1 comments about My Cowboy Hat Still Fits.

1. If you've ever watched a bull rider desperately hang on to the back of a bull till the buzzer sounds or shaken your head in amazement as a cowboy picks himself off the ground after being tossed around like a rag doll, this book will tell you why they do it.
   
   In his own words, Champion Bull Rider Abe Morris recounts the story of his rodeo career from the beginning as a boy in New Jersey at the Cowtown Rodeo through his time at the University of Wyoming and follows the triumphs and disappointments of competing around the country as one of the very few black rodeo cowboys. This is a story of good friends, tragic losses, prejudicial judges, career threatening injuries and the ever present recalcitrant bulls which never fail to make a lasting impression.
   
   Abe's story is an inside look at the sport of rodeo and the men who pursue it, written by a man who knows what it means to lose but who has also experienced the exhilaration of those championship wins.

5 comments about Her Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C. J. Walker.

1. As an avid reader of history and an Indianapolis resident, I had high hopes for learning more about Madame Walker and the choices that led to her extraordinary success. Lowry clearly did a considerable amount of research, but it rarely translated into a story that captured my imagination or motivated me to finish the book. This was one of those few books that I simply couldn't finish because it was so tedious. You quickly realize the challenges a biographer faces in researching a marginalized black woman in the late 1800s when Lowry painstakingly provides information gleaned from marriage licenses, home ownership records and newspapers of the time. Given the paucity of detail around Walker herself, Lowry could have provided more historical perspective on the cities and times that Walker lived in. When she does, this book becomes interesting (the description of how much work it took to do 18th century laundry was exhausting just to read), but she quickly returns to outlining the train rides Walker might have taken to get from city A to city B, the difficulties she might have had with her spoiled daughter, and when she may or may not have lived or married or divorced husband #1/2/3. In short, a disappointment. Admittedly, I didn't make it to the point where perhaps more of Walker's history was known after she became successful, but no reader should have to struggle through 200-300 pages of hypotheses leavened with the occasional dry fact to get to the meat of a book. If you are interested in learning more about Walker, who had to have been an amazing woman, buy this book used or check it out of the library to see whether you agree with my jaundiced opinion. I'm beginning to realize that the number of used books available (and the price range) on Amazon is a vote-with-your-feet measure of what readers really think of a book.



2. I am not surprised at all by the patronizing tone used by such reviewers as the person from "Houston, Texas USA" (probably a relative of Beverly Lowry) who complains that "It is a little bizarre to read reviews complaining that a second book about Madame C. J. Walker has been published. One of the measures of an individual's importance is the number of books they inspire..."

   The Houston reviewer continues in the same condescending tone about Alelia Bundles "whining" and asks, "Is there a rule that white guys can have a hundred books about them but Black women only get one each?" No, but thanks for your concern about black women and our history. The goal for any writer or scholar is to write a book when you have something to add to the information that is already available. It doesn't mean that you pretend that Madam Walker's biographer, her journalist great-great granddaughter Alelia Bundles, doesn't exist.

   The bottom line is that the definitive book on Madam C.J. Walker (On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker) has already been written and Lowry has not contributed to our understanding of this pioneer. Also, to add insult to injury, she manages to cast two other black women pioneers, Ida B. Wells and Mary McLeod Bethune, as women with "skin color like milk with a little tea in it. Their noses are aquiline, and some have soft hair." Mary McLeod Bethune had light skin and soft hair? Oh, okay!

   Lowry finally had to admit that her description of Bethune was "exaggerated", but still insisted that brown-skinned Ida B. Wells was "lightskinned" in the the Sept-Oct 2003 issue of Black Issues Book Reviews where she admitted to other mistakes in her book.

   Bundles book was a bestseller and she has no reason to be "jealous" of Lowry's sloppy scholarship, which is surprising considering her other work. Even though a reviewer in the Wall Street Journal thanked Lowry for "bringing Madam Walker back to us" and marveled that it was "astonishing that her name is all but forgotten today", Madam Walker has NEVER been "forgotten" by African-Americans. The only thing that should be forgotten is this book.




