Black_books_African_American_books_Black_news_African_news_Black_culture
The_Digital_Digest
Current_Non-Fiction_Books
Winning_the_Race_Beyond_the_Crisis_in_Black_America
War_and_Faith_In_Sudan
At_Canaans_Edge
Black_in_the_White_House
Huey_Spirit_of_the_Panther
Holy_Lockdown
We_Who_Are_Dark
Black_Is_a_Country
My_Face_Is_Black_Is_True
From_Black_Power_to_Hip_Hop
7_Money_Mantras_for_a_Richer_Life
The_Thunder_of_Angels
Stepin_Fetchit
Hokum
Gathering_Ground
Strangers_in_the_Land
African_American_Childhoods
Forever_Free
Alice_Walker
A_Hungry_Heart
The_Games_Black_Girls_Play
Epic_Journeys_of_Freedom
The_Art_And_Imagination_of_Langston_Hughes
Fascinating_Rhythm
The_Artificial_White_Man
Triksta
The_Real_Lives_of_Strong_Black_Women
Real_Black
Knowing_What_We_Know
Black
Race_Work
They_Walked_To_Freedom_1955_to_1956
Out_of_the_Shadows
Lost_Battalions
Belabored_Professions
Essence_Beauty_Basics_and_Beyond
New_Studies_in _the_History_of_American_Slavery
Sarah's_Long_Walk
Slavery_and_the_Making_of_America
Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Frederick_Douglass
We_Speak_Your_Names
Wilt_1962
The_Forgotten_Fifth
African_American_Men_in_College
King_of_the_Cats
A_Stronger_Kinship
Bright_Boulevards_Bold_Dreams
1001_Things_Everyone_Should_Know_About_African_American_History
The_Black_Womens_Health_Book
A_Change_Is_Gonna_Come
Civil_Rights_Crossroads
Is_Bill_Cosby_Right
Max_Yergan
Queen_The_Life_and_Music_of_Dinah_Washington
Shakin_Up_Race_and_Gender
Kaiso
Frederick_Douglass_and_the_Fourth_of_July
Jimi_Hendrix
Life_and_Death_in_the_Delta
Neo_Soul
Waiting_for_Gautreaux
Harriet_Tubman_Secret_Agent
Homestyle_Healing
Bound_for_Canaan
Uncle_Tom_or_New_Negro
Fade_My_Journeys_in_Multiracial_America
Forbidden_Fruit_Love_Stories_from_the_Underground_Railroad
Freedom_Riders
Living_Black_History
My_Confederate_Kinfolk
Confederate_Emancipation
Beat_of_a_Different_Drum
Diasporic_Africa_A_Reader
Freedom_Is_Not_Enough_The_Opening_of_the_American_Workplace
Uncle_Tom_Mania_Slavery_Minstrelsy_and_Transatlantic_Culture

< SEARCH US FOR MILLIONS OF BOOKS, MOVIES & MORE >

Link_PT Link_IS Link_BL

Link_EZ  Link_AU

He_Talk_Like_a_White_Boy_Reflections_on_Faith_Family_Politics_and_Authenticity

He Talk Like a White Boy
Reflections on Faith, Family,
Politics, and Authenticity
- By Joseph C. Phillips, Foreword by Tavis Smiley

As a young student, Phillips overheard someone say "He talk like a White boy!" He never thought that his education and speaking correctly would cause others to question his authenticity as an African American. Little did he know his future choices in music, politics, faith, and family have given rise to many accusations of his not being "Black enough" as a Hollywood actor and Cosby Show star.

Save_Darfur_From_A_21st_Century_African_Genocide
Authorized Amazon.com and Borders Sales Associate

Books Worth Reading
SEARCH HERE FOR MORE
TOP SHELF LITERATURE

New or Used, If It’s In Print, We Have!

Come_Hell_or_High_Water
Sucker_Punch_The_Hard_Left_Hook_That_Dazed_Ali_and_Killed_Kings_Dream
The_Covenant_with_Black_America
The_New_Soul_Food_Cookbook_for_People_With_Diabetes

 

Dangerously_in_Love Color_Monitors_The_Black_Face_of_Technology _in_America
Fettered_Genius_The_African_American_Bardic_Poet_from_Slavery_to_Civil_Rights Revival_An_Anthology_of_the_Best_Black_Canadian_Writing
Mirror_to_America Never_Drank_the_Kool_Aid
The_Black_Elite
The_African_American_Press
Beasts_of_No_Nation
Food_Choice_and_Obesity_in_Black_America
Colin_Powell_and_Condoleezza_Rice_Foreign_Policy_Race_and_The_New_American_Century_by_Clarence_Lusane

Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice
Foreign Policy, Race, and the
New American Century
- By Clarence Lusane

Under the global and U.S. political radar, Lusane has authored a provocative and groundbreaking look at the intersection of racial politics and American foreign policy. His insightful work critically examines the roles of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice in the reconstruction of United States foreign policy, exploring the ways in which their African American identity challenges conventional notions about the role of race in international relations.

Letters_to_a_Young_Brother_MANifest_Your_Destiny

Letters to a Young Brother
MANifest Your Destiny - by Hill Harper
Having addressed thousands of high-school and middle-school students over the years, actor Hill Harper is ready to take his message to an even wider audience. Letters to a Young Brother is drawn from the humbling life lessons he learned on the road to his Ivy League education and beyond. Inspired by the countless letters and e-mails he has received from teens, Harper set out to write a series of inspiring real-world letters to young people that would catch the attention of even the most reluctant readers.

WN_Africa WN_Caribbean
WN_South_America WN_Middle_East
WN_Central_America WNTrans-Asia
WorldNewsEurope WorldNewsWesternEurope WN_North_America
WorldNewsEasternEurope

REALITYCHECK:
Paying The Reparations Debt
An Essential, Effective & Easily Earned Dividend

FourGenerations1860sSlaveFamilyConsidering Education Reparations --
There is no longer a real question or reasonable debate against the need for paying a reparations debt to Black American citizens. It is clearly in our national economic, social, and moral interests. Over the last 150 years, there have been many formal and informal efforts and promises to pay America’s actual victims, immediate relatives, or indigenous citizen-descendents of the slaves that produced the economic success and future of America. Over 100 years before this continent became the United States of America, African slaves were the backbone, muscle and flesh used to jump-start the economies of the original 13 colonies from Savannah-Georgia to New Hampshire. This head start sparked the unprecedented economic and political growth of a new nation -- within a comparatively short and tumultuous 150-plus years -- into a global superpower . . . MORE >

The_Black_Commentator_Commentary_Analysis_and_Investigations
Black_Electorate_News_Dialogue_and_Insight
Advertise_With_BOOKSandWORDS

OprahWinfreyBOTTOMLINES
Words, Truth & Integrity:
How Oprah Affirmed Trust

BlackInmateRealityCheck: The Iraq In the 'Hood Connection
In what is surely the latest example of chickens coming home to roost, the US military is experiencing a major decline in the recruitment of young Black men . . . MORE >

RichardPryorPryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences
Richard Pryor does something no other comic genius has done before -- he takes listeners deep into his life, baring himself before audiences as he exposes his . . . MORE >

BrokenBETBottomLines: After 25 Years, Is BET Relevant ?
A $3 billion media enterprise still profits from stereotyping Black culture, proving 'Brain Empty Television' is not the exclusive venue of mainstream White media . . . MORE >

KarenGrigsbyBatesThe New Basic Black
Just in time for the holiday season and beyond, a newly revised modern manual of African American manners and etiquette that has become an genuine classic . . . MORE >

QueensQueens
From the afro to the ponytail to dreadlocks to braids to relaxed hair to fantasy hair; from "good hair" to bad hair days, in this stunningly designed book . . . MORE >

ScottPoulsonBryantHung
"Hung" is a double-entendre, referring not only to penis size but to the fact that Black men were once literally hung from trees, often for their perceived sexual prowess . . . MORE >

KathleenCleaverTarget Zero - A Life in Writing
Kathleen Cleaver chronicles the words and life of former Black Panther information minister Eldridge Cleaver -- a complex man who inspired profound adulation . . . MORE >

JohnHopeFranklinMirror to America
Intimate, at times revelatory, Mirror to America chronicles a remarkable life and this nation's racial transformation in the 20th century, and is a powerful reminder of . . . MORE >

