Other books that might interest you

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  We Rise - Speeches by...

  Barbara Jordan, Condoleezza...

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  This rare compilation includes memorable speeches delivered by celebrated African American women from both the past and present. Spanning decades and elucidating the fight for equality, these speeches not only represent important moments of Black history but reveal the struggle from a female perspective. The live recordings in this captivating collection are preceded by a short biography that introduces each speaker. The speeches featured in this compilation: Mary McLeod Bethune: “What American Democracy Means to Me” (1939) Fannie Lou Hamer at the Democratic National Convention (1964)Shirley Chisholm: “The Black Woman in Contemporary America” (1974) Barbara Jordan: “Who Will Speak for the Common Good?” (1976) Rosa Parks at the Million Man March (1995) Condoleezza Rice at the Republican National Convention (2000) Cynthia McKinney: Green Party Presidential Nomination Speech (2008) Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention (2008)

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  Rescue 911 - Tales from a First...

  Michael Morse

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  People from all walks of life call 911 when things go bad. These are their stories, told by the people who respond and make things better.First responders often don't tell stories, preferring to keep what happens at work private. Rescue Captain Michael Morse changes that with these heartfelt descriptions of hundreds of emergency calls, with the usual coverings peeled back, exposing the bizarre, heartbreaking, and often hilarious reactions to 911 emergencies.

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  Down from Troy

  Richard Selzer

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  Dr. Richard Selzer, the writer and surgeon whose best-selling works have enthralled millions of literary critics and discriminating readers, returns to his boyhood in 1930s Troy, New York in this powerful memoir of medicine, dreams, and death. Down from Troy evokes the distinct character of Depression-era Troy-the sooty streets, horse-drawn hearses, saloons and brothels-and reveals how a poor boy like Selzer rose to become a professor at Yale Medical School.

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  Prevail: The Process of Overcoming

  Jinary Arce-Cotto

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  Growing up I was expected to look a certain way, act a certain way and talk a certain way. My parents pastored a few churches and my siblings and I followed their every move like ducks in a row. Everyone thought we were the perfect family. Beautiful parents who made the ultimate power couple and their talented and even more beautiful children. We were praised, admired and envied. Yet, little did anyone know what transpired when we said our goodbyes and shut the door to our home. No one knew the secrets, the lies, the betrayals, and the sacrifices. If not for an amazing woman of God, I don't know how'd we survive the horrors we endured. This woman protected us with all she could, put herself in danger's path for us, held us together with all her might and fell on her face before God for us. This woman is my mother.Only the love of a mother could endure the storms we faced. The older I became the more I knew, and the more I knew, the more compelled I was to share her story. Her story of abuse, ridicule, and pain. Her story of triumph, revelation, and joy. Her story is my story. Her story is my brothers' story. Her story is my sister's story. Her story is your story. It's time the curtain was pulled back and the story was told. This is the time to break generational curses and stop all types of abuse. This is Prevailing, the process of overcoming.

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  The Mayfair Mafia - The Lives...

  Dick Kirby

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  This true crime history reveals the shocking career of the London mafia family that ran a thriving prostitution empire for decades.   From the mid-1930s into the 1950s, one immigrant Italian family ran London’s thriving vice trade. The five Messina brothers imported prostitutes from the Continent on an industrial scale, acquiring British citizenship for the women by phony marriages. Taking 80% of these women’s earnings, the Messina family became fabulously wealthy, purchasing expensive properties, cars and influence.   As this revealing and absorbing account describes, the brothers ruled with a ruthless combination of charm, blackmail and threats of disfigurement and death that were all too credible. It took a sensational Sunday newspaper exposé to get the authorities to put an end to their criminal reign. A series of dramatic arrests and trials followed, as one by one the brothers were imprisoned and deported for crimes including immoral earnings, attempted bribery and firearms offenses.   Such was their fortune that numerous potential beneficiaries came forward, most recently in 2012. Dick Kirby, an author and former Metropolitan police officer, presents a vividly detailed and thoroughly researched narrative of the five Messina brothers in this revealing and riveting read.

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  A Pure Solar World - Sun Ra and...

  Paul Youngquist

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  “Youngquist brings considerable skills to the life and work of the legendary but underappreciated and often misunderstood composer, keyboardist, and poet.” —PopMatters    Sun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form improvisation in an ensemble setting with the devoted band he called the “Arkestra.” Sun Ra took jazz from the inner city to outer space, infusing traditional swing with far-out harmonies, rhythms, and sounds. Described as the father of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra created “space music” as a means of building a better future for American blacks here on earth.   In A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism, Paul Youngquist explores and assesses Sun Ra’s wide-ranging creative output—music, public preaching, graphic design, film and stage performance, and poetry—and connects his diverse undertakings to the culture and politics of his times, including the space race, the rise of technocracy, the civil rights movement, and even space-age bachelor-pad music. By thoroughly examining the astro-black mythology that Sun Ra espoused, Youngquist masterfully demonstrates that he offered both a holistic response to a planet desperately in need of new visions and vibrations and a new kind of political activism that used popular culture to advance social change. In a nation obsessed with space and confused about race, Sun Ra aimed not just at assimilation for the socially disfranchised but even more at a wholesale transformation of American society and a more creative, egalitarian world.  “A welcome invitation to the spaceways.” —Jazzwise

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