Download or read book One Drop written by Yaba Blay and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges narrow perceptions of Blackness as both an identity and lived reality to understand the diversity of what it means to be Black in the US and around the world What exactly is Blackness and what does it mean to be Black? Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness? Who determines who is Black and who is not? Who’s Black, who’s not, and who cares? In the United States, a Black person has come to be defined as any person with any known Black ancestry. Statutorily referred to as “the rule of hypodescent,” this definition of Blackness is more popularly known as the “one-drop rule,” meaning that a person with any trace of Black ancestry, however small or (in)visible, cannot be considered White. A method of social order that began almost immediately after the arrival of enslaved Africans in America, by 1910 it was the law in almost all southern states. At a time when the one-drop rule functioned to protect and preserve White racial purity, Blackness was both a matter of biology and the law. One was either Black or White. Period. Has the social and political landscape changed one hundred years later? One Drop explores the extent to which historical definitions of race continue to shape contemporary racial identities and lived experiences of racial difference. Featuring the perspectives of 60 contributors representing 25 countries and combining candid narratives with striking portraiture, this book provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. Although contributors use varying terms to self-identify, they all see themselves as part of the larger racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to as Black. They have all had their identity called into question simply because they do not fit neatly into the stereotypical “Black box”—dark skin, “kinky” hair, broad nose, full lips, etc. Most have been asked “What are you?” or the more politically correct “Where are you from?” throughout their lives. It is through contributors’ lived experiences with and lived imaginings of Black identity that we can visualize multiple possibilities for Blackness.
Download or read book Black Drop written by Leonora Nattrass and published by . This book was released on 2022-04-07 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***A TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR***'A joy from start to finish' - ANDREW TAYLOR 'Thrilling... Deserves to be huge' - EMMA STONEXThis is the confession of Laurence Jago. Clerk. Gentleman. Spy. July 1794, and London is filled with rumours of revolution. The war against the French is not going in Britain's favour, and negotiations with America are on a knife edge. Laurence Jago, Foreign Office clerk, is ever more reliant on opium - the Black Drop - to ease his nightmares. A highly sensitive letter, whose contents could lead to the destruction of the British Army, has been leaked to the press and Laurence is a suspect. Then he discovers the body of a fellow clerk - a supposed suicide - and it seems clear where the blame truly lies. But Laurence is certain both of his friend's innocence, and that he was murdered. But after years of hiding his own secrets from his powerful employers, can Laurence find the true culprit without ending up on the gallows himself?
Download or read book The Black Drop written by Alice Brown and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A member of a New England family, Charles Tracy, becomes a paid agent of the Germans in 1916, during the height of the First World War, with notably tragic consequences for the family.
Download or read book One Drop written by Bliss Broyard and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2007-09-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this acclaimed memoir, Bliss Broyard, daughter of the literary critic Anatole Broyard, examines her father's choice to hide his racial identity, and the impact of this revelation on her own life. Two months before he died, renowned literary critic Anatole Broyard called his grown son and daughter to his side to impart a secret he had kept all their lives and most of his own: he was black. Born in the French Quarter in 1920, Anatole had begun to conceal his racial identity after his family moved to Brooklyn and his parents resorted to "passing" in order to get work. As he grew older and entered the ranks of the New York literary elite, he maintained the favßade. Now his daughter Bliss tries to make sense of his choices. Seeking out unknown relatives in New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans, Bliss uncovers the 250-year history of her family in America and chronicles her own evolution from privilged WASP to a woman of mixed-race ancestry.
Download or read book How to Be Black written by Baratunde Thurston and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York TimesBestseller Baratunde Thurston’s comedic memoir chronicles his coming-of-blackness and offers practical advice on everything from “How to Be the Black Friend” to “How to Be the (Next) Black President”. Have you ever been called “too black” or “not black enough”? Have you ever befriended or worked with a black person? Have you ever heard of black people? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you. It is also for anyone who can read, possesses intelligence, loves to laugh, and has ever felt a distance between who they know themselves to be and what the world expects. Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has more than over thirty years' experience being black. Now, through stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, the heroics of his hippie mother, the murder of his drug-abusing father, and other revelatory black details, he shares with readers of all colors his wisdom and expertise in how to be black. “As a black woman, this book helped me realize I’m actually a white man.”—Patton Oswalt
Download or read book Dispossession written by Pete Daniel and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013-03-29 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594--a drop of 93 percent. In his hard-hitting book, historian Pete Daniel analyzes this decline and chronicles black farmers' fierce struggles to remain on the land in the face of discrimination by bureaucrats in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He exposes the shameful fact that at the very moment civil rights laws promised to end discrimination, hundreds of thousands of black farmers lost their hold on the land as they were denied loans, information, and access to the programs essential to survival in a capital-intensive farm structure. More than a matter of neglect of these farmers and their rights, this "passive nullification" consisted of a blizzard of bureaucratic obfuscation, blatant acts of discrimination and cronyism, violence, and intimidation. Dispossession recovers a lost chapter of the black experience in the American South, presenting a counternarrative to the conventional story of the progress achieved by the civil rights movement.
