Download or read book Antebellum Dream Book written by Elizabeth Alexander and published by . This book was released on 2001-09 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a collection of poems with themes ranging from race, memory, and Southern culture to African American celebrities including Richard Pryor, Muhammad Ali, and Nat King Cole.
Download or read book River of Dark Dreams written by Walter Johnson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: River of Dark Dreams places the Cotton Kingdom at the center of worldwide webs of exchange and exploitation that extended across oceans and drove an insatiable hunger for new lands. This bold reaccounting dramatically alters our understanding of American slavery and its role in U.S. expansionism, global capitalism, and the upcoming Civil War.
Download or read book Her Dream of Dreams written by Beverly Lowry and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I am a woman that came from the cotton fields of the South; I was promoted from there to the wash-tub; then I was promoted to the cook kitchen, and from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations.” --Madam C. J. Walker, National Negro Business League Convention, 1912 Now, from a writer acclaimed for her novels and the memoir Crossed Over, a remarkable biography of a truly heroic figure. Madam C. J. Walker created a cosmetics empire and became known as the first female self-made millionaire in this nation’s history, a noted philanthropist and champion of women’s rights and economic freedom. These achievements seem nothing less than miraculous given that she was born, in 1867, to former slaves in a hamlet on the Mississippi River. How she came to live on another river, the Hudson, in a Westchester County mansion, and in a New York City town house, is at once inspirational and mysterious, because for all that is known about the famous entrepreneur, much that occurred before her magnificent transformation—years that trace a circuitous route across the country—remains obscure. By breathing life into scattered clues and dry facts, and with a deep understanding of the times and places through which Madam Walker moved, Beverly Lowry tells a story that stretches from the antebellum South to the Harlem Renaissance and bridges nearly a century of our history in her search for the distant truths of a woman who defied all odds and redefined conventional expectations. “Wherever there was one colored person, whether it was a city, a town, or a puddle by the railroad tracks, everybody knew her name.” --Violet Davis Reynolds, Stenographer, Madam C. J. Walker Co
Download or read book Bellocq s Ophelia written by Natasha Trethewey and published by . This book was released on 2002-04 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of poems offers glimpses into the life and thoughts of an African American prostitute in pre-World War I New Orleans.
Download or read book Take Heart My Child written by Ainsley Earhardt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available as a giftable board book, popular FOX news anchor and New York Times bestselling author of I’m So Glad You Were Born Ainsley Earhardt’s New York Times bestseller Take Heart, My Child is a lyrical lullaby that inspires children to follow their dreams and passions. FOX and Friends cohost Ainsley Earhardt shares precious life lessons parents can pass onto their children so that they can follow their hearts, dreams, and passions. Take Heart, My Child is a lyrical lullaby in which Ainsley shares her own hopes and dreams and lets her child know that whatever challenges life brings, “Take heart, my child, I will—or, my love will—always be there for you.” It’s a universal message, one that all readers will relate to.
Download or read book Happy Dreams of Liberty written by R. Isabela Morales and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-02 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poignant, multi-generational saga of a mixed-race family in the US West and South from the antebellum period through the rise of Jim Crow. When Samuel Townsend died at his home in Madison County, Alabama, in November 1856, the fifty-two-year-old white planter left behind hundreds of slaves, thousands of acres of rich cotton land, and a net worth of approximately $200,000. In life, Samuel had done little to distinguish himself from other members of the South's elite slaveholding class. But he made a name for himself in death by leaving almost the entirety of his fortune to his five sons, four daughters, and two nieces: all of them his slaves. In this deeply researched, movingly narrated portrait of the extended Townsend family, R. Isabela Morales reconstructs the migration of this mixed-race family across the American West and South over the second half of the nineteenth century. Searching for communities where they could exercise their newfound freedom and wealth to the fullest, members of the family homesteaded and attended college in Ohio and Kansas; fought for the Union Army in Mississippi; mined for silver in the Colorado Rockies; and, in the case of one son, returned to Alabama to purchase part of the old plantation where he had once been held as a slave. In Morales's telling, the Townsends' story maps a new landscape of opportunity and oppression, where the meanings of race and freedom--as well as opportunities for social and economic mobility--were dictated by highly local circumstances. During the turbulent period between the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century, the Townsends carved out spaces where they were able to benefit from their money and mixed-race ancestry, pass down generational wealth, and realize some of their happy dreams of liberty.
