Selected New Materials: May 2009
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Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement. Robbie Lieberman and Clarence Lang. Africana Library: E185.61 A585 2009
The original essays in this book highlight the destructive impact of McCarthyism on the African American Freedom Movement. Recovering little-known stories of black radical activism, they challenge the idea that the Cold War was, on balance, beneficial to the movement. The book emphasizes what was lost when anticommunism forced the movement to submerge broader issues of economic justice, labor rights, feminism, and peace. The authors illustrate the often neglected or understated human costs of the Red Scare, focusing on local and individual stories that offer insight into larger national and international trends. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Color: Essays On Race, and History. Kenneth A. McClance. Africana Library: PS3563 .A26119 Z46 2009
This work is a chronicle of the African American middle class. McClane employs the art of the memoirist to explore the political and the personal. He ends the book with an account of his parents in the throes of Alzheimer's disease, which claimed both their lives. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
The Challenge for Africa. Wangari Maathai. Africana Library: JQ1875 .M33 2009
Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement, offers a refreshingly unique perspective on the challenges facing Africa, even as she calls for a moral revolution among Africans themselves, who, she argues, are culturally deracinated, adrift between worlds. The troubles of Africa today are severe and wide-ranging. Yet what we see of them in the media, more often than not, are tableaux vivantes connoting poverty, dependence, and desperation. Wangari Maathai presents a different vision, informed by her three decades as an environmental activist and campaigner for democracy. She illuminates the complex and dynamic nature of the continent, and offers hardheaded hope and realistic options for change and improvement. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
The Child Will Be Great. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Africana Library: DT636 .J64 A3 2009
From Liberian President Sirleaf, to Africa's first elected female president, comes an inspirational memoir about her improbable rise to international prominence, her fight for political freedom, and her unwavering determination to rebuild Liberia in the wake of civil war. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Bring Me My Machine Gun: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa From Mandela to Zuma. Alec Russell. Africana Library: DT1971 .R87 2009
Award-winning journalist Alec Russell was in South Africa to witness the fall of apartheid and the remarkable reconciliation of Nelson Mandela’s rule; and returned in 2007-2008 to see Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki, fritter away the country’s reputation. South Africa is now perched on a precipice, as it prepares to elect Jacob Zuma as president signaling a potential slide back to the bad old days of post-colonial African leadership, and disaster for a country that was once the beacon of the continent. Drawing on his long relationships with all the key senior figures including Mandela, Mbeki, Desmond Tutu, and Zuma, and a host of South Africans he has known over the years including former activists turned billionaires and reactionary Boers Alec Russell’s Bring Me My Machine Gun is a beautifully told and expertly researched account of South Africa’s great tragedy: the tragedy of hope unfulfilled. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Democratic Participation in Rural Tanzania and Zambia: The Impact of Civic Education. Satu Riutta. Africana Library: LC1091 .R67 2009
Satu Riutta asks whether civic education initiatives to which huge sums of donor funds and effort are devoted annually actually promote political participation among the rural poor in nascent democracies. Does raising awareness about citizen rights and responsibilities increase participation? Are the effects of civic education greatest on collective or individual forms of participation? Do women respond differently than men? Drawing on a rich set of original data from villages in Tanzania and Zambia, Riutta casts new light on both the empowering effects and the limitations of civic education in the context of participatory development and democratization. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Incognegro: A graphic Mystery. Mat Johnson. Africana Library: PN6727 .J6467 I53 2008
Writer Mat Johnson (Hell Blazer: Papa Midnight), winner of the prestigious Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, constructs a fearless graphic novel that is both a page-turning mystery and a disturbing exploration of race and self-image in America, masterfully illustrated with rich period detail by Warren Pleece (The Invisibles, Hell Blazer). In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could pass among the white folks. They called this dangerous assignment going incognegro. Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald, barely escapes with his life after his latest incognegro story goes bad. But when he returns to the sanctuary of Harlem, he’s sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
John Henrik Clarke and The Power of Africana History: Africalogical Quest for Decolonization and Sovereignty. Ahati N. N. Toure. Africana Library: E175.5 .C59 T68 2009
The systematic study of the Africana/Black experience emerged in universities in the USA in the late 1960s. As an outgrowth of the Civil Rights and Black Conscious movements, demonstrations occurred on campuses nationwide, giving birth to the new academic discipline. Written by emerging and established scholars and published in the Western Journal of Black Studies over a span of three decades beginning in 1977, the 27 essays included in Africana Studies provide an evolutionary trajectory of the discipline, including theoretical, ideological, and methodological perspectives and paradigms. The primary focus is the African American experience with emphasis on how the theoretical and methodological approaches have changed over time as the discipline matured. Topics include pre-colonial literacy and scholarship in West Africa, Black Nationalism, intellectual foundations of racism, and the ideology of European dominance. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Oral and Written Expressions of African Cultures. Toyin Falola and Fallou Ngom. Africana Library: GR350 .O73 2009