3. There have been other books about Madame C.J. Walker but this one is the best. It's not a romance and it doesn't offer a glossy,worshipful picture either. This solid biography tells the story of one woman who triumphed over incredible adversity. In a time when most black people were miserably poor Madame Walker built a fortune. The book tells what Madame did right and what she did wrong and it's the only one that really gets into what went wrong with her daughter and where the money went after Madame's death. Some people have objected to the book because the author is not black but what does that have to do with the ability to produce good scholarship? If you're interested in this fascinating woman and the turbulent times she lived in, give this book a chance.



4. Think you wouldn't be interested in a book about a woman who got rich selling black hair care products? Guess again. This book does not immerse the reader in cosmetics but is about hard work and its rewards, the attainment of wealth by a woman who had nothing, and the ways she spent her money, showing off as well as trying to help her race. The book traces the career of Madam C.J. Walker, child of former slaves, from Mississippi washerwoman to nationally known businesswoman and philanthropist. The author, Beverly Lowry, locates this life amid the customs, economy, and politics (black and mainstream) of the years between 1874 and 1920. She invites the reader to join her on the trail of her subject, about whom much is known but much is unknown, and in parallel keeps us abreast of the state of race relations from the annual number of lynchings to the attitude of whoever was president at the time to the changing role of black women in business. The book is full of word pictures. Where Walker can be definitively placed at a particular time, Lowry gives us a clear view with enough details to put us at the scene. We see, for example, the week-long laundry process of the 1880s, what the regimen was when she stayed at the Battle Creek Sanatorium (founded by J. Kellogg of cereal fame), her travels in the automobiles of long-gone makes that she drove for hundreds of miles at a time promoting her products, and we stand with her when Booker T. Washington visits, the culmination of years of effort to be recognized by him as an important businessperson and "race woman." These are swift strokes, enough but not too much, and then Lowry moves on. Her Dream of Dreams is a perfect marriage of imagination and research--facts unearthed by painstaking attention to detail, and conclusions drawn in just the right narrative tone. Lowry's is a voice of rich language and metaphor, a voice resonant with appreciation of Walker's character and achievement that does not fail to mark her limitations. Overall, Her Dream of Dreams is a good read--a triumph of biography, history, and just plain storytelling.



5. This beautifully written and researched book is more than a biography of the remarkable Madam C.J. Walker, America's first female millionaire who was born to former slaves, it is also a cultural history of the early twentieth century. It presents an amazingly vivid portrait of the lives of African Americans and their struggles. The detail of the hard work and business accumen of Madam Walker, her ultimate financial success, as well as the political and social landscape this writer presents should make this book a classic. A classic that is an inspiring American story.

1 comments about African American Dramatists: An A-to-Z Guide.

1. So I'm biased. The entry on Ron Milner is one of the most fabulous pieces of non-fiction writing ever recorded in the history of African American Dramatists. Seriously, this is a wonderful resource. This book includes the expected entries on Hughes, Hurston and the like, but also entries on the lesser-knowns, such as Ron Milner.

2 comments about Southern Comfort: A Story of Life, Love and Loss.

1. 
   My family is from the south.This book brings back memories of stories
   my mother experienced growing up in the south.I loved this book, I made
   sure my teenage children read it to.This is a good book to share with
   all generations in your family who can relate to the old school southern
   family times.



2. This is a great book about growing up in the South in simpler but by no means easier times. It's also a great book to share with teen and young adult readers whose family came from the South.

1 comments about Everyman.

1. I found this book interesting and leaving me wanting more. Most people think that these issues were yesteryear and it for a fact its yesterday.

4 comments about Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement.

1. Just finished reading " Deep In Our Hearts", a book I'd like to strongly recommend. It captures on a very personal level, the spirit of the Civil Rights era, from the perspective of nine different white women who were deeply involved in the struggle to bring about more racial justice. It is a moving tribute to all the heroes of that very difficult time. To all who were involved at the time or those who are the least bit curious of "what went down", you cannot fail to admire the stories of these brave women. This is history (herstory) as it should be related-from the participants.



