Download or read book In Search of Our Roots written by Henry Louis Gates (Jr.) and published by Crown. This book was released on 2009 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The distinguished scholar examines the origins and history of African-American ancestry as he profiles nineteen noted African Americans and illuminates their individual family sagas throughout U.S. history.

Download or read book Finding Your Roots Season 2 written by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are we, and where do we come from? The fundamental drive to answer these questions is at the heart of Finding Your Roots, the companion book to the hit PBS documentary series. As scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. clearly demonstrates, the tools of cutting-edge genomics and deep genealogical research now allow us to learn more about our roots and look further back in time than ever before. In the second season, Gates's investigation takes on the personal and genealogical histories of more than twenty luminaries, including Ken Burns, Stephen King, Derek Jeter, Governor Deval Patrick, Valerie Jarrett, and Sally Field. As Gates interlaces these moving stories of immigration, assimilation, strife, and success, he provides practical information for amateur genealogists just beginning archival research on their own families' roots and details the advances in genetic research now available to the public. The result is an illuminating exploration of who we are, how we lost track of our roots, and how we can find them again.

Download or read book Preserving Our Roots written by John Coykendall and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2019-10-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over four decades, John Coykendall’s passion has been preserving the farm heritage of a small community in rural southeastern Louisiana. A Tennessee native and longtime master gardener at Blackberry Farm, Coykendall has become a celebrity in a growing movement that places a premium on farm-to-table cuisine with locally sourced, organic, and heirloom foods and flavors. While his work takes him around the world searching for seeds and the cultural knowledge of how to grow them, what inspires him most is his annual pilgrimage to Louisiana. Drawn to the Washington Parish area as a college student, Coykendall forged long-lasting friendships with local farmers and gardeners. Over the decades, he has recorded oral histories, recipes, tall tales, agricultural knowledge, and wisdom from generations past in more than eighty illustrated and handwritten journals. At the same time, he has unearthed and safeguarded rare varieties of food crops once grown in the area, then handed them back to the community. In Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories, Coykendall shares a wealth of materials collected in his journals, ensuring they are passed on to future generations. Organized by season, the book offers a narrative chronicle of Coykendall’s visits to Washington Parish since 1973. He highlights staple crops, agricultural practices, and favorite recipes from the families and friends who have hosted him. Accompanied by a rich selection of drawings, journal pages, and photographs—along with over forty recipes—Preserving Our Roots chronicles Coykendall’s passion for recording foods and narratives that capture the rhythms of daily life on farms, in kitchens, and across generations.

Download or read book The Need for Roots written by Simone Weil and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed by Andre Gide as the patron saint of all outsiders, Simone Weil's short life was ample testimony to her beliefs. In 1942 she fled France along with her family, going firstly to America. She then moved back to London in order to work with de Gaulle. Published posthumously The Need for Roots was a direct result of this collaboration. Its purpose was to help rebuild France after the war. In this, her most famous book, Weil reflects on the importance of religious and political social structures in the life of the individual. She wrote that one of the basic obligations we have as human beings is to not let another suffer from hunger. Equally as important, however, is our duty towards our community: we may have declared various human rights, but we have overlooked the obligations and this has left us self-righteous and rootless. She could easily have been issuing a direct warning to us today, the citizens of Century 21.

Download or read book Rootedness written by Christy Wampole and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-04-06 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roots are good to think with indeed most of us use them as a metaphor every day. A root can signify the hiddenness of our beginnings, or, in its bifurcating structure, the various possibilities in the life of an individual or a collective. This book looks at rootedness as a metaphor for the genealogical origins of people and their attachment to place and how this metaphor transformed so rapidly in twentieth-century Europe. Christy Wampole s case study is France, with its contradictory legacies of Enlightenment universalism, anti-Semitism, and colonialism. At one time, French nationalist rhetoric portrayed the Jews as unrooted and thus unrighteous people. After the two world wars, the root metaphor figured in the new French philosophy (notably Deleuze and Guattari). And recently, Caribbean thinkers in Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique have debated whether their roots were in Africa, France, the Caribbean, or in some pan-national network that could not be identified on a map. Walpole argues that while the metaphor was perhaps once useful in the establishment of communities and identities, that usefulness has expired. The longer we remain attached to the figure of rootedness, the more discord it sows. Giving up on the metaphor of rootedness, Wampole urges, allows us to see at last that we are in fact unbound by the land we inhabit."

