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The Weight and Substance of A Father's Law

Book Review by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
Dr. Jerry Ward Lectures on Richard Wright

Harold Washington Remembered—When Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, died on Nov. 25, 1987, many of us understood that his death marked the passing of a great man. But while we lamented the negative impact of his loss, few of us had any inkling of the vast political vacuum he would leave behind. As time passes, the vacuum expands. Back then, it seemed likely that Washington’s powerful presence could propel the formation of progressive alliances across the country. However, as we grope around in the political darkness he once illuminated, it seems clear that his unique personality was a major reason for his success. . . . Washington’s initial election occurred in 1983, when progressive forces were mired in the gloom of the Reagan administration. He found mayoral success using a formula that was part campaign and part crusade. But Washington was no political neophyte, full of naïve idealism. He had already served many years as a state legislator and a member of Congress, and was well versed in the nuts and bolts of pragmatic politics. Salim Muwakkil

Clarence Thomas the 'Anti-Black'

By BAR executive editor Glen Ford

The Little Rock Nine Caused a 'Crack in Time'

Henry Dumas books: Ark of Bones (1970) / Poetry for My People (1971) /   Play Ebony Play Ivory   (1974) / Jonah and the Green Stone (1976)

Rope of Wind and Other Stories (1979) / Goodbye, Sweetwater (1988) / Knees of a Natural Man: The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas (1989)

Echo Tree: The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas // Reviews of Play Ebony, Play Ivory: Dumas Bio    / JLester Review / JWright Introduction

Shelby Steele: The Why Obama Can't Win

Interview with Kam Williams

Books by Cornel West

Democracy Matters: The Fight Against Imperialism / Race Matters / Cornel West Reader / The Future of the Race

The American Evasion of Philosophy / African American Religious Thought / The War Against Parents

The African American Century / White on White / Black on Black / Prophesy Deliverance / The Soul Knows No Bars

Related files: Cornel West Moves to Princeton West Cites Reason For Quitting Cornel West: An Editorial Pass the Mic

The Works of William Sanders Scarborough

Black Classicist and Race Leader

Edited by Michele Valerie Ronnick

The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough

Invention of the White Race Theodore Allen begins Volume 1 by reviewing the many histories of American racism written in the 20th century. Dividing the arguments into the psycho-cultural school and the socio-economic school of thought, he teases out the strengths and flaws of their scholarship. Allen then posits racial oppression as a deliberate ruling-class decision (constantly undergoing renewal) to prevent property-less European Americans from allying themselves with enslaved and free African Americans by offering the European Americans privileges based on white skin. His solution is to study "racism" rather than "race" because studies of race always devolve onto discussions of the body--onto those who are perceived to possess race--and thus avoids the real issue. . . . It is a strong, well researched, tightly argued work. He proves that the "white race" can be "gotten on a technicality" because it was and is indeed an invented rather than a natural category. Amazon Reviewer Virginia Expresses Profound Regret

Do Me Twice: My Life after Islam

A Memoir by Sonsyrea Tate

Reviewed by Kam Williams

Books by Victor E. Dike, Democracy and Political Life in Nigeria & The Osu Caste System in Igboland: A Challenge for Nigerian Democracy

In-Dependence from Bondage

Claude McKay and Michael Manley

Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in African Diaspora Relations

By Lloyd D. McCarthy

Scholarly Books on Langston Hughes

Martha Cobb. Harlem, Haiti, and Havana: A comparative critical study of Langston Hughes, Jacques Roumain, Nicolás Guillén. 1979.

Faith Berry. Before & Beyond Harlem: Biography of Langston Hughes. 1995. / Onwuchekwa Jemie Langston Hughes: An Introduction to the Poetry. 1985

Edward J. Mullen. Langston Hughes in the Hispanic World and Haiti . 1971 / Steven C. Tracy. Langston Hughes and the Blues. 2001.

Arnold Rampersad. The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902-1941, I, Too, Sing America (Life of Langston Hughes, 1902-1941). 2002.

Arnold Rampersad. The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II: 1914-1967, I Dream a World (Life of Langston Hughes, 1941-1967). 2002.