KyraDGauntThe Games Black Girls Play
When we think of African American popular music, our first thought is probably not of double-dutch: girls bouncing between two twirling ropes, keeping time to . . . MORE >

WalterMosleyCinnamon Kiss
Bestselling author Walter Mosley's sizzling new novel pits Easy Rawlins against his greatest challenge ever -- a terrifying murder during 1967’s Summer of Love . . . MORE >

LonnaeONealParkerI'm Every Woman
Black women have been balancing the competing demands of work and home since before women even won the right to vote. But Black voices and experiences  . . . MORE >

JewellParkerRhodesVoodoo Season
Jewell Parker Rhodes's fourth novel, revisits the mystical landscape of Louisiana, but now, for the first time, the celebrated author of historical fiction presents . . . MORE >

MarkGimenezThe Color of Law
Easily compared to actual news stories, this novel probes the murder of a Texas presidential candidate's son by a Black prostitute after a night of liquor and sex . . . MORE >

TananariveDueJoplin's Ghost
Tananarive Due’s latest novel is a chilling tale of a star-in-the-making whose life goes haywire as she is haunted by the ghost of a long-dead famous music legend . . . MORE >

BerniceLMcFaddenNowhere Is a Place
Bernice L. McFadden crafts a touching novel about a young woman uncovering her surprising family history. Like many family histories, it reluctantly reveals secrets . . . MORE >

ElectaRomeParksAlmost Doesn't Count
Electa Rome Parks, the author of Loose Ends, returns with a novel about a woman who is almost convinced that love doesn't matter -- her mother made sure of that . . . MORE >

DamaliAyoHow to Rent a Negro - The Interview
BOOKSandWORDS interviews conceptual artist and author damali ayo on her insightful and hysterically funny first handbook about getting paid for living Black . . . MORE >

PaulBeattyHokum
Selected and introduced by acclaimed novelist and poet Paul Beatty, Hokum is a liberating, eccentric, savagely comic collection of the funniest writing by . . . MORE >

PatriciaHillCollinsFrom Black Power to Hip Hop
Despite legislation designed to eliminate unfair racial practices, the United States continues to struggle with a race problem. Some thinkers label this a . . . MORE >

JoanMellenA Farewell to Justice
This is not just another book about the assassination of President Kennedy. Line for line and between the lines this is a detailed account of an American coup . . . MORE >

Advertise_With_BOOKSandWORDS

REALITYCHECK

Too Much Less For 'Millions More'

MillionsMoreThough substantially attended, a decade later, the Millions More Movement event was effectively a bust. Functionally
and numerically, this 10th anniversary gathering was actually thousands less. But, this is NOT about numbers . . . MORE >

SophiaStewartUpdateBOOKSandWORDS EXCLUSIVE: Federal judge ends all arguments in the Sophia Stewart vs Warner Brothers multibillion-dollar Matrix movie copyright lawsuit, and may soon rule on this quiet 6-year case  . . . MORE >

EvelynCWhiteAlice Walker - A Life
Author Evelyn C. White charts Walker's childhood, marked by an incident at eight that left her blinded in her right eye and with disfiguring scar tissue and that . . . MORE >

ElliottLewisFade - Voices from the Frontlines of Biracial America
Broadcast journalist Elliott Lewis combines his expertise as a news reporter with his Black-White family history and racial identity as a biracial person to look at the . . . MORE >

DonnieWilliamsThe Thunder of Angels
Heroism by average people in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott is presented in poignant and thorough detail. Untold stories of those, both Black and White . . . MORE >

Dr_Bertice_BerryWhen Love Calls, You Better Answer
Novelist, sociologist and entrepreneur Bertice Berry returns with a a rich tapestry of emotions about looking for love in all the wrong places with all the wrong people . . . MORE >

Alfred_W_BlumrosenSlave Nation - The Untold American History
This highly thorough history details how the loss of major profits from Black slave labor was the actual catalyst for America’s revolt for independence from Britain . . . MORE >

MichaelJordanDriven from Within
Michael Jordan’s lavishly illustrated autobiography reveals the man, father, husband, son, athlete, and icon of strength and excellence that defines a generation . . . MORE >

DeniseNicholas1Freshwater Road
TV, film and stage actor Denise Nicholas authors a very compelling novel about a woman's journey into adulthood during the civil rights movement . . . MORE >

SpikeLee1That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It
Pakistani-British filmmaker Kaleem Aftab ably combines both an in-depth authorized biography and substantive reporting to reveal the innovative Spike Lee . . . MORE >

MediSinCorpseMediSin
One of the rare books that goes far into and behind the details of how the medical and commercial food industries are knowingly causing our premature death . . . MORE >

RobertWJensenThe Heart of Whiteness
This groundbreaking and detailed book is a ringing bell for Blacks, Whites, and anyone avoiding the reality of today's embedded racism -- and it pulls no punches . . . MORE >

JamesWColemanFaithful Vision
In Faithful Vision, James W. Coleman places under his critical lens a wide array of African American novels written during the last half of the twentieth century . . . MORE >

BettyDeRamusForbidden Fruit
Forbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold stories of ordinary men and women who took extraordinary measures, risking life and limb to be together . . . MORE >

GaryMPomerantzWilt, 1962
On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete . . . MORE >

CraigWernerA Change Is Gonna Come
A Change Is Gonna Come is the story of more than four decades of enormously influential Black music, from the hopeful, angry refrains of the Freedom . . . MORE >

LindseyWilliamsNeo Soul - Taking Food to Whole 'nutha Level
From the grandson of Harlem's queen of soul food, Sylvia Woods, comes a new take on soul food cooking that tastes as good as the food you grew up with . . . MORE >

Jarumi_s_Book_Club_2_JPEG
OTHER_VOICES
BBCAfrica WebMD_Health
BlackEnterprise.com EURweb.com
BlackOttawa411 CSPAN
BBCCaribbean CaribbeanNetNews
BlackRefer.com

EMPOWERMENT ZONE
THE PERFECT RÉSUMÉ
JOBS - BOOKS & M
ORE

PAGETURNERS . . .

Target Zero - A Life in Writing

By Eldridge Cleaver - Edited & Introduced by Kathleen Cleaver
Foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - Afterword by Cecil Brown
Former Black Panther information minister Eldridge Cleaver was a complex man who inspired profound adulation, love, rage, and, among many, fear. Target Zero brings Cleaver’s controversial story into focus through his ownEldridge_Cleaver Kathleen_Cleaverwords. This books charts Cleaver's life through his writings: his quiet childhood, his youth spent in prison, his startling emergence as a Black Panther leader who became a "fugitive from justice" by the end of 1968, his seven-year exile, and his religious and political conversion following his return to the U.S. Target Zero, which brings together previously unpublished essays, short stories, letters, interviews, and poems, is the most significant collection of Eldridge Cleaver’s writing since his bestselling book Soul on Ice (1968).

Target_ZeroEldridge Cleaver is the celebrated author of Soul on Ice and was the information minister of the Black Panther Party. Kathleen Cleaver is a senior lecturer at Yale University and at Emory Law School. She joined Eldridge Cleaver in the Black Panther Party in 1967, when they married. She is an attorney and author, and is currently at work on her memoir, Memories of Love and War.

Kathleen Cleaver has spent most of her life participating in the human rights struggle. From Dallas Texas, Kathleen Neal Cleaver father was a sociology professor at Wiley College and her mother held a degree in mathematics. With her fathers work the family spent much her early years abroad in Liberia, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone. Cleaver completed high school at the Georgia School in Philadelphia in 1963.

As a college sophomore, Cleaver dropped out of Barnard College in 1966 to work full-time with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee where she served in the Campus Program. From 1967 to 1971, Cleaver was the communications secretary of the Black Panther Party, the first woman member of their Central Committee. She married Eldridge Cleaver in 1967. After sharing years of exile with her former husband, she returned to the United States in late 1975. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history from Yale College in 1984, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

After receiving a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1989, Cleaver became an associate at the New York law firm of Cravath, Swain and Moore. Afterwards, she served as a clerk for the late Judge A. Leon Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. While an assistant professor of law at Emory University, she served on the Georgia's Supreme Court Commission on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts and became a board member of the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights. She has devoted many years to the defense of Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a former Black Panther Party leader who won his habeas corps petition in 1997 after spending 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Kathleen Cleaver has authored, edited, contributed to and introduced numerous other publications including: Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party, Critical Race Feminism, Black Panthers 1968, and Memories of Love and War.
E-Mail Kathleen: kathleen.cleaver@yale.edu > or
                           kcleaver@law.emory.edu >


The Games Black Girls Play
Learning the Ropes from Double Dutch to Hip-Hop

By Kyra D. Gaunt
Kyra_D_GauntWhen we think of African American popular music, our first thought is probably not of double-dutch: girls bouncing between two twirling ropes, keeping time to the tick-tat under their toes. But this book argues that the games Black girls play -- handclapping songs, cheers, and double-dutch jump rope—both reflect and inspire the principles of Black popular music-making.

