she slaps Rita and sends her back to California. Rita feels that her personhood was being violated, but the practical Momma knows that her granddaughter's behavior was dangerous. Rita's grandmother is no longer an important influence on her life, and Angelou demonstrates that she had to move on in the fight against racism.


"Gather Together in My Name" was not as critically acclaimed as Angelou's first autobiography, but received mostly positive reviews and was recognized as better written. "Atlantic Monthly's" reviewer said that the book was "excellently written". and "Choice Magazine" called Angelou a "fine story teller". Cudjoe calls the book "neither politically nor linguistically innocent". Although Cudjoe finds "Gather Together" a weaker autobiography compared to "Caged Bird", he states that Angelou's use of language is "the work's saving grace", and that it contains "a much more consistent and sustained flow of eloquent and honey-dipped writing".


Rita's many physical movements throughout the book causes Hagen to call it a travel narrative. According to Lupton, this movement also affects the book's organization and quality, making it a less satisfactory sequel to "Caged Bird". Angelou has responded to this criticism by stating that she attempted to capture "the episodic, erratic nature of adolescence" as she experienced this period in her life. McPherson agreed, states that "Gather Together's" structure is more complex than "Caged Bird". Angelou's style in "Gather Together" is more mature and simplified, which allows her to better convey emotion and insight through, as McPherson described it, "sharp and vivid word images".


The Bond is an American autobiography published on October 4, 2007 and aimed at young adults. It was written by The Three Doctors. It was their third published novel and is a "New York Times" bestseller, making it the third time that The Three Doctors had a bestselling book.


The novel is narrated by each doctor. Each doctor shares their experiences, separately, in each chapter.


The novel is about each of the doctors, who grow up without fathers and share their feelings with the reader. They give the reader advice about how to deal with the situation and how to handle their pain.


An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China is a memoir by Corporal Clarence Adams posthumously published by the University of Massachusetts Press and edited by Della Adams and Louis H. Carlson.


Five other American servicemen are known to have defected to North Korea after the war. They are:


Playing Hurt: My Journey from Despair to Hope is a memoir written by John Saunders with bestselling author John U. Bacon, published posthumously on August 8, 2017.


The foreword was written by Mitch Albom.


"Playing Hurt" debuted on the "New York Times" bestseller list. The book has received positive reviews and Saunders has received praise for his openness and authenticity, with "Awful Announcing" calling it an "important, enlightening read." The "Washington Post" described the book as, "dark, edgy, revelatory and quite sad."


Blood Done Sign My Name (2004) is a historical memoir written by Timothy B. Tyson. He explores the 1970 murder of Henry D. Marrow, a black man in Tyson's then home town of Oxford, North Carolina. The murder is described as the result of the complicated collision of the Black Power movement and the white backlash against public school integration and other changes brought by the civil rights movement.


Since 2004, the book has sold 160,000 copies. It has earned several awards: the Grawemeyer Award in Religion from the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, which had a $200,000 prize, the Southern Book Award for Nonfiction from the Southern Book Critics Circle, the Christopher Award, and the North Caroliniana Book Award from the North Caroliniana Society. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill selected the book for its 2005 summer reading program.


The book was adapted as a movie by the same name, released in 2010. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked it on a "must see" list.


Tyson has said that the title comes from a slave spiritual later sung as a "blues lament", particularly this phrase: "Ain't you glad, ain't you glad, that the blood done sign my name?"


The book explores the effects of the 1970 killing of Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black Vietnam War veteran in Oxford, North Carolina. This is the county seat of Granville County, a center of tobacco culture. Then a town of 10,000, it is located 35 miles north of Durham. Three white men were indicted on charges of murder, but they were acquitted at trial by an all-white jury. Black protests of the killing and acquittal included acts of arson and violence.


Black people organized a protest march to the state capital of Raleigh. In addition, they conducted an 18-month boycott of white businesses in Oxford, a mostly segregated town, to force integration in public facilities. The Marrow case helped galvanize continued African-American civil rights activities in Oxford and across the eastern North Carolina black belt.


Tyson lived as a child in Oxford, where his father was the minister of the prominent Oxford United Methodist Church. He explores not only the white supremacy of the South's racial caste system but his personal and family stories. (His father was driven out of the church because of his support for civil rights.) Tyson interweaves a narrative of the story and its effects on him, with a discussion of the racial history of North Carolina and the United States, and the violent realities of that history on both sides of the color line.


