Author: Emilie Raymond
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806079
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
From Oprah Winfrey to Angelina Jolie, George Clooney to Leonardo DiCaprio, Americans have come to expect that Hollywood celebrities will be outspoken advocates for social and political causes. However, that wasn’t always the case. As Emilie Raymond shows, during the civil rights movement the Stars for Freedom - a handful of celebrities both black and white - risked their careers by crusading for racial equality, and forged the role of celebrity in American political culture. Focusing on the “Leading Six” trailblazers - Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dick Gregory, and Sidney Poitier - Raymond reveals how they not only advanced the civil rights movement in front of the cameras, but also worked tirelessly behind the scenes, raising money for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legal defense, leading membership drives for the NAACP, and personally engaging with workaday activists to boost morale. Through meticulous research, engaging writing, and new interviews with key players, Raymond traces the careers of the Leading Six against the backdrop of the movement. Perhaps most revealing is the new light she sheds on Sammy Davis, Jr., exploring how his controversial public image allowed him to raise more money for the movement than any other celebrity. The result is an entertaining and informative book that will appeal to film buffs and civil rights historians alike, as well as to anyone interested in the rise of celebrity power in American society. A Capell Family Book A V Ethel Willis White Book
Author: Raymond Arsenault
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608191893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311
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Book Description
Few moments in Civil Rights history are as important as the morning of Sunday April 9, 1939 when Marian Anderson sang before a throng of thousands lined up along the Mall by the Lincoln Memorial. She had been banned from the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt, who resigned from the DAR over the incident, took up Anderson's cause, however, it became a national issue. The controversy showed Americans that discrimination was not simply a regional problem. As Arsenault shows, Anderson's dignity and courage enabled her, like a female Jackie Robinson - but several years before him - to strike a vital blow for civil rights. Today the moment still resonates. Postcards and CDs of Anderson are sold at the Memorial and Anderson is still considered one of the greats of 20th century American music. In a short but richly textured narrative, Raymond Arsenault captures the struggle for racial equality in pre-WWII America and a moment that inspired blacks and whites alike. In rising to the occasion, he writes, Marion Anderson "consecrated" the Lincoln Memorial as a shrine of freedom. In the 1963 March on Washington Martin Luther King would follow, literally, in her footsteps.
Author: Jeff Andrews
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780985722609
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
COMPELLING HISTORICAL FICTION - The Freedom Star is a riveting, character-driven saga of two families, one owned by the other, at the outbreak of America's Civil War. One reader calls it, "Powerful and evocative." Another describes it as, "Just one of those special books." The year is 1860. A young slave named Isaac toils in the tobacco fields while longing for the freedom that Henry, his boyhood friend and owner's son, takes for granted. Awaiting his chance to escape, he steals away under cover of darkness to shepherd others on their journey north along the Underground Railroad. When war comes, Henry enlists to fight for Virginia. In his absence, Patrick, his older brother, seizes control of the family farm. Fear grips the slave quarters as Patrick's harsh new ways become law. Suddenly, slaves feel the sting of the whip, Patrick sells Isaac's father, and Isaac's mother must now shield her children, as well as Henry's invalid father, from Patrick's greed-driven brutality. Following false promises and failed escapes, Isaac's only hope of reuniting with the woman he loves lies in joining Henry and the Rebels on their march north. When Henry is wounded and taken prisoner, Isaac is finally behind Union lines and free, but facing a choice: should he follow his dreams north or return to slavery to save his friend? The Freedom Star unfolds against the backdrop of the Civil War, bringing added tension to this gripping family drama. One reader said, "Jeff Andrews paints a vivid picture of the civil war slave life. His character development is superb. By the end of the story, you feel like you know each of the characters intimately." WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: "Riveting and real - Just two words to describe this wonderful book." "A Wonderful Story - Transporting me back in time, I was pulled into the lives of the slaves and the slave owners. Mr. Andrews created characters that soon either won my heart or made my blood boil." "Fantastic - ...impossible to put down, which resulted in me staying up way too late for too many nights. It has been quite sometime since I have become this involved in a book. A MUST read " "Fascinating Novel - The author did a wonderful job creating believable, three-dimensional characters and portraying realistic scenarios and interactions between them." "Great story with characters that will be hard to forget -A very well-written story that will stay with you well after the last pages are read." "Strongly recommended - The characters are so real I miss them now that I have finished reading the book."