The Games Black Girls Play illustrates how Black musical styles are incorporated into the earliest games African American girls learn—how, in effect, these games contain the DNA of Black music. Drawing on interviews, recordings of handclapping games and cheers, and her own observation and memories of game-playing, Kyra D. Gaunt argues that Black girls' games are connected to long traditions of African and African American music-making, and that they teach

 

vital musical and social lessons that are carried into adulthood. In this celebration of playground poetry and childhood choreography, she uncovers the surprisingly rich contributions of girls' play to Black popular culture.

Vocalist Kyra D. Gaunt obtained her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan. She specializes in the socialization of race, gender and embodiment in Black popular culture and has served on the faculty at the University of Virginia since 1996.

A recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation and NEH, her publications appear in Generations of Youth (1998), Language, Rhythm and Sound (1997), Feminism, Multiculturalism and the Media (1995), and Musical Quarterly (forthcoming). Gaunt is also a consultant for several PBS children's programs.
E-Mail Kyra: kyra.gaunt@nyu.edu >


Faithful Vision
Treatments of the Sacred, Spiritual, and Supernatural in
Twentieth-Century African American Fiction

By James W. Coleman
James_W_ColemanIn Faithful Vision, James W. Coleman places under his critical lens a wide array of African American novels written during the last half of the twentieth century. In doing so, he demonstrates that religious vision not only informs Black literature but also serves as a foundation for Black culture generally.

The Judeo-Christian tradition, according to Coleman, is the primary component of the African American spiritual perspective, though its syncretism with voodoo/hoodoo -- a religion transported from West Africa through the West Indies and New Orleans to the rest of Black America -- also figures largely. Reviewing novels written mainly since 1950 by writers

 

including James Baldwin, Randall Kenan, Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Erna Brodber, and Ishmael Reed, among others, Coleman explores how Black authors have addressed the relevance of faith, especially as it relates to an oppressive Christian tradition. He shows that their novels -- no matter how critical of the sacred or supernatural, or how skeptical the characters’ viewpoints -- ultimately never reject the vision of faith.

Black novelists, Coleman concludes, stay connected in many ways to the culture that they write about. Faith, a source of strength historically for the Black community, remains a powerful influence on Black literature, as seen in the content, structure, ideology, and themes of twentieth-century African American novels. With its focus on religious experience and tradition and its wider discussion of history, philosophy, gender, and postmodernism, Faithful Vision brings a bold critical dimension to African American literary studies.

James W. Coleman is the author of Blackness and Modernism: The Literary Career of John Edgar Wideman and Black Male Fiction and the Legacy of Caliban, which was a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. He is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches African American and American literature.
E-Mail James: coleman3@email.unc.edu >


Hokum
An Anthology of African American Humor

Edited by Paul Beatty
Paul_BeattySelected and introduced by acclaimed novelist and poet Paul Beatty, Hokum is a liberating, eccentric, savagely comic collection of the funniest writing by Black Americans.

This book is less a comprehensive collection of African American humor than a mix-tape narrative dubbed by a trusted friend -- a sampler of underground classics, rare grooves, and timeless summer jams, poetry and prose juxtaposed with the blues, hip-hop, political speeches, and the world's funniest radio sermon. The subtle musings of Toni Cade Bambara, Henry Dumas, and Harryette Mullen are bracketed by the profane and often

 

loud ruminations of Langston Hughes, Darius James, Wanda Coleman, Tish Benson, Steve Cannon, and Hattie Gossett.

Some of the funniest writers don't write, so included are selections from well-known yet unpublished wits Lightnin' Hopkins, Mike Tyson, and the Reverend Al Sharpton. Selections also come from public figures and authors whose humor, although incisive and profound, is often overlooked: Malcolm X, Suzan-Lori Parks, Zora Neale Hurston, Sojourner Truth, and W.E.B. Dubois. Groundbreaking, fierce, and hilarious, this is a necessary anthology for any fan or student of American writing, with a huge range and a smart, political grasp of the uses of humor.

Paul Beatty was born in Los Angeles in 1962. He was raised on kung fu triple features, samurai movies with no swordplay, V-8, Philly cheesesteak sandwiches from Al's Sandwich Shop, and his mother's frayed paperback library. He says, "I write because I'm too afraid to steal, too ugly to act, too weak to fight, and too stupid in math to be a cosmologist. As a result, he has authored two volumes of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce, and two novels, The White Boy Shuffle and Tuff.

Beatty lives and works in New York. He received an M.F.A. in creative writing from Brooklyn College and an M.A. in psychology from Boston University.
More About: Paul Beatty >


From Black Power to Hip Hop
Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism
By Patricia Hill Collins
Patricia_Hill_CollinsDespite legislation designed to eliminate unfair racial practices, the United States continues to struggle with a race problem. Some thinkers label this a "new" racism and call for new political responses to it. Using the experiences of African American women and men as a touchstone for analysis, Patricia Hill Collins examines new forms of racism as well as political responses to it.

In this incisive and stimulating book, renowned social theorist Patricia Hill Collins investigates how nationalism has operated and re-emerged in the wake of contemporary globalization and offers an interpretation of how Black nationalism works today

 

in the wake of changing Black youth identity. Hers is the first study to analyze the interplay of racism, nationalism, and feminism in the context of twenty-first century Black America.

From Black Power to Hip Hop covers a wide range of topics including the significance of race and ethnicity to the American national identity; how ideas about motherhood affect population policies; African American use of Black nationalism ideologies as anti-racist practice; and the relationship between Black nationalism, feminism and women in the hip-hop generation.

Patricia Hill Collins is Charles Phelps Taft Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati and author of Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment and Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice.
E-Mail Patricia: collinph@email.uc.edu >


Cinnamon Kiss
A Novel
By Walter Mosley
Walter_MosleyNew York Times bestseller Walter Mosley's sizzling new novel pits Easy Rawlins against his greatest challenge ever -- a terrifying murder during the Summer of Love (1967).

It is the Summer of Love as Cinnamon Kiss opens, and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armored car. It's farther outside the law than Easy has ever traveled -- but his daughter, Feather, needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it's a cinch.

 


Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy's problem without jail time. He has to track the disappearance of an eccentric prominent attorney. His assistant of sorts, the beautiful "Cinnamon" Cargill, is gone as well. Easy can tell there is much more than he is being told -- Robert Lee, his new employer, is as suspect as the man who disappeared. But his need overcomes all concerns, and he plunges into unfamiliar territory, from the newfound hippie enclaves to a vicious plot that stretches back to the battlefields of Europe.

Walter Mosley is the author of the bestselling Easy Rawlins series of mysteries, the novel R.L.'s Dream, and the story collection Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, for which he received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He was born in Los Angeles and has been at various times in his life a potter, a computer programmer, and a poet. His books have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in New York.
Visit Walter: WalterMosley.com >


A Farewell to Justice
Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination,
and the Case That Should Have Changed History
By Joan Mellen
Joan_MellenFrom the new evidence in the National Archives' JFK Assassination Records Collection and interviews with over one thousand people, author Joan Mellen in her comprehensive new book A Farewell to Justice demonstrates how the cover-up began in Louisiana months before President Kennedy was shot in Dallas.

Biographer Joan Mellen met New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1969. His relentless search for the truth about what happened to President Kennedy made a deep impression upon her. In 1997, Mellen started to work on the story of Garrison's life.

Her biography turned into the story of Garrison's investigation and then into a new investigation of the assassination itself.

 

Working with thousands of previously unreleased documents and drawing on more than one thousand interviews, with many witnesses speaking out for the first time, Joan Mellen revisits the investigation of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only public official to have indicted, in 1969, a suspect in President John F. Kennedy’s murder.

