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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 c...
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 o...
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 ...
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 thei...
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 figur...
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...
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...
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 ...
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 ha...
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 idea...
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 examp...
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...
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, educatio...
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 st...
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, thu...
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 respon...
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...
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...
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 g...
"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,...
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 striki...
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...
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...
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 prevaili...
"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 ...
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...
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...
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 durin...
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...
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 ...
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, ...
"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 he...
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 help...
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 rap...
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 ac...
"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 "...
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, ...
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...
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 s...
"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, b...
"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 desc...
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 Universi...
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 imparti...
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 ...
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 ...
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 o...
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 de...
"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 o...
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, po...
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 Mast...
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 p...
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. Writte...
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 ...
"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...
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" (...
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. Cri...
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 ...
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 f...
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 lif...
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 Califor...
"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 t...
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 ...
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 ...
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 agains...

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