A Sankofa Moment


Book Description

A Sankofa Moment gives the 48-year history of the Trinity United Church of Christ with a major emphasis on the building of the largest United Church of Christ congregation within the denomination that developed several ministries and several entities under the pastorate of Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.




Ya Sankofa!


Book Description

Ya Sankofa! By: Torrance R. Harvey M.S. ED. Sometimes I must move slowly like a cat... Sometimes I must move with dispatch. There are times I must be silent, unheard. Just like the morning spring sun shining over the harmonious tweeting birds. Then, there is that one moment in time I must ROAR loudly For everyone to hear and fear everywhere. Bringing their hearts and minds to understand ONE THING. I AM the TRUE Lion and the King! Ya Sankofa! is a literary journey of reflection. It is an artistic expression of cultural awareness in a contemporary sense from a historical lens in the form of a series of poems.




Freedom Farmers


Book Description

In May 1967, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural and economic development project, FFC would grow to over 600 acres, offering a means for local sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and domestic workers to pursue community wellness, self-reliance, and political resistance. Life on the cooperative farm presented an alternative to the second wave of northern migration by African Americans--an opportunity to stay in the South, live off the land, and create a healthy community based upon building an alternative food system as a cooperative and collective effort. Freedom Farmers expands the historical narrative of the black freedom struggle to embrace the work, roles, and contributions of southern Black farmers and the organizations they formed. Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.




The Moment


Book Description

In 2008 a media firestorm erupted when snippets of Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s sermons were picked up by media outlets around the world. At that time presidential candidate Barack Obama was a member of Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Wright's words were frequently used to question the patriotism of Obama. The scrutiny over Obama and Wright's relationship made Trinity UCC a flashpoint in the 2008 campaign. The Moment tells the inside story of Trinity UCC during this time of turmoil. Carl and Shelby Grant describe "the Moment" as it unfolded, from Wright's first appearances in the media to Obama's resignation from Trinity Church. They also provide helpful background information, including general history of the black church, African American immigration to Chicago, and black politics in the Windy City. In this context, the voices of Trinity UCC members come alive to show the impact of "the Moment" within and beyond the presidential election, illustrating the thorny intersections of religion, race, politics, and the media in the United States.




The Spider King's Daughter


Book Description

Winner of a Betty Trask Award Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize The Spider King's Daughter is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet set against the backdrop of a changing Lagos, a city torn between tradition and modernity, corruption and truth, love and family loyalty. Seventeen-year-old Abike Johnson is the favourite child of her wealthy father. She lives in a She lives in a sprawling mansion in Lagos, protected by armed guards and ferried everywhere in a huge black jeep. But being her father's favourite comes with uncomfortable duties, and she is often lonely behind the high walls of her house. A world away from Abike's mansion, in the city's slums, lives a seventeen-year-old hawker struggling to make sense of the world. His family lost everything after his father's death and now he runs after cars on the roadside selling ice cream to support his mother and sister. When Abike buys ice cream from the hawker one day, they strike up an unlikely and tentative romance, defying the prejudices of Nigerian society. But as they grow closer, revelations from the past threaten their relationship and both Abike and the hawker must decide where their loyalties lie.




Sankofa


Book Description

A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK A BBC 2 BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FUTURES PRIZE AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A captivating story about a mixed-race British woman who goes in search of the West African father she never knew' REESE WITHERSPOON Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother - the only parent who raised her - is dead. Searching through her mother's belongings, she finds clues about the West African father she never knew. Through reading his student diary, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London, she discovers that he eventually became the president (some would say the dictator) of a small nation in West Africa - and he is still alive. She decides to track him down and so begins a funny, painful, fascinating journey, and an exploration of race, identity and what we pass on to our children. 'A real pleasure, it's funny, thought-provoking and holds a light up to everything from cultural differences to colonialism' STYLIST 'I LOVED Sankofa SO MUCH' MARIAN KEYES 'Slick pacing and unpredictable developments keep the reader alert right up to the novel's exhilarating ending' GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY 'Onuzo's sneakily breezy, highly entertaining novel leaves the reader rethinking familiar narratives of colonisation, inheritance and liberation' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 'A really great book, very poignant' SARA COX




What Makes You So Strong?