Garrison began by exposing the contradictions in the Warren Report, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was an unstable pro-Castro Marxist who acted alone in killing President Kennedy. A Farewell to Justice reveals that Oswald was no Marxist and was in fact working with both the FBI and the CIA, as well as with U.S. Customs, and that the attempts to sabotage Garrison’s investigation reached the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Garrison interviewed various individuals involved in the assassination, ranging from Clay Shaw and CIA contract employee David Ferrie to a Marine cohort of Oswald named Kerry Thornley, who was also a Defense Intelligence asset. Garrison’s suspects included CIA-sponsored soldiers of fortune enlisted in assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, an anti-Castro Cuban asset, and a young runner for the conspirators, who speaks openly here for the first time.

Building upon Garrison’s effort, Mellen uncovers decisive new evidence and clearly establishes the intelligence agencies’ roles in both a president’s assassination and its cover-up, set in motion well before the actual events of November 22, 1963.

NEW EVIDENCE INCLUDES: Robert Kennedy was aware of Oswald and his connection to the FBI before the assassination. RFK put Oswald under surveillance and had his Cuban associates tracking Oswald's movements during the summer of 1963.

Lee Oswald was not a loner but a government agent who worked not only for the New Orleans FBI office, but for U.S. Customs. Oswald was closely connected to CIA-sponsored anti-Castro figures in New Orleans at the International Trade Mart, that included Clay Shaw, David Ferrie and a Cuban associate of Shaw's named Juan Valdes.

Government documents reveal that the FBI and CIA actively worked with a number of journalists who “covered” the Garrison investigation, including reporters with Newsweek and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a government operative ostensibly employed by NBC television. An FBI document reveals J. Edgar Hoover directing his field offices to "Give Garrison nothing!"

The massive cover-up began north of Baton Rouge when Oswald, in the company of Shaw and Ferrie, applied for a job at the mental hospital in Jackson, LA. Mellen has the only known interview with the director of the hospital at that time, Dr. Frank Silva.

This book will become a landmark. As Mellen explains in the Preface, on the 40th Anniversary of President Kennedy's death in 2003, a Gallup Poll verified that twice as many people believed that the CIA was responsible for the assassination as believed that Oswald, a man without a motive, acted alone.

Visit Joan: JoanMellen.net >


Forbidden Fruit
Love Stories from the Underground Railroad
By Betty DeRamus
Betty_DeRamusForbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold stories of ordinary men and women who took extraordinary measures, risking life and limb to be together. It's the story of couples who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to defy the system that allowed slave masters to breed and sell people like cattle. Some broke the taboo against interracial marriage, putting their lives in the most severe peril.

In one story, a Georgia couple who fled slavery wearing multiple disguises sailed for England with bounty hunters and federal troops on their trail. A fugitive slave from Virginia spent seventeen arduous years searching for his wife. A Missouri slave fell in love with his White Mormon neighbor and escaped to Canada to be with her, putting pepper

 

in his shoes to throw dogs off the scent at night and hiding in trees by day." Betty DeRamus gleaned these stories from descendants of runaway slave couples, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, books, magazines, and dozens of previously untapped sources. Beautifully and compassionately written, this important book reveals a chapter of American history that is shameful but is about triumph as well as torture, achievement as well as degradation, and indomitable love as well as hate.

Betty DeRamus, former Detroit Free Press reporter and editorial writer and Detroit News columnist, received a Distinguished Journalism Citation from the Scripps Howard Foundation in 1980; first prize for education reporting from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in 1980; first prize for commentary from the Overseas Press Club of America in 1980, the Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1983; and the Eugene Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writers in 1986.

Betty DeRamus was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in commentary for columns about the Los Angeles riots and was among the handful of print journalists who watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison in 1990. A short story writer, world-traveler and pianist, she lives in Detroit, her hometown.
E-Mail Betty: bjderamus@aol.com >


Wilt, 1962
The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era
By Gary M. Pomerantz
Gary_M_PomerantzOn the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored one hundred points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers.

As historic and revolutionary as the achievement was, it remains shrouded in myth. The game was not televised; no New York sportswriters showed up; and a fourteen-year-old local boy ran onto the court when Chamberlain scored his hundredth point, shook his hand, and then ran off with the basketball. In telling the story of this remarkable night, author Gary M. Pomerantz brings to life a lost world of American sports.

In 1962, the National Basketball Association, stepchild to the college game, was searching for its identity. Its teams were mostly White, the number of

 

Black players limited by an unspoken quota. Games were played in drafty, half-filled arenas, and the players traveled on buses and trains, telling tall tales, playing cards, and sometimes reading Joyce. Into this scene stepped the unprecedented Wilt Chamberlain: strong and quick-witted, voluble and enigmatic, a seven-footer who played with a colossal will and a dancer's grace. That strength, will, grace, and mystery were never more in focus than on March 2, 1962.

Pomerantz tracked down Knicks and Philadelphia Warriors, fans, journalists, team officials, other NBA stars of the era, and basketball historians, conducting more than 250 interviews in all, to recreate in painstaking detail the game that announced the Dipper's greatness. He brings us to Hershey, Pennsylvania, a sweet-seeming model of the gentle, homogeneous small-town America that was fast becoming anachronistic. We see the fans and players, alternately fascinated and confused by Wilt, drawn anxiously into the spectacle. Pomerantz portrays the other legendary figures in this story: the Warriors' elegant coach Frank McGuire; the beloved, if rumpled, team owner Eddie Gottlieb; and the irreverent public address announcer Dave "the Zink" Zinkoff, who handed out free salamis court-side.

At the heart of the book is the self-made Chamberlain, a romantic cosmopolitan who owned a nightclub in Harlem and shrugged off segregation with a bebop cool but harbored every slight deep in his psyche. March 2, 1962, presented the awesome sight of Wilt Chamberlain imposing himself on a world that would diminish him. Wilt, 1962 is not only the dramatic story of a singular basketball game but a meditation on small towns, mid-century America, and one of the most intriguing figures in the pantheon of sports heroes.

Pomerantz served from 1999-2001 as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at Emory University in Atlanta where he taught courses on news reporting and the history of the American press. A number of his former students work today for media outlets across the nation.

A 1982 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor's degree in history, Pomerantz served as a Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan in 1987-88; there, he studied theater and the Bible.

Pomerantz has appeared on numerous local and national television and radio programs, including The CBS Early Show, CNN's Talk Back Live, the BBC World Service's Outlook and National Public Radio's Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation. Born in North Tarrytown, N.Y., he lives today in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife of more than 20 years, Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, and their three children.
Visit Gary: GaryMPomerantz.com >

E-Mail Gary: gary@garympomerantz.com >


Alice Walker
A Life
By Evelyn C. White
Born to a sharecropping family in Georgia, Alice AliceWalkerWalker thrived in the richEvelyn_C_White culture of what she called the "agrarian peasantry" to become one of our most important and popular writers. Evelyn C. White charts Alice Walker's childhood, marked by an incident at eight that left her blinded in her right eye and with disfiguring scar tissue and that prompted her, out of a sense of "ugliness," to probe human suffering through her poems and stories.

 


In this compelling and skillfully researched biography, we learn of Walker's activism in the 1960s freedom movement, and her leadership in the debate on Black women's art, politics, and sexuality. The Color Purple garnered Walker the Pulitzer Prize in fiction - the first awarded to a Black woman writer.

Drawing on papers, letters, journals, and extensive interviews with Walker, her family, friends, colleagues, and leading American cultural figures including Gloria Steinem, Quincy Jones, and Oprah Winfrey, White assesses one of the most influential writers of our time.

Evelyn C. White, journalist, author, and editor of The Black Women's Health Book, is a visiting scholar in women's studies at Mills College. She lives in Oakland, California, and in Canada.
E-Mail Evelyn: ecwecw@mills.edu >


A Change Is Gonna Come
Music, Race & the Soul of America
Revised & Updated Edition

By Craig Werner
Craig_WernerA Change Is Gonna Come is the story of more than four decades of enormously influential Black music, from the hopeful, angry refrains of the Freedom movement, to the slick pop of Motown; from the disco inferno to the Million Man March; from Woodstock's "Summer of Love" to the war in Vietnam and the race riots that inspired Marvin Gaye to write "What's Going On."

Originally published in 1998, A Change Is Gonna Come drew the attention of scholars and general readers alike. This new

 

edition, featuring four new and updated chapters, will reintroduce Werner's seminal study of Black music to a new generation of readers.