R. Baxter Miller. The Art And Imagination of Langston Hughes. 2006. / Jonathan Scott Socialist Joy in the Writing of Langston Hughes. 2006

Radicalism in the South Since Reconstruction

Edited by Chris Green, Rachel Rubin, and James Smethurst

Sons of Black Power Sixties as 21st-Century Militants

Reviews of Soul on Islam by Ahmad Cleaver and Hang Time! by Summer Hill Seven

Drusilla Dunjee-Houston's

Wonderful Ethiopians of the Cushite Empire, Book II

Origin of Civilization from the Cushites. Edited by Peggy Brooks-Bertram

Review by Larry Obadele Williams

Books by Houston Baker, Jr.-- Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader / Afro-American Literary Study in the 1990s / Black Studies, Rap and the Academy

Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance / Workings of the Sprit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing / Blues, Ideology and Afro-American Literature

Files: Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance / Atlanta Exposition Address

Lynched Mau Mau Leader Dedan Kimathi

Honored with Statue in Nairobi -- His Remains Have Yet To Be Found

Clarence J. Munford -- (files) N'COBRA / Atlantic Slave Traffic / Race and Reparations / Benefits of Whiteness / Atlantic Slave Traffic / Boukman and His Comrades // (Books) -- Production relations, class and Black liberation: A Marxist perspective in Afro-American studies (1978) / The Black Ordeal of Slavery and Slave Trading in the French West Indies 1625-1715 (1991) / Race and Reparations: A Black Perspective for the 21^st Century (1996) / Race and Civilization: The Rebirth of Black Centrality (2003)

Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas

By Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher

Reviewed by George E. Curry

Cuba: A BookList -- The Autobiography of a Slave / Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba / Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba

Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century / Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejon / Caliban and Other Essays

In the Spirit of Wandering Teachers: Cuban Literacy Campaign / Santeria Aesthetics / Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel / Man-making Words /Afro-Cuban Voices

Nicolas Guillen: Popular Poet of the Caribbean / The Altar of My Soul: The Living Tradition of Santeria / Cuba: After the Revolution

The Dark Heathenism of the American Novelist Ishmael Reed

African Voodoo As American Literary Hoodoo

By Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure
Yellow Back Radio Broke Down (1969) Mumbo Jumbo (1972) The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974)

Hitler's African Victims: The German Army Massacres of 1940

During its campaign against France in 1940, the German army massacred several thousand black POWs belonging to units drafted in France's West African colonies. Documenting these war crimes on the basis of extensive research in French and German archives, Raffael Scheck advances a nuanced interpretation of the motivation for the massacres. Reviving traditional images of black soldiers as mutilating savages, a massive Nazi Propaganda offensive approved by Hitler, created their rationale. The treatment of black French POWs remained, however, suprisingly inconsistent, with abuses often triggered by certain combat situations.

Aboard the African Star By Alex Haley

The Works of James McCune Smith

Black Intellectual and Abolitionist

By John Stauffer

Ed Bullins Chronology Productions & Publications / Interview with Ed Bullins (Marvin X)

Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past

By Ray Raphael

Interview with Caryl Phillips

Books by Caryl Phillips

Crossing the River / The Atlantic Sound / The State of Independence / Cambridge / The European Tribe

Extravagant Strangers / The Nature of Blood / A Distant Shore / Final Passage / Dancing in the Dark / Forigners /

Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas -- The Black Panther Party for Self Defense, formed in the aftermath of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, remains one of the most controversial movements of the 20th-century. Founded by the charismatic Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, the party sounded a defiant cry for an end to the institutionalized subjugation of African Americans. The Black Panther newspaper was founded to articulate the party's message and artist Emory Douglas became the paper's art director and later the party's Minister of Culture. Douglas's artistic talents and experience proved a powerful combination: his striking collages of photographs and his own drawings combined to create some of the era's most iconic images, like that of Newton with his signature beret and large gun set against a background of a blood-red star, which could be found blanketing neighborhoods during the 12 years the paper existed. This landmark book brings together a remarkable lineup of party insiders who detail the crafting of the party's visual identity. Publisher Rizzoli

Books by Countee Cullen

Color (1925) / Copper Sun (1927) / Caroling Dusk (1927) / The Black Christ (1929) / My Soul's High Song (Anchor, 1990)

Houston Baker, Many-Colored Coat of Dreams: The Poetry of Countee Cullen. Broadside Press, 1974

We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (Mumia Abu-Jamal)

What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race and the State of the Nation (South End Press Collective)

August Wilson Plays and Critical Perspectives

August Wilson Century Cycle / Fences / Piano Lesson / Gem of the Ocean / Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Radio Golf / King Hedley II / Jitney / Two Trains Running / August Wilson: Three Plays / Seven Guitars

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom / The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson / August Wilson and Black Aesthetics

The Ground on Which I Stand Professor Sandra Shannon Situating August Wilson The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

By Ishmael Beah

Youth Fighting Old Men's Wars –. Child soldiers in Sierra Leone helped rebel forces to wreak havoc in villages, creating instability that enabled the rebels to gain control of diamond fields. Teen soldiers in the United States are recruited and put in uniform at age 15 (JROTC) to fight at age 17 for oil in Iraq. Some child soldiers in Sierra Leone escaped their rebel "family" and the violence in overrun villages by running far into the jungle and eventually finding refuge from the violence. Some teen soldiers in the United States escaped their military "family" and the violence in Iraq by going AWOL in the United States or in Canada. Those from both countries who stayed with their "families" remained because of "family ties and bonds" formed by either rebel or national indoctrination and by steel - either machetes or guns. . . .