Author: George Lakoff
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 142998970X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has relentlessly invoked the word "freedom." The United States can strike preemptively because "freedom is on the march." Social security should be privatized in order to protect individual freedoms. In the 2005 presidential inaugural speech, the words "freedom," "free," and "liberty" were used forty-nine times. "Freedom" is one of the most contested words in American political discourse, the keystone to the domestic and foreign policy battles that are racking this polarized nation. For many Democrats, it seems that President Bush's use of the word is meaningless and contradictory—deployed opportunistically to justify American military action abroad and the curtailing of civil liberties at home. But in Whose Freedom?, George Lakoff, an adviser to the Democratic party, shows that in fact the right has effected a devastatingly coherent and ideological redefinition of freedom. The conservative revolution has remade freedom in its own image and deployed it as a central weapon on the front lines of everything from the war on terror to the battles over religion in the classroom and abortion. In a deep and alarming analysis, Lakoff explains the mechanisms behind this hijacking of our most cherished political idea—and shows how progressives have not only failed to counter the right-wing attack on freedom but have failed to recognize its nature. Whose Freedom? argues forcefully what progressives must do to take back ground in this high-stakes war over the most central idea in American life.
Author: Steven Sellers Lapham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781585368198
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Philip Reid was an enslaved African American who volunteered to work with the delicate plaster mold needed to create Freedom, the statue that stands atop the capital building in Washington, D.C.
Author: Frye Gaillard
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817352988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
Cradle of Freedom puts a human face on the story of the black American struggle for equality in Alabama during the 1960s. While exceptional leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, and others rose up from the ranks and carved their places in history, the burden of the movement was not carried by them alone. It was fueled by the commitment and hard work of thousands of everyday people who decided that the time had come to take a stand. Cradle of Freedom is tied to the chronology of pivotal events occurring in Alabama the Montgomery bus boycott, the Freedom Rides, the Letter from the Birmingham Jail, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, Bloody Sunday, and the Black Power movement in the Black Belt. Gaillard artfully interweaves fresh stories of ordinary people with the familiar ones of the civil rights icons. We learn about the ministers and lawyers, both black and white, who aided the movement in distinct ways at key points. We meet Vernon Johns, King's predecessor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, who first suggested boycotting the buses and who wrote later, "It is a heart strangely un-Christian that cannot thrill with joy when the least of men begin to pull in the direction of the stars." We hear from John Hulett who tells how terror of lynching forced him down into ditches whenever headlights appeared on a night road. We see the Edmund Pettus Bridge beatings from the perspective of marcher JoAnne Bland, who was only a child at the time. We learn of E. D. Nixon, a Pullman porter who helped organize the bus boycott and who later choked with emotion when, for the first time in his life, a white man extended his hand in greeting to him on a public street. How these ordinary people rose to the challenges of an unfair system with a will and determination that changed their times forever is a fascinating and extraordinary story that Gaillard tells with his hallmark talent. Cradle of Freedom unfolds with the dramatic flow of a novel, yet it is based on meticulous research. With authority and grace, Gaillard explains how the southern state deemed the Cradle of the Confederacy became with great struggle, some loss, and much hope the Cradle of Freedom.
Author: John Malkin
Publisher: Parallax Press
ISBN: 1937006565
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Sounds of Freedom brings together some of the contruy's best-known musicians to share their thoughts on spirituality and social change. Philip Glass, the Indigo girls, Michael Franti, Michelle Shocked, Laurie Anderson and others reveal their inspiration and their commitments to peace and justice. Featuring a foreword by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
Author: Diane McWhorter
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
McWhorter offers an incisive and personal look at the American civil rights movement, honoring its heroes as well as the ordinary individuals behind it.
Author: Jimmy Boyle
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473529220
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
Foreword by Irvine Welsh 'My life sentence had actually started the day I left my mother's womb...' Jimmy Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals. All around him the world was drinking, fighting and thieving. To survive, he too had to fight and steal... Kids’ gangs led to trouble with the police. Approved schools led to Borstal, and Jimmy was on his way to a career in crime. By his twenties he was a hardened villain, sleeping with prostitutes, running shebeens and money-lending rackets. Then they nailed him for murder. The sentence was life – the brutal, degrading eternity of a broken spirit in the prisons of Peterhead and Inverness. Thankfully, Jimmy was able to turn his life around inside the prison walls and eventually released on parole. A Sense of Freedom is a searing indictment of a society that uses prison bars and brutality to destroy a man's humanity and at the same time an outstanding testament to one man's ability to survive, to find a new life, a new creativity, and a new alternative.
Author: Maria Höhn
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
This moving and beautifully illustrated book, developed from an award-winning research project, examines the experience of African-American GIs in Germany since 1945 and the unique insights they provide into the civil rights struggle at home and abroad.