Download or read book Embracing Our Roots written by Paul J. Palma and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America has provided a platform for countless migrant peoples who have, in turn, contributed to the nation’s landscape as a multicultural land of opportunity. Still, the waves of assimilation can obscure the distinctive customs and beliefs of immigrants, many feeling coerced to conform to American attitudes towards race, the economy, and politics. Others, inundated with American media, consumerism, and secularity, have forgotten those aspects about their family heritage that make them unique. Drawing from Palma’s background as an Italian American evangelical, Embracing Our Roots considers the significance of rediscovering our ancestral history in a society where many are forced to repress, ignore, or reject their heritage. A nation of immigrants, every American is, in some sense, an “ethnic” American and stands to gain from considering how the people and places they come from make them unique. In addition to using genealogy databases and social networks, Palma maintains the rich value of thumbing through the family archives, hearty conversations with loved ones, and building one’s family tree. This book is for scholars and laypersons alike with interest in the themes of biblical living, faith-based traditions, food culture, immigration, social class, race, family dynamics, and mental health.

Download or read book Hey America Your Roots Are Showing written by Megan Smolenyak and published by Kensington Publishing Corp.. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed genealogist and New York Times–bestselling author reveals how she solved some of the most fascinating mysteries of family lineage. Part forensic scientist, part master sleuth, Megan Smolenyak has a unique way of digging up our historical roots. She discovered Barack Obama’s Irish ancestry—and his relation to Brad Pitt. She revealed the true story of Ellis Island’s first immigrant, Annie Moore. And she shed light on a startling link between politicians Al Sharpton and Strom Thurmond. In Hey America, Your Roots Are Showing, the “Indiana Jones of genealogy” reveals how she cracked these and other news-making cases. Along the way, she shares her own story of becoming genealogy’s celebrity face. She even explains why her name is squared (Buzzy Jackson, author of Shaking the Family Tree). Whether she's scouring websites to uncover the surprising connections between famous figures or using cutting-edge DNA tests to locate family members of fallen soldiers dating back to the Civil War, Smolenyak's historical sleuthing is as provocative, richly layered, and exciting as America itself. “Megan is a genealogist's dream, a forensic investigator who can also tell a great story.” —Sam Roberts, The New York Times

Download or read book The Crisis of Connection written by Niobe Way and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovers the roots and consequences of and offers solutions to the widespread alienation and disconnection that beset modern society Since the beginning of the 21st century, people have become increasingly disconnected from themselves, each other, and the world around them. A “crisis of connection” stemming from growing alienation, social isolation, and fragmentation characterizes modern society. The signs of this crisis of connection are everywhere, from decreasing levels of empathy and trust, to burgeoning cases of suicide, depression and loneliness. The astronomical rise in inequality around the world has contributed to the critical nature of this moment. To delve into the heart of the crisis, leading researchers and practitioners draw from the science of human connection to tell a five-part story about its roots, consequences, and solutions. In doing so, they reveal how we, in modern society, have been captive to a false story about who we are as human. This false narrative that takes individualism as a universal truth, has contributed to many of the problems that we currently face. The new story now emerging from across the human sciences underscores our social and emotional capacities and needs. The science also reveals the ways in which the privileging of the self over relationships and of individual success over the common good as well as the perpetuation of dehumanizing stereotypes have led to a crisis of connection that is now widespread. Finally, the practitioners in the volume present concrete solutions that show ways we can create a more just and humane world. In a time of social distancing and enforced isolation, it is more important than ever to find ways to bridge the gaps among individuals and communities. The Crisis of Connection illuminates concrete pathways to enhancing our awareness of our common humanity, and offers important steps to coming together in unity, even across distances.

Download or read book In Search of Our Roots written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and published by Crown. This book was released on 2009-01-27 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike most white Americans who, if they are so inclined, can search their ancestral records, identifying who among their forebears was the first to set foot on this country’s shores, most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying black men and women even their names. Yet, from that legacy of slavery, there have sprung generations who’ve struggled, thrived, and lived extraordinary lives. For too long, African Americans’ family trees have been barren of branches, but, very recently, advanced genetic testing techniques, combined with archival research, have begun to fill in the gaps. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes nineteen extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through U.S. history and back to Africa. Those whose recovered pasts collectively form an African American “people’s history” of the United States include celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, Don Cheadle, Chris Tucker, Morgan Freeman, Tina Turner, and Quincy Jones; writers such as Maya Angelou and Bliss Broyard; leading thinkers such as Harvard divinity professor Peter Gomes, the Reverend T. D. Jakes, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot; and famous achievers such as astronaut Mae Jemison, media personality Tom Joyner, decathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Ebony and Jet publisher Linda Johnson Rice. More than a work of history, In Search of Our Roots is a book of revelatory importance that, for the first time, brings to light the lives of ordinary men and women who, by courageous example, blazed a path for their famous descendants. For a reader, there is the stirring pleasure of witnessing long-forgotten struggles and triumphs–but there’s an enduring reward as well. In accompanying the nineteen contemporary achievers on their journey into the past and meeting their remarkable forebears, we come to know ourselves.