Craig Werner is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, and author of many books, including Playing the Changes: From Afro-Modernism to the Jazz Impulse and Up Around the Bend: An Oral History of Creedence Clearwater Revival. His most recent book is Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul.
E-Mail Craig: cwerner@facstaff.wisc.edu >


Neo Soul
Taking Food to A Whole 'nutha Level
By Lindsey Williams
More than one hundred taste-tempting soul-food recipes.Lindsey_Williams

From the grandson of Harlem's queen of soul food, Sylvia Woods, comes a new take on soul food-down-home cooking that tastes as good as the food you grew up with. Lindsey Williams knows soul food. He was raised in the kitchen of his grandmother's restaurant, Sylvia's, where he mastered the art of soul-food cooking. But being around all of that good food took its toll. When he tipped the scales at four hundred pounds, he knew he had to make some serious changes.

That's when he lost more than half his body weight and began his own brand of healthy soul-food cooking that's loved by the clients of his catering business. Now, with Neo Soul, we can all enjoy

 

some guilt-free soul food.

Neo Soul features more than one hundred of Williams's delectable recipes, including Grandma's Roasted Turkey, Lenzo's Trout Stuffed with Collard Greens, Okra Gumbo, Neo Sweet Potato Pie, and Blueberry Buckle. They're all so good, you'll never miss the fat.

Lindsey Williams is the owner of Lindsey's 125 Catering, a healthy soul-food personal chef and catering company. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, and Live with Regis and Kelly, and his amazing story of weight loss has been featured in People magazine.


Fade
Voices from the Frontlines of Biracial America
By Elliott Lewis
Elliott_LewisBroadcast journalist Elliott Lewis combines his professional expertise as a news reporter with his Black-White family history and racial identity as a biracial person to look at the state of biracial identity in America. Fade to Black includes the accounting of his intimate, firsthand experiences as a mixed race child growing up in the 1960s and 70s, his family's generations-old history as biracial people, the larger cultural and political history of biracial identity and politics in the United States, as well as in-depth discussions on affirmative action, trans-racial adoption, sex and race, biracial families, "Black versus biracial," and building a biracial movement.

 

Elliott Lewis is a self-proclaimed "MBA, PhD" -- a Madcap Biracial American and Promoter of Human Diversity! He's an energetic, uplifting, thought-provoking, down to earth, and incredibly funny public speaker on multiracial identity and interracial family issues, appearing before any number of colleges and community groups each year.  Elliott is also a television news reporter who's been mistaken for everything from Hispanic to Egyptian, and was once referred to as "that White boy" at a family gathering.  In one case, a television viewer began to adjust the color on his TV set to try to determine Elliott's racial identity.
 
Elliott Lewis was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was raised in Pullman, Washington. Both of his parents are a mixture of Black and White.  He believes individuals of mixed race should be free to identify themselves racially in whatever manner makes sense to them given the totality of their life experience.  He considers himself "more Black than White, but more biracial than anything else." He currently lives in the Washington, DC area, and is a Region II Director for NABJ (National Association of Black Journalists).
E-Mail Elliott: lewisfreelance@aol.com >

Excerpt from Fade:
Don’t Adjust Your Television, I’m Biracial

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I said.

“What is your racial background?”

Here we go again, I thought.

It was Thanksgiving Day, 1996. I was working as a reporter at WKMG-TV, the CBS affiliate in Orlando, Florida. I had just arrived at the local homeless shelter to prepare a report on a holiday tradition. Volunteers from throughout the community had gathered to serve up hundreds of free turkey dinners to those in need.

That’s the story I was covering. But at that moment, a Black man at the homeless shelter was the one asking the questions.

“What is your racial background?” he wanted to know.

The question has dogged me for as long as I can remember. As a child, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Now, after years of practice, I’ve developed a standard answer.

“I’m biracial,” I told him.

“So that means what?” he asked, his face contorting as if he’d never heard the term.

“I’m a mixture of Black and White,” I continued.

“Oh... Just curious,” he said. Then he changed the subject.

No more than five minutes later, another Black man at the shelter called me over to his table. I thought he was going to ask not to have his picture taken, or ask me what time he might be on the news, or try to give me a tip on a possible story. That’s usually what’s happened whenever I’ve visited homeless shelters before. But instead he had something else on his mind.

“Hey, are you Black?” he blurted out.

But before I could even answer, the man spoke up again.

“You’re sort of Black. Aren’t you? Sort of?”

“I’m biracial,” I said, trying to act casual. “I’m both Black and White.”

At this point, I was beginning to wonder how many times I would have to go through this little interrogation before the day was over. That’s when the third Black man approached me.

“I was just wondering,” he began. “What race are you?”

I started to think that maybe I should just wear a sign around my neck. “I’m biracial. Get over it.” Or, “Stop staring. I’m mixed race.” Or better yet, “It’s a multiracial thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

REALITYCHECK

The Iraq in the 'Hood Connection
Incarcerated Blacks, Discrimination, HIV/AIDS and Declining US Military Strength

In what is surely the latest example of chickens coming home to roost, the US military is experiencing a major decline in the recruitment of young Black men. The connection that immediately comes to mind is the large numbers of young 17 to 35 year-old Black men being locked-up, lost to HIV/AIDS infection, and killed in the course of random violence -- not in Iraq -- in America.

Many in government won't see this nexus, or admit it when they do. Most average Americans have no idea of the extent to which the US defense readiness has been damaged. All the effort that has been put into the demise and neglect of Black male empowerment over the last 15 years is beginning to reap severe consequences. Beyond the glitz of Black celebrity media images and the hype of marginal Black middle class successes, the new millennium in general is showing highly significant signs of Black socioeconomic decline.

For Black males, low academic achievement from kindergarten to high school, low application to colleges, rising death rates related to AIDS and poor health, criminal violence, and off-the-grid antisocial behavior have become the norm for too many. Though there are examples of striving and accomplished Black men and boys, many have become targets and gristle for America's ignorance and emasculation machine. Some have even fallen into the triple-trap of surrender, cooperation and identification with the very entities perpetrating our demise.

Additionally, there has been a troubling development coming out of this effort. Growing numbers of Black women have found themselves with far too few positive choices for mates among Black men. Moreover, and genuinely most disappointing, a growing number of Black women have resorted to blaming the victim and seeing all or most Black men as the sole perpetrators of their own demise -- the no-win irony of being seen as both victim and victimizer.

This assumption may be true of some Black men, but way out of touch with the reality of the cradle-to-grave obstacles specifically put in the path of Black men who attempt to rise beyond the perceive expectations and perceptions of mainstream White American society. Though many Black men are up to the challenges and outright barriers, and many manage to even succeed, it doesn't take a socioeconomic psychology genius to understand that there continues to be specific long-term collateral damage to Black boys and men as a group. Systemically, think of all the Black boys that lack a psychologically whole Black father or male figure due to this ongoing socioeconomic devastation.

Nevertheless, despite the general complicity of significant parts of mainstream White America, diverse Black leaders, government institutions, from storefront to mega-churches, and the legions of blame-the-victim accusers, Black men still struggle to hold on and attempt to succeed. Black boys will still have a few significant examples of real Black men to follow, with substantive support from Black women who see and understand the big picture of our collective survival.

But, America as a whole will begin to notice that one of their best assets is being lost -- an asset that has sustained and expanded the socioeconomic power America has enjoyed for over a century. Perhaps, as nations like China and the European Union countries begin to pose a significantly damaging challenge to America, both economically and militarily, the nation's leaders and mainstream will realize that nurturing and empowering an asset results in better and greater dividends. Meanwhile, Black American men will have to stay strong and keep on keepin' on -- not just for America, but mostly for us.
Dennis Moore - Publisher - BOOKSandWORDS.com
WHAT’S YOUR POINT OF VIEW . . . mail@BOOKSandWORDS.com >

Paying The Reparations Debt
An Essential, Effective & Easily Earned Dividend

TheDisUnitedStatesABlackBusinessConsidering Education Reparations -- There is no longer a real question or reasonable debate against the need for paying a reparations debt to Black American citizens. It is clearly in our national economic, social, and moral interests. Over the last 150 years, there have been many formal and informal efforts and promises to pay America’s actual victims, immediate relatives, or indigenous citizen-descendents of the slaves that produced the economic success and future of America. Over 100 years before this continent became the United States of America, African slaves were the backbone, muscle and flesh used to jump-start the economies of the original 13 colonies from Savannah-Georgia to New Hampshire. This head start sparked the unprecedented economic and political growth of a new nation -- within a comparatively short and tumultuous 150-plus years -- into a global superpower nation.