Oral and Written Expressions of African Cultures challenges the traditional view of exotic and atavistic Africa with a balanced examination of the continent's realities and challenges. It shows how oral and written expressions capture the complexity, concerns, dynamism, challenges and ingenuity of African masses. It brings together twelve scholars from different academic backgrounds that draw from the rich repertoire of music, poetry, literature and the media in the continent to unearth the underlying socio-cultural, economic and political factors that shape African societies in the twenty first century. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed their Past. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Africana Library: E185 .96 .G384, 2009
Unlike most white Americans who, if they are so inclined, can search their ancestral records, identifying who among their forebears was the first to set foot on this country’s shores, most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying black men and women even their names. Yet, from that legacy of slavery, there have sprung generations whose struggled, thrived, and lived extraordinary lives. For too long, African Americans family trees have been barren of branches, but, very recently, advanced genetic testing techniques, combined with archival research, have begun to fill in the gaps. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes nineteen extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through U.S. history and back to Africa. Those whose recovered pasts collectively form an African American peoples history of the United States include celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, Don Cheadle, Chris Tucker, Morgan Freeman, Tina Turner, and Quincy Jones; writers such as Maya Angelou and Bliss Broyard; leading thinkers such as Harvard divinity professor Peter Gomes, the Reverend T. D. Jakes, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot; and famous achievers such as astronaut Mae Jemison, media personality Tom Joyner, decathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Ebony and Jet publisher Linda Johnson Rice ( Bowker’s Books in Print)
Making a Way Out of No Way: African American Women and The Second Great Migration. Lisa Krissoff Boehm. Africana Library: E185.86 .B6325 2009
The Second Great Migration, the movement of African Americans between the South and the North that began in the early 1940s and tapered off in the late 1960s, transformed America. This migration of approximately five million people helped improve the financial prospects of black Americans, who, in the next generation, moved increasingly into the middle class. Over seven years, Lisa Krissoff Boehm gathered oral histories with women migrants and their children, two groups largely overlooked in the story of this event. She also utilized existing oral histories with migrants and southerners in leading archives. In extended excerpts from the oral histories, and in thoughtful scholarly analysis of the voices, this book offers a unique window into African American women’s history. These rich oral histories reveal much that is surprising. Although the Jim Crow South presented persistent dangers, the women retained warm memories of southern childhoods. (Amazon.com/Making-Way-out-Migration-Alexander)
Security Cooperation In Africa: A Reappraisal. Benedikt Franke. Africana Library: JZ5584 .A35 F73 2009
In the midst of the atrocities reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the seemingly constant strife in the Horn of Africa, and the ongoing violence in Darfur, how do we make sense of the simultaneous increase in interstate security cooperation in Africa? To what extent, and why, does this cooperation differ from previous initiatives? In what direction is it heading? Benedikt Franke assesses the peace and security architecture that is taking shape under the nominal leadership of the African Union, analyzing the emerging structures and trends and also rethinking prevailing notions and theoretical assumptions about interstate security relations. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Sojourner Truth’s America. Margaret Washington. Africana Library: E185.97 .T8 W37 2009
This fascinating biography tells the story of nineteenth-century America through the life of one of its most magnetic and influential characters: Sojourner Truth. In an in-depth account of this amazing activist, Margaret Washington unravels Sojourner Truth's world within the broader panorama of African American slavery and the nation's most significant reform era. Organized chronologically into three distinct eras of Truth's life, Sojourner Truth's America examines the complex dynamics of the times in which she acted, beginning with the transnational contours of her spirituality and early life as a slave. Washington then highlights Truth's awakening during nineteenth-century America's progressive surge, which propelled her ascendancy as a rousing preacher and political orator despite her inability to read and write. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, The Lincoln Memorial, and the Conflict that Awakened America. Raymond Arsenault. Africana Library: ML420 .A6 A77 2009
Award-winning civil rights historian Ray Arsenault describes the dramatic story behind Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial an early milestone in civil rights history on the seventieth anniversary of her performance. On Easter Sunday 1939, the brilliant vocalist Marian Anderson sang before a throng of seventy-five thousand at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington an electrifying moment and an underappreciated milestone in civil rights history. Though she was at the peak of a dazzling career, Anderson had been barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolutions Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR over the incident and took up Andersons cause, however, it became a national issue. Like a female Jackie Robinson but several years before his breakthrough Anderson rose to a pressure-filled and politically charged occasion with dignity and courage, and struck a vital blow for civil rights. In the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King would follow, literally, in Anderson’s footsteps. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