Download or read book American Dreams in Mississippi written by Ted Ownby and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2002-10-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dreams of abundance, choice, and novelty that have fueled the growth of consumer culture in the United States would seem to have little place in the history of Mississippi--a state long associated with poverty, inequality, and rural life. But as Ted Ownby demonstrates in this innovative study, consumer goods and shopping have played important roles in the development of class, race, and gender relations in Mississippi from the antebellum era to the present. After examining the general and plantation stores of the nineteenth century, a period when shopping habits were stratified according to racial and class hierarchies, Ownby traces the development of new types of stores and buying patterns in the twentieth century, when women and African Americans began to wield new forms of economic power. Using sources as diverse as store ledgers, blues lyrics, and the writings of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, and Will Percy, he illuminates the changing relationships among race, rural life, and consumer goods and, in the process, offers a new way to understand the connection between power and culture in the American South.
Download or read book Body of Life written by Elizabeth Alexander and published by Tia Chucha. This book was released on 1996 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tia Chucha Press is proud to reprint Elizabeth Alexander’s “Body of Life,” first published in 1996 and a collection that stands as a testament to the well-wrought line with the deeply threaded elements of history, ancestors, jazz, and family that mark the rare power inherent in Ms. Alexander’s work. Her selection as the Inaugural Poet for 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama is well deserved—she is one of the most fresh and vital voices in American literature today.
Download or read book Power and Possibility written by Elizabeth Alexander and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation. Elizabeth Alexander is considered one of the country's most gifted contemporary poets, and the publication of her essays in The Black Interior in 2004 established her as an astute critic and cultural commentator as well. Arnold Rampersad has called Alexander "one of the brightest stars in our literary sky . . . a superb, invaluable commentator on the American scene." In this new collection of her essays, reviews, and interviews, Alexander again focuses on African American artistic production, particularly poetry, and the cultural contexts in which it is created and experienced. The book's first section, "Black Arts 101," takes up the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sterling Brown, Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Rita Dove (among others); artist Romare Bearden; dancer Bill T. Jones; and dramatist August Wilson. A second section, "Black Feminist Thinking," provides engaging meditations ranging from "My Grandmother's Hair" and "A Very Short History of Black Women and Food" to essays on the legacies of Toni Cade, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan. The collection's final section, "Talking," includes interviews, a commencement address---"Black Graduation"---and the essay "Africa and the World." Elizabeth Alexander received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She has published four books of poems: The Venus Hottentot (1990); Body of Life (1996); Antebellum Dream Book (2001); and, most recently, American Sublime (2005), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her play, Diva Studies, was produced at the Yale School of Drama. She is presently Professor of American and African American Studies at Yale University.
Download or read book Gardens and Historic Plants of the Antebellum South written by James R. Cothran and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In addition, Cothran provides profiles of prominent gardeners, horticulturists, nurserymen, and writers who, in the decades preceding the American Civil War, were instrumental in shaping the horticultural and gardening legacy of the South."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Engaging Tradition Making It New written by Stephanie Brown and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engaging Tradition, Making It New offers a rich collection of fresh scholarly and pedagogical approaches to new African American literature. Organized around the theme of transgression, the collection focuses on those writers who challenge the reading habits and expectations of students and instructors, whether by engaging themes and literary forms not usually associated with African American literature or by departing from traditional modes of approaching historical, social, or legal struggles. Each chapter offers a specific reading of a particular novel, memoir, or poetry collection, sometimes in concert with a second, related text, and suggests both a useful critical context and one or more pedagogical approaches. Engaging Tradition, Making It New points the way toward exciting new methods of teaching and researching authors in this dynamic field.