Book Description

When the fortress of Louisbourg fell to the British in 1758, the Acadians of Prince Edward Island (then known as Île Saint-Jean) were doomed to a horrible fate--deportation from their homes to an unknown land thousands of kilometres away. Shipwrecks and disease took a terrible toll during the voyage to France, and hundreds of the approximately three thousand deportees lost their lives. Earle Lockerby's meticulously researched account sheds new light on this tragic event, from its implementation to the experiences of the Acadians who eluded British troops and escaped to the mainland, to the deportees' arrival in Europe. Featuring excerpts from original documents and letters, Deportation of the Prince Edward Island Acadians is an important record of this neglected chapter in the saga of the Acadian people.




Exodus and Liberation


Book Description

Tracing a series of political crises in Anglo-American history from the 16th-century Reformation to the civil rights movement Coffey excavates the history of deliverance politics testifying to the powerful political appeal of the Exodus, the Jubilee and the biblical language of liberty.




If God Still Breathes, Why Can't I?


Book Description

A challenge to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy that calls into question how Christians are taught more about the way of Whiteness than the way of Jesus Angela Parker wasn’t just trained to be a biblical scholar; she was trained to be a White male biblical scholar. She is neither White nor male. Dr. Parker’s experience of being taught to forsake her embodied identity in order to contort herself into the stifling construct of Whiteness is common among American Christians, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. This book calls the power structure behind this experience what it is: White supremacist authoritarianism. Drawing from her perspective as a Womanist New Testament scholar, Dr. Parker describes how she learned to deconstruct one of White Christianity’s most pernicious lies: the conflation of biblical authority with the doctrines of inerrancy and infallibility. As Dr. Parker shows, these doctrines are less about the text of the Bible itself and more about the arbiters of its interpretation—historically, White males in positions of power who have used Scripture to justify control over marginalized groups. This oppressive use of the Bible has been suffocating. To learn to breathe again, Dr. Parker says, we must “let God breathe in us.” We must read the Bible as authoritative, but not authoritarian. We must become conscious of the particularity of our identities, as we also become conscious of the particular identities of the biblical authors from whom we draw inspiration. And we must trust and remember that as long as God still breathes, we can too.




Better, Not Bitter


Book Description

Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR This inspirational memoir serves as a call to action from prison reform activist Yusef Salaam, of the Exonerated Five, that will inspire us all to turn our stories into tools for change in the pursuit of racial justice. They didn't know who they had. So begins Yusef Salaam telling his story. No one's life is the sum of the worst things that happened to them, and during Yusef Salaam's seven years of wrongful incarceration as one of the Central Park Five, he grew from child to man, and gained a spiritual perspective on life. Yusef learned that we're all "born on purpose, with a purpose." Despite having confronted the racist heart of America while being "run over by the spiked wheels of injustice," Yusef channeled his energy and pain into something positive, not just for himself but for other marginalized people and communities. Better Not Bitter is the first time that one of the now Exonerated Five is telling his individual story, in his own words. Yusef writes his narrative: growing up Black in central Harlem in the '80s, being raised by a strong, fierce mother and grandmother, his years of incarceration, his reentry, and exoneration. Yusef connects these stories to lessons and principles he learned that gave him the power to survive through the worst of life's experiences. He inspires readers to accept their own path, to understand their own sense of purpose. With his intimate personal insights, Yusef unpacks the systems built and designed for profit and the oppression of Black and Brown people. He inspires readers to channel their fury into action, and through the spiritual, to turn that anger and trauma into a constructive force that lives alongside accountability and mobilizes change. This memoir is an inspiring story that grew out of one of the gravest miscarriages of justice, one that not only speaks to a moment in time or the rage-filled present, but reflects a 400-year history of a nation's inability to be held accountable for its sins. Yusef Salaam's message is vital for our times, a motivating resource for enacting change. Better, Not Bitter has the power to soothe, inspire and transform. It is a galvanizing call to action.