Download or read book Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed written by Shannon Elizabeth Bell and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Motivated by a deeply rooted sense of place and community, Appalachian women have long fought against the damaging effects of industrialization. In this collection of interviews, sociologist Shannon Elizabeth Bell presents the voices of twelve Central Appalachian women, environmental justice activists fighting against mountaintop removal mining and its devastating effects on public health, regional ecology, and community well-being. Each woman narrates her own personal story of injustice and tells how that experience led her to activism. The interviews--many of them illustrated by the women's "photostories"--describe obstacles, losses, and tragedies. But they also tell of new communities and personal transformations catalyzed through activism. Bell supplements each narrative with careful notes that aid the reader while amplifying the power and flow of the activists' stories. Bell's analysis outlines the relationship between Appalachian women's activism and the gendered responsibilities they feel within their families and communities. Ultimately, Bell argues that these women draw upon a broader "protector identity" that both encompasses and extends the identity of motherhood that has often been associated with grassroots women's activism. As protectors, the women challenge dominant Appalachian gender expectations and guard not only their families but also their homeplaces, their communities, their heritage, and the endangered mountains that surround them. 30% of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to organizations fighting for environmental justice in Central Appalachia.

Download or read book The Deeper the Roots written by Michael Tubbs and published by Flatiron Books: An Oprah Book. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Insightful, emotional, and enraging. By sharing his story in gripping detail, Michael Tubbs embodies an old feminist tradition whereby the personal is political. He empowers us to fight for equal opportunities for our communities, and encourages us to amass the courage to overcome loss and injustice.” —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist The making of a visionary political leader—and a blueprint for a more equitable country “Don’t tell nobody our business,” Michael Tubbs’s mother often told him growing up. For Michael, that meant a lot of things: don’t tell anyone about the day-to-day struggle of being Black and broke in Stockton, CA. Don’t tell anyone the pain of having a father incarcerated for 25 years to life. Don’t tell anyone about living two lives, the brainy bookworm and the kid with the newest Jordans. And also don’t tell anyone about the particular joys of growing up with three “moms”—a Nana who never let him miss church, an Auntie who’d take him to the library any time, and a mother, “She-Daddy”, who schooled him in the wisdom of hip-hop and taught him never to take no for an answer. So for a long time Michael didn’t tell anyone his story, but as he went on to a scholarship at Stanford and an internship in the Obama White House, he began to realize the power of his experience, the need for his perspective in the halls of power. By the time he returned to Stockton to become, in 2016 at age 26, its first Black mayor and the youngest-ever mayor of a major American city, he knew his story meant something. The Deeper the Roots is a memoir astonishing in its candor, voice, and clarity of vision. Tubbs shares with us the city that raised him, his family of badass women, his life-changing encounters with Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, the challenges of governing in the 21st century and everything in between—en route to unveiling his compelling vision for America rooted in his experiences in his hometown.

Download or read book Roots and Sky written by Christie Purifoy and published by Revell. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Christie Purifoy arrived at Maplehurst that September, she was heavily pregnant with both her fourth child and her dreams of creating a sanctuary that would be a fixed point in her busily spinning world. The sprawling Victorian farmhouse sitting atop a Pennsylvania hill held within its walls the possibility of a place where her family could grow, where friends could gather, and where Christie could finally grasp and hold the thing we all long for--home. In lyrical, contemplative prose, Christie slowly unveils the small trials and triumphs of that first year at Maplehurst--from summer's intense heat and autumn's glorious canopy through winter's still whispers and spring's gentle mercies. Through stories of planting and preserving, of opening the gates wide to neighbors, and of learning to speak the language of a place, Christie invites readers into the joy of small beginnings and the knowledge that the kingdom of God is with us here and now. Anyone who has felt the longing for home, who yearns to reconnect with the beauty of nature, and who values the special blessing of deep relationships with family and friends will love finding themselves in this story of earthly beauty and soaring hope.