AmINotAManAndABrotherThe attempted enslavement of native Americans, so-called Indians, became too troublesome due to their insurgent warfare and obvious territorial advantages. Repeatedly, history has proven the difficulty of physically enslaving people on their own land. As for the enslavement of Africans, putting an ocean and thousands of miles in distance between our land, cultures, and Black majority population base was a major key to controlling us as slaves. No doubt, as decades and centuries passed, mental enslavement became an easy and long-term benefit beyond physical slavery.

Fast forward through the American war for independence, westward land appropriations, the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, repatriation to Liberia, Jim Crow segregation, two World Wars, the Civil Rights revolution, the 2000 presidential election, and the Katrina disaster. By the way, to be historically accurate, the Revolutionary War for independence was actually for the right to continue, control, and profit from Black enslavement -- a response to Britain's efforts to outlaw slavery throughout its empire, and deprive America's anti-British landowners of an economy dependent on slave labor (read: Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies & Sparked the American Revolution, by Alfred W. Blumrosen and Ruth G. Blumrosen).

BlackFarmerWithFortyAcresAndAMuleNow is truly the time for reparations, here in a new millennium, after the promises of 40 acres with a mule, the H.R. 29 Bill of 1867 by Pennsylvania’s Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens for slave reparations, the efforts to attain national ex-slave pension legislation through the U.S. Congress in 1898 (read: My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations, by Mary Frances Berry), and Michigan Congressman John Conyer’s current H.R. 40 Bill. Also, let's not forget the diverse and official forms of compensation paid to World War II interned Japanese Americans, Jewish holocaust victims, and Native Americans throughout the 20th century. The legal and financial precedents have already been laid. The only discussion that needs to take place is what form of reparations will constitute reasonable compensation, and how it will be disbursed after decades of delay. The answers are much easier, equitable, practicable, and fiscally responsible than one might imagine. All one has to do is look at the common factor and the ongoing systematic pattern of socioeconomic and legal barriers purposely put in the way of Black Americans before and after the Civil War, through 20th century segregation, and now. The essential and common asset denied us has been information and education.

CongressmanJohnConyersReparationsBillHR40Education reparations are the most effective empowerment tool and valued commodity we could have over a century ago, and even more so today. Therefore, it is clear that the most essential, easy and effective form that reparations should take would be through educational empowerment. Instead of distributing billions of dollars through a dubious, contentious and unaccountable federal program, or budgeting billions on de facto poverty and incarceration programs, create a partnership of government and corporate endowment or annuity funds to finance a fully funded 4,000 acre (as in 100 years x 40 acres; minus the mule) university (Martin Luther King, Jr. University) to attain bachelor and master degrees in business administration, entrepreneurial studies, science, technology, engineering, medicine, education, global Black studies, law, public administration, community development, and ROTC military studies.

King University must be capable of graduating at least 4,000 students each year, with graduates required to work four years in a predominantly low-income Black American community in exchange for 4-6 years of tuition-free education. Though many basic course requirements will have a Black American cultural orientation, enrollment will be open to all certified American citizens. For additional MultigenerationalBlackFamily2006long-term insurance and assurance, include a national endowment fund to cover the general operating costs for the two poorest historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) with the best graduation rate in each of the 22 HBCU states. Funding for the selected HBCU schools from the endowment fund will be based on strict overall academic performance standards and accountable fiscal responsibility guidelines. The total affordable cost, both sufficient and symbolic, is $40 billion -- nearly 40 decades (by the year 2019) since the arrival of the first ship with African slaves to North America in 1619. Far more federal and corporate money is wasted every year in America, whereas this endowment fund would cover the entire cost of constructing and maintaining a major centrally located 4,000 acre (6.25 square miles) super-campus beyond 200 years. Additionally, the HBCU schools will benefit operationally over the same period of time from this interest-bearing fund, as well as enhancing their accreditation status based on similar academic and fiscal requirements.

FrancoisDominiqueToussaintLOuvertureKnowledge has always been, and will always be, the most valuable socioeconomic commodity in human history. The rise and fall of nations have historically been linked to their accumulation, use, and broad dissemination of this critical commodity for its citizens. Knowledge acquired through education has always been our bridge to individual and collective empowerment. During America's first 100-plus years, slave masters felt justified to deter, beat, torture, or kill slaves seeking this powerful commodity -- education. Clearly, education was, and is, the path to emancipation that led to empowerment. Those multi-century atrocities and the generations that suffer from later versions of deterrence can now be best atoned by fair and full compensation through education reparations.

Black_College_StudentsThe genuinely immediate and long-term dividends for all of America is a larger educationally empowered populace that will raise the social and economic global status of our nation as a whole. Moreover, education reparations will create a much larger homegrown pool and multi-generations of Black American citizens that will restore and energize America’s faltering socioeconomic engine -- an engine that’s increasingly being battered and weakened by diverse global entities. Surely, there is plenty of historical and current evidence proving that these global entities have little or no regard for our national economic or social interests. In a time of growing global competition, the far reaching dividends from education reparations will be most timely. Continued delays and arguments against these dividends will reveal the true national loyalties and global agenda of the opponents of education reparations.
Dennis Moore - Publisher - BOOKSandWORDS.com
WHAT’S YOUR POINT OF VIEW . . . mail@BOOKSandWORDS.com >

© Copyright 2006 - BOOKSandWORDS.com

 

 

 

 

Link_PT Link_IS Link_BL

Link_EZ  Link_AU

BOTTOMLINES

Words, Truth & Integrity:
How Oprah Affirmed Trust

OprahWinfreyIn what may go down as a landmark episode in television talk show history, Oprah Winfrey presented a riveting live broadcast with A Million Little Pieces author James Frey. The principles of verifiable truth and substantive integrity gleamed in a bright light through Ms. Winfrey's telecast on what has become the iconic victim of our time -- truth.

"The truth matters," as Oprah firmly exclaimed toward the close of her Thursday show. When it comes to book publishing in particular, there is a genuine difference between non-fiction and fiction. Regardless of any post-publishing endorsements, accolades or critic appraisals, the publisher is the initial and final guardian of any book's integrity.

AP_Photo_of_James_Frey_with_Oprah_Winfrey_In an era of digital and high-speed print publishing, time still needs to be taken to verify non-fiction facts and sources must be vetted. The urge and rush to market a book for sales advantage is no excuse for shoddy fact checking of memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, news or other sources of reality. Considering the millions-to-billions of dollars earned by small and large publishing houses, how much of their profit margin is sacrificed by having a dedicated staff of fact checkers.

A_Million_Little_PiecesHopefully, we haven't crossed into the age of fact checking on the cheap with the advent of online journalism and infovestigators. The new paradigm of real-time digital information dissemination, from casual bloggers to fact-focused cybernauts, may be the newest line in defense of truth. Not that the Internet is a bastion of integrity and civility, its just that most serious online journalist don't seek to be ass-out before the www -- whole wide world. Just about everyone who uses this new medium professionally already knows that reputations can be quickly born and destroyed through words.

Though Oprah affirmed that this latest injury to truth and trust was "deeply embarrassing," the shame should be fully assumed by the publisher for simply not doing its basic job. As children, we are taught to review and check our homework. This function becomes no less important as adults, and for the authors and publishers of literary works at Doubleday and Anchor Books.

I, for one, will still respect and respond to the integrity that remains at the core of Oprah and her book club. Beyond this momentary distraction from truth and trust by one author, and his publisher, Oprah's honest revelation and admitted "mistake" should be empowering evidence that individual truth and integrity still exists -- all the more reason for continuing to believe in books and words.

Dennis Moore - Publisher - BOOKSandWORDS.com
WHAT’S YOUR POINT OF VIEW . . . mail@BOOKSandWORDS.com >

Advertise_With_BOOKSandWORDS

SJSProperties

BAW_Logo
LISTS OVER 1,000,000
Book, Movie and Music Titles
All Items Sold At Everyday Discounts
FAST & FREE DELIVERY
ON MOST $25-PLUS ORDERS

ANY QUESTIONS OR REQUESTS?
Call 202.248.4729 Monday - Friday 9 AM - 5 PM USA-EST or E-Mail Us:
mail@BOOKSandWORDS.com >

BAW_LogoAmazon_and_Borders_Books_Authorized_Sales_Associate
BOOKSandWORDS.com is an independent and wholly Black-owned business of Moore World Media. We are an authorized Amazon.com and BordersStores.com sales associate, including their U.S. and global network of hard-to-find, used, out-of-print books and textbook dealers, as well as movies and music. All sales are securely transacted, processed and shipped by Amazon.com. We ship to virtually any address in the world, including your home, school, office, work site, institution or military base.