2. Imagine leaving your comfortable world as you knew it in the erly 1960's. Young white women; some from the north, some from the south. Rural and urban, college kids, middle class, working class and just plain poor. Heading to a dangerous world and joining the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. Leaving behind the scorn, disdain, and ridicule of family and friends. Walking into a climate of hate and bigotry, and joining in civil disobedience against segregation. Walking in the picket lines, sometimes fearing for your life; organizing, and joining in singing hymns of freedom. Going from tears of frustration to smiles of great joy, while hitching a ride on that freedom train and holding on for dear life.
   One recent eveing at Northern Lights Book Store and Cafe in St. Johnsbury, Vt., 70 people heard two local women who participated passionately in that movement. The authors read from their book, Deep In Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement.
   The book is an eloquent and powerful one that takes us back to one of the most tumultuous periods in American history; the erly days of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer, voter registrations, lunch counter sit-ins and the rise of Black Power and the women's movement. Deep In Our Hearts is a collection of essays, that take us into the lives of a group of young women who were transformed by the Civil Rights Movement.
   The audience listened as Penny Patch looked back and read softly. "I understand well that what was between us will never be again, but still, that experience remains at the core of who I am. The fact that some of us had deep friendships that crossed all racial lines is simply a miracle. For short periods of time, in those early yers, we leaped over all the history and all of the minefields between us."
   Perched on a stool and sipping warm tea to sooth a sore throat, Theresa Del Pozzo read from the book. "My involement with the movement began as a moral reaction to the blatant injustice of segregation and the denial of basic human rights of African-Americans. Along the way I got an education in the intricate patterns of racism and began to experience what I think as the small-c culture of the African_American community: the wisdom, dignity, strength, humor, gentleness and creativeness of its everyday life and people. The experience of living within the black world changed forever the person I was to become and the way I live my adult life."
   Listening to the authors as they told their stories one could not help but admire their courage and admire this courageous book. They stand as powerful testaments to a time when the goal of universal justice was truly in sight and to the hope that a new generation of blacks and whites will take up the challenge to make the world a better place.

   Marvin Minkler of the North Star Monthly




3. This collection of stories, detailing the lives of nine white women active in the fight to end racial segregation and discrimination in this country, is sure to touch your heart. It is a must read for anyone interested in learning more about the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. I couldn't put it down.



4. Forty years ago, in regard to the "race question," white people in this country fell into five general categories: those who never gave a thought to race-based segregation and discrimination (the numbers of whom could probably be counted on one hand); those who through ignorance or paranoia thought that African-Americans were in one way or another "inferior" beings, which somehow justified our own brand of apartheid; those who knew or suspected that the "inferiority" premise applied to African-Americans was bogus but who profited from that fiction being maintained; those who knew or believed that the inferiority idea was false but who, through reluctance or apathy, chose to do or say nothing about it, and those who, deep in their hearts, knew that the inferiority thesis was false and cruelly unfair, knew that our apatheid system made a lie of all the claims of equality our nation prided itself on, and who chose to confront it in an attempt to bring segregation and discrimination to an end through personal involvement and direct action. The nine white women who contributed to this book the stories of their development and their involvement in the civil rights struggle were of that last category. They never really saw themselves as particularly strong or smart, although their writing shows them to be exceptionally articulate, and none of them were brought up by their families to become involved in that fight. They took it upon themselves to make their own stands and become part of that effort regardless of the personal risks. "Deep In Our Hearts" is aptly named - what springs out at us from their stories is their simple strength, the heart-deep commitment to social justice, that helped make this country face up to its promises to all of its citizens. That they came from genuinely different backgrounds reflects the diversity that sets our country apart and which puts the lie to common assumptions about them, such as that they were born of affluent families from the northeast and went south with Ivy League educations and high-flown notions of setting things right. What is also remarkable about their stories and their lives is that they have continued with that commitment to equality and fairness in varied ways; they never saw fit to rest upon their laurels once this nation recognized, in words at least, that racial segregation and discrimination were wrong and brought down the obvious barriers to equality. These little stories, none more than forty-eight pages long, also spell out how their subsequent involvement in combating the Vietnam War was a logical progression, the same struggle on a different front. Although some of them became front-line soldiers in the fight to free women from their own set of shackles, all of them contributed to modern feminism and women's rights more by their actions than by their words. To them, and to the many whose stories who are not in this book, we all owe a debt of gratitude. If not for them this country may not have been able to look itself in the eye in the bathroom mirror. The collective lesson of these stories is that one need not come from uncommon beginnings in order to develop the will to lead extraordinary, adventuresome, purposeful lives. Read their stories, be inspired without being preached to, and put some meat on the dry bones of history.