Download or read book Roots and Wings written by Many Ly and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GRACE’S GRANDMOTHER HAS died, and she and her mother must travel back to the Cambodian community to give her a proper Cambodian funeral. But Grace wants to use the trip to solve a few mysteries, like who her father was, why her mother and grandmother moved from St. Petersburg to Pennsylvania, where they’re the only Cambodians Grace has ever seen, and what Cambodian culture is really about. Embraced by her mother’s old friends, Grace feels both at home and lost, fascinated by the traditions she’s never known, but strangely judged by some members of the community. Can she make sense of, and honor, the life of the grandmother she barely knew? And will revelations about the past bring Grace closer to her mother, or push them even further apart?

Download or read book Koshersoul written by Michael W. Twitty and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Twitty makes the case that Blackness and Judaism coexist in beautiful harmony, and this is manifested in the foods and traditions from both cultures that Black Jews incorporate into their daily lives…Twitty wishes to start a conversation where people celebrate their differences and embrace commonalities. By drawing on personal narratives, his own and others’, and exploring different cultures, Twitty’s book offers important insight into the journeys of Black Jews.”—Library Journal “A fascinating, cross-cultural smorgasbord grounded in the deep emotional role food plays in two influential American communities.”—Booklist The James Beard award-winning author of the acclaimed The Cooking Gene explores the cultural crossroads of Jewish and African diaspora cuisine and issues of memory, identity, and food. In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, the creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them. The question that most intrigues him is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. Koshersoul also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty’s own passage to and within Judaism. As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this remarkable book teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul. Koshersoul includes 48-50 recipes.

Download or read book Growing Your Family Tree written by Cherry Gilchrist and published by Piatkus. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The process of exploring your family history and roots is a moving and meaningful quest. It affects heart and soul, as well as providing an intellectual challenge to piece all the information together. GROWING YOUR FAMILY TREE is the first book to combine the experiential aspects of family history research with sound, practical advice, helping to lift genealogy out of its earlier dry and formal setting, into a more meaningful and accessible activity which can enrich a person's identity. Advice and information includes: *Clear and friendly guidance on finding the data and sources needed and the practicalities of setting up a family history project * How to identify the emotional motivations behind your research * The nature of ancestry, family lines and our inner connection with our ancestors * How to organise your research and keep moving forward

Download or read book The Roots That Help Us Grow written by Alaa Al-Barkawi and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-13 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transitioning out of the white gaze to become more authentic. The Authentic Voices Fellowship, fostered by the Women's National Book Association and the Women of Color Writers organization, seeks to bring BIPOC women to a deeper level of inclusion in the publishing industry and the literary world at large. Through the words of these inaugural fellows, the reader may understand how telling these stories-despite the tragedy, trauma, injustice, political movements, language barriers, and grief involved-allows one to root more deeply into a heritage that helps us grow. Through the writing of six exceptional women, you will get to know cultures and stories from a truly authentic lens, not the lens that you've been accustomed to. Whether through fiction or creative non-fiction, these stories will transcend stereotypes that you've been slowly accustomed to and will give you a look into the heart and soul of communities you wouldn't know otherwise. The words in this anthology are raw and aren't polished to make you feel better. They are left sharp to just make you feel. These stories are a reminder that we have so much more to learn about each other. They are unforgettable be-cause, more than just stories, they are a look into a gaze that is authentic and not white. The essays and their authors remind us that while the United States is diverse, the views represented from those diverse communities are often not. Try as our communities may to open themselves up to other cultures and communities, often are those stories given a re-fresh, or in publishing terms an "edit," so that the story is more comfortable for you to read. More often than not, the polishing of publishing comes at the cost of authenticity. Our communities are complex. We are complex.All these stories are steeped in culture-each so different, so personal-yet something that we can relate to and experience authentically through their words. All these stories are rooted in strength. STORIES: Alaa Al-Barkawi, "A Disappearance"; Amber Blaeser-Wardzala, "What Comes After"; L. Iyengar, "Life Cycles"; Yemimah, "Far Above Rubies"; Cecilia Caballero, "A Starburst Within Myself"; Arao Ameny, "Tangawizi"

Download or read book The Roots of Justice written by Lawrence M. Friedman and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on a single county at a time when the population grew from 24,000 to 246,000, the authors combine statistical analysis of documentary sources, contemporary newspaper accounts, and exploration in criminal case files to give a detailed reconstruction of the operations of the county's entire criminal justice system. By tracing the process from arrest to trial, sentencing, and punishment, this study will have a profound effect on our perception of American criminal justice. Originally published in 1981. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.