Selected New Materials: March 2007
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African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus. Rachel Holmes. Africana Library: DT 1768 .K56 B34 2007
Saartjie Baartman was twenty-one years old when she was taken from her native South Africa and shipped to London. Within weeks, the striking African beauty was the talk of the social season of 1810. Hailed as “the Hottentot Venus” for her exquisite physique and suggestive semi-nude dance. As her fame spread to Paris, Saartjie became a lightning rod for late Georgian and Napoleonic attitudes toward sex and race, exploitation and colonialism, prurience and science. In African Queen, Rachel Holmes recounts the luminous, heartbreaking story of one woman’s journey from slavery to stardom. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
African Theology In the 21st Century: The Contribution of the Pioneers. Benezet Bujo and Juvenal Ilunga Muya. Africana Library: BT 30 .A357 T4313 2003, v.1-2
This work highlights the lives and works of ten authors from both French and English-speaking Africa, and also includes the text of 'the Declaration of the 1977 Pan-African Meeting of the Third World Theologians in Accra. (.paulinesafrica.org)
Ali Rap: Muhammad Ali the First Heavyweight Champion of Rap. George Lois. Africana Library: GV1132 .A4 A55 2006
This book contains over 300 rap rhythms, witticisms, insults, wisecracks, politically incorrect quips, courageous stands and words of inspiration from the mind, heart and soul of the brash young Cassius Clay, as he steadily grew into the magnificent man who is Muhammad Ali. (Amazon .com)
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age. Kevin Boyle Africana Library: KF224 .S8 B69 2005
Ossian Sweet's story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times. An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggle in 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Black Culture Centers: Politics of Survival and Identity. Fred Lee Hord. Africana Library: E 184.7 .B524 2005
In 1987, ABCC founder and Executive Director, Dr. Fred Lee Horde, as the first director of the Center for Black Culture and Research at West Virginia University, introduced the idea of a new organization to promote networking among Centers at an American Council for Education conference in Washington, D.C. Moving to Knox College, he gained administrative acceptance to host an inaugural national conference. That 1989 conference (at Knox College) was followed by biennial and then annual events. (provost.ncsu.edu/)
Black Sexual Politics. Patricia Hill Collins. Africana Library: E185 .86 .C58167 2005
In Black Sexual Politics, one of America's most influential writers on race and gender explores how images of Black sexuality have been used to maintain the color line and how they threaten to spread a new brand of racism around the world today. The ideal of pure white womanhood, Collins argues, required the invention of hot-blooded Latinas, exotic Suzy Wongs, and wanton jezebels along with the male counterparts of drug dealers, brutish athletes, irresponsible fathers, and rapists. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Black Trials: Citizenship from the Beginnings of Slavery to the End of Caste. Mark S. Weiner. Africana Library: KF4757.W45 2006
A sweeping history of American ideas of belonging and citizenship, told through the stories of fourteen legal cases that helped to shape our nation. Spanning the period from colonial times to the present, Black Trials tells how the place of blacks in American society evolved through the actions of our courts of law. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Bone Woman. Clea Koff. Africana Library: GN 69.8 .K64 2005
Published ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, The Bone Woman is a riveting, deeply personal account by a forensic anthropologist sent on seven missions by the UN War Crimes Tribunal. In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of the first acts since World War II to be legally defined as genocide. Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist, left the safe confines of a lab in Berkeley, California, to serve as one of sixteen scientists chosen by the United Nations to unearth the physical evidence of the Rwandan genocide. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Born In the Big Rains: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival. Fadumo Korn. Africana Library: GN484.K6613 2006
Korn's remarkable memoir traces her steps from her childhood as part of a nomadic tribe in Somalia, where she was born in 1964, to her position as a spokesperson against FGM--female genital mutilation. She herself was circumcised, and sewn back up, or infibulated, at age seven. Touted as an "ancient tradition," the brutal procedure can lead to infection, chronic ailments, and loss of fertility. In Korn's case, the resulting infection led to severe joint disintegration. Her parents sent her to relatives in Mogadishu while she received treatment; from there she went to a hospital in Rome, then a clinic in Germany, where she endured operations to straighten her fingers and toes. Only after her marriage, and corrective surgery to be "opened," did she experience urination or her periods without pain. Now a German citizen, Korn helps to reeducate young African women about their societal status without this horrific procedure. (Amazon.com)
Crisis of the Black Intellectual. W.D.Wright. Africana Library: E185.86.W963 2005
A reexamination of Harold Cruse’s classic Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, published in 1967 at the height of the civil-rights movement and now required reading in African American studies courses, this polemic pays tribute to the earlier book’s importance and takes to task the current generation of black scholars for failing to meet Cruse’s rigorous standards for public commentary. (Bowker’s Books In Prints)
Desegregating the City: Ghettos, Enclaves, & Inequality. David P. Varady. Africana Library: HN 59.2 .D47 2005
Desegregating the City takes a global, multidisciplinary look at segregation and the strengths and weaknesses of different antisegregation strategies in the United States and other developed countries. In contrast to previous works focusing exclusively on racial ghettos (products of coercion), this book also discusses ethnic enclaves (products of choice) in cities like Belfast, Toronto, Amsterdam, and New York. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
From Civil Rights to Human Rights Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice. Thomas F. Jackson. Africana Library: E 185.97 .K5 J34 2007
Martin Luther King's civil rights leadership is widely celebrated as an American exemplar of idealism in practice. But King's nonviolent challenge to racial and economic inequality had deeper roots and more radical implications than is commonly appreciated, Thomas F. Jackson argues in this searching reinterpretation of King's thought and action. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Gifts of Harvest. Violet Barungi. Africana Library: PR 9402 .8 .G54 2006
Gifts of Harvest is a short story anthology that reflects the origins of life and its antithesis - death - through traditions as opposed to modernity, through depravations and ravages of war, HIV/AIDS, marital infidelity, hunger and poverty. The anthology traverses a broad literary territory both in terms of themes and styles. Here you will find the voices of women from different parts of Uganda joined together by a commonality of concerns. Some of the twelve works published in this anthology have won prestigious literary awards and prizes in their individual capacities or have made it to the short lists, making this collection the best of the best. (nairobiliving.com)
God and Revelation in An African Context. Samuel G. Kibicho. Africana Library: BR1360 .K53 2006
African people, alongside other peoples of all generations with good genuine religions have had a sound saving knowledge of the One, True God before Christianity was introduced to them. This is so because the Diving Spirit responsible for this inspiration is not restricted to Christianity. Rather it is incarnated in every sound and good religion in all the ages of humankind. The main conclusion of my Doctoral Thesis as summed up above has already raised healthy debate in various circles in Kenya and elsewhere. (Book Cover)
The History of Ethiopia. Saheed A. Adejumobi. Africana Library: DT 381 .A45 2007
This up-to-date historical narrative traces Ethiopia's history from antiquity to the present day. This engaging and informative historical narrative provides an excellent introduction to the history of Ethiopia from the classical era through the modern age. The acute historical analysis contained in this volume allows readers to move beyond popular academic traditions that treat the emergence of African states as an epilogue in the history of the modern world, and allows them to see the recent attempts of major African states to chart their own historical course in the face of powerful domestic and international forces. (Bowker’s Book in Print)
The Race Beat. Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. Africana Library: PN4888 .R3 R63 2006
This is the story of how America awakened to its race problem, of how a nation that longed for unity after World War II came instead to see, hear, and learn about the shocking indignities and injustices of racial segregation in the South—and the brutality used to enforce it. It is the story of how the nation’s press, after decades of ignoring the problem, came to recognize the importance of the civil rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news event of the twentieth century. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational Writings for An African Psychology. Wade W. Nobles. Africana Library: E185.625 .N63 2006
A complete discussion of the history and principles of African-centered psychology, this work explores the development of the African American mindset in our society and reveals the thought processes of the African mind in America. Using a new approach that decries the various negative influences upon African Americans and their families, this treatise proposes a method that reclaims and restores the mind and spirit of African Americans. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City. Martha Biondi. Africana Library: F128.9 .N4 B56 2003
Grassroots struggle for racial equality in the urban north of the United States began a decade before the rise of the movement in the South. This work traces the origins of the struggle against white supremacy to the postwar determination of Black New Yorkers to win their place in the city. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Uncle Tom or New Negro? Rebecca Carroll. Africana Library: E185 .97 .W4 U53 2006
Today's struggle over the role of Booker T. Washington is "actually a struggle over the soul of the Black community," argues Debra Dickerson, one of 20 contributors to this anthology, which highlights the complex position of one of America's most famous—and controversial—Black leaders. (Amazon.com)
Unquiet: The Life & Times of Makhan Singh. Zarina Patel. Africana Library: HD6866.5 .Z55 S567 2006
Makham Singh (-1973) was an Indian settler in Kenya, who became a founding father of the trade union movement, and a leading opponent of the colonial state. He is distinguished by his consciously multi-racialist politics and his indomitable spirit. Ahead of his times, Singh was extraordinarily immune from color prejudice and religious intolerance. He refused to accept a trade union movement segregated by race and the colonial apartheid that reinforced a hierarchy of races between black Africans, Asians and whites in such humiliating fashion. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Africans in America: The Unfolding of Ethnic Identity. Princeton NJ: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 2004. 1 videodisc (31 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 270
Africans who have immigrated from Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Uganda talk about their beliefs, experiences, and living in America.
Arlit Deuxieme Paris. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel, 2005. 1 videodisc (78 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 267
Arlit, Deuxieme Paris is a case study in migration and environmental racism set in a uranium mining town in the Sahara desert of Niger. Here European corporations extracted nuclear power and profits, leaving behind illness due to radiation, contamination and unemployment. Arlit flourished during the oil crunch of the early 70s when its uranium mines employed 25,000 workers from around the world in high paying jobs.
Fathers. San Francisco, Calif.: California Newsreel, 2000. 1 videocassette (87 min.). Africana Library: Video 671
Each of these three films offers a critical look at the relationships between fathers and their children in contemporary Africa. In The father, the patriarch in question is ultimately the military dictatorship which terrorized Ethiopia in the ’70s and ’80s. Surrender shows the traditional face of paternal tyranny, a father controlling his son’s life. A Barber’s Wisdom shows a modern father who compromises his children in his relentless pursuit of money.
The Kims of Comedy. Burbank, CA New wave Entertainment Camarillo, CA Goldhil Entertainment 2006. 1 videodisc (64 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 262
The Kims of Comedy break new ground with an uncompromising look at Asian culture and some hilarious ethnic hang-ups.
Kounandi. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel, 2004. 1 videodisc (50 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 264
An adult fairy tale about love, friendship and sacrifice. Also addresses social conflict and prejudices. Participants, Deborah Coty, Noufou Ouédraogo, Aminata Dao, Kamsa Traore, Korotimi Traore, Adama Kone.
Ladies First: Rwandan Women Help Heal Their Nation. Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities & Sciences: Films Media Group, 2006. 1 videodisc (ca. 60 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 269
After genocide ripped their nation apart in the 1990s, the women of Rwanda have led the healing process and have helped usher in a much-needed era of stability. By depicting the multifaceted efforts of women activists to build a sustainable peace between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, this Wide Angle documentary explores the challenges facing Rwanda.
Lessons From the Past, Visions for the Future: A Lecture by Dr. Dorothy Cotton. Cornell University. 2007. 1 videodisc (94 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 255
For the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. commemorative lecture, Dorothy Cotton spoke of her involvement in the "Modern Civil Rights Movement", and shared her vision for the future. There was also an opening blessing by three monks of Namgyal Monastery, Ithaca, New York, and musical selections from Measureless, Chai Notes, and The Chosen generation.
Liberia: A Fragile Peace. San Francisco, Calif.: California Newsreel, 2005. 1 videodisc (60 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 271
Chronicles the period from the departure of Charles Taylor to the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first African woman head of state, and presents the difficulties of rehabilitating a nation destroyed by war.
Liberia: An Uncivil War. San Francisco, Calif: distributed by California Newsreel, 2005. 1 videodisc (103 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 266
In Liberia, the summer of 2003 was pure insanity: two armies are in the final battle of a decade-long civil war, holding the capital under siege while thousands die from mortar shells launched from afar. As the soldiers, mostly teenagers, fight a bloody urban battle, the nation prays that American forces show up to put an end to the violence. Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves, has a long intertwined history with America. While the rebel army, the LURD, attempts to overthrow the Liberian government, President Charles Taylor and his army maintain a strong grip on the city.
O Herói (The Hero). San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2005. 1 videodisc (97 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 265
Luanda, capital of Angola, is a huge city trying to cope with and overcome the profound legacy of a civil war that lasted for nearly 30 years. Vitório has just been discharged after almost 20 years of fighting in the war. During his last military assignment he stepped on a land mine and lost a leg. After recuperating, he finds himself alone, unemployed and homeless. He, along with the people that he encounters, attempt to build new lives at the same time as their country reconstructs in the postwar era.
The Original Latin Kings of Comedy. Hollywood, Calif.: Paramount, 2002. 1 videodisc (87 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 263
A concert film featuring five of today’s hottest Latin-American stand-up comedians. Participants, Paul Rodriguez, George Lopez, Joey Medina, Alex Reymundo, Cheech Marin.
The Queens of Comedy. Hollywood, Calif.: Paramount; United States: Latham Entertainment, 2001. 1 videodisc (79 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 257
"The Queens of comedy captured live onstage in Memphis during their triumphant comedy tour!" Participants, Featuring Miss Laura Hayes, Adele Givens, Sommore, Mońique.
Slave Reparations: The Final Passage. Teaneck, NY: Crabtree Pictures, 2004. 1 videodisc (28 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 256
Intellectuals and civic leaders discuss the issue of payment of reparations to African Americans as the descendants of slaves, giving reasons why reparations should be paid and addressing a number of objections that are often raised.
The Wind of Change: The End of Colonialism in Africa. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2004. 1 videodisc (57 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 268
Discusses nationalism in black Africa through the experiences of the Gold Coast, French Guinea, and the Belgian Congo, the first colonies to gain independence after World War II. Also considers the effects on Africa of the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union.
Witches in Exile. San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2005. 1 videodisc (79 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 272
Witches in Exile’ introduces us to four women who have taken refuge in the Kukuo witches’ camp and who represent a cross section of the ’witch’ population of Northern Ghana today. It leads us on a step by step journey on how a woman becomes stigmatized as a ’witch.