Download or read book A Drop of Midnight written by Jason Timbuktu Diakité and published by AmazonCrossing. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned hip-hop artist Jason "Timbuktu" Diakité's vivid and intimate journey through his own and his family's history--from South Carolina slavery to twenty-first-century Sweden. Born to interracial American parents in Sweden, Jason Diakité grew up between worlds--part Swedish, American, black, white, Cherokee, Slovak, and German, riding a delicate cultural and racial divide. It was a no-man's-land that left him in constant search of self. Even after his hip-hop career took off, Jason fought to unify a complex system of family roots that branched across continents, ethnicities, classes, colors, and eras to find a sense of belonging. In A Drop of Midnight, Jason draws on conversations with his parents, personal experiences, long-lost letters, and pilgrimages to South Carolina and New York to paint a vivid picture of race, discrimination, family, and ambition. His ancestors' origins as slaves in the antebellum South, his parents' struggles as an interracial couple, and his own world-expanding connection to hip-hop helped him fashion a strong black identity in Sweden. What unfolds in Jason's remarkable voyage of discovery is a complex and unflinching look at not only his own history but also that of generations affected by the trauma of the African diaspora, then and now.
Download or read book The Negro Motorist Green Book written by Victor H. Green and published by Colchis Books. This book was released on with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Negro Motorist Green Book was a groundbreaking guide that provided African American travelers with crucial information on safe places to stay, eat, and visit during the era of segregation in the United States. This essential resource, originally published from 1936 to 1966, offered a lifeline to black motorists navigating a deeply divided nation, helping them avoid the dangers and indignities of racism on the road. More than just a travel guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book stands as a powerful symbol of resilience and resistance in the face of oppression, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience in the 20th century.
Download or read book Drop written by Mat Johnson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-12-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chris Jones has a gift for creating desire-a result of his own passionate desire to be anywhere but where he is, to be anyone but himself. Sick of the constraints of his black working-class town, he uses his knack for creating effective ad campaigns to land a dream job in London. But life soon takes a turn for the worse, and Chris finds himself back in Philly where his only job prospect is answering the phones at the electric company. Surounded by the down-and-out, Chris hits rock bottom. Only a stroke of inspiration and faith can get him back on his feet. The funny and heartfelt tale of a young black man who, in the process of trying to break free from the city he dispises, comes to terms with himself. 'Nuanced, elegant and witty' -Publishers Weekly 'A very humorous debut novel... Johnson's poetic reflections recall the work of James Baldwin....Wonderfully written.' -Library Journal
Download or read book Black Futures written by Kimberly Drew and published by One World. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A literary experience unlike any I’ve had in recent memory . . . a blueprint for this moment and the next, for where Black folks have been and where they might be going.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) What does it mean to be Black and alive right now? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work—images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more—to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics. In answering the question of what it means to be Black and alive, Black Futures opens a prismatic vision of possibility for every reader.
Download or read book The Last Negroes at Harvard written by Kent Garrett and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of the Harvard class of '63, whose Black students fought to create their own identities on the cusp between integration and affirmative action. In the fall of 1959, Harvard recruited an unprecedented eighteen "Negro" boys as an early form of affirmative action. Four years later they would graduate as African Americans. Some fifty years later, one of these trailblazing Harvard grads, Kent Garrett, would begin to reconnect with his classmates and explore their vastly different backgrounds, lives, and what their time at Harvard meant. Garrett and his partner Jeanne Ellsworth recount how these eighteen youths broke new ground, with ramifications that extended far past the iconic Yard. By the time they were seniors, they would have demonstrated against national injustice and grappled with the racism of academia, had dinner with Malcolm X and fought alongside their African national classmates for the right to form a Black students' organization. Part memoir, part group portrait, and part narrative history of the intersection between the civil rights movement and higher education, this is the remarkable story of brilliant, singular boys whose identities were changed at and by Harvard, and who, in turn, changed Harvard.
Download or read book Light Bright and Damn Near White written by Michelle Gordon Jackson and published by Jacksonscribe Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-07-03 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 19th and 20th centuries, a powerhouse of Black American leaders emerged, consisting primarily of men and women with "an apparent mix of Caucasoid features." The face of the African warrior, brought to America centuries prior from the Ivory Coast had changed, due to perpetual miscegenation (race-mixing) and the application of the One-Drop Rule, a racial marker exclusive to the United States, in which a person was considered Black if he or she had any African ancestry. No other country in the world has historically defined race in the same manner. Accepted socially and legally since slavery, this "rule," as well as its strict enforcement, created a dynamic leadership pool of Light, Bright and Damn Near White revolutionaries, embraced by the Black community as some of its most vocal and active leaders. This book features these unsung Black heroes and heroines (covering the Slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights eras). Some born slaves and some born free, these men and women were on the forefront of civil rights, innovation, and social reform. Their personal contributions are woven within the very fabric of American culture and policy. The continued acceptance of the One-Drop Rule is apparent, in America's embracing of Barack Obama as the first Black President of the United States, and not the first bi-racial president, despite his mother's race (White). This informative book is about history . . . American History and African-American History.