2 comments about Before & Beyond Harlem: Biography of Langston Hughes.

1. The distinguishing feature of Faith Berry's LANGSTON HUGHES: BEFORE AND BEYOND HARLEM is the brevity of the text when compared to the extremely detailed biographies of THE LIFE OF LANGSTON HUGHES 1&2 by Arnold Rampersad.
   
   It should be noted that Ms. Berry was not given full access to the Hughes Papers on deposit at Yale. Rather, she was given permission to only view those pages specifically asked for from the executors under the tutelage of the late George Bass. As a result and under sometimes trying circumstances, Berry labored with more difficulty to put together a biography that is as definitive as Rampersad's, but doesn't come close to being rich in the prized details that show Hughes as being the complicated man that he was barring the lonliness and unimpeachable black pride that accompanied him to the end of his life. Rampersad's two biographies of Hughes surpasses Berry's because he had full access to the Hughes Papers. This access allowed him to offert the read a three diminsional picture of Hughes revealing a man who had his faults in character along with his triumphs in
   character. Berry doesn't quite manage to break the exterior of Hughes as good as Rampersad.
   
   The real fulcrum on which Berry's biography hangs is its unbridled absence of prejudice in acknowledging Hughes being an understandably closeted black gay man. Not the first to do this, Berry offers the more likely true conjecture that the significant romantic relationship in Hughes' life (the F.S. dedication of one of Hughes' poems) was Ferdinand Smith of Jamaica, a merchant sailor who encouraged Hughes to go to sea which led to his famous travels. Hughes corresponded with Smith up until 1961 when Smith died in Jamaica. Of course, this information Berry mentions in her notes rather than include it in
   the text of her biography. To her discredit, she chooses to mention and then deny a rumor that Hughes and silent film actor Ramon Novarro were lovers in the body of the biography. Novarro was unjustly and inaccurately linked to every man he knew after his tragic death--to the dismay of his biographers. To her credit, she does reveal that the Caribbian traveling companion of Hughes, Zell Ingram, was a gay man who married and divorced later in his life. Rampersad does not even identify Ingram as gay and is to dismissive of other black gay men in Hughes's life. Rampersad, to his credit, does not engage in rumors. Moreover, Rampersad's more detailed research led him to the astonishing and often ignored admission that Hughes preferred black men, especially those of dark complexion. As evidence by his life and body of work, Hughes showed little interest in white men as objects of desire ( the complete polar opposite of Richard Bruce Nugent who was "somewhat" openly gay, even while married, and showed a patent interest in white men in his life and work excluding SMOKE, LILLIES, AND JADE). Critics of Rampersad have failed to note this contradiction in Rampersad's Vol.2 where he sums up of Hughes' life and work. Rampersad doesn't escape showing prejudiced text, but does make startling admissions that show the unfairness of the label "homophobic" being applied to him. In fairness to Berry, she does give Rampesad some praise for Vol. 2 of his biography of Hughes.
   
   (Both Berry and Rampersad fail to take into consideration the "down low" culture which existed among black gay married men who knew Hughes in his day and the vested interest of these men in wanting to make Hughes appear as straight. Rampersad indirectly acknowledges this fact in his Afterword at the same time of unknowingly intimating that he may have ignored and suppressed much evidence in Hughes's association other black gay men.)
   
   Berry's biography of Hughes isn't without its faults. But fortunately, these faults don't take away from the text as a whole.



2. This a a book that has works by Langston Hughes that perhaps your pat Black History month or American Literature classes never mentioned. Excellent work by a brilliant author.

3 comments about William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America.

1. The reviewer who suggested that "as long as the grant money keeps pouring in...it beats working for a living" should reread the above press reviews and note that Pope.L is a college professor. In addition to` this, an appreciation for the value of hard work is, I think, visible in his art. Ever considered crawling for miles at a time?



2. If you enjoy contemporary art and are open to new ideas with distraction, William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America is a must have. William Pope brings forth challenging, comforting, and inspiring notions to the average american.



3. The best part was the twelve pages of solid black near the middle. I don't know what the second-best part was. Maybe the jars of rotting mayonaise. Hey, as long as the grant money keeps pouring in, it beats working for a living.

No comments about Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom : The Institution of Slavery As Seen on the Plantation in the Home of the Planter.

No comments about Tales without hate.