NOTE THAT THERE ARE RESTRICTIONS on some products, and some products cannot be shipped to international destinations, so be sure to check out our shipping restrictions page. When you place an order, we will estimate shipping and delivery dates for you based on the availability of your items and the shipping options you choose. Choice of shipping option should be based on your location and when needed.

SHIPPING DATE ESTIMATES will appear in the order form. After placing your order, you will see both shipping and delivery date estimates in the order confirmation e-mail and in the order summary in Your Account.

SHIPPING COSTS FOR ORDERS from Amazon.com depend upon the method and option you choose. If you choose to group items into as few shipments as possible, you'll be charged for one regular per-shipment fee, as well as a per-item fee for each item in that shipment. FREE shipping on a $25-plus order applies only to orders with over $25 of qualifying merchandise, excluding gift-wrap charges and taxes, at the Amazon.com, Borders.com, CDNOW.com, Waldenbooks.com, and Virginmega.com websites.

EXCLUDES ITEMS that do not include a statement on their product detail pages that they are eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping and items sold by third parties or through third-party areas such as Marketplace, Auctions, and zShops. Also excludes certain oversize items, e-books and e-documents, software downloads, music downloads, and gift certificates.

APPLIES TO U.S. DELIVERY ADDRESSES in the 50 states only, including Alaska and Hawaii, but is subject to other geographic shipping restrictions that may apply to particular products. Applies to APO/FPO addresses when using a United States ZIP Code only. Be certain to read details on your product order pages.

EMPOWERMENT ZONE
The Perfect Résumé
Getting the Job You Really Want

Starting your own business? Excellent! So, this section is not for you. See our best SELF- EMPOWERMENT BOOKS below. In the meantime, as a
job seeker, you may not realize that most employment recruiters spend about one minute to browse, assess and file your résumé.
In tight job markets and high volumes of résumé submissions, you need a résumé that stands out and gets right to the point. In a research of successful employees, want ads, special employment resources, employment services, corporate human resources departments and recruiters, BOOKSandWORDS.com discovered that there is a universal or “magic” résumé that every employer looks for among the daily piles of paper. This résumé format instantly shows how qualified you are for a particular job and what you have to back it up. We call this format the S.E.E.R. résumé: Skills, Experience, Education and References (see half-page sample below). S.E.E.R. résumés enable employers to clearly see your specific occupational assets when measuring their immediate and future recruitment needs. The S.E.E.R. format is very effective in all professional job application categories. This format is especially useful when applied to administrative, technical, specialist, service, temporary, freelance and entry level job résumés. Also consider, this allows the employment specialist to assess your overall hiring potential, specific skills, and quickly check all references. When your résumé provides these three elements, you’ll have a built-in advantage as a primary job candidate. Remember, your résumé is what introduces you to a new job.

Always type and edit your résumé in a computer word processing program such as Word, WordPerfect, PageMaker,and others. You can also download a completely free and very powerful program called AbiWord at AbiWord.com It’s very user-friendly, and recognizes over 110 language versions. Most important, please use the spell-check and grammar-check in any of the software programs. Use modern 10 to 14 point size fonts, such as Arial, Futura or Franklin Gothic (including their bold font versions for titles). These modern typeface styles empower your  résumé for easier reading,
e-mailing, text scanning, and readable fax transmissions.

Clear-to-the-point descriptions are what employers look for, not your life story. When necessary or desired, include a separate cover letter of no more than three paragraphs (4 concise sentences or less per paragraph) to briefly highlight your interest or objective, and qualifications for the job, as well as your compatibility with the company. On this point, we advise that you check-up on the company’s corporate history and current events by going to Hoovers.com or Google.com (type company’s name in the Search News box). If available, be sure to visit the company’s or agency’s website too. No doubt, a company website provides valuable information for job seekers.

Based on our research and feedback, you will get more positive responses when you are knowledgeable about the potential employer and present a résumé that backs-up your interest. Some may even compliment you on your résumé’s informative, organized and reader-friendly qualities. Clearly, this compliment will be a positive and memorable reflection on you as a good candidate for the job of your choice. Below is a shortened half-page version of our S.E.E.R. résumé. Please remember, due to hundreds of weekly résumés an employer or agency receives, a 1-page, 11/2 page or
2-page résumé gets read first. A résumé that covers the current and last three jobs (if you had that many) is appropriate. You can elaborate on your current and previous work history during telephone or in-person interviews. Any other significant employment, background information, skill sets, training and job related commendations or awards you have should be briefly included in your three-paragraph cover letter. When it comes to your best job asset or assets, make it clear, keep it real, and always be factual. Employers will check. It’s a fact, you will rarely get a second chance to make a good first impression.

Always keep a time, date, description and contact information record
of all the employers (or persons) you send a résumé to, or speak with.
Usually, direct contact and résumés to an employer’s human resources department or specific hiring person speeds-up the job search process. Creating a friendly professional relationship directly with a job source can be a time saver. Unfortunately, at too many employment agencies, you can end up being just a telephone number among the hundreds that an agent may call. Direct contact, without or before contacting an agency, can lead to a faster application process. In many cases, this saves the hiring company money and time from using agencies, and gets you hired much quicker. Be flexible during the process, but when appropriate don’t be afraid to ask about salary and/or benefits based on your skills and length of experience. You can also check-out the current occupational salary rate and multi-city cost-of-living comparisons at Salary.com. Remember, salary levels are based on the local cost of living rates. Employers usually pay the local rate or higher depending on local skill demands, as well as what you may negotiate along with other benefits. Always be prepared and willing to negotiate based on realistic salary needs in relation to what an  employer can afford now and three years (or raises) later.

After 2 or 3 business days, follow-up with a polite after-lunch time call to confirm that your résumé was received, as well as get a realistic sense of where you are in the company’s hiring process and their interest in your application. Remember, keep a record. This professional and proactive approach will let the employer know how interested you are in the job, and gives you a chance to assess your progress in case job search tactics need to be adjusted. It also saves you from a lot of wasted time, travel money and needless stress. It’s no secret that job hunts have a cost. Lower the personal and financial costs by being organized, proactive and informed. Despite the stresses, never forget to be cordial, but natural. Your personality and attitude are equally important as experience and aptitude in the hiring process. No company wants a good worker with a bad attitude. If this sounds like you, no doubt, they are quietly seeking your replacement.

Lastly, and most important, be sure to include a current telephone number (two personal numbers are best) and a reliable personal e-mail address. It is completely ethical and justified for you to be private and protective about your future job plans. While job searching, if your current employer directly offers you better advancement, benefits and salary, then assess and decide based on what is in YOUR BEST long term interest.

PLEASE!!!. Never use your current employer’s e-mail system, telephones or monitored Internet access when searching for a job. Nowadays, in the ‘Digital Age,’ a digital record can be made and put into a database of everything you do on a company’s telecommunications system. Yes! At many businesses and agencies, even the phone number, fax data, web address, computer keystrokes, and your conversation is digitized and stored. Unknown to you, in many cities and companies, non-company use
of their facilities and services could be grounds for termination based on the employer’s “at-will” employment rules and their self-protecting interpretation of employment laws. Don’t fire yourself by carelessness. Your home Internet connected computer or local library is best. Unless you want an surprise vacation and frequent ATM money-runs, keep all of your job search activities private. Believe it! In the end, there is no genuine professional or personal advantage in broadcasting to anyone at work that you are searching, or leaving before there’s a definite and signed job offer letter in your hands. Equal professional focus on your current job and the desired one will provide the genuine job search success you seek. -- BOOKSandWORDS.com