Download or read book One Drop of Blood written by Scott Malcomson and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2000-10-04 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold and original retelling of the story of race in America Why has a nation founded upon precepts of freedom and universal humanity continually produced, through its preoccupation with race, a divided and constrained populace? This question is the starting point for Scott Malcomson's riveting and deeply researched account, which amplifies history with memoir and reportage. From the beginning, Malcomson shows, a nation obsessed with invention began to create a new idea of race, investing it with unprecedented moral and social meaning. A succession of visionaries and opportunists, self-promoters and would-be reformers carried on the process, helping to define "black," "white," and "Indian" in opposition to one another, and in service to the aspirations and anxieties of each era. But the people who had to live within those definitions found them constraining. They sought to escape the limits of race imposed by escaping from other races or by controlling, confining, eliminating, or absorbing them, in a sad, absurd parade of events. Such efforts have never truly succeeded, yet their legacy haunts us, as we unhappily re-enact the drama of separatism in our schools, workplaces, and communities. By not only recounting the shared American tragicomedy of race but helping us to own, even to embrace it, this important book offers us a way at last to move beyond it.
Download or read book Dead Drop written by Marc Cameron and published by Pinnacle Books. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times-Bestselling Author: A water park is targeted by terrorists in a novella starring “a formidable warrior readers will want to see more of” (Publishers Weekly). Every summer, thousands of families head to the nation’s largest water park, famous for its 21-story waterslide, the “Dead Drop.” This year, one visitor didn’t pack his bathing suit. He packed explosives. When the bomb goes off, dozens are instantly killed. The rest are herded into the park’s massive pool by the bomber’s accomplices. An organized team of fanatical but well-trained terrorists, they seal off the entrances, turn the waterslide into a watchtower, and train their sights on the families below. But one hostage isn’t playing along. He’s special agent Jericho Quinn. He’s on vacation with his daughter. And he’s about to turn this terrorist pool party into one righteous bloodbath… “Jericho Quinn is most definitely one of the best characters in the thriller realm.”—Suspense Magazine
Download or read book One Drop written by Yaba Blay and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges narrow perceptions of Blackness as both an identity and lived reality to understand the diversity of what it means to be Black in the US and around the world What exactly is Blackness and what does it mean to be Black? Is Blackness a matter of biology or consciousness? Who determines who is Black and who is not? Who’s Black, who’s not, and who cares? In the United States, a Black person has come to be defined as any person with any known Black ancestry. Statutorily referred to as “the rule of hypodescent,” this definition of Blackness is more popularly known as the “one-drop rule,” meaning that a person with any trace of Black ancestry, however small or (in)visible, cannot be considered White. A method of social order that began almost immediately after the arrival of enslaved Africans in America, by 1910 it was the law in almost all southern states. At a time when the one-drop rule functioned to protect and preserve White racial purity, Blackness was both a matter of biology and the law. One was either Black or White. Period. Has the social and political landscape changed one hundred years later? One Drop explores the extent to which historical definitions of race continue to shape contemporary racial identities and lived experiences of racial difference. Featuring the perspectives of 60 contributors representing 25 countries and combining candid narratives with striking portraiture, this book provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. Although contributors use varying terms to self-identify, they all see themselves as part of the larger racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to as Black. They have all had their identity called into question simply because they do not fit neatly into the stereotypical “Black box”—dark skin, “kinky” hair, broad nose, full lips, etc. Most have been asked “What are you?” or the more politically correct “Where are you from?” throughout their lives. It is through contributors’ lived experiences with and lived imaginings of Black identity that we can visualize multiple possibilities for Blackness.
Download or read book Drop Dead written by Hillary Miller and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-15 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2017 American Theater and Drama Society John W. Frick Book Award Winner, 2017 ASTR Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theater History Hillary Miller’s Drop Dead: Performance in Crisis, 1970s New York offers a fascinating and comprehensive exploration of how the city’s financial crisis shaped theater and performance practices in this turbulent decade and beyond. New York City’s performing arts community suffered greatly from a severe reduction in grants in the mid-1970s. A scholar and playwright, Miller skillfully synthesizes economics, urban planning, tourism, and immigration to create a map of the interconnected urban landscape and to contextualize the struggle for resources. She reviews how numerous theater professionals, including Ellen Stewart of La MaMa E.T.C. and Julie Bovasso, Vinnette Carroll, and Joseph Papp of The Public Theater, developed innovative responses to survive the crisis. Combining theater history and close readings of productions, each of Miller’s chapters is a case study focusing on a company, a production, or an element of New York’s theater infrastructure. Her expansive survey visits Broadway, Off-, Off-Off-, Coney Island, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, community theater, and other locations to bring into focus the large-scale changes wrought by the financial realignments of the day. Nuanced, multifaceted, and engaging, Miller’s lively account of the financial crisis and resulting transformation of the performing arts community offers an essential chronicle of the decade and demonstrates its importance in understanding our present moment.
Download or read book Astronomical and Meteorological Observations Made During the Year at the United States Naval Observatory written by and published by . This book was released on 1880 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