He explores the persistence of discrimination years after passage of federal laws to enforce civil rights, and the more complex aspects of the later civil rights movement.


"Entertainment Weekly" praised its "deadpan, merciless self-examination" and said it "pulses with vital paradox... It's a detached dissertation, a damning dark-night-of-the-white-soul, and a ripping yarn, all united by Tyson's powerful voice, a brainy, booming Bubba profundo." Historian Jane Dailey, writing in the "Chicago Tribune", called it "Admirable and unexpected... a riveting story that will have its readers weeping with both laughter and sorrow."


The book was adapted as a film written and directed by writer Jeb Stuart. It was released in 2010, starring Ricky Schroder, Omar Benson Miller, and Michael Rooker. It was filmed in the cities of Shelby, Statesville, Monroe and Gastonia, North Carolina. The African-American historian John Hope Franklin has a cameo in the film.


It was also adapted as a play by Mike Wiley, playwright and actor. "Blood Done Sign My Name" (2008) premiered at Duke University's Shaefer Theater. It was also produced at the city hall in Oxford, North Carolina on February 13, 2009.


The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream is the second book written by then-Senator Barack Obama. It became number one on both the "New York Times" and Amazon.com bestsellers lists in the fall of 2006, after Obama had been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey. In the book, Obama expounds on many of the subjects that became part of his 2008 campaign for the presidency. The book advance from the publisher totalled $1.9 million contracted for three books. Obama announced his ultimately successful presidential campaign on February 10, 2007, a little more than three months after the book's release.


While a Senate candidate, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention, entitled "The Audacity of Hope" that propelled him to national prominence. In the less than twenty minutes it took to deliver the speech, Obama was catapulted to sudden fame, with many analysts predicting that he might be well positioned to enter a future presidential race. In 2006, Obama released "The Audacity of Hope", a book-length account that expanded upon many of the same themes he originally addressed in the convention speech.


In his speech addressing the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama said:


The book, divided into nine chapters, outlines Obama's political and spiritual beliefs, as well as his opinions on different aspects of American culture.


"The New York Times" noted that "Mr. Obama's new book, The Audacity of Hope' ... is much more of a political document. Portions of the volume read like outtakes from a stump speech, and the bulk of it is devoted to laying out Mr. Obama's policy positions on a host of issues, from education to health care to the war in Iraq."


The "Chicago Tribune" describes the book as a "political biography that concentrates on the senator's core values", and credits the large crowds that gathered at book signings with influencing Obama's decision to run for president. Former presidential candidate Gary Hart describes the book as Obama's "thesis submission" for the U.S. presidency: "It presents a man of relative youth yet maturity, a wise observer of the human condition, a figure who possesses perseverance and writing skills that have flashes of grandeur." Reviewer Michael Tomasky writes that it does not contain "boldly innovative policy prescriptions that will lead the Democrats out of their wilderness", but does show Obama's potential to "construct a new politics that is progressive but grounded in civic traditions that speak to a wider range of Americans."


An Italian edition was published in April 2007 with a preface by Walter Veltroni, former Mayor of Rome, then leader of Italy's Democratic Party and one of Obama's earliest supporters overseas, who met with Obama in Washington in 2005 and has been referred to as "Obama's European counterpart". Spanish and German translations were published in June 2007; the French edition, subtitled "une nouvelle conception de la politique américaine", was published in October 2007. The Croatian edition was published in October 2008.


The book remained on the "New York Times" Best Seller list for the 30 weeks since publication. The audiobook version won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.


A number of blogs and newspapers repeated inaccurate rumors that the book contains the passage, "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." The actual quote does not mention Muslims at all, referring instead to Arab and Pakistani Americans in the context of immigrant communities generally.


Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race is a 2019 book by Thomas Chatterton Williams. It was published by W. W. Norton & Company on October 15, 2019.


Thomas, the son of a black father and a white mother, who grew up identifying as black, explains in the book how he has come to unlearn his racial identity.


The book was published by W. W. Norton & Company on October 15, 2019. Williams appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher" on October 18, 2019 to promote the book.


At the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the book received a cumulative "Mixed" rating based on 11 reviews: 2 "Rave" reviews, 3 "Positive" reviews, 3 "Mixed" reviews, and 3 "Pan" reviews.