Sample_Resume


TOP JOB SEARCH SOURCES

Historically Black Colleges & Universities Career Center

EmploymentGuide.com         CollegeBoard.com Careers

WorkplaceDiversity.com         JobCentral.com

SummerJobs.com         USAJobsOPM.gov

CareerBuilder.com         Monster.com

HotJobs.com         ScienceJobs.com

VetJobs.com         JobsAbroad.com


SELF-EMPOWERMENT BOOKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current_Fiction_Books
Strivers_Row
Joplin's_Ghost
Cinnamon_Kiss
Black_Box_Poems
Where_Is_the_Love
The_Color_of_Law
The_Sweet_Golden_Parachute
Dancing_in_the_Dark
Freshwater_Road
Voodoo_Season
Aint_No_Valley
Almost_Doesnt_Count
Jamaica_Kincaid
The_Coldest_Winter_Ever
Babylon_Sisters
The_Interruption_of_Everything
Black_Marks
American_Smooth
Proof_Evident
Betrayal_of_the_Trust
A_Family_Wedding
Nowhere_Is_a_Place
Soul_City
Copper_Sun
Dust_Tracks_on_a_Road
New_Boy
Its_Like_That
Runner_Mack
To_Be_a_Slave
The_Heart_Is_A_Lonely_Hunter
Remembering_the_Past_in_Contemporary_African_American_Fiction
Ghost_Legion
The_Burnt_Orange_Sunrise
Grace
Baby_Brothers_Blues
The_Long_Mile_The_Shango_Mysteries
The_Vow_Three_Women_Two_Carats_One_Year
Dead_by_Popular_Demand
A_House_Divided
Leadbelly
A_Little_Bit_of_Honey
The_Velvet_Rope
Cotton
They_Tell_Me_of_a_Home
Patches_of_Fire
Spirituality_as_Ideology_in_Black_Womens_Film_and_Literature
Third_Girl_from_the_Left
Between_Father_and_Son
Never_Go_Home_Again
Am_Wisdoms_Child
Counting_Raindrops_Through_a_Stained_Glass_Window
How_Sweet_the_Sound
Distant_Lover
Bang
Coal_Camp_Justice
Valaida
When_It_Burned_to_the_Ground
Music_of_the_Mill
Sins_and_Secrets
Fetish
Ghost_of_a_Flea
P_I_on_a_Hot_Tin_Roof
African_American_Heiress
First_Dawn
Gravesite
The_Legend_of_the_Dancing_Trees_An_African_American_Folktale
No_Regrets
Somebodys_Gotta_Be_On_Top
Mistakes_Men_Make
Darkness_Before_Dawn
Haarlem
She_Plays_with_the_Darkness
Cachoeira_Tales_and_Other_Poems
A_Love_Story
Gettin_Our_Groove_On

BAW_Logo

A New Media Paradigm
Unlimited Black Books, Global Black News and Culture




BOOKS_and_WORDS_Publisher_CEO_Dennis_MooreBOOKSandWORDS.com, a Moore World Media company, was born from a serious need to present the diversity of Black-related literature, news and information. Founded in November 2000 as a high quality comprehensive digest of diverse Black books, BOOKSandWORDS.com also provides significant global Black news and information. As a wholly Black-owned media company, it is our mission to be a highly reliable, straight forward, factually resourceful, insightful, easy-to-navigate and easy-to-read website with a wealth of current information. BOOKSandWORDS.com will make no sacrifices on presenting high quality content and resources. We endeavor to provide the latest and largest collection of current, out-of-print, rare and unique Black-related books, hard-to-find VHS or DVD films, music CDs, gift items --- plus a full range of textbooks and general audience literature.

As the premier online source for finding and securely purchasing Black books, movies and music, we also continue to be a high quality source for substantive global Black news, information and perspectives. Additionally, as an independent and authorized sales associate of Amazon.com and Borders booksellers, we list and provide the largest and most diverse list of Black-related books, self-published authors, diverse Black children’s books and certified educational home workbooks, textbooks, diverse DVD-VHS movies, and thousands of music CD titles. In fact, we have the most secure online purchasing process and fastest shipped discount inventory --- with gift wrapping.

Our strong belief in the genuine power of books and words to enlighten, inspire and empower is our foundation. The diverse audience of truly avid and aware BOOKSandWORDS.com readers are drawn to the purpose of our mission . . . nothing less than the best and most reliable digital digest of Black books, news and culture.  --- Dennis Moore - President & CEO - Moore World Media

We genuinely appreciate your comments, questions, suggestions, and any constructive criticism. All e-mails will be answered promptly when sent to: mail@booksandwords.com

Advertise Your Book, Movie, Music, Product or Service
We give special attention to new and independent authors. If you’re looking to promote your book, movie, music, product or service and increase your profits, e-mail or call BOOKSandWORDS.com about our unique $30 advertising offer. For a limited time, that’s just thirty dollars per week (seven full days -- less than $5 per day) for each promotional display ad publicizing your product or media. Advertise based on YOUR budget. No long or locked contracts. Pay as you go for the weeks you want. Use our distinctive 450x150 horizontal or 120x350 vertical pixel ad layout, or use your own custom design. Each ad is a large graphic (see below) hyperlinked to your website or sales source, plus an optional insightful synopsis for our readers. Advertisements (including their hyperlinks) displaying only a book, CD or video cover are billed at just $10 for a full 7-day week --- less than $1.50 per day. Shop around online and you will discover that BOOKSandWORDS.com offers the very best advertising buy, page exposure, and informed ready-to-buy audience on the Internet.

Diverse ready-to-buy book, movie and music lovers of all ages search us for what’s current and hard-to-find. Will BOOKSandWORDS.com readers find your product or service? Contact us for the right connection for greater and better exposure on the Internet . . . without the hard sell. Call us at 202- 248- 4729 Monday through Friday 9 AM - 5 PM USA-EST or click: mail@booksandwords.com >

FACT: Based on 2004’s annual, weekly and holiday consumer statistics, African Americans spent over $723 billion for a diverse range of goods and services. Forecasts up to 2009 show Black spending power rising over $964 billion.* Within this growing consumer market is the increase in book, movie, music and other diverse consumer media purchases. In short, the African American consumer market is hot and still growing monthly by millions of dollars. Do you have clear access to this market? Whether our earnings are $10,000 or $100,000 per year --- in good, better or bad times --- we search, select and shop like no other US demographic. If you’re looking to expand your market and your profits, e-mail or call BOOKSandWORDS.com (9 AM - 5 PM EST Monday - Friday) about our unique and flexible $30 or $10 per week limited time advertising offer. Now is the time to connect with the consumers you never knew --- at BAW_Logo
Are you ready to sell more books, movies, music, products, et cetera?

*2004 - University of Georgia, Selig Center for Economic Growth - The Multicultural Economy, 1990-2009 - (in PDF) >

Special Attention To New Authors

On the right is a basic sample of how your $30 per week advertisement will be shown. Note our large understated yet very distinctive design is creatively concise and informational. Of course, you have the option to use your own custom designed ad. Your 450 pixel wide by 150 pixel high ad (or the choice of a 120 wide by 350 vertical ad) will always be linked to your sales source or website, giving you a direct 24-hour connection to our avid and very aware ready-to-buy readers around the world.

VACSEJ-080105

 

FIND YOUR INFORMATION INSTANTLY FROM OVER 1,000 SEARCH ENGINES

CNET Search.com
  Search:  
  
    
 

BAW_Logo . . . ALL THE NEWS YOU NEVER KNEW!

WN_Africa WN_Caribbean WN_Middle_East
WNTrans-Asia WN_Central_America WN_South_America
WNEasternEurope WNWesternEurope WN_North_America
BBC_Focus_On_Africa Reuters_AlertNet
BBC_World_Weather
BBC_Africa_Music
BlackRefer.com BBC_Africa
BlackEnterprise.com03
HBCU_Connect.com
BBCCaribbean
FirstGov.gov
Live365.com
Blackflix.com
CaribbeanNetNews
BAW_Logo

All Text, Section Titles and Multimedia Content
Copyright 2007 - BOOKSandWORDS.com - A Moore World Media Company

BOOKSandWORDS.com, a Moore World Media company, is the premier multimedia news digest and resource of global Black news, literature, information, opinion, entertainment, culture and self-empowerment. Questions, comments, criticisms, advice and ideas are truly welcomed at mail@booksandwords.com. Also call 202-248-4729, Monday through Friday, from 9 AM to 5 PM USA-EST. All original website content, except hyperlinked material, is copyrighted - © 2007 Moore World Media. BOOKSandWORDS.com is an independent and wholly Black-owned business, and an authorized sales associate of Amazon.com and BordersStores.com, including its distribution, secure online purchase processing, shipping, used books, textbooks, and out-of-print booksellers network.