Young men and women in Sierra Leone and in the United States are filled with lifetimes of nightmares from actions they have committed or from sights they have seen in war. Killing by machete or killing by guns results in the same emotional issues for those who have committed the acts. In Sierra Leone, child soldiers eventually were helped in internationally operated rehabilitation centers. In the United States, teen soldiers have gone to US military or Veterans Administration hospitals for assistance. Child soldiers from Sierra Leone are learning to deal with why they burned huts, and why they chopped off arms and legs. Teen soldiers from the United States are dealing with why one busted down doors and terrorized families, and why they sent blistering streams of lead into buildings and homes. Colonel Ann Wright, “Blood Diamonds and Blood Oil.” Truthout

The Achievements of Elijah Muhammad

Message to the Blackman in America (1997) / How to Eat to Live, Book 1 (1997) / How to Eat to Live, Book 2 (1997)

Yakub: The Father of Mankind (2002) / The True history of Master Fard Muhammad (1997)

The History of Jesus' Bith, Death and What It Means to You and Me (1996) / The Secrets of Freemasonry (1997)

The Theology of Time (The Secrets of Time) (2004) / The Mother Plane (1996)

Lessons from France Tram Nguyen Interviews Brima Conteh

Selected Works of James Baldwin

Go Tell It on the Mountain, 1953 / Notes of a Native Son, 1955 / Giovanni's Room, 1956 / Nobody Know My Name (, 1962 / Another Country, 1962

The Fire Next Time, 1963 / Blues for Mister Charlie (a play, produced in 1964) / Going to Meet the Man, 1965 / Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, 1968

A Rap on Race, with Margaret Mead, 1971 / If Beale Street Could Talk 1974 / The Devil Finds Work, 1976 / Just Above My Head, 1979

The Evidence of Things Not Seen, 1985 / The Price of the Ticket: Collected Non-Fiction, 1948-1985, 1985 /Perspectives: Angles on African Art, 1987

Conversations with James Baldwin, 1989 /Early Novels and Stories, 1998 / Collected Essays, 1998 (ed. by Toni Morrison)

Books on Rap & Hip Hop

Todd Boyd, The New H.N.I.C.: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop (2003) / Sharif Responds to Todd Boyd / Is Hip Hop Really Dead?

Brian Cross, It's Not About a Salary... Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles: Rap, Race, and Resistance in Los Angeles (1993)

Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994)

Russell A. Porter, Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism (1995)

Bakari Kitwana, The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture (2003)

Imani Perry, Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (2004)

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation

on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

By Harriet A. Washington -- Reviewed by Kam Williams

Anarcha's Story by Alexandria C. Lynch, MS III

Books on -- A Theology of Obligation: The Poor & Oppressed in the Pentateuch

Option for the Poor: Challenge to the Rich Countries (1986) / The Preferential Option for the Poor (1988) / Salvation and Liberation (1984)

Good News to the Poor: The Challenge of the Poor in History of the Church (1979) /

Towards a Church of the Poor: The Work of an Ecumenical Group on the Church and the Poor (1981)

Champions of the Poor: The Economic Consequences of Judeo-Christian Values (1998)

The Social Vision of the Hebrew Bible: A Theological Introduction (2001) Bible of the Oppressed (1982)

Black America's Real Issue with Barack Obama --Both Barack Obama's Republican opponents and the centrist Democrats who support his presidential candidacy agree on one thing. They all agree that black opinion on the senator is both uninformed and irrelevant. To hear the mainstream media, black dissatisfaction with Senator Obama is all about his black African father, his white American mother, his light complexion and his Columbia and Harvard Law degrees. The day after Rush Limbaugh called the senator a "half-frican" on the air, the term was in the mouths of ignorant black talk show hosts in multiple cities. Black America was then admonished and chided by white Republicans and Democrats of all colors for not embracing Senator Obama based on some foolish standard of black authenticity. This is a racist calumny and slur of the first magnitude against all of black America. Our people have never rejected leading figures because of light complexions, immigrant parents or advanced degrees. Bruce Dixon Black Agenda Report Hypocrisy on Health Care Obama's Audacious Deference to Power