Working with the Hands by Booker T. Washington is described by its author as a sequel to his classic "Up From Slavery".


The full title of the work is Working with the hands; being a sequel to "Up From Slavery," covering the author's experiences in industrial training at Tuskegee


Archive.org scan of "Working with the Hands"


This autobiography is an important work that combines political manifesto and political philosophy along with the life story of a young African American revolutionary. The book was not universally well received but has had a lasting influence on the black civil rights movement and resonates today in the Black Lives Matter movement.


Huey P. Newton co-founded, with Bobby Seale, and was one of the leaders of, the Black Panther Party (BPP). The party was founded in Oakland California in October 1966 at a time of rising racial tension in the USA. There had been serious race riots in the Harlem area of New York in 1964 and Watts area of Chicago in 1965. Radical black leader Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 at a rally in Harlem.


While he was in prison, he was visited regularly by J. Herman Blake, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California Santa Cruz. During one visit the idea of writing a book was discussed. The initial idea was that Blake would write a biography of Newton. They began the process while Newton was still in prison. Blake would transcribe their conversations onto a tape recorder immediately after the visits. Following a campaign by supporters, Newton was released in August 1970. Following his release Newton and Blake decided that the book would be an autobiography. The book covered his life from his early days in Oakland up to his trip to China in 1971.


The book goes on to describe his time growing up tough on the streets of Oakland, how he taught himself to read by studying Plato's Republic, his political awakening and the formation of the BPP with Bobby Seale. The next chapters detail the shooting of officer Frey, his trial conviction and later release. The later chapters cover the period after his release and his attempts to rebuild the Party. The last chapters cover his visit to China and what he describes as the ‘defection’ of Eldredge Cleaver. While Revolutionary Suicide is written in the first person, in an interview in 2007 Blake claims to have done the actual writing.


On its initial publication in 1973 the book was featured on the front page of the book sections of both the New York Times and the Washington Post. This prominence is an indication of the importance of the book at the time although it garnered mixed reviews.


in the New York Times Review of Books, Murray Kempton, wrote a long feature article on the Revolutionary Suicide under the by-line ‘At one and the same time the goodest and the baddest’. The essay focuses more on Newton himself than his book. Kempton, a broadcaster and critic, is both complementary and highly critical of Newton. The Washington Post review by American author Lee Lockwood in its Bookworld section is positive. In another New York Times review Christopher Lehmann-Haupt writes that, while the book was eagerly anticipated, it is ”boring” and argues that Newtons main aim in the work is to the change the image of the Panthers.


Ernest M. Collins from the Department of Government at Ohio University wrote a review, which praised Newton's writing when it was “confined to institutions with which he is familiar” but described his views on the wider political world as ‘shallow’.


A review in the Times in London by John Arderne Rex called it “perhaps the best written book by a black leader to come out of the United States”. Rex was a Professor of Sociology at University of Warwick and an author. He praises the book for being a mature political philosophy and for Newtons interest in social justice.


Newton's writing and ideas met with a mixed reception. Political scientist John McCartney claimed he was the black power movements foremost political thinker. In his book ‘Huey P. Newton, the Radical Theorist’ the scholar of African American politics Professor Judson L. Jefferies discussed how Newton's interest in philosophy and his wide reading influenced his thinking. Jefferies said his writing did not compare favourably to Malcolm X or Martin Luther King but praised him as one of the most important black thinkers of the time. Brian Sowers pointed out the influence of Plato's ‘Republic” on Revolutionary Suicide, particularly the second half of the book, and compares Newton to a modern-day Socrates.


The academic Davi Johnson, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Southwestern University claimed that Newtons rhetoric sat in a tradition mould of conservative rhetoric and he and the Black Panther Party, were not the quite the outsider dangerous force portrayed in the media at the time. Johnson pointed out how Newton used the rhetorical device of jeremiad, a list of complaints about the prevailing society, in a very traditional and conservative way and in that sense his rhetoric was not so revolutionary.


Another academic, Joanna Freer, writing in the journal American Studies, claims that author Thomas Pynchon critiqued Newtons concept of revolutionary suicide in his popular novel "Gravity's Rainbow”. Freer says that Pynchon through his character Wimpe is critical of Newton's belief in Marxist dialectical materialism and in the idea that revolution was inevitable.


Judson L Jefferies summarised the reviews of Revolutionary Suicide as “harsh”. He summarises a number of reviews but points out that in many cases the reviews are focused on Newton and the BPP rather than the book in question. He argues that the authors of these reviews seem to be intent on undermining Newton based on their own idea of who he is rather than giving the book a fair review.


The term "revolutionary suicide" was appropriated by Jim Jones, leader of the new religious and socialist movement Peoples Temple. Jones ignored Newton's definition of the phrase, instead using the term to describe actual suicide as a form of revolutionary protest. The term was used by Jones to describe the mass murder/suicide that took place at Jonestown, Guyana on 18 November 1978. Jones' use of the phrase "revolutionary suicide," as recorded on an audio tape of the mass death, has been widely quoted and used in media coverage of the event.


From 2013 the Black Lives Matter movement rose to prominence in the USA in response to the continuing police brutality against African Americans. Many writers and scholars noted the similarities in the grassroots nature of both the BLM and the BPP and in many of the programs they advocated. Both organisations were formed in Oakland. However, writers also pointed to differences in approach and methods. A key point was that in 2016, 50 years after Newton formed the BPP and forty-three years after the publication of Revolutionary Suicide African American communities were still facing similar issues to those outlined in the book by Newton.


The English musician and singer Julian Cope released an album in 2013 called Revolutionary Suicide. He acknowledged that he took the name from Newtons work and explained how he interpreted the term as being about “ultimate freedom” adding” surely we can also be our own hangman if it gets too much?”.


This is followed with an epilogue entitled ‘I Am We” which Newton says is based on an old African saying. In this he reiterates the difference between revolutionary and reactionary suicide and quotes both Mao's Little Red Book and the Gospel of St. Paul to illustrate his point.


The book's original cover photograph shows Newton sitting on a type of throne holding a rifle and a spear. The image was seen as controversial as it played into the violent imagery which had surrounded the BPP. Early photographs of party members in black shirts and berets carrying weapons shocked many. The photograph is regarded as an iconic image of the counterculture in USA. The image had been produced as a publicity poster for the BPP. The original photographer is unknown. The photograph was described by Bobby Seale as a “centralized symbol of the leadership of black people in the community”.


The original hardcover edition contained several pages of photographs. These include family photographs, photographs of other panther party leaders and one of Newton with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai taken on his visit to China in September 1971.


The first edition was published in hardcover in 1973 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. New York. This edition did not have an introduction.


In England the publisher was Wildwood House. The book was published in both hardback and paperback editions. . This edition was published with a different cover. It featured a side profile shot of Huey Newton replacing the more controversial enthroned photograph.


In 1995 Writers and Readers published a softcover edition with the original cover photograph.


In September 2009 Penguin books published a paperback edition as part of its Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition series. . The paperback had a deckle edge, a cover illustration by Ho Che Anderson and an introduction by Newton's widow Fredrika Newton. An e-book version was released at the same time.


This book was first released as a serialized work in 1900 through "The Outlook", a Christian newspaper of New York. This work was serialized because this meant that during the writing process, Washington was able to hear critiques and requests from his audience and could more easily adapt his paper to his diverse audience.


Washington was a controversial figure in his own lifetime, and W. E. B. Du Bois, among others, criticized some of his views. The book was a best-seller, and remained the most popular African American autobiography until that of Malcolm X. In 1998, the Modern Library listed the book at No. 3 on its list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century, and in 1999 it was also listed by the conservative "Intercollegiate Review" as one of the "50 Best Books of the Twentieth Century".


"Up from Slavery" chronicles more than forty years of Washington's life: from slave to schoolmaster to the face of southern race relations. In this text, Washington climbs the social ladder through hard, manual labor, a decent education, and relationships with great people. Throughout the text, he stresses the importance of education for the black population as a reasonable tactic to ease race relations in the South (particularly in the context of Reconstruction).


The book is in essence Washington's traditional, non-confrontational message supported by the example of his life.


"A Slave Among Slaves": In the first chapter, the reader is given a vivid yet brief sight of the life of slaves, as seen from the author's point of view. Basically, it speaks of the hardships the slaves endured before independence and their joys and hassles (arguments) after liberty. The first chapter explains about his suffering in that plantation and the end days of his slavery. The author feels that his life had its beginning in midst of the most miserable surroundings.


He explains about his living conditions, and how his mother works hard to make the days end.