Hutchins Library News Blog

Pope Francis (link to his Wikipedia entry), the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign ruler of Vatican City, passed away on the morning of April 21, 2025. Here at the library we offer our condolences to Catholics here and around the world as well as others mourning his death. Pope Francis was the first non-European Pope since the 8th century (that first one was Gregory III from Syria), the first Latin American Pope, and the first Pope member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).

For folks wanting to learn more about Pope Francis, here are some resources available at the our library as well as online.

A small sampling of news reports about his death:

• From the Associated Press.
• From CNN.
• From the Vatican.

If you want to search for more news articles and news sources from the U.S. and around the world, our library offers the database Access World News, which can be found on our library website under "Electronic Resources." Access World News, also known as Newsbank, offers "full text from nearly 3,700 U.S. and 2,300 International newspapers. Direct links are available to search Kentucky and Appalachian Region newspapers, major metro titles, international resources, newswires, broadcast transcripts, America's news magazines, world and US newspapers."

Want more academic articles about Pope Francis, the papacy, the Conclave, and/or the Catholic Church, or religion in general? Then you can use the Religion Database, also accessible from the library website under "Electronic Resources." Religion Database, also known as ProQuest Religion, "provides an excellent source of religious news and information, informative details on doctrines and philosophies, and scholarly reports on religious history. More full-text journals have been added in related religious studies, such as philosophy, ethics, and international perspectives."

Want to read some books on Pope Francis? Our library has a selection of e-books that may be of interest. Here is a small sampling of titles:

Pope Francis and the Search for God in America by Maria Clara Bingemer (Editor); Peter J. Casarella (Editor); Archbishop Christophe Pierre

Call Number: E-book

ISBN: 9780813233796

Publication Date: 2021-06-25

In Tutti Fratelli, Pope Francis has called again for a "culture of encounter," But how should his theology, pastoral practice, and social message be understood and applied in the Church of the Americas, a single but complex reality that extends from South to North? This volume offers analyses from experts looking back to the Argentine pontiff's first fateful encuentros in the Americas as a help for understanding the present reality of the Church in the Western Hemisphere. The group includes theologians, historians, and political scientists, and the unique contribution of the volume lies in the panoramic perspective offered by the book as a whole. The initial essays set the stage for the volume as a whole, offering rich insight into Argentine and Latin American history, the world from which the Pope came and to which he returned in 2015, as well as surveying the impact of the Latin American "theology of the people" on the Pope's visit to the U.S.Additional essays address theological, historical, and pastoral engagements that cut across several of the visits. The final group of essays is dedicated to the visits themselves and is arranged in the order that they occurred. Pope Francis and the Search for God in América is offered to all the members of the Church in América, South and North, old and young, with the hope that it will spur even more thought, reflection, prayer, and service.

 

 

Pope Francis and the Caring Society by Robert M. Whaples (Editor)

Call Number: E-book

ISBN: 9781598132892

Publication Date: 2017-09-01

Pope Francis and the Caring Society is a thoughtful exploration of the Pope's earnest call for a dialogue on building a truly compassionate society. Francis's fervent support for uplifting the poor and protecting the environment has inspired far-reaching discussions worldwide: Do capitalism and socialism have positive or negative social consequences? What is the most effective way to fight poverty? And what value does a religious perspective offer in addressing moral, political, and economic problems? Pope Francis and the Caring Society is an indispensable resource for consideration of these vital questions. Edited by Robert M. Whaples, with a foreword by Michael Novak, the book provides an integrated perspective on Francis and the issues he has raised, examining the intersection of religion, politics, and economics. Readers will discover important historical and cultural context for considering Francis's views, along with alternative solutions for environmental preservation, a defense of Francis's criticism of power and privilege, a case for market-based entrepreneurship and private charity as potent tools for fighting poverty, and an examination of Francis's philosophy of the family. Pope Francis and the Caring Society is essential reading for anyone interested in creating a better, more caring, and prosperous world.

 

Pope Francis by Mario I. Aguilar

Call Number: E-book

ISBN: 9780718842314

Publication Date: 2014-05-29

Pope Francis: His Life and Thought paints a compelling picture of a truly remarkable pope, considering his life in detail until his election as Pope Francis in 2013. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was a highly unusual candidate for the papacy for two main reasons: the 'pope from far away' is the first non-European to be elected, and, furthermore, he began his career as a Jesuit, one of 'God's soldiers'. Members of the order traditionally do not ascend the hierarchy of the Church, and it took a personal request from Pope John Paul II for Bergoglio to leave the Society of Jesus and accept his appointment as bishop. Bergoglio's theological principles have been profoundly shaped by these two factors. However, the author also reveals that the evolution of his thought was deeply affected by his simple Argentinean upbringing and his fearless work in the slums of Buenos Aires as a young Jesuit and as a senior member of the Church. Bergoglio has consistently emphasised the importance of alleviating the suffering of the poor, following the teaching of Vatican II, and in keeping with his own unflinching morality. This volume reveals Pope Francis as remarkably humble and altruistic man, doctrinally conservative, and engaged less in politics than in the struggle to re-centre the Church at the margins of society. It will be of great interest to any reader who wishes to know more about this inspiring individual.

 

Lead with Humility by Jeffrey Krames

Call Number: E-book

ISBN: 9780814449127

Publication Date: 2014-09-09

How did a relatively unknown priest from Argentina rise so quickly from obscurity to one of the top leaders of the twenty-first century? The answer lies in his humility, as well as the simple principles that have sprung from it. In the years since his election to the highest position in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has breathed life into an aging institution, reinvigorated a global base, and created real hope for the future. His early accomplishments have been so remarkable that in 2014, Fortune magazine awarded the top spot of their coveted World's Greatest Leaders list not to a captain of industry or political leader but to the new pontiff. Lead with Humility explores 12 of these principles and shows how other leaders and managers across a broad spectrum can adapt them for the workplace with just as impressive results as our great pope has. These invaluable principles include: Don't stand over your employees--sit down with them. Don't judge--assess. Take care of people, not lobbies. Go where you are needed. Temper ideology with pragmatism. Don't change--reinvent! Even just a few years in, it is clear to all that Pope Francis's ability to inspire the world is unprecedented in modern times. Lead with Humility reveals the power of his methods, and helps anyone lead with the humility, grace, and authenticity that has elevated the pope to where he is today and had a direct impact in inspiring everyone and everything around him.

 

Pope Francis' Little Book of Wisdom by Andrea Kirk Assaf

Call Number: E-book

ISBN: 9781612833507

Publication Date: 2015-09-01

Pope Francis appears to be changing the face of Roman Catholicism. He has infused what some consider a staid institution with openness and optimism. He has faced off against established power interests within the Vatican. He has reformed the Church's finances. And, most importantly, he has asked that Catholics approach one another and non-Catholics with candor, humility, and love. He has made the papacy and the Church relevant once again. A pope of the people, Pope Francis' teachings have been praised and shared by the faithful and nonreligious alike. Exploring themes such as faith and prayer, love and family, peace and poverty, this collection is accessible to all who admire the man and are inspired by his wisdom. Included in this gift-format edition are fifteen chapters on wide-ranging topics including: On Family On the Law of Love On the Nature of God On Humility and Faith On Sacrifice and Suffering On Prayer On Peace

 

 

Some resources for other related topics:

 

Need to learn what is a Conclave? How a Pope is elected? Other topics about the Catholic Church? For starters, we offer the The New Catholic Encyclopedia. Below is the information so you can find the set in the Reference Collection. The link also includes information for accessing the encyclopedia online as an e-book. This is a resource I often suggest to students and other researchers needing basic information about the Catholic Church. It also has some entries that can be useful for researchers exploring other Christian areas and denominations.

 

New Catholic Encyclopedia by Catholic University of America Staff (Contribution by)

Call Number: Reference - Stacks 282 N533 2003

ISBN: 9780787640040

Publication Date: 2002-09-13

The first edition of this reference work, called the Catholic Encyclopedia, was published around the turn of the 20th century, with the last revised edition appearing in 1967. This new edition includes the best of the previous entries - many completely revised and updated - as well as new entries, written by subject experts, covering the latest topics of interest. Many thousands of articles are biographical profiles of the people who make up the history of the Catholic Church.

 

Our Reference Collection has other resources on the Catholic Church and Christianity in general that may be useful at this time or any other time patrons need to learn and/or do research on Catholicism and Christianity. If you need assistance, please feel free to stop by the Reference Desk, and we will be happy to help you.

 

What's a Conclave? A Papal Conclave "is a gathering of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a bishop of Rome, also known as the pope" (from Wikipedia). Wikipedia can offer a good start, but if you want to learn more, in addition to some of the resources listed above, here are some books from our collection that may be of interest:

 

Heirs of the Fisherman by John-Peter Pham

Call Number: Stacks 262.13 P534h 2004

ISBN: 9780195178340

Publication Date: 2004-11-30

The election of a new pope always captures the world's attention, as all eyes turn to the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, where the color of the smoke is our only clue to the secret deliberations inside. In this fascinating volume, former Vatican insider John-Peter Pham takes us where outsiders have never gone before, providing vital background to the selection of the heir of the fisherman. Here is a highly accurate portrait of the modern Vatican--indeed, the only account to reveal the striking changes to papal succession procedures made by Pope John Paul II. Blending political and ecclesiastical history, Pham goes beyond a mere description of the complex rituals--including a rare insight into the dramatic shifts inside the College of Cardinals, whose 130 members now hail from 57 nations around the globe. Pham takes us into the secret conclave (from the Latin cum clave, "with key"), where the electors are kept under lock and key, incommunicado, until they have selected a new pope. Here we find a fascinating chronicle of political intrigue set in the context of ritual--including a chapter devoted to the intrigues of the 20th century where the first conclave had an emperor's veto and the last was won by the first non-Italian in four centuries because the Italians were bitterly divided. In a most timely analysis, Pham also provides a valuable one-by-one assessment of the present-day cardinals and possible candidates (papabili, or pope-ables) to succeed John Paul II. He explores the legacy of this highly influential pope--looking beyond his papacy to discuss the highly-charged issues that his successor will have to confront, including financial and sexual scandals, the roles of priests and women, and the very future of the church itself. And throughout the book, he provides a gold mine of information that make this book an indispensable reference, including appendices that contain biographical notes on many of the key personalities of Catholicism past and present as well as a useful glossary of Catholic history and theology. Here then is an illuminating history and must-have guide to a vitally important world event, one that is moving ever closer and will be watched with intense interest by more than a billion people around the globe.

 

The Election of Pope Francis by Gerard O'Connell

Call Number: E-book

ISBN: 9781626983199

Publication Date: 2019-04-24

Here is a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of history in the making-- the election in 2013 of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the first Latin American pope, the first Jesuit pope, and the first pope to choose the name Francis. The author, a friend the Pope, now reveals what actually happed inside the secret conclave.

 

 

A note on accessing some of our electronic resources. Some of the resources I am discussing here are library subscriptions. To access them, you can do so at the library. Otherwise, you need to have Berea College credentials (username, password, and DUO authentication to access them). If you are not part of the Berea College community (students and currently employed faculty and staff), as I stated, you can visit our library and access the resources inside the library. You may also be able to access some of these resources via your local public or academic library. Need assistance? Feel free to contact the reference desk.

 

Photo credit: Photo of Pope Francis in public domain. Photo shows Pope Francis, an elderly white man, dressed in white papal vestments, holding his staff on the left hand. He stands in front of an altar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March is Women's History Month. This is an annual observance where we take time to acknowledge and highlight the many achievements and contributions of women in society. In the United States, it has been a tradition for the President of the United States to sign a proclamation to recognize the observance (link to the 2025 proclamation from the White House).

Want to learn more about the month and observance? Here are some online resources:

• Women's History Month site from the U.S. Government.
• The Wikipedia entry, which provides some additional information for the observance internationally. This entry includes links to previous US presidential proclamations if you wish to view them going back to the mid-1980s. You can also check the list of references for additional information.
• Women's History Month from the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum.
• Women's History Month from the National Women's History Museum.

You can also visit Hutchins Library to find books and other resources on women's history and accomplishments during March and throughout the year. I did some searching in the library catalog, and I found some books that may be of interest. Books are listed in no particular order. If you need assistance finding these or other resources, you can visit the Reference Desk at Hutchins Library or contact us via chat on the library website. Our website also offers additional information on ways to contact us.

Herstory by Deborah G. Ohrn (Editor); Gloria Steinem (Introduction by); Ruth Ashby (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 305.409 H5726

ISBN: 9780670854349

Publication Date: 1995-06-01

This book contains 120 biographical sketches of women who changed the world, placing them in the context of their times, & taking the viewpoint that women's history has largely been ignored. The section on Mead's anthropological work also includes two lesser-known female anthropologists: Elsie Clews Parsons & Ruth Benedict. Introduction by Gloria Steinem, extensive bibliography, & three indexes: geographical, alphabetical, & occupational.

 

Mobilizing Minerva by Kimberly Jensen

Call Number: Stacks 940.373 J547m 2008

ISBN: 9780252032370

Publication Date: 2008-02-08

American women did more than pursue roles as soldiers, doctors, and nurses during World War I. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War reveals women's motivations for fighting for full citizenship rights both on and off the battlefield. The war provided chances for women to participate in the military, but also in other male-dominated career paths. Intense discussions of rape, methods of protecting women, and proper gender roles abound as Kimberly Jensen draws from rich case studies to show how female thinkers and activists wove wartime choices into long-standing debates about woman suffrage and economic parity. The war created new urgency in these debates, and Jensen forcefully presents the case of women participants and activists: women's involvement in the obligation of citizens to defend the state validated their right of full female citizenship.

 

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Call Number: Stacks 510.925 S554h 2016

ISBN: 9780062363596

Publication Date: 2016-09-06

The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA at the leading edge of the feminist and civil rights movement, whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space--a powerful, revelatory contribution that is as essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America as Between the World and Me and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The basis for the smash Academy Award-nominated film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner. Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South's segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America's aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam's call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley's all-black "West Computing" group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens. Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA's greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country's future.  

 

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Call Number: Stacks 973.932 O122b 2018

ISBN: 9781524763138

Publication Date: 2018-11-13

 In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.   In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.

 

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft; Carol H. Poston (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 305.42 W864v 1988

ISBN: 9780393024272

Publication Date: 1987-10-01

The First Edition of this Norton Critical Edition was both an acclaimed classroom text and ahead of its time. This Second Edition offers the best in Wollstonecraft scholarship and criticism since 1976, providing the ideal means for studying the first feminist document written in English.

 

 

Bell Hooks: the Last Interview by bell hooks; Mikki Kendall (Introduction by)

Call Number: Stacks 305.488 H784b 2023

ISBN: 9781685890797

Publication Date: 2023-07-18

 bell hooks was a prolific, trailblazing author, feminist, social activist, cultural critic, and professor. Born Gloria Jean Watkins, bell used her pen name to center attention on her ideas and to honor her courageous great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. hooks's unflinching dedication to her work carved deep grooves for the feminist and anti-racist movements. In this collection of 7 interviews, stretching from early in her career until her last interview, she discusses feminism, the complexity of rap music and masculinity, her relationship to Buddhism, the "politic of domination," sexuality, and love and the importance of communication across cultural borders. Whether she was sparking controversy on campuses or facing criticism from contemporaries, hooks relentlessly challenged herself and those around her, inserted herself into the tensions of the cultural moment, and anchored herself with love.

 

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Call Number: Stacks 824.92 G285b 2014

ISBN: 9780062282712

Publication Date: 2014-08-05

 A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched cultural observers of her generation In these funny and insightful essays, Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics.

 

Sister Outsider by Audre. Lorde

Call Number: Stacks 824.914 L867s 2020

ISBN: 9780143134442

Publication Date: 2020-02-25

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature, with a foreword by Mahogany L. Browne. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.

 

This Bridge Called My Back by Gloria Anzaldúa (Editor); Cherríe Moraga (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 820.809 T448

ISBN: 9781438454382

Publication Date: 2015-03-01

Originally released in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, "the complex confluence of identities--race, class, gender, and sexuality--systemic to women of color oppression and liberation." Reissued here, nearly thirty-five years after its inception, the fourth edition contains an extensive new introduction by Moraga, along with a previously unpublished statement by Gloria Anzaldúa. The new edition also includes visual artists whose work was produced during the same period as Bridge, including Betye Saar, Ana Mendieta, and Yolanda López, as well as current contributor biographies. Bridge continues to reflect an evolving definition of feminism, one that can effectively adapt to, and help inform an understanding of the changing economic and social conditions of women of color in the United States and throughout the world.

 

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens by Alice Walker

Call Number: Stacks 828 W177s

ISBN: 9780151445257

Publication Date: 1983-10-10

As a woman, writer, mother, and feminist, Walker explores the theories and practices of feminism, incorporating what she calls the “womanist” tradition of African American women.

 

 

 

Need or want some popular and/or academic articles? You can try one of our databases. Please note: to access our databases off campus you will need to authenticate with your Berea College credentials and DUO. These and other databases can be accessed through the library website under "Databases A-Z."

• Academic Search Complete
• Humanities International
• Alt Press Watch
• J-Stor
• CQ Researcher
• Project Muse
• Hein Online

 

Image credit: From the U.S. Embassy in Argentina This is a US Government publication and thus not subject to copyright so can be used by the public.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post with a small reading list for Black History Month. While I was writing that post and selecting books for the list, I found a few more books that may be of interest this month and beyond. This time I am focusing on biographies, memoirs, and similar works. Some these books feature prominent and known figures and others feature people who need to be better known. Books on this list are in no particular order, and they are all available here at Hutchins Library.

The First Black Marines: an Oral History by Trevor R. Getz; Robert Willis; Joseph H. Geeter III; Liz Clarke (Illustrator)

Call Number: Stacks 359.96 G394f 2025

ISBN: 9780197650370

Publication Date: 2024-10-24

The First Black Marines: An Oral History tells the extraordinary stories of the men who made history as the first African Americans to serve in the US Marine Corps. Based on extensive oral history interviews with a group of veterans conducted by the authors, this new title in OUP's Graphic History Series documents the experiences of these men as they underwent training at the segregated Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville, North Carolina, during the 1940s and served in the Pacific theater of World War II. Narrated in the authentic voices of the Marines and featuring powerful imagery, this book provides a personal and moving account of the challenges they faced and overcame as pioneers in the US military during the Jim Crow era of widespread racial segregation and discrimination. The graphic history is accompanied by a highly accessible introduction to an inquiry-based approach to historical research and the methodology of oral history that empowers students to develop and conduct their own research projects in their communities. In addition, the book includes a brief overview of the historical context in which the Marines' stories unfold as well as a carefully chosen set of primary documents.

 

John Lewis by Raymond Arsenault

Call Number: Stacks 328.7309 L674za 2024

ISBN: 9780300253757

Publication Date: 2024-01-16

 In this first book-length biography of Lewis, Raymond Arsenault traces Lewis's upbringing in rural Alabama, his activism as a Freedom Rider and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, his championing of voting rights and anti-poverty initiatives, and his decades of service as the "conscience of Congress."   Both in the streets and in Congress, Lewis promoted a philosophy of nonviolence to bring about change. He helped the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders plan the 1963 March on Washington, where he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial. Lewis's activism led to repeated arrests and beatings, most notably when he suffered a skull fracture in Selma, Alabama, during the 1965 police attack later known as Bloody Sunday. He was instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and in Congress he advocated for racial and economic justice, immigration reform, LGBTQ rights, and national health care.   Arsenault recounts Lewis's lifetime of work toward one overarching goal: realizing the "beloved community," an ideal society based in equity and inclusion. Lewis never wavered in this pursuit, and even in death his influence endures, inspiring mobilization and resistance in the fight for social justice.

 

Bring Judgment Day by Sheila Curran Bernard

Call Number: Stacks 782.421 L839zb 2024

ISBN: 9781009098120

Publication Date: 2024-07-11

Known worldwide as Lead Belly, Huddie Ledbetter (1889-1949) is an American icon whose influence on modern music was tremendous - as was, according to legend, the temper that landed him in two of the South's most brutal prisons, while his immense talent twice won him pardons. But, as this deeply researched book shows, these stories were shaped by the white folklorists who 'discovered' Lead Belly and, along with reporters, recording executives, and radio and film producers, introduced him to audiences beyond the South. Through a revelatory examination of arrest, trial, and prison records; sharecropping reports; oral histories; newspaper articles; and more, author Sheila Curran Bernard replaces myth with fact, offering a stunning indictment of systemic racism in the Jim Crow era of the United States and the power of narrative to erase and distort the past.

 

American Imam by Taymullah Abdur-Rahman

Call Number: Stacks 297.87 A136a 2024

ISBN: 9781506489285

Publication Date: 2024-02-27

Imam Taymullah Abdur-Rahman's incredible life story weaves the contemporary Black American experience with the Black Muslim American experience and emphasizes the role of interreligious dialogue in the fight for abolition and justice. By the time he was twelve, Taymullah Abdur-Rahman (born Tyrone Sutton) was a rising pop star, recruited as part of the R&B group Perfect Gentlemen, with a top-ten hit, national teen magazine covers, and an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.However, after his music career peaked, Abdur-Rahman found himself back home, with little to show for his success. He became a teen father struggling to survive in Roxbury, MA. Seeing Islam as a way to discipline himself in an unrelenting environment, he converted. He went on to work in a maximum-security prison as a Muslim chaplain, where he became zealously focused on saving souls instead of understanding the outside forces that lead men to prison. Later, in his work as the first paid Muslim chaplain at Harvard, Abdur-Rahman began to seek counsel outside of Islam, engaging with Jewish and Christian mentors who opened his eyes to the gifts of interreligious dialogue and helped lead him to what he was truly seeking: enlightenment. With this new framework, he returned to working with prisoners and clearly saw the cyclical effects of systemic racism that keep Black and brown people locked up and without support in America today. A sweeping narrative, American Imam voices the contemporary concerns of Black Muslim Americans in the shadow of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, in the aftermath of 9/11, and in light of the fights for social justice and prison abolition. Abdur-Rahman's story sounds an indelible rallying cry for understanding across race, religion, and cultural divides.

 

Night Flyer by Tiya Miles; Henry Louis Gates (Series edited by)

Call Number: Stacks 306.362 T885zm 2024

ISBN: 9780593491164

Publication Date: 2024-06-18

Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she's a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero. Despite being barely five feet tall, unable to read, and suffering from a brain injury, she managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some seven hundred people. You could almost say she's America's Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood. Tiya Miles's extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman's life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman's surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes more palpable the more we understand it--a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.

 

A Few Days Full of Trouble by Wheeler Parker; Christopher Benson

Call Number: Stacks 364.134 T574zp 2023

ISBN: 9780593134269

Publication Date: 2023-01-10

The last surviving witness to the lynching of Emmett Till tells his story, with poignant recollections of Emmett as a boy, critical insights into the recent investigation, and powerful lessons for racial reckoning, both then and now.  In 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was lynched. That remains an undisputed fact of the case that ignited a flame within the Civil Rights Movement that has yet to be extinguished. Yet the rest of the details surrounding the event remain distorted by time and too many tellings. What does justice mean in the resolution of a cold case spanning nearly seven decades? In A Few Days Full of Trouble, this question drives a new perspective on the story of Emmett Till, relayed by his cousin and best friend--the Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., a survivor of the night of terror when young Emmett was taken from his family's rural Mississippi Delta home in the dead of night.   Rev. Parker offers an emotional and suspenseful page-turner set against a backdrop of reporting errors and manipulations, racial reckoning, and political pushback--and he does so accompanied by never-before-seen findings in the investigation, the soft resurrection of memory, and the battle-tested courage of faith. A Few Days Full of Trouble is a powerful work of truth-telling, a gift to readers looking to reconcile the weight of the past with a hope for the future.

 

Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson

Call Number: Stacks 976.686 L941b 2023

ISBN: 9780593134375

Publication Date: 2023-05-23

When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his family joined a community soon to become the center of black life in the West. But just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people in one of the worst acts of racist violence in U.S. history. The Goodwins and their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into "a Mecca," in Ed's words, where nightlife thrived and small businesses flourished. Ed bought a newspaper to chronicle Greenwood's resurgence and battles against white bigotry, and his son Jim, an attorney, embodied the family's hopes for the civil rights movement. But by the 1970s urban renewal policies had nearly emptied the neighborhood. Today the newspaper remains, and Ed's granddaughter Regina represents the neighborhood in the Oklahoma state legislature, working alongside a new generation of local activists to revive it once again.  In Built from the Fire, journalist Victor Luckerson tells the true story behind a potent national symbol of success and solidarity and weaves an epic tale about a neighborhood that refused, more than once, to be erased.

 

King: a Life by Jonathan Eig

Call Number: New Book Display 323.092 K53zei 2023

ISBN: 9780374279295

Publication Date: 2023-05-16

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father--as well as the nation's most mourned martyr. In this landmark biography, Eig gives us an MLK for our times: a deep thinker, a brilliant strategist, and a committed radical who led one of history's greatest movements, and whose demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were in his lifetime. Includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.

 

The Talk by Darrin Bell

Call Number: Graphic Novels 305.896 B433t 2023

ISBN: 9781250805140

Publication Date: 2023-06-06

Darrin Bell was six years old when his mother told him he couldn't have a realistic water gun. She said she feared for his safety, that police tend to think of little Black boys as older and less innocent than they really are. Through evocative illustrations and sharp humor, Bell examines how The Talk shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood. While coming of age in Los Angeles--and finding a voice through cartooning--Bell becomes painfully aware of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and police officers and thus of his mortality. Drawing attention to the brutal murders of African Americans and showcasing revealing insights and cartoons along the way, he brings us up to the moment of reckoning when people took to the streets protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And now Bell must decide whether he and his own six-year-old son are ready to have The Talk.

 

His Name Is George Floyd (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Robert Samuels; Toluse Olorunnipa

Call Number: Stacks 305.896 F645zs 2022

ISBN: 9780593490617

Publication Date: 2022-05-17

The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off the largest protest movement in the history of the United States, awakening millions to the pervasiveness of racial injustice. But long before his face was painted onto countless murals and his name became synonymous with civil rights, Floyd was a father, partner, athlete, and friend who constantly strove for a better life.   His Name Is George Floyd tells the story of a beloved figure from Houston's housing projects as he faced the stifling systemic pressures that come with being a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the context of the country's enduring legacy of institutional racism, this deeply reported account examines Floyd's family roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his schools, the overpolicing of his community amid a wave of mass incarceration, and the callous disregard toward his struggle with addiction--putting today's inequality into uniquely human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with Floyd's closest friends and family, his elementary school teachers and varsity coaches, civil rights icons, and those in the highest seats of political power, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George Floyd's America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.

 

A Worthy Piece of Work by Michael Hines

Call Number: Stacks 371.1 M849zh 2022

ISBN: 9780807007426

Publication Date: 2022-05-24

The story of Madeline Morgan, the activist educator who brought Black history to one of the nation's largest and most segregated school systems. A Worthy Piece of Work tells the story of Madeline Morgan (later Madeline Stratton Morris), a teacher and an activist in WWII-era Chicago, who fought her own battle on the home front, authoring curricula that bolstered Black claims for recognition and equal citizenship. During the Second World War, as Black Americans both fought to save democracy abroad and demanded full citizenship at home, Morgan's work gained national attention and widespread praise, and became a model for teachers, schools, districts, and cities across the country. Scholar Michael Hines unveils this history for the first time, providing a rich understanding of the ways in which Black educators have created counternarratives to challenge the anti-Black racism found in school textbooks and curricula. At a moment when Black history is under attack in school districts and state legislatures across the country, A Worthy Piece of Work reminds us that struggles over history, representation, and race are far from a new phenomenon.

 

Walk with Me by Kate Clifford Larson

Call Number: Stacks 973.049 H214zLa 2021

ISBN: 9780190096847

Publication Date: 2021-09-01

Few figures embody the physical courage, unstinting sacrifice, and inspired heroism behind the Civil Rights movement more than Fannie Lou Hamer. For millions hers was the voice that made "This Little Light of Mine" an anthem. Her impassioned rhetoric electrified audiences. At the Democratic Convention in 1964, Hamer's televised speech took not just Democrats but the entire nation to task for abetting racial injustice, searing the conscience of everyone who heard it. Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1917, Hamer was the 20th child of Black sharecroppers and raised in a world in which racism, poverty, and injustice permeated the cotton fields. As the Civil Rights Movement began to emerge during the 1950s, she was struggling to make a living with her husband on lands that her forebears had cleared, ploughed, and harvested for generations. When a white doctor sterilized her without her permission in 1961, Hamer took her destiny into her own hands. Bestselling biographer Kate Clifford Larson offers the first account of Hamer's life for a general audience, capturing and illuminating what made Hamer the electrifying force that she became when she walked onto stages across the country during the 1960s and until her death in 1977. Walk with Me does justice to the full force of Hamer's activism and example. Based on new sources, including recently opened FBI files and Oval Office transcripts, the biography features interviews with some of the people closest to Hamer and conversations with Civil Rights leaders who fought alongside her. Larson's biography will become the standard account of an extraordinary life.

 

The Assault on Elisha Green by Randolph Paul Runyon

Call Number: Stacks 305.896 R943a 2021

ISBN: 9780813152387

Publication Date: 2021-10-26

On June 8, 1883, Rev. Elisha Green was traveling by train from Maysville to Paris, Kentucky. At Millersburg, about forty students from the Millersburg Female College crowded onto the train, accompanied by their music teacher, Frank L. Bristow, and the college president, George T. Gould. Gould grabbed the reverend by the shoulder and ordered him to give up his seat. When Green refused, Bristow and Gould assaulted him until the conductor intervened and ordered the assailants to stop or he would throw them off of the train. Friends advised Green to take legal action, and he did, winning his case against his assailants in March 1884, though with only token compensation. The significance of this case lies not only in the prevailing justice of the 1800s, but also in the fact that a black man won a lawsuit against two white men. In The Assault on Elisha Green: Race and Religion in a Kentucky Community, historian Randolph Paul Runyon recounts one man's pursuit of justice over violence and racism in the nineteenth century. He tells the story of Green's life and follows the network of relationships that led to the event of the assault. Tracing these three men's lives brings the reader from the slavery era to the eve of the First World War, from Kentucky to New Mexico, from Covington to the Kentucky River Palisades, with particular focus on Mason and Bourbon Counties. In this engagingly written tale, Runyon masterfully interweaves background information with the immediacy of the harrowing attack and its aftermath, revealing the true character of the primary actors and the racial tensions unique to a border state.

 

The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Call Number: Stacks 306.874 T884t 2021

ISBN: 9781250756121

Publication Date: 2021-02-02

Berdis Baldwin, Alberta King, and Louise Little were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women. These three extraordinary women passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning--from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. These women used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced. These three mothers taught resistance and a fundamental belief in the worth of Black people to their sons, even when these beliefs flew in the face of America's racist practices and led to ramifications for all three families' safety. The fight for equal justice and dignity came above all else for the three mothers. These women, their similarities and differences, as individuals and as mothers, represent a piece of history left untold and a celebration of Black motherhood long overdue.

 

 

If you want to find more books or other materials on this or other topics, you can visit the library website and check the library catalog.

Need assistance, please stop by or contact the Reference Desk.

February is Black History Month in the United States and other parts of the world. This is a time when libraries often offer suggested reading lists to help the community learn more through reading. Today I would like to highlight some books that may be of interest this month and throughout the year. These books are all available at Hutchins Library. If you want to find more, you can always visit our library website, check the library catalog, and do a search for more titles. Need assistance? You can stop by the Reference Desk during regular library hours, use our chat service, and/or set up an appointment with a librarian. See our website for hours and details.

Our History Has Always Been Contraband by Colin Kaepernick (Editor); Robin D. G. Kelley (Editor); Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 973.049 O937 2023

ISBN: 9798888900574

Publication Date: 2023-07-04

"The centuries-long attack on Black history represents a strike against our very worth, brilliance, and value. We're ready to fight back. And when we fight, we win." --Colin Kaepernick. Since its founding as a discipline, Black Studies has been under relentless attack by social and political forces seeking to discredit and neutralize it. Our History Has Always Been Contraband was born out of an urgent need to respond to the latest threat: efforts to remove content from an AP African American Studies course being piloted in high schools across the United States. Edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Our History Has Always Been Contraband brings together canonical texts and authors in Black Studies, including those excised from or not included in the AP curriculum. Featuring writings by: David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Angela Y. Davis, Robert Allen, Barbara Smith, Toni Cade Bambara, bell hooks, Barbara Christian, Patricia Hill Collins, Cathy J. Cohen, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Saidiya Hartman, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, and many others. Our History Has Always Been Contraband excerpts readings that cut across and between literature, political theory, law, psychology, sociology, gender and sexuality studies, queer and feminist theory, and history.

 

I have personally read this book and recommend it.

 

 

My Black Country by Alice Randall

Call Number: Stacks 781.642 R188m 2024

ISBN: 9781668018408

Publication Date: 2024-04-09

Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author presents "a celebration of all things country music" (Ken Burns) as she reflects on her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Alice Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood's "XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl)". Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity. What emerges in My Black Country is "a delightful, inspirational story of persistence, resistance, and sheer love" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of this most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.

 

 

The Stolen Wealth of Slavery by David Montero; Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword by)

Call Number: Stacks 381.44 M778s 2024

ISBN: 9780306827174

Publication Date: 2024-02-06

This groundbreaking book tracks the massive wealth amassed from slavery from pre-Civil War to today, showing how our modern economy was built on the backs of enslaved Black people--and lays out a clear argument for reparations that shows exactly what was stolen, who stole it, and to whom it is owed.   In this timely, powerful, investigative history, The Stolen Wealth of Slavery, Emmy Award-nominated journalist David Montero follows the trail of the massive wealth amassed by Northern corporations throughout America's history of enslavement. It has long been maintained by many that the North wasn't complicit in the horrors of slavery. The truth, however, is that large Northern banks--including well-known institutions like Citibank, Bank of New York, and Bank of America--were critical to the financing of slavery; that they saw their fortunes rise dramatically from their involvement in the business of enslavement;  and that white business leaders and their surrounding communities created enormous wealth from the enslavement and abuse of Black bodies. The Stolen Wealth of Slavery grapples with facts that will be a revelation to many: Most white Southern enslavers were not rich--many were barely making ends meet--with Northern businesses benefitting the most from bondage-based profits. And some of the very Northerners who would be considered pro-Union during the Civil War were in fact anti-abolition, seeing the institution of slavery as being in their best financial interests, and only supporting the Union once they realized doing so would be good for business. It is a myth that the wealth generated from slavery vanished after the war. Rather, it helped finance the industrialization of the country, and became part of the bedrock of the growth of modern corporations, helping to transform America into a global economic behemoth. In this remarkable book, Montero elegantly and meticulously details rampant Northern investment in slavery. He showcases exactly what was stolen, who stole it, and to whom it is owed, calling for corporate reparations as he details contemporary movements to hold companies accountable for past atrocities.

 

 

A Most Tolerant Little Town by Rachel Louise Martin

Call Number: Stacks 379.263 M382m 2023

ISBN: 9781665905145

Publication Date: 2023-06-13

In graduate school, Rachel Martin was sent to a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of September 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to attempt court mandated desegregation. But not everyone wanted to talk. As one founder of the Tennessee White Youth told her, "Honey, there was a lot of ugliness down at the school that year; best we just move on and forget it." For years, Martin wondered what it was some white residents of Clinton didn't want remembered. So, she went back, eventually interviewing over sixty townsfolk--including nearly a dozen of the first students to desegregate Clinton High--to piece together what happened back in 1956: the death threats and beatings, picket lines and cross burnings, neighbors turned on neighbors and preachers for the first time at a loss for words. The National Guard rushed to town, along with national journalists like Edward R. Morrow and even evangelist Billy Graham. But that wasn't the most explosive secret Martin learned... In A Most Tolerant Little Town, Rachel Martin weaves together over a dozen perspectives in an intimate, kaleidoscopic portrait of a small town living through a turbulent turning point for America. The result is at once a "gripping" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) mystery and a moving piece of forgotten civil rights history, rendered "with precision, lucidity and, most of all, a heart inured to false hope" (The New York Times). You may never before have heard of Clinton, Tennessee--but you won't be forgetting the town anytime soon.

 

 

Black Folk: the roots of the Black working class by Blair Kelley

Call Number: Stacks 331.639 K293b 2023

ISBN: 9781631496554

Publication Date: 2023-06-13

There have been countless books, articles, and televised reports in recent years about the almost mythic "white working class," a tide of commentary that has obscured the labor, and even the very existence, of entire groups of working people, including everyday Black workers. In this brilliant corrective, Black Folk, acclaimed historian Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story. Spanning two hundred years--from one of Kelley's earliest known ancestors, an enslaved blacksmith, to the essential workers of the Covid-19 pandemic--Black Folk highlights the lives of the laundresses, Pullman porters, domestic maids, and postal workers who established the Black working class as a force in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Taking jobs white people didn't want and confined to segregated neighborhoods, Black workers found community in intimate spaces, from stoops on city streets to the backyards of washerwomen, where multiple generations labored from dawn to dusk, talking and laughing in a space free of white supervision and largely beyond white knowledge. As millions of Black people left the violence of the American South for the promise of a better life in the North and West, these networks of resistance and joy sustained early arrivals and newcomers alike and laid the groundwork for organizing for better jobs, better pay, and equal rights. As her narrative moves from Georgia to Philadelphia, Florida to Chicago, Texas to Oakland, Kelley treats Black workers not just as laborers, or members of a class, or activists, but as people whose daily experiences mattered--to themselves, to their communities, and to a nation that denied that basic fact. Through affecting portraits of her great-grandfather, a sharecropper named Solicitor, and her grandmother, Brunell, who worked for more than a decade as a domestic maid, Kelley captures, in intimate detail, how generation after generation of labor was required to improve, and at times maintain, her family's status. Yet her family, like so many others, was always animated by a vision of a better future. The church yards, factory floors, rail cars, and postal sorting facilities where Black people worked were sites of possibility, and, as Kelley suggests, Amazon package processing centers, supermarkets, and nursing homes can be the same today. With the resurgence of labor activism in our own time, Black Folk presents a stirring history of our possible future.

 

 

The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Created by); The New The New York Times Magazine (Created by); Caitlin Roper (Editor); Ilena Silverman (Editor); Jake Silverstein (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 973 S625 2021

ISBN: 9780593230572

Publication Date: 2021-11-16

 In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty people stolen from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country's original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. The New York Times Magazine's award-winning 1619 Project issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation's founding and construction--and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life.

 

Have you read any of the above? Do you have other titles you would like to suggest? Feel free to leave us a comment.

 

In addition to the list above, if you are interested in graphic novels, we made a list of titles for Black History Month.

September 15 to October 15 is National Heritage Hispanic Month in the United States. The month is a celebration of the efforts, achievements, and contributions of Hispanic Americans. The time period is significant as it coincides with the independence day celebrations of many Latin American countries.

To help celebrate, here is a selection of books by Hispanic American writers available at Hutchins Library. Links go to the library catalog record. If you wish to find more materials please feel free to visit the library reference desk or use the chat widget on the library website (available during library regular hours).

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

Call Number: Young Adult S211i 2017

ISBN: 9781524700485

Publication Date: 2017-10-17

A "stunning" (America Ferrera) YA novel about a teenager coming to terms with losing her sister and finding herself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican American home.  Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.   But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role.   Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.   But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?

 

 

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Call Number: Young Adult M843go 2020

ISBN: 9780525620778

Publication Date: 2020-02-18

The Mayan god of death sends a young woman on a harrowing, life-changing journey in this dark, one-of-a-kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican folklore.  The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather's house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own.  Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather's room. She opens it--and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea's demise, but success could make her dreams come true. In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City--and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.

 

 

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Call Number: Young Adult M843me 2021

ISBN: 9780525620808

Publication Date: 2021-06-15

 An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes "a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror" (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico. After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She's not sure what she will find--her cousin's husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.      Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She's a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom.   Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.    And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

 

 

Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Call Number: Fiction R995e

ISBN: 9780439120418

Publication Date: 2000-10-01

Esperanza thought she'd always live a privileged life on her family's ranch in Mexico. She'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home filled with servants, and Mama, Papa, and Abuelita to care for her. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard work, financial struggles brought on by the Great Depression, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When Mama gets sick and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--because Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

 

 

 

Vampires of el Norte by Isabel Cañas

Call Number: Young Adult C213va 2023

ISBN: 9780593436721

Publication Date: 2023-08-15

 Vampires, vaqueros, and star-crossed lovers face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda. As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters--her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead. Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago. Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind. When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion--and Nena's rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago--is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh. And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.

 

 

Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez

Call Number: Stacks 973.046 G6427h 2011

ISBN: 9780143119289

Publication Date: 2011-05-31

A sweeping history of the Latino experience in the United States- thoroughly revised and updated. The first new edition in ten years of this important study of Latinos in U.S. history, Harvest of Empire spans five centuries-from the first New World colonies to the first decade of the new millennium. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, and their impact on American popular culture-from food to entertainment to literature-is greater than ever. Featuring family portraits of real- life immigrant Latino pioneers, as well as accounts of the events and conditions that compelled them to leave their homelands, Harvest of Empire is required reading for anyone wishing to understand the history and legacy of this increasingly influential group.

 

 

 

An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz

Call Number: Stacks 305.8009 O778a 2018

ISBN: 9780807013106

Publication Date: 2018-01-30

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like "manifest destiny" and "Jacksonian democracy," and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism. Drawing on rich narratives and primary source documents, Ortiz links racial segregation in the Southwest and the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, known as International Workers' Day, when migrant laborers-Chicana/os, Afrocubanos, and immigrants from every continent on earth-united in resistance on the first "Day Without Immigrants." As African American civil rights activists fought Jim Crow laws and Mexican labor organizers warred against the suffocating grip of capitalism, Black and Spanish-language newspapers, abolitionists, and Latin American revolutionaries coalesced around movements built between people from the United States and people from Central America and the Caribbean. In stark contrast to the resurgence of "America First" rhetoric, Black and Latinx intellectuals and organizers today have historically urged the United States to build bridges of solidarity with the nations of the Americas. Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and African Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights. 2018 Winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award.

 

 

 

Our Migrant Souls by Héctor Tobar; Héctor Tobar

Call Number: Stacks 305.868 T628o 2023

ISBN: 9780374609900

Publication Date: 2023-05-09

 In Our Migrant Souls, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Héctor Tobar delivers a definitive and personal exploration of what it means to be Latino in the United States right now. "Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States, and also one of the most rapidly growing. Composed as a direct address to the young people who identify or have been classified as "Latino," Our Migrant Souls is the first account of the historical and social forces that define Latino identity. Taking on the impacts of colonialism, public policy, immigration, media, and pop culture, Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of "Latino" as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and gives voice to the anger and the hopes of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes and who have faced insult and division--a story as old as this country itself. Tobar translates his experience as not only a journalist and novelist but also a mentor, a leader, and an educator. He interweaves his own story, and that of his parents' migration to the United States from Guatemala, into his account of his journey across the country to uncover something expansive, inspiring, true, and alive about the meaning of "Latino" in the twenty-first century.

 

 

If you want to learn more about National Hispanic Heritage Month and Latinos in the United States, here are a few online resources:

 

• President Biden's 2024 Proclamation of National Hispanic Heritage Month.
• National Hispanic Heritage Month federal portal, a "collaborative project of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and U.S. National Archives and Records Administration."
• The Facts for Features article for National Hispanic Heritage Month from the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Via the Library of Congress blog, some ideas on "celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with Primary Sources." This is a good resource for school teachers.
• You can also check out the Latin X research guide from the Library Of Congress.
• The National Archives also has a collection of resources and photos for Hispanic Heritage Month.

 

 

Malcolm X Day is a U.S. holiday observed either on his birthday, May 19th, or on the third Friday in May. It is observed in some way in 16 states as of this post, often in specific cities and often with educational events and other activities.  

To honor the civil rights activist and leader on this day, I am highlighting some books and resources on Malcolm X and his times available at Hutchins Library.

Books listed below, in no particular order, are available here at the library. If you want to find more, you can visit the library website and use the library catalog to search for more books and other resources the library owns or can access. If you need assistance, you can contact or visit the reference desk.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley

Call Number: Stacks 305.896 X11a 1999

ISBN: 9780345350688

Publication Date: 1987-10-12

ONE OF TIME'S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America. Praise for The Autobiography of Malcolm X "Extraordinary . . . a brilliant, painful, important book."--The New York Times "This book will have a permanent place in the literature of the Afro-American struggle."--I. F. Stone

 

 

Malcolm X by Manning Marable; G. Valmont Thomas (Read by)

Call Number: Stacks 297.87 X11zm 2011

ISBN: 9780670022205

Publication Date: 2011-04-04

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year. Years in the making-the definitive biography of the legendary black activist. Of the great figures in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man. In death he became a broad symbol of both resistance and reconciliation for millions around the world. Manning Marable's new biography of Malcolm is a stunning achievement. Filled with new information and shocking revelations that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a sweeping story of race and class in America, from the rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. Reaching into Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his parents' activism through his own engagement with the Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the never-before-told true story of his assassination. Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of the most singular forces for social change, capturing with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.

 

A Lie of Reinvention by Jared Ball (Editor); Todd Steven Burroughs (Editor)

Call Number: E-Book

ISBN: 9781574780512

Publication Date: 2013-07-01

A Lie of Reinvention is a response to Manning Marable’s biography of Malcolm X, A Life of Reinvention. Marable’s book was controversially acclaimed by some as his magna opus. At the same time, it was denounced and debated by others as a worthless read full of conjecture, errors, and without any new factual content. In this collection of critical essays, editors Jared Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs lead a group of established and emerging Black scholars and activists who take a clear stance in this controversy: Marable’s biography is at best flawed and at worst a major setback in American history, African American studies, and scholarship on the life of Malcolm X. In the tradition of John Henrik Clarke’s classic anthology "William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond,” this volume provides a striking critique of Marable’s text. In 1968, Clarke and his assembled writers felt it essential to respond to Styron’s fictionalized and ahistorical Nat Turner, the heroic leader of one of America’s most famous revolts against enslavement. In A Lie of Reinvention, the editors sense a different threat to an African American icon, Malcolm X. This time, the threat is presented as an authoritative biography. To counter the threat, Ball and Burroughs respond with a barbed collection of commentaries of Marable’s text. The essays come from all quarters of the Black community. From behind prison walls, Mumia Abu-Jamal revises his prior public praise of Marable’s book with an essay written specifically for this volume. A. Peter Bailey, a veteran journalist who worked with Malcolm X’s Organization for Afro-American Unity, disputes how he is characterized in Marable’s book. Bill Strickland, who also knew Malcolm X, provides what he calls a "personal critique” of the biography. Younger scholars such as Kali Akuno, Kamau Franklin, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Christopher M. Tinson, Eugene Puryear and Greg Thomas join veterans Rosmari Mealy, Raymond Winbush, Amiri Baraka and Karl Evanzz in pointing out historical problems and ideological misinterpretations in Marable’s work.

 

 

The Dead Are Arising by Les Payne; Tamara Payne

Call Number: Stacks 320.546 X11zp 2020

ISBN: 9781631491665

Publication Date: 2020-10-20

Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X--all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam figures, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to transform what would become over a hundred hours of interviews into an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction. The result is this historic biography that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist, a work whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his Hartford followers stir with purpose, as if the dead were truly arising, to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting Malcolm's life not only within the Nation of Islam but against the larger backdrop of American history, the book traces the life of one of the twentieth century's most politically relevant figures "from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary." In tracing Malcolm X's life from his Nebraska birth in 1925 to his Harlem assassination in 1965, Payne provides searing vignettes culled from Malcolm's Depression-era youth, describing the influence of his Garveyite parents: his father, Earl, a circuit-riding preacher who was run over by a street car in Lansing, Michigan, in 1929, and his mother, Louise, who continued to instill black pride in her children after Earl's death. Filling each chapter with resonant drama, Payne follows Malcolm's exploits as a petty criminal in Boston and Harlem in the 1930s and early 1940s to his religious awakening and conversion to the Nation of Islam in a Massachusetts penitentiary. With a biographer's unwavering determination, Payne corrects the historical record and delivers extraordinary revelations--from the unmasking of the mysterious NOI founder "Fard Muhammad," who preceded Elijah Muhammad; to a hair-rising scene, conveyed in cinematic detail, of Malcolm and Minister Jeremiah X Shabazz's 1961 clandestine meeting with the KKK; to a minute-by-minute account of Malcolm X's murder at the Audubon Ballroom. Introduced by Payne's daughter and primary researcher, Tamara Payne, who, following her father's death, heroically completed the biography, The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.

 

The Sword and the Shield by Peniel E. Joseph

Call Number: Stacks 323.092 J835s 2020

ISBN: 9781541617865

Publication Date: 2020-03-31

This "landmark" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist) dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders   To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals: self-defense versus nonviolence, black power versus civil rights, the sword versus the shield. The struggle for black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives. This is a strikingly revisionist biography, not only of Malcolm and Martin, but also of the movement and era they came to define.  

 

The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Call Number: Stacks 306.874 T884t 2021

ISBN: 9781250756121

Publication Date: 2021-02-02

 Stamped from the Beginning Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. but virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary women who raised them. In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America's most pivotal heroes. Berdis Baldwin, Alberta King, and Louise Little were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women. These three extraordinary women passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning--from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. These women used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced. These three mothers taught resistance and a fundamental belief in the worth of Black people to their sons, even when these beliefs flew in the face of America's racist practices and led to ramifications for all three families' safety. The fight for equal justice and dignity came above all else for the three mothers. These women, their similarities and differences, as individuals and as mothers, represent a piece of history left untold and a celebration of Black motherhood long overdue.

 

Want to do some research on Malcolm X, his work and times? In addition to books and materials from the library collections, you could try using one of these databases available through the library website. Note that if you are off campus, you will be prompted to log in with your Berea College credentials to gain access.

 

• Academic Search Complete
• America: History and Life
• Ethnic Newswatch
• J-Stor

Here are some websites and freely available online resources that may be of interest.

• Want to research Malcolm X's papers? They are held at the New York Public Library (some materials may be digitized, check the site for details).
• Learn a bit more about the observance via the Zinn Education Project. They also offer other articles and resources on Malcolm X.
• Social Justice Books offers a list of books for teaching about Malcolm X from elementary school to adult nonfiction. You can check the library catalog to see which ones we may have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May is a month when we can celebrate the heritage, accomplishments, and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The observance started as a Congressional joint resolution in 1978 calling for a week-long celebration of Asian and Pacific American heritage; President Carter signed the proclamation in 1979, and the first celebration happened on the week of May 4, 1979. Congress then passed legislation designating May as Asian Pacific American Month in 1992. President Obama in 2009 expanded the proclamation to include Pacific Islanders.

To celebrate, here is a small list of some books to read this month or any time. The books are not listed in any particular order, and they include fiction and nonfiction. If you want to find these and other books and resources, you can check the Library Catalog from our website.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.597 Y223a 2021

ISBN: 9781250811899

Publication Date: 2021-02-23

Original Series Now Available on Disney+ A tour-de-force by New York Times bestselling graphic novelist Gene Yang, American Born Chinese tells the story of three apparently unrelated characters: Jin Wang, who moves to a new neighborhood with his family only to discover that he's the only Chinese-American student at his new school; the powerful Monkey King, subject of one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables; and Chin-Kee, a personification of the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, who is ruining his cousin Danny's life with his yearly visits. Their lives and stories come together with an unexpected twist in this action-packed modern fable. American Born Chinese is an amazing ride, all the way up to the astonishing climax. American Born Chinese is the winner of the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award, a 2006 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature, the winner of the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: New, an Eisner Award nominee for Best Coloring, a 2007 Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, and a New York Times bestseller.

 

 

They Called Us Enemy by Justin Eisenger; Steven Scott; George Takei

Call Number: Graphic Novels 940.531 T136t 2019

ISBN: 9781603094504

Publication Date: 2019-07-16

New York Times Bestseller! A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love. George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.

 

 

Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy

Call Number: Stacks 973.049 C552a 2022

ISBN: 9780807050798

Publication Date: 2022-08-02

An inclusive and landmark history, emphasizing how essential Asian American experiences are to any understanding of US history. Original and expansive, Asian American Histories of the United States is a nearly 200-year history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the US. Reckoning with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in anti-Asian hate and violence, award-winning historian Catherine Ceniza Choy presents an urgent social history of the fastest growing group of Americans. The book features the lived experiences and diverse voices of immigrants, refugees, US-born Asian Americans, multiracial Americans, and workers from industries spanning agriculture to healthcare. Despite significant Asian American breakthroughs in American politics, arts, and popular culture in the twenty-first century, a profound lack of understanding of Asian American history permeates American culture. Choy traces how anti-Asian violence and its intersection with misogyny and other forms of hatred, the erasure of Asian American experiences and contributions, and Asian American resistance to what has been omitted are prominent themes in Asian American history. This ambitious book is fundamental to understanding the American experience and its existential crises of the early twenty-first century.

 

 

Another Appalachia by Neema Avashia

Call Number: Stacks 975.437 A946a 2022

ISBN: 9781952271427

Publication Date: 2022-03-30

When Neema Avashia tells people where she's from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving "There are Indian people in West Virginia?" A queer Asian American teacher and writer, Avashia fits few Appalachian stereotypes. But the lessons she learned in childhood about race and class, gender and sexuality continue to inform the way she moves through the world today: how she loves, how she teaches, how she advocates, how she struggles. Another Appalachia examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashia's identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole.

 

 

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

Call Number: Stacks 305.489 H772m 2020

ISBN: 9781984820365

Publication Date: 2020-02-25

Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative--and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world. Binding these essays together is Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality--when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they're dissonant--and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her.  With sly humor and a poet's searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche--and of a writer's search to both uncover and speak the truth.

 

 

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

Call Number: Graphic Novels 973.049 B932b 2017

ISBN: 9781419718779

Publication Date: 2017-03-07

An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family's journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui. This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. At the heart of Bui's story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent - the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.

 

 

Eating Asian America by Robert Ji-Song Ku (Editor); Martin F. Manalansan (Editor); Anita Mannur (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 394.1209 E141 2013

ISBN: 9781479810239

Publication Date: 2013-09-23

Examines the ways our conceptions of Asian American food have been shaped Chop suey. Sushi. Curry. Adobo. Kimchi. The deep associations Asians in the United States have with food have become ingrained in the American popular imagination. So much so that contentious notions of ethnic authenticity and authority are marked by and argued around images and ideas of food. Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader collects burgeoning new scholarship in Asian American Studies that centers the study of foodways and culinary practices in our understanding of the racialized underpinnings of Asian Americanness. It does so by bringing together twenty scholars from across the disciplinary spectrum to inaugurate a new turn in food studies: the refusal to yield to a superficial multiculturalism that naively celebrates difference and reconciliation through the pleasures of food and eating. By focusing on multi-sited struggles across various spaces and times, the contributors to this anthology bring into focus the potent forces of class, racial, ethnic, sexual and gender inequalities that pervade and persist in the production of Asian American culinary and alimentary practices, ideas, and images. This is the first collection to consider the fraught itineraries of Asian American immigrant histories and how they are inscribed in the production and dissemination of ideas about Asian American foodways.

 

 

Shattered by Jeff Yang (Editor); Parry Shen (Editor); Keith Chow (Editor); Jerry Ma (Editor)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.597 S533 2012

ISBN: 9781595588241

Publication Date: 2012-11-06

Three years after the publication of the groundbreaking Asian American comics anthology Secret Identities, the same team is back with a new volume--bigger, bolder, and more breathtaking in scope. While the first collection focused on the conventions of superhero comics, this new book expands its horizon to include edgier genres, from hard-boiled pulp to horror, adventure, fantasy, and science fiction. Using this darker range of hues, it seeks to subvert--to shatter--the hidebound stereotypes that have obscured the Asian image since the earliest days of immigration: the stoic brute, the prodigious brain, the exotic temptress, the inscrutable alien, the devious manipulator. The eclectic and impressive lineup of contributors includes leading Asian American comics creators Bernard Chang (Supergirl), Sean Chen (Iron Man), Cliff Chiang (Wonder Woman), Larry Hama (G.I. Joe), Sonny Liew (Malinky Robot), Takeshi Miyazawa (Runaways), Christine Norrie (Hopeless Savages), Greg Pak (The Hulk), G.B. Tran (Vietnamerica), Gene Yang (American Born Chinese), and many others, as well as such film and literary standouts as Tanuj Chopra (Punching at the Sun), Michael Kang (The Motel), Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), Gary Jackson (Missing You, Metropolis), and Bao Phi (Song I Sing). Their original graphic short stories cover topics from ethnic kiddie shows, China's AIDS policy, and airline security procedures to the untold backstory of Flash Gordon's nemesis Ming the Merciless and the gritty reality of a day in the life of a young Koreatown gangster. Shattered incorporates thrills, chills, and delights while exposing the hidden issues and vital truths of the nation's fastest-growing and most dynamic community.

 

 

Chains of Babylon by Daryl J. Maeda

Call Number: Stacks 305.895 M184c 2009

ISBN: 9780816648900

Publication Date: 2009-10-23

In Chains of Babylon, Daryl J. Maeda presents a cultural history of Asian American activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, showing how the movement created the category of "Asian American" to join Asians of many ethnicities in racial solidarity. Drawing on the Black Power and antiwar movements, Asian American radicals argued that all Asians in the United States should resist assimilation and band together to oppose racism within the country and imperialism abroad. As revealed in Maeda's in-depth work, the Asian American movement contended that people of all Asian ethnicities in the United States shared a common relationship to oppression and exploitation with each other and with other nonwhite peoples. In the early stages of the civil rights era, the possibility of assimilation was held out to Asian Americans under a model minority myth. Maeda insists that it was only in the disruption of that myth for both African Americans and Asian Americans in the 1960s and 1970s that the full Asian American culture and movement he describes could emerge. Maeda challenges accounts of the post-1968 era as hopelessly divisive by examining how racial and cultural identity enabled Asian Americans to see eye-to-eye with and support other groups of color in their campaigns for social justice. Asian American opposition to the war in Vietnam, unlike that of the broader antiwar movement, was predicated on understanding it as a racial, specifically anti-Asian genocide. Throughout he argues that cultural critiques of racism and imperialism, the twin "chains of Babylon" of the title, informed the construction of a multiethnic Asian American identity committed to interracial and transnational solidarity.

 

 

Asian-American Literature by Shirley Lim

Call Number: Stacks 820.808 A832

ISBN: 9780844217291

Publication Date: 2000-09-01

 

 

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Call Number: Fiction N57695sy

ISBN: 9780802123459

Publication Date: 2015-04-07

Now an HBO Limited Series from Executive Producers Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr., Streaming Exclusively on Max. Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction "[A] remarkable debut novel." --Philip Caputo, New York Times Book Review (cover review) Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, a startling debut novel from a powerful new voice featuring one of the most remarkable narrators of recent fiction: a conflicted subversive and idealist working as a double agent in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the year. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a "man of two minds," a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.  The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.

 

 

If you would like to do research  on Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and related topics, in addition to the library catalog, you could try the following databases and online resources accessible through the library website:

• Access World News, which offers full text from nearly 3,700 U.S. and 2,300 International newspapers.
• Academic Source Complete.
• Alt Press Watch.
• Ethnic Newswatch.
• J-Stor.
• Films on Demand, for videos and documentaries.

In addition if you want to learn more, here are some online resources freely available on the Internet:

• May: Asian American Pacific Islander Month overview at National Day Calendar.
• Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month history and overview at National Today.
• "Dear Educators, it's time to fight for Asian America" from Rethinking Schools.
• "Addressing Anti-Asian Bias" from Learning for Justice.
• "Asian Americans in the People's History of the United States" from Zinn Ed Project.
• Resources from the Federal Asian Pacific American Council.
• The Asian American Education Project.
• "Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month" spotlight from National Park Service.
• An Asian Pacific American "care package" from the Smithsonian.
• A list of "free learning resources to celebrate Asian American heritage" from Common Sense Education.

 

 

 

Welcome to another edition of "From Our Shelves," where I read a book from our collection and write a short review about it to help you decide if you want to read it or not. This week (April 7-13) is National Library Week, a week to promote libraries, their services, and advocate for supporting our libraries. Hutchins Library will be celebrating with a series of events this week. The library sent out campus wide emails with the flyer listing the events. I hope the campus community will join us.

These are challenging times for libraries given issues such as book challenges and bans. In fact, the American Library Association reported a record number of unique book titles challenged in American libraries in 2023. This week then I am featuring a book that looks at some of this history. The book is Burning the Books: a History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden. In this book, destruction can go from warfare and pillage (which can include what the author might charitably call "displaced or migrated" archives, but you want to read on for details) to neglect and defunding. The book also presents stories of librarians, archivists, and other ordinary people working to save knowledge, often at great risk to their lives. The book covers from ancient times to the modern era. The author's discussion of modern archives, digital data, and preservation are a great reason to read this book. See below for the library catalog link and entry to find the book in Hutchins Library.

Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden

Call Number: Stacks 363.3109 O961b 2020

ISBN: 9780674241206

Publication Date: 2020-11-17

The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction--and surprising survival--of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts--political, religious, and cultural--and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

We continue celebrating women and their accomplishments now for Women's History Month and always. Today we are featuring 7 biographies of American first ladies. These books are available on our shelves, so feel free to visit the library and check them out.

Martha Washington by Helen Bryan

Call Number: Stacks 973.4109 W319zb

ISBN: 9780471158929

Publication Date: 2002-04-01

A contemporary anecdote not only confirms that Martha commanded respect in her own right during her lifetime, but also suggests an awkward truth later historians have preferred to ignore-that without Martha and her fortune, George might never have risen to social, military, and political prominence.Toward the end of his life, George Washington, war hero, retired president, and object of universal fame and veneration, was negotiating to purchase a plot of land in the new capital city, to be named in his honor. The seller, an aged veteran of the Revolution, was reluctant to part with the plot, even to so distinguished a purchaser. Washington persisted until the veteran's patience snapped: 'You think people take every grist that comes from you as the pure grain. What would you have been if you hadn't married the Widow Custis!' -from the Introduction to Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty. From the glittering social life of Virginia's wealthiest plantations to the rigors of winter camps during the American Revolution, Martha Washington was a central figure in some of the most important events in American history. Her story is a saga of social conflict, forbidden love affairs, ambiguous wills, mysterious death, heartbreaking loss, and personal and political triumph. Every detail is brought to vivid life in this engaging and astonishing biography of one of the best known, least understood figures in early American life.

 

 

Abigail Adams by Edith B. Gelles

Call Number: Stacks 973.44 A211zga 2002

ISBN: 9780415939454

Publication Date: 2002-02-08

In this book, Edith B. Gelles asserts that Abigail Adams' vivid, insightful letters are "the best account that exists from the pre- to the post-Revolutionary period in America of a woman's life and world." Adams' spontaneous, witty letters serve dual purposes for the modern reader: it provides an intriguing first hand account of pivotal historical events and it shows how these events from the Boston Tea Party to the War of 1812 entered the private sphere. Included in the book is a chronology, notes and reference section and a selected bibliography. This book will be a must for all scholars of American literature, history and politics seeking to understand this literary figure.

 

 

 

A Perfect Union by Catherine Allgor

Call Number: Stacks 973.5109 M1815za 2006

ISBN: 9780805073270

Publication Date: 2006-04-04

An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, groundbreaking portrait of the early days of the republic - and the birth of modern politics. When the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere, which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her husband, James. Within a few years, she had mastered both the social and political intricacies of the city, and by her death in 1849 was the most celebrated person in Washington. And yet, to most Americans, she's best known for saving a portrait from the burning White House, or as the namesake for a line of ice cream.Why did her contemporaries give so much adulation to a lady so little known today? In A Perfect Union, Catherine Allgor reveals that while Dolley's gender prevented her from openly playing politics, those very constraints of womanhood allowed her to construct an American democratic ruling style, and to achieve her husband's political goals. And the way that she did so - by emphasizing cooperation over coercion, building bridges instead of bunkers - has left us with not only an important story about our past but a model for a modern form of politics.Introducing a major new American historian, A Perfect Union is both an illuminating portrait of an unsung founder of our democracy, and a vivid account of a little-explored time in our history.

 

 

Mary Todd Lincoln by Jean H. Baker

Call Number: Stacks 973.709 L738zb 2008

ISBN: 9780393333039

Publication Date: 2008-10-17

This definitive biography of Mary Todd Lincoln beautifully conveys her tumultuous life and times. A privileged daughter of the proud clan that founded Lexington, Kentucky, Mary fell into a stormy romance with the raw Illinois attorney Abraham Lincoln. For twenty-five years the Lincolns forged opposing temperaments into a tolerant, loving marriage. Even as the nation suffered secession and civil war, Mary experienced the tragedies of losing three of her four children and then her husband. An insanity trial orchestrated by her surviving son led to her confinement in an asylum. Mary Todd Lincoln is still often portrayed in one dimension, as the stereotype of the best-hated faults of all women. Here her life is restored for us whole.

 

 

Eleanor by David Michaelis

Call Number: Stacks 973.917 R781zmic 2020

ISBN: 9781439192016

Publication Date: 2020-10-06

In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt's remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Despite their inability to make each other happy, Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York's Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York's most important power couple in a generation. When Eleanor discovered Franklin's betrayal with her younger, prettier social secretary, Lucy Mercer, she offered a divorce and vowed to face herself honestly. Here is an Eleanor both more vulnerable and more aggressive, more psychologically aware and sexually adaptable than we knew. She came to accept FDR's bond with his executive assistant, Missy LeHand; she allowed her children to live their own lives, as she never could; and she explored her sexual attraction to women, among them a star female reporter on FDR's first presidential campaign, and younger men. Eleanor needed emotional connection. She pursued deeper relationships wherever she could find them. Throughout her life and travels, there was always another person or place she wanted to heal. As FDR struggled to recover from polio, Eleanor became a voice for the voiceless, her husband's proxy in presidential ambition, and then the people's proxy in the White House. Later, she would be the architect of international human rights and world citizen of the Atomic Age, urging Americans to cope with the anxiety of global annihilation by cultivating a "world mind." She insisted that we cannot live for ourselves alone but must learn to live together or we will die together. Drawing on new research, Michaelis's riveting portrait is not just a comprehensive biography of a major American figure, but the story of an American ideal: how our freedom is always a choice. Eleanor rediscovers a model of what is noble and evergreen in the American character, a model we need today more than ever.

 

 

Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Call Number: Stacks 328.7309 C641h 2014

ISBN: 9781476751443

Publication Date: 2014-06-10

Hillary Rodham Clinton's inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America's 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future. "All of us face hard choices in our lives," Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. "Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become." In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted. Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm's way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, traveled nearly one million miles, and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications, and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women, youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day. Secretary Clinton's descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use "smart power" to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world--one in which America remains the indispensable nation.

 

 

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Call Number: Stacks 973.932 O122b 2018

ISBN: 9781524763138

Publication Date: 2018-11-13

 As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.   In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.

 

 

 

March is Women's History Month, a month to honor women's contributions in history and society. You can learn more about this observance by visiting these links:

• "Women's History Month", federal government website from the National Archives, Library of Congress and other agencies.
• The National Women's History Alliance, for 2024 the Women's History Month Theme is "Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion."
• Learn about some women's history firsts in this highlighted article from Access World News (Newsbank): "Women have made their mark in history." Note: if you are outside the Berea College domain, you may need to log in to access this resource. Access World News is our news resources database covering news from the nation and the world.

To celebrate and honor women's achievements and stories, here is a list of 8 nonfiction books available in our library that you can check out. This list is in no particular order, and it is a small sample of what is available in our collections. Want to find more? You can check out the library catalog via the library website.  Need help finding anything? Stop by the Reference Desk.

The Agitators by Dorothy Wickenden

Call Number: Stacks 974.768 W636a 2021

ISBN: 9781476760735

Publication Date: 2021-03-30

 From the executive editor of The New Yorker, a riveting, provocative, and revelatory history of abolition and women's rights, told through the story of three women--Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright--in the years before, during and after the Civil War.  In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland's Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward, who served over the years as governor, senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a spectacular river raid in which she helped to liberate 750 slaves from several rice plantations. Wright, a "dangerous woman" in the eyes of her neighbors, worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize women's rights and anti-slavery conventions across New York State, braving hecklers and mobs when she spoke. Frances Seward, the most conventional of the three friends, hid her radicalism in public, while privately acting as a political adviser to her husband, pressing him to persuade President Lincoln to move immediately on emancipation. The Agitators opens in the 1820s, when Tubman is enslaved and Wright and Seward are young homemakers bound by law and tradition, and ends after the war. Many of the most prominent figures of the era--Lincoln, William H. Seward, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison--are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about the civil rights of African Americans and women, about the enlistment of Black troops, and about opposing interpretations of the Constitution. Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history.

 

 

The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger

Call Number: Stacks 640.92 D771s 2021

ISBN: 9781324004493

Publication Date: 2021-05-04

The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and business people. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field's history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women--and they were mostly women--became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics' women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

 

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

Call Number: Stacks 576.5 D728zi 2021

ISBN: 9781982115852

Publication Date: 2021-03-09

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn't become scientists, she decided she would. Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book's author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his codiscovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code. Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm...Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids? After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020.

 

 

Code Girls by Liza Mundy

Call Number: Stacks 940.548 M965c 2017

ISBN: 9780316352536

Publication Date: 2017-10-10

 Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as code breakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

 

 

The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Call Number: Stacks 306.874 T884t 2021

ISBN: 9781250756121

Publication Date: 2021-02-02

 Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary women who raised them. In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America's most pivotal heroes.  Berdis Baldwin, Alberta King, and Louise Little were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women. These three extraordinary women passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning--from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. These women used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced. These three mothers taught resistance and a fundamental belief in the worth of Black people to their sons, even when these beliefs flew in the face of America's racist practices and led to ramifications for all three families' safety. The fight for equal justice and dignity came above all else for the three mothers. These women, their similarities and differences, as individuals and as mothers, represent a piece of history left untold and a celebration of Black motherhood long overdue.

 

 

The Woman Who Would Be King by Kara Cooney

Call Number: Stacks 932.01 H365zc 2015

ISBN: 9780307956774

Publication Date: 2015-10-13

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power.   Hatshepsut--the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne--was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father's family. Her failure to produce a male heir, however, paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut out-maneuvered the mother of Thutmose III, the infant king, for a seat on the throne, and ascended to the rank of pharaoh. Shrewdly operating the levers of power to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh, Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays in the veil of piety and sexual reinvention. She successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt's most prolific building periods. Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power--and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

 

 

When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Cullors; asha bandele

Call Number: Stacks 323.119 K452w 2020

ISBN: 9781250306906

Publication Date: 2020-01-14

A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America--and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free. Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin's killer went free, Patrisse's outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin. Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country--and the world--that Black Lives Matter. When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele's reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.

 

 

The Sisterhood by Courtney Thorsson

Call Number: Stacks 820.992 T522s 2023

ISBN: 9780231204729

Publication Date: 2023-11-07

One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves "The Sisterhood," the group--which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others--would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation. The Sisterhood tells the story of how this remarkable community transformed American writing and cultural institutions. Drawing on original interviews with Sisterhood members as well as correspondence, meeting minutes, and readings of their works, Courtney Thorsson explores the group's everyday collaboration and profound legacy. The Sisterhood advocated for Black women writers at trade publishers and magazines such as Random House, Ms., and Essence, and eventually in academic departments as well--often in the face of sexist, racist, and homophobic backlash. Thorsson traces the personal, professional, and political ties that brought the group together as well as the reasons for its dissolution. She considers the popular and critical success of Sisterhood members in the 1980s, the uneasy absorption of Black feminism into the academy, and how younger writers built on the foundations the group laid. Highlighting the organizing, networking, and community building that nurtured Black women's writing, this book demonstrates that The Sisterhood offers an enduring model for Black feminist collaboration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This month Access World News*, also known as Newsbank, highlighted this article on "Movies to Watch for Black History Month." They listed nine movies. I went ahead and checked our library catalog, and I found that we have six of the nine films from the article. I am listing them below so you can check them out. In addition, if a movie is based on a book and/or has a companion book, and we have the book I am listing the book.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Call Number: Stacks 510.925 S554h 2016

ISBN: 9780062363596

Publication Date: 2016-09-06

 The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA at the leading edge of the feminist and civil rights movement, whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space--a powerful, revelatory contribution that is as essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America as Between the World and Me and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The basis for the smash Academy Award-nominated film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner. Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South's segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America's aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam's call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley's all-black "West Computing" group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens. Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA's greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country's future.  

 

You can find the film in our DVD collection with the call number: DVD 791.437 H6317 2017.

 

 

 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; Amandla Stenberg (Foreword by)

Call Number: Young Adult T4517ha 2017

ISBN: 9780062498533

Publication Date: 2017-02-28

 Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does--or does not--say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

 

Find the film in our DVD collection with the call number: DVD 791.437 H3615 2018.

 

 

 

Selma (2015). Summary: "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historical struggle to secure voting rights for all people. A dangerous and terrifying campaign that culminated with an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1964." Find it in our DVD Collection with call number DVD 791.437 S468 2015.

  Daughters of the Dust (2000). Summary: "Story of a large African-American family as they prepare to move North from the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia at the dawn of the 20th century." Find it in our DVD collection with call number DVD 791.437 D238 2000.

   Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013). Summary: "A butler tells the story of a White House [butler] who serves eight presidents over three decades. During his tenure as a butler at the White House, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and other major events affect this man's life, family, and American society." 

  Glory (2000). Summary: "Two idealistic young Bostonians lead the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, America's first Black regiment in the Civil War." Find it in the DVD collection with call number DVD 791.437 G562 2000 Discs 1-2 .

*Access World News is one of our news databases. It provides "full text from nearly 3,700 U.S. and 2,300 International newspapers. Direct links are available to search Kentucky and Appalachian Region newspapers, major metro titles, international resources, newswires, broadcast transcripts, America's news magazines, world and US newspapers." You can find and access the database from the library homepage under "Electronic Resources." If you are off-campus, you will need to authenticate and log in with your Berea College credentials and DUO.

February is Black History Month in the United States and other parts of the world. This is a time when libraries often offer suggested reading lists to help the community learn more through reading. Today I would like to highlight some graphic novels and comics that may be of interest for Black History Month as well as throughout the year. These are available in the library's graphic novels collection located in the library's main floor. These are listed in no particular order.

The March series by John Lewis. This is his story and a look at his journey and struggles for civil rights in the United States. The series is in three volumes. I've read it, and it is one I can highly recommend.

March: Book One by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.5 L674m 2013 bk. 1

ISBN: 9781603093002

Publication Date: 2013-08-13

#1 New York Times Bestseller Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon and key figure of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president. Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and New York Times best-selling artist Nate Powell (winner of the Eisner Award and LA Times Book Prize finalist for Swallow Me Whole). March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall. Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1958 comic book "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story." Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations.

 

March: Book Two by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.5 L674m 2015 bk. 2

ISBN: 9781603094009

Publication Date: 2015-01-20

After the success of the Nashville sit-in campaign, John Lewis is more committed than ever to changing the world through nonviolence - but as he and his fellow Freedom Riders board a bus into the vicious heart of the deep south, they will be tested like never before. Faced with beatings, police brutality, imprisonment, arson, and even murder, the movement's young activists place their lives on the line while internal conflicts threaten to tear them apart. But their courage will attract the notice of powerful allies, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy... and once Lewis is elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, this 23-year-old will be thrust into the national spotlight, becoming one of the "Big Six" leaders of the civil rights movement and a central figure in the landmark 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

 

March: Book Three by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.5 L674m 2016 bk. 3

ISBN: 9781603094023

Publication Date: 2016-08-02

 By the fall of 1963, the Civil Rights Movement has penetrated deep into the American consciousness, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis is guiding the tip of the spear. Through relentless direct action, SNCC continues to force the nation to confront its own blatant injustice, but for every step forward, the danger grows more intense- Jim Crow strikes back through legal tricks, intimidation, violence, and death. The only hope for lasting change is to give voice to the millions of Americans silenced by voter suppression- "One Man, One Vote." To carry out their nonviolent revolution, Lewis and an army of young activists launch a series of innovative campaigns, including the Freedom Vote, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and an all-out battle for the soul of the Democratic Party waged live on national television. With these new struggles come new allies, new opponents, and an unpredictable new president who might be both at once. But fractures within the movement are deepening ... even as 25-year-old John Lewis prepares to risk everything in a historic showdown high above the Alabama river, in a town called Selma.

 

 

 

The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks; Caanan White (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 940.403 B873h 2014

ISBN: 9780307464972

Publication Date: 2014-04-01

From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment--the Harlem Hellfighters In 1919, the 369th infantry regiment marched home triumphantly from World War I. They had spent more time in combat than any other American unit, never losing a foot of ground to the enemy, or a man to capture, and winning countless decorations. Though they returned as heroes, this African American unit faced tremendous discrimination, even from their own government. The Harlem Hellfighters, as the Germans called them, fought courageously on--and off--the battlefield to make Europe, and America, safe for democracy.   In THE HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS, bestselling author Max Brooks and acclaimed illustrator Caanan White bring this history to life. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, they tell the heroic story of the 369th in an action-packed and powerful tale of honor and heart.

 

 

 

Black History in Its Own Words by Ron Wimberly (Artist)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 973.049 W757b 2017

ISBN: 9781534301535

Publication Date: 2017-02-14

A look at Black History framed by those who made it. BLACK HISTORY MONTH IN ITS OWN WORDS presents quotes of dozens of black luminaries with portraits & illustrations by Ronald Wimberly. Featuring the memorable words and depictions of Angela Davis,Jean-Michael Basquiat, Kanye West, Zadie Smith, Ice Cube, Dave Chappelle, JamesBaldwin, Spike Lee and more.

 

 

Invisible Men: the Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books by Ken Quattro

Call Number: Stacks 741.597 Q25i 2020

ISBN: 9781684055869

Publication Date: 2020-12-15

Hear the riveting stories of Black artists who drew--mostly covertly behind the scenes--superhero, horror, and romance comics in the early years of the industry. The life stories of each man's personal struggles and triumphs are represented as they broke through into a world formerly occupied only by whites. Using primary source material from World War II-era Black newspapers and magazines, this compelling book profiles pioneers like E.C. Stoner, a descendant of one of George Washington's slaves, who became a renowned fine artist of the Harlem Renaissance and the first Black artist to draw comic books. Perhaps more fascinating is Owen Middleton who was sentenced to life in Sing Sing. Middleton's imprisonment became a cause celebre championed by Will Durant, which led to Middleton's release and subsequent comics career. Then there is Matt Baker, the most revered of the Black artists, whose exquisite art spotlights stunning women and men, and who drew the first groundbreaking Black comic book hero, Vooda! The book is gorgeously illustrated with rare examples of each artist's work, including full stories from mainstream comic books from rare titles like All-Negro Comics and Negro Heroes, plus unpublished artist's photos. Invisible Men features Ken Quattro's impeccable research and lean writing detailing the social and cultural environments that formed these extraordinary, yet invisible, men!

 

 

Black Panther: World of Wakanda by Afua Richardson (Cover Design by); Ta-Nehisi Coates; Roxane Gay; Yona Harvey; Jack Kirby (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.597 G285b

ISBN: 9781302906504

Publication Date: 2017-06-13

The world building of Wakanda continues in a love story where tenderness is matched only by brutality! You know them now as the Midnight Angels, but in this story they are just Ayo and Aneka, young women recruited to become Dora Milaje, an elite task force trained to protect the crown of Wakanda at all costs. Their first assignment will be to protect Queen Shuri... but what happens when your nation needs your hearts and minds, but you already gave them to each other? Meanwhile, former king T'Challa lies with bedfellows so dark, disgrace is inevitable. Plus, explore the true origins of the People's mysterious leader, Zenzi. Black Panther thinks he knows who Zenzi is and how she got her powers - but he only knows part of the story! COLLECTING: BLACK PANTHER: WORLD OF WAKANDA 1-6

 

In addition to World of Wakanda, our graphic novels collection features other titles in Marvel's Black Panther series, so come on over and check them out too. And if you want more Marvel Comics at this time:

 

Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection Book 1 by Chris Samnee (Illustrator); David Marquez (Illustrator); Brian Michael Bendis; Sara Pichelli (Illustrator, Cover Design by)

Call Number: 741.597 B458m

ISBN: 9780785197782

Publication Date: 2015-07-28

Miles Morales takes up the mantle of the Ultimate Spider-Man! Before Peter Parker died, young Miles was poised to start the next chapter in his life in a new school. Then, a spider's bite granted the teenager incredible arachnid-like powers. Now, Miles has been thrust into a world he doesn't understand, with only gut instinct and a little thing called responsibility as his guides. Can he live up to Peter's legacy as Spider-Man? Collecting: Ultimate Fallout 4, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (2011) 1-12, Spider-Men 1-5. Note the library does have the 3-volume set of this run.

 

 

 

 

Incognegro: a Graphic Mystery (New Edition) by Mat Johnson; Warren Pleece (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.597 J682i 2018

ISBN: 9781506705644

Publication Date: 2018-02-06

Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald, is sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi. With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay 'incognegro' long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brother - and himself. Suspenseful, unsettling and relevant, Incognegro is a tense graphic novel of shifting identities, forbidden passions, and secrets that run far deeper than skin colour.

 

 

The Silence of Our Friends by Mark Long; Jim Demonakos; Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.597 L849s 2018

ISBN: 9781250164988

Publication Date: 2018-01-02

A New York Times-bestselling graphic novel based on the true story of two families--one white and one black--who find common ground as the civil rights struggle heats up in Texas. This semi-autobiographical tale is set in 1967. A white family from a notoriously racist neighborhood in the suburbs and a black family from its poorest ward cross Houston's color line, overcoming humiliation, degradation, and violence to win the freedom of five black college students unjustly charged with the murder of a policeman. The Silence of Our Friends follows events through the point of view of young Mark Long, whose father is a reporter covering the story. Semi-fictionalized, this story has its roots solidly in very real events. With art from the brilliant Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole) bringing the tale to heart-wrenching life, The Silence of Our Friends is a new and important entry in the body of civil rights literature.

 

 

Big Black: Stand at Attica by Frank "Big Black" Smith; Jared Reinmuth; Ameziane (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 365.974 S647b 2020

ISBN: 9781684154791

Publication Date: 2020-02-18

A graphic novel memoir from Frank "Big Black" Smith, a prisoner at Attica State Prison in 1971, whose rebellion against the injustices of the prison system remains one of the bloodiest civil rights confrontations in American history. FOUR DAYS IN 1971 CHANGED THE COURSE OF AMERICAN HISTORY. THIS IS THE TRUE STORY FROM THE MAN AT THE CENTER OF IT ALL. In the summer of 1971, the New York's Attica State Prison is a symbol of everything broken in America - abused prisoners, rampant racism and a blind eye turned towards the injustices perpetrated on the powerless. But when the guards at Attica overreact to a minor incident, the prisoners decide they've had enough - and revolt against their jailers, taking them hostage and making demands for humane conditions. Frank "Big Black" Smith finds himself at the center of this uprising, struggling to protect hostages, prisoners and negotiators alike. But when the only avenue for justice seems to be negotiating with ambitious Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Big Black soon discovers there may be no hope in finding a peaceful resolution for the prisoners in Attica. Written by Jared Reinmuth and Frank "Big Black" Smith himself, adapted and illustrated by Ameziane, Big Black: Stand At Attica is an unflinching look at the price of standing up to injustice in what remains one of the bloodiest civil rights confrontations in American history.

 

 

Parable of the Sower: a Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler; Damian Duffy (Adapted by); John Jennings (Illustrator); Nalo Hopkinson (Introduction by)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.597 D858o 2020

ISBN: 9781419731334

Publication Date: 2020-01-28

In this graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the award-winning team behind the #1 New York Times bestseller Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, the author portrays a searing vision of America's future.  In the year 2024, the country is marred by unattended environmental and economic crises that lead to social chaos. Lauren Olamina, a preacher's daughter living in Los Angeles, is protected from danger by the walls of her gated community. However, in a night of fire and death, what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny . . . and the birth of a new faith.

 

 

 

 

James Strang was one of the greatest con men the United States has ever known, and odds are you may not have heard of him. This book tells his story. As a con man in antebellum United States, Strang had a strong ability to go from one con to another and reinvent himself as needed. At one point, he founded a cult, an offshoot of the Mormons, in an island up in Michigan, and declared himself King and Prophet God. In addition to his story, we get a picture of what antebellum United States looked like. The book mentions various key events of the time. In addition, the book considers why Americans so often fall for cons so easily. If you enjoy reading about U.S. history, about con men, and about crimes, this may be a book for you.

Book details from the library catalog.

The King of Confidence by Miles Harvey

Call Number: General Collection Stacks 364.163 S897zh 2020

ISBN: 9780316463591

Publication Date: 2020-07-14

The "unputdownable" (Dave Eggers, National Book award finalist) story of the most infamous American con man you've never heard of: James Strang, self-proclaimed divine king of earth, heaven, and an island in Lake Michigan, "perfect for fans of The Devil in the White City" (Kirkus), A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, Longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, Finalist for the Midland Authors Annual Literary Award, A Michigan Notable Book, A CrimeReads Best True Crime Book of the Year.

Welcome once more to "From Our Shelves," where I highlight a book from our collection I have read. This week is Banned Books Week, so I chose a book that goes with the themes of the week. The book from our shelves for this week is Dangerous Ideas: a Brief History of Censorship in the West, from the Ancients to Fake News.  The book looks at censorship over time and how it has shaped civilization. One of its author's arguments is that everyone engages in some form of censorship or attempt to censor at some point in time. You may or not agree with that statement, but it does invite some reflection. The book makes some important points and provides some context for current events. See below for details of where to find it in our library along with the publisher's book description. 

Dangerous Ideas by Eric Berkowitz

Call Number: 363.31 B513d 2021

ISBN: 9780807036242

Publication Date: 2021-05-04

A fascinating examination of how restricting speech has continuously shaped our culture, and how censorship is used as a tool to prop up authorities and maintain class and gender disparities Through compelling narrative, historian Eric Berkowitz reveals how drastically censorship has shaped our modern society. More than just a history of censorship, Dangerous Ideas illuminates the power of restricting speech; how it has defined states, ideas, and culture; and (despite how each of us would like to believe otherwise) how it is something we all participate in. This engaging cultural history of censorship and thought suppression throughout the ages takes readers from the first Chinese emperor's wholesale elimination of books, to Henry VIII's decree of death for anyone who "imagined" his demise, and on to the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the volatile politics surrounding censorship of social media. Highlighting the base impulses driving many famous acts of suppression, Berkowitz demonstrates the fragility of power and how every individual can act as both the suppressor and the suppressed.

A reminder that Hutchins Library is closed on Monday, September 4, 2023 for the Labor Day holiday. In the meantime,  you can access our online resources 24-7 via the library website: https://libraryguides.berea.edu/. If you are off campus, you may need to log in with your Berea College credentials and authenticate with DUO. 

Here are some resources about the holiday so you can learn more about this observance: 

• A history of Labor Day, via the U.S. Department of Labor. 
• Some facts and figures on labor in the United States, via the U.S. Census Bureau.

Here are some book from our library on labor history that you may want to check out and read to learn more. For e-books, if you are off campus, you will need your Berea College credentials and DUO authentication: 

The Broken Table by Chris Rhomberg

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781610447751

Publication Date: 2012-04-13

When the Detroit newspaper strike was settled in December 2000, it marked the end of five years of bitter and violent dispute. No fewer than six local unions, representing 2,500 employees, struck against the Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press, and their corporate owners, charging unfair labor practices. The newspapers hired permanent replacement workers and paid millions of dollars for private security and police enforcement; the unions and their supporters took their struggle to the streets by organizing a widespread circulation and advertising boycott, conducting civil disobedience, and publishing a weekly strike newspaper. In the end, unions were forced to settle contracts on management's terms, and fired strikers received no amnesty. In The Broken Table, Chris Rhomberg sees the Detroit newspaper strike as a historic collision of two opposing forces: a system in place since the New Deal governing disputes between labor and management, and decades of increasingly aggressive corporate efforts to eliminate unions. As a consequence, one of the fundamental institutions of American labor relations--the negotiation table--has been broken, Rhomberg argues, leaving the future of the collective bargaining relationship and democratic workplace governance in question. The Broken Table uses interview and archival research to explore the historical trajectory of this breakdown, its effect on workers' economic outlook, and the possibility of restoring democratic governance to the business-labor relationship. Emerging from the New Deal, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act protected the practice of collective bargaining and workers' rights to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment by legally recognizing union representation. This system became central to the democratic workplace, where workers and management were collective stakeholders. But efforts to erode the legal protections of the NLRA began immediately, leading to a parallel track of anti-unionism that began to gain ascendancy in the 1980s. The Broken Table shows how the tension created by these two opposing forces came to a head after a series of key labor disputes over the preceding decades culminated in the Detroit newspaper strike. Detroit union leadership charged management with unfair labor practices after employers had unilaterally limited the unions' ability to bargain over compensation and work conditions. Rhomberg argues that, in the face of management claims of absolute authority, the strike was an attempt by unions to defend workers' rights and the institution of collective bargaining, and to stem the rising tide of post-1980s anti-unionism. In an era when the incidence of strikes in the United States has been drastically reduced, the 1995 Detroit newspaper strike stands out as one of the largest and longest work stoppages in the past two decades. A riveting read full of sharp analysis, The Broken Table revisits the Detroit case in order to show the ways this strike signaled the new terrain in labor-management conflict. The book raises broader questions of workplace governance and accountability that affect us all.

 

A Mother's Job by Elizabeth Rose

Call Number: 362.1209 R795m General Collection

ISBN: 9780195111125

Publication Date: 1999-01-14

Americans today live with conflicting ideas about day care. We criticize mothers who choose not to stay at home, but we pressure women on welfare to leave their children behind. We recognize the benefits of early childhood education, but do not provide it as a public right until children enterkindergarten. Our children are priceless, but we pay minimum wages to the overwhelmingly female workforce which cares for them. We are not really sure if day care is detrimental or beneficial for children, or if mothers should really be in the workforce. To better understand how we have arrived atthese present-day dilemmas, Elizabeth Rose argues, we need to explore day care's past.A Mother's Job is the first book to offer such an exploration. In this case study of Philadelphia, Rose examines the different meanings of day care for families and providers from the late nineteenth century through the postwar prosperity of the 1950s. Drawing on richly detailed records created bysocial workers, she explores changing attitudes about motherhood, charity, and children's needs.How did day care change from a charity for poor single mothers at the turn of the century into a recognized need of ordinary families by 1960? This book traces that transformation, telling the story of day care from the changing perspectives of the families who used it and the philanthropists andsocial workers who administered it. We see day care through the eyes of the immigrants, whites, and blacks who relied upon day care service as well as through those of the professionals who provided it.This volume will appeal to anyone interested in understanding the roots of our current day care crisis, as well as the broader issues of education, welfare, and women's work--all issues in which the key questions of day care are enmeshed. Students of social history, women's history, welfare policy,childcare, and education will also encounter much valuable information in this well-written book.

 

A Union for Appalachian Healthcare Workers by John Hennen

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781952271250

Publication Date: 2021-11-01

History at the intersection of healthcare, labor, and civil rights. The union of hospital workers usually referred to as the 1199 sits at the intersection of three of the most important topics in US history: organized labor, health care, and civil rights. John Hennen's book explores the union's history in Appalachia, a region that is generally associated with extractive industries but has seen health care grow as a share of the overall economy. With a multiracial, largely female, and notably militant membership, 1199 was at labor's vanguard in the 1970s, and Hennen traces its efforts in hospitals, nursing homes, and healthcare centers in West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and Appalachian Ohio. He places these stories of mainly low-wage women workers within the framework of shake-ups in the late industrial and early postindustrial United States, relying in part on the words of Local 1199 workers and organizers themselves. Both a sophisticated account of an overlooked aspect of Appalachia's labor history and a key piece of context for Americans' current concern with the status of "essential workers," Hennen's book is a timely contribution to the fields of history and Appalachian studies and to the study of social movements.

 

Porn work : sex, labor, and late capitalism by Berg, Heather

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781469661940

Publication Date: 2021

"Every porn scene is a record of people at work. But on-camera labor is only the beginning of the story. Part labor history, part ethnography illuminating the lives of the performers who work in the medium, 'Porn Work' takes readers behind the scenes to explore what porn performers think of their work and how they intervene to hack it. It tells a story of crafty workers, faltering managers, and shifting solidarities"-- Provided by publisher.

 

Blood Runs Coal by Mark A. Bradley

Call Number: 364.152 B811b 2020 General Collection

ISBN: 9780393652536

Publication Date: 2020-10-13

In the early hours of New Year's Eve 1969, in the small soft coal mining borough of Clarksville, Pennsylvania, longtime trade union insider Joseph "Jock" Yablonski and his wife and daughter were brutally murdered in their old stone farmhouse. Seven months earlier, Yablonski had announced his campaign to oust the corrupt president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), Tony Boyle, who had long embezzled UMWA funds, silenced intra-union dissent, and served the interests of Big Coal companies. Yablonski wanted to return the union to the coal miners it was supposed to represent and restore the organization to what it had once been, a powerful force for social good. Boyle was enraged about his opponent's bid to take over--and would go to any lengths to maintain power. The most infamous crimes in the history of American labor unions, the Yablonski murders triggered one of the most intensive and successful manhunts in FBI history--and also led to the first successful rank-and-file takeover of a major labor union in modern U.S. history, one that inspired workers in other labor unions to rise up and challenge their own entrenched, out-of-touch leaders. An extraordinary portrait of one of the nation's major unions on the brink of historical change, Blood Runs Coal comes at a time of resurgent labor movements in the United States and the current administration's attempts to bolster the fossil fuel industry. Brilliantly researched and compellingly written, it sheds light on the far-reaching effects of industrial and socioeconomic change that unfold across America to this day.

 

Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire by Ismael García-ón

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9780520974272

Publication Date: 2020-02-18

Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire is the first in-depth look at the experiences of Puerto Rican migrant workers in continental U.S. agriculture in the twentieth century. The Farm Labor Program, established by the government of Puerto Rico in 1947, placed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers on U.S. farms and fostered the emergence of many stateside Puerto Rican communities. Ismael García-Colón investigates the origins and development of this program and uncovers the unique challenges faced by its participants. A labor history and an ethnography, Colonial Migrants evokes the violence, fieldwork, food, lodging, surveillance, and coercion that these workers experienced on farms and conveys their hopes and struggles to overcome poverty. Island farmworkers encountered a unique form of prejudice and racism arising from their dual status as both U.S. citizens and as "foreign others," and their experiences were further shaped by evolving immigration policies. Despite these challenges, many Puerto Rican farmworkers ultimately chose to settle in rural U.S. communities, contributing to the production of food and the Latinization of the U.S. farm labor force.

 

Professors in the Gig Economy by Kim Tolley (Editor)

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781421425344

Publication Date: 2018-05-01

The Uber-ization of the classroom and what it means for faculty. One of the most significant trends in American higher education over the last decade has been the shift in faculty employment from tenured to contingent. Now upwards of 75% of faculty jobs are non-tenure track; two decades ago that figure was 25%. One of the results of this shift--along with the related degradation of pay, benefits, and working conditions--has been a new push to unionize adjunct professors, spawning a national labor movement. Professors in the Gig Economyis the first book to address the causes, processes, and outcomes of these efforts. Kim Tolley brings together scholars of education, labor history, economics, religious studies, and law, all of whom have been involved with unionization at public and private colleges and universities. Their essays and case studies address the following questions: Why have colleges and universities come to rely so heavily on contingent faculty? How have federal and state laws influenced efforts to unionize? What happens after unionization--how has collective bargaining affected institutional policies, shared governance, and relations between part-time and full-time faculty? And finally, how have unionization efforts shaped the teaching and learning that happens on campus? Bringing substantial research and historical context to bear on the cost and benefit questions of contingent labor on campus, Professors in the Gig Economywill resonate with general readers, scholars, students, higher education professionals, and faculty interested in unionization. Contributors: A. J. Angulo, Timothy Reese Cain, Elizabeth K. Davenport, Marianne Delaporte, Tom DePaola, Kristen Edwards, Luke Elliott-Negri, Kim Geron, Lorenzo Giachetti, Shawn Gilmore, Adrianna Kezar, Joseph A. McCartin, Gretchen M. Reevy, Gregory M. Saltzman, Kim Tolley, Nicholas M. Wertsch

 

The Jewish Unions in America by Bernard Weinstein (Translator); Maurice Wolfthal

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781783743568

Publication Date: 2018-01-01

"Newly arrived in New York in 1882 from Tsarist Russia, the sixteen-year-old Bernard Weinstein discovered an America in which unionism, socialism, and anarchism were very much in the air. He found a home in the tenements of New York and for the next fifty years he devoted his life to the struggles of fellow Jewish workers. The Jewish Unions in America blends memoir and history to chronicle this time. It describes how Weinstein led countless strikes, held the unions together in the face of retaliation from the bosses, investigated sweatshops and factories with the aid of reformers, and faced down schisms by various factions, including Anarchists and Communists. He co-founded the United Hebrew Trades and wrote speeches, articles and books advancing the cause of the labor movement. From the pages of this book emerges a vivid picture of workers' organizations at the beginning of the twentieth century and a capitalist system that bred exploitation, poverty, and inequality. Although workers' rights have made great progress in the decades since, Weinstein's descriptions of workers with jobs pitted against those without, and American workers against workers abroad, still carry echoes today. The Jewish Unions in America is a testament to the struggles of working people a hundred years ago. But it is also a reminder that workers must still battle to live decent lives in the free market. For the first time, Maurice Wolfthal's readable translation makes Weinstein's Yiddish text available to English readers. It is essential reading for students and scholars of labor history, Jewish history, and the history of American immigration."--Publisher's website

 

Reconsidering Southern Labor History by Matthew Hild (Editor); Keri Leigh Merritt (Editor)

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9780813052335

Publication Date: 2018-06-11

United Association for Labor Education Best Book Award The American Dream of reaching success through sheer sweat and determination rings false for countless members of the working classes. This volume shows that many of the difficulties facing workers today have deep roots in the history of the exploitation of labor in the South. Contributors make the case that the problems that have long beset southern labor, including the legacy of slavery, low wages, lack of collective bargaining rights, and repression of organized unions, have become the problems of workers across the country. Spanning nearly all of U.S. history, the essays in this collection range from West Virginia to Florida to Texas. They examine vagrancy laws in the early republic, inmate labor at state penitentiaries, mine workers and union membership, and strikes and the often-violent strikebreaking that followed. They also look at pesticide exposure among farmworkers, labor activism during the civil rights movement, and foreign-owned auto factories in the rural South. They distinguish between different struggles experienced by women and men, as well as by African American, Latino, and white workers. The broad chronological sweep and comprehensive nature of Reconsidering Southern Labor History set this volume apart from any other collection on the topic in the past forty years. Presenting the latest trends in the study of the working-class South by a new generation of scholars, this volume is a surprising revelation of the historical forces behind the labor inequalities inherent today. Contributors: David M. Anderson | Deborah Beckel | Thomas Brown | Dana M. Caldemeyer | Adam Carson | Theresa Case | Erin L. Conlin | Brett J. Derbes | Maria Angela Diaz | Alan Draper | Matthew Hild | Joseph E. Hower | T.R.C. Hutton | Stuart MacKay | Andrew C. McKevitt | Keri Leigh Merritt | Bethany Moreton | Kristin O'Brassill-Kulfan | Michael Sistrom | Joseph M. Thompson | Linda Tvrdy

 

On Gender, Labor, and Inequality by Ruth Milkman

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9780252098581

Publication Date: 2016-07-15

Ruth Milkman's groundbreaking research in women's labor history has contributed important perspectives on work and unionism in the United States. On Gender, Labor, and Inequality presents four decades of Milkman's essential writings, tracing the parallel evolutions of her ideas and the field she helped define. Milkman's introduction frames a career-spanning scholarly project: her interrogation of historical and contemporary intersections of class and gender inequalities in the workplace, and the efforts to challenge those inequalities. Early chapters focus on her pioneering work on women's labor during the Great Depression and the World War II years. In the book's second half, Milkman turns to the past fifty years, a period that saw a dramatic decline in gender inequality even as growing class imbalances created greater-than-ever class disparity among women. She concludes with a previously unpublished essay comparing the impact of the Great Depression and the Great Recession on women workers. A first-of-its-kind collection, On Gender, Labor, and Inequality is an indispensable text by one of the world's top scholars of gender, equality, and work.

 

Reframing Randolph by Andrew E. Kersten; Clarence Lang

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9780814724477

Publication Date: 2015-01-01

At one time, Asa Philip Randolph (1889-1979) was a household name. As president of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), he was an embodiment of America's multifaceted radical tradition, a leading spokesman for Black America, and a potent symbol of trade unionism and civil rights agitation for nearly half a century. But with the dissolution of the BSCP in the 1970s, the assaults waged against organized labor in the 1980s, and the overall silencing of labor history in U.S. popular discourse, he has been largely forgotten among large segments of the general public before whom he once loomed so large. Historians, however, have not only continued to focus on Randolph himself, but his role (either direct, or via his legacy) in a wide range of social, political, cultural, and even religious milieu and movements. The authors of Reframing Randolph have taken Randolph's dusty portrait down from the wall to reexamine and reframe it, allowing scholars to regard him in new, and often competing, lights. This collection of essays gathers, for the very first time, many genres of perspectives on Randolph. Featuring both established and emergent intellectual voices, this project seeks to avoid both hagiography and blanket condemnation alike. The contributors represent the diverse ways that historians have approached the importance of his long and complex career in the main political, social, and cultural currents of twentieth-century African American specifically, and twentieth-century U.S. history overall. The central goal of Reframing Randolph is to achieve a combination of synthetic and critical reappraisal.

 

Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can) by Peter Matthiessen

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9780520958364

Publication Date: 2014-03-21

In the summer of 1968 Peter Matthiessen met Cesar Chavez for the first time. They were the same age: forty-one. Matthiessen lived in New York City, while Chavez lived in the Central Valley farm town of Delano, where the grape strike was unfolding. This book is Matthiessen's panoramic yet finely detailed account of the three years he spent working and traveling with Chavez, including to Sal Si Puedes, the San Jose barrio where Chavez began his organizing. Matthiessen provides a candid look into the many sides of this enigmatic and charismatic leader who lived by the laws of nonviolence. Sal Si Puedes is less reportage than living history. In its pages a whole era comes alive: the Chicano, Black Power, and antiwar movements; the browning of the labor movement; Chavez's fasts; the nationwide boycott of California grapes. When Chavez died in 1993, tens of thousands gathered at his funeral. It was a clear sign of how beloved he was and how important his life had been. A new foreword by Marc Grossman considers the significance of Chavez's legacy for our time. As well as serving as an indispensable guide to the 1960s, this book rejuvenates the extraordinary vitality of Chavez's life and spirit, giving his message a renewed and much-needed urgency.

 

Out in the Union by Miriam Frank

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781439911419

Publication Date: 2014-06-13

Out in the Union tells the continuous story of queer American workers from the mid-1960s through 2013. Miriam Frank shrewdly chronicles the evolution of labor politics with queer activism and identity formation, showing how unions began affirming the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers in the 1970s and 1980s. She documents coming out on the job and in the union as well as issues of discrimination and harassment, and the creation of alliances between unions and LGBT communities.    Featuring in-depth interviews with LGBT and labor activists, Frank provides an inclusive history of the convergence of labor and LGBT interests. She carefully details how queer caucuses in local unions introduced domestic partner benefits and union-based AIDS education for health care workers-innovations that have been influential across the U.S. workforce. Out in the Union also examines organizing drives at queer workplaces, campaigns for marriage equality, and other gay civil rights issues to show the enduring power of LGBT workers. 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrated annually on August 26 in the United States, Women's Equality Day commemorates the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. The 19th Amendment prohibits the federal government and states from denying the right to vote to U.S. citizens on the basis of sex. It was first celebrated in 1971. Congress designated the observance in 1973. Traditionally, the President of the United States issues a proclamation for the observance every year starting with President Richard Nixon in 1973. 

Here are some websites where you can learn more: 

• "From Suffrage Day to Women’s Equality Day: A Brief History of Celebrating August 26" via Library of Congress.
• "Women’s Equality Day" via National Women's History Alliance. 
• "Women’s Equality Day: August 26, 2023." Some facts and figures about it via the U.S. Census Bureau.

If you are interested in doing further research on this topic you can try the following databases, which you can find on the library website under "Electronic Resources:"

• Gale Virtual Reference Center. A collection of e-book reference works. 
• Hein Online. For legal and government documents research. 

From our shelves, here are some books that may be of interest: 

Gendered Citizenship by Rebecca DeWolf

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781496228291

Publication Date: 2021-10-01

By engaging deeply with American legal and political history as well as the increasingly rich material on gender history, Gendered Citizenship illuminates the ideological contours of the original struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from 1920 to 1963. As the first comprehensive, full-length history of that struggle, this study grapples not only with the battle over women's constitutional status but also with the more than forty-year mission to articulate the boundaries of what it means to be an American citizen. Through an examination of an array of primary source materials, Gendered Citizenship contends that the original ERA conflict is best understood as the terrain that allowed Americans to reconceptualize citizenship to correspond with women's changing status after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Finally, Rebecca DeWolf considers the struggle over the ERA in a new light: focusing not on the familiar theme of why the ERA failed to gain enactment, but on how the debates transcended traditional liberal versus conservative disputes in early to mid-twentieth-century America. The conflict, DeWolf reveals, ultimately became the defining narrative for the changing nature of American citizenship in the era.  

 

American Women's Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776-1965 (LOA #332) by Susan Ware (Editor)

Call Number: 324.623 A512 2020

ISBN: 9781598536645

Publication Date: 2020-07-07

For the first time, here is the full, definitive story of the movement for voting rights for American women, of every race, told through the voices of the women and men who lived it. Here are the most recognisable figures in the campaign for women s suffrage, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but also the black, Chinese, and American Indian women and men who were not only essential to the movement but expanded its directions and aims. Here, too, are the anti-suffragists who worried about where the country would head if the right to vote were universal.

 

Suffrage At 100 by Stacie Taranto (Editor); Leandra Zarnow (Editor)

Call Number: 320.082 S946 2020

ISBN: 9781421438689

Publication Date: 2020-08-04

Suffrage at 100 looks at women's engagement in US electoral politics and government over the one hundred years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In the 2018 midterm elections, 102 women were elected to the House and 14 to the Senate--a record for both bodies. And yet nearly a century after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the notion of congressional gender parity by 2020--a stated goal of the National Women's Political Caucus at the time of its founding in 1971--remains a distant ideal. In Suffrage at 100, Stacie Taranto and Leandra Zarnow bring together twenty-two scholars to take stock of women's engagement in electoral politics over the past one hundred years. This is the first wide-ranging collection to historically examine women's full political engagement in and beyond electoral office since they gained a constitutional right to vote. The book explores why women's access to, and influence on, political power remains frustratingly uneven, particularly for women of color and queer women. Examining how women have acted collectively and individually, both within and outside of electoral and governmental channels, the book moves from the front lines of community organizing to the highest glass ceiling. Essays touch on * labor and civil rights * education * environmentalism * enfranchisement and voter suppression * conservatism vs. liberalism * indigeneity and transnationalism * LGBTQ and personal politics * Pan-Asian, Chicana, and black feminisms * commemoration and public history * and much more. Contributors: Melissa Estes Blair, Eileen Boris, Marisela R. Chávez, Claire Delahaye, Nicole Eaton, Liette Gidlow, Holly Miowak Guise (Iñupiaq), Emily Suzanne Johnson, Dean J. Kotlowski, Monica L. Mercado, Johanna Neuman, Kathleen Banks Nutter, Katherine Parkin, Ellen G. Rafshoon, Bianca Rowlett, Sarah B. Rowley, Ana Stevenson, Barbara Winslow, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Nancy Beck Young.

 

Vanguard by Martha S. Jones

Call Number: 323.3409 J781v 2021

ISBN: 9781541600256

Publication Date: 2021-12-07

"An elegant and expansive history" (New York Times) of African American women's pursuit of political power--and how it transformed America      In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of Black women--Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more--who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.       Now revised to discuss the election of Vice President Kamala Harris and the vital contributions of Black women in the 2020 elections, Vanguard is essential reading for anyone who cares about the past and future of American democracy. 

 

 

Tim Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives, is pleased to announce the following events at SC&A for the months of February and March 2023. 

3:00-4:00 PM, January 27 – February 24

Explore the Writings of Carter G. Woodson

Berea College graduate Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D. (1875-1950) was a prominent historian who initiated the field of Black studies. In 1926 he founded “Negro History Week,” the predecessor to today’s annual Black History Month. This year during Black History Month, Hutchins Library invites you to spend an hour (or more!) each week reading published and unpublished writings of Dr. Woodson that are in the Berea College Special Collections and Archives.

“Friday Finds” tours of Woodson’s books and letters will begin at the Hutchins Library foyer at 3 PM each Friday starting January 27 and ending February 24. To participate in these free events, please register in advance at https://bctrace.com/explore/. For additional information, or to schedule a group visit on days other than Fridays, please contact Tim Binkley at binkleyt@berea.edu or 859-985-3267.

3:00-4:00 PM, March 2 – 31

Explore the Writing of bell hooks

Former Berea College professor bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins, Ph.D., 1952-2021) is no longer with us. Fortunately, many of her writings and recordings are preserved in the Berea College Special Collections and Archives. Throughout Women’s History Month 2023, Hutchins Library invites you to spend an hour (or more!) each week reading from bell hooks’ writings and listening to episodes of the recent Think Humanities podcast series, “bell hooks: becoming, being, and beyond.” 

“Friday Finds” tours of bell hooks materials and recordings will begin at the Hutchins Library foyer at 3 PM each Friday in March. To participate in these free events, please register in advance at https://bctrace.com/explore/. For additional information, or to schedule a group visit on days other than Fridays, please contact Tim Binkley at binkleyt@berea.edu or 859-985-3267.

A small item of possible interest to researchers, specially in subjects like U.S. History and Political Science. J-Stor Daily, J-Stor's newsletter, reported recently that the Moral Majority's collection of primary sources is now available and searchable via J-Stor. This collection is part of J-Stor's Open Collections. J-Stor Open Collections contain primary sources and images from libraries, museums, and archives from the United States and around the world.

According to the article, "The Moral Majority collection, [direct link to the collection] curated by Liberty University, [link to Liberty University's J-Stor Open Collection] contains materials generated during the ten years the organization was in existence. These include fundraising appeals, radio