The World and Darfur: International Response to Crimes Against Humanity In Western Sudan. Amanda F. Grzyb. Africana Library: DT 159.6 .D27 W67 2009
The crisis in Darfur has led to systemic and widespread murder, rape, and abduction, as well as the forced displacement of millions of civilians. It presents a defining moral challenge to the world. The World and Darfur brings together genocide scholars from a range of disciplines - social history, art history, military history, African studies, media studies, literature, and political science, sociology - to provide a cohesive and nuanced understanding of the international response to the crisis in Western Sudan. Contributing authors, including Eric Reeves, Frank Chalk, Eric Markusen, and Samuel Totten, look at the lessons learned from the United Nations failure to intervene during the Rwandan genocide, the representation of Darfur in the mainstream media, atrocity investigations, activist and NGO campaigns, art exhibitions and political rhetoric, and the role of the international community in the discourse of genocide prevention and intervention. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, Past and Present. Benedict Carton et’al. Africana Library: DT1768 .Z95 Z85 2009
With close to 20 million members, the Zulu are the largest single ethnic group in all of Southern Africa. Their culture is known all over the world. However, defining what lies at the core of a Zulu identity remains a source of great controversy. What does it mean to be Zulu, and therefore African, in today's world? Is being Zulu different now than in the past? This comprehensive and wholly up-to-date reference wrestles with these and many other questions. The book features a stunningly diverse group of close to thirty contributors, universally acknowledged to be the world's leading experts of Zulu culture and history. They discuss the characteristic traditions of a pre-industrial people and how they evolved different cultural expressions of "Zulu-ness." They examine the legacies of Shaka, the social and political intrigues of Zulu royalty, gender and generational struggles, cultural and symbolic projections, and Zulu spirituality. The book also highlights the debates raging in contemporary South Africa over the manipulation of Zulu heritage and whether it is being exploited for political purposes or for the promotion of eco- and battlefield-tourism. In conclusion, the book contemplates the future of Zulu identity in a unified South Africa, a country that hopes to embrace the forces of globalization. Truly comprehensive and authoritative, Zulu Identities is the definitive volume on the Zulu people, history, and culture. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Barack Obama Words That Inspire A Nation. New York: Fall River Press, 2009. 1 videodisc (97 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 419
On January 20th, 2009 Barack H. Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America. President Obama’s historic journey has been marked with memorable speeches including the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2008, the election night victory speech on November 4th, 2008 and the Inaugural Address on January 20th, 2009.
Black Power in America. New York: William Greaves Productions, 2005? 1 videodisc (58 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 417
Examines the meaning of the term "Black power"; Its beginning as a slogan to the perception of its realization or negation for African Americans; Surveys some of the changes in American society since the civil rights movement of the 1960s; Looks at African American men and women who have achieved power and influence difficult to attain in the past, contemporary education, and a wide range of events with provocative insights into Black America.
Born In The Bronx: A Conference Celebrating Hip Hop at Cornell. Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University.2008. 2 videodiscs (564 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 415, disc1&2
A panel of speakers opened a two-day conference marking Cornell University Library’s acquisition of the collection, "Born in the Bronx: the legacy and evolution of hip hop." The speakers talked about their music, defining moments in their lives, the effects of hip hop in the nation, the role of hip hop within the academy, and the future of hip hop. Participants: Speakers: Jeff Chang, Roxanne Shante, Popmaster Fabel, Disco Wiz, Pebblee Poo, Tony Tone, Grandwizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Caz, Afrika Bambaataa, Johan Kugelberg, Gabriel McKee, Vernon C. Mitchell, Jr., Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman, Mark Anthony Neal, Tricia Rose.
First World Festival of Negro Arts. New York, N.Y.: Distributed by William Greaves Productions, 2005. 1 videodisc (40 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 418
Presents Dakar’s 24-day Festival of Negro Arts. Depicts performances of African and American entertainers and presents displays of art works. Includes Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, and Alvin Ailey.
Oggun: An Eternal Presence. New York, N.Y.: Center for Cuban Studies, 1991.1 videodisc (52 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 416
Documentary presents the viewer with several examples of Cuban folk dances and Cuban folk music. Participants: Lazaro Ross, José L. Kindelán, Teresa Alfonso, Alicia Santos, Jorge Dixson, Regla Diago, Yosvani Cabrera ; Conjunto Folclórico Nacional.
Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai. Harriman, NY: New Day Films, 2008. 1 videodisc (80 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 414, Disc 1&2
Taking Root tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy--a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.
Vision of The Struggle: Willard Straight Hall Takeover 20 Years Later: April 19, 1989. Ithaca, NY: Gossa Vision Production, 1989. 1 videodisc (32 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 412
This film is a retrospective look at the takeover and how it impacted both the Cornell and Ithaca communities. Film maker Gossa Tsegaye interviewed three of the student leaders who took part in the takeover as well as the Africana Studies and Research Center founder and director James Tuner and an Ithacan resident. Included in the film is some rare footage from the takeover.