Download or read book Poems in Conversation written by Elizabeth Alexander and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. "When Alexander and Stefanon scrutinize the variegated surfaces of Romare Bearden's art, the intensity of their gazes gives way to speech. In the blues of 'Reclining Nude, ' Stefanon's speaker discovers 'I could hear / her holding / her breath.' Alexander finds images that transmute into sounds: 'Flowered dresses. / A woman's holler. River or guitar.' In the hands of these poets, ekphrasis is an act of inquiry, a mode of poetic transformation as well as cultural analysis. For both, the lacunae inherent in acts of reading and looking are openings for empathy, uncertainty, discourse"--Barbara Fischer.
Download or read book A Study Guide for Elizabeth Alexander s The Toni Morrison Dreams written by Gale, Cengage Learning and published by Gale, Cengage Learning . This book was released on 2016 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Study Guide for Elizabeth Alexander's "The Toni Morrison Dreams," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
Download or read book The Voice of Your Dreams written by Aaron Anastasi and published by New Dreamers Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The VOICE of YOUR DREAMS is calling to you, but it can be difficult to hear-and move toward-when the voices of limitation are shouting so much louder. Get clear about what you want, what's holding you back, and how to get new results.
Download or read book The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire 1854 1861 written by Robert E. May and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The great value of the book lies in the manner in which May relates the expansionist urge to the "symbolic" differences emerging between the North and the South. The result is a balanced account that contributes to the efforts of historians to understand the causes of the Civil War."--Journal of American History "The most ambitious effort yet to relate the Caribbean question to the larger picture of southern economic and political anxieties, and to secession. The core of this superbly documented book is a detailed description of expansionist ideology and activities during the 1850s."--Civil War History A path-breaking work when first published in 1973, The Southern Dream remains the standard work on attempts by the South to spread American slavery into the tropics--Cuba, Mexico, and Central America in particular--before the Civil War. Robert May shows that the South's expansionists had no more success than when they tried to extend slavery westward. As one after another of their plots failed, southern imperialists lost hope that their labor system might survive in the Union. Blaming northern Democrats and antislavery Republicans alike for their disappointed dreams, alienated southerners embraced secession as an alternative means to achieving the tropical slave empire that they craved. Had war not erupted at Fort Sumter, Confederates might have attempted to conquer the Caribbean basin. May's book serves as an important reminder that foreign policy cannot be divorced from the writing of American history, even in regard to seemingly domestic matters like the causes of the Civil War. Contending that America's Manifest Destiny became "sectionalized" in the 1850s, he explains why southerners considered Caribbean expansion so important and shows how southerners used their clout in Washington to initiate diplomatic schemes like the notorious Ostend Manifesto and presidential attempts to buy the slaveholding island of Cuba from Spain. He also describes southern filibustering plots against Latin American domains, such as the aborted designs on Mexico of the colorful Knights of the Golden Circle and the actual invasions of Central America by native Tennessean William Walker. Walker struck a major blow for the expansion of slavery when he legalized it during his occupation of Nicaragua. Most important, May relates how Caribbean plots affected American public opinion and ignited sectional friction in congressional debates. May argues that President-elect Abraham Lincoln might have saved the Union in the winter of 1860-61, had he agreed to last minute concessions facilitating slavery's future expansion towards the tropics. May's fascinating and often surprising account internationalized the causes of the Civil War. It should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the complex reasons why Americans came to blows with each other in 1861. This reprinting features a new preface by the author, which addresses the latest research on the Caribbean question. Robert E. May is professor of history at Purdue University.
Download or read book Into a Light Both Brilliant and Unseen written by Malin Pereira and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pereira's collection of interviews with leading contemporary African American poets Wanda Coleman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Thylias Moss, Harryette Mullen, Cornelius Eady, Elizabeth Alexander, Rita Dove, and Cyrus Cassells offers an in-depth look at the cultural and aesthetic perspectives of the post-Black Arts Movement generation.
Download or read book American Tensions written by William Reichard and published by New Village Press. This book was released on 2011-04-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology of contemporary American poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, explores issues of identity, oppression, injustice, and social change. Living American writers produced each piece between 1980 and the present; works were selected based on literary merit and the manner in which they address one or more pressing social issues. William Reichard has assembled some of the most respected literary artists of our time, asking whose voices are ascendant, whose silenced, and why. The work as a whole reveals shifting perspectives and the changing role of writing in the social justice arena over the last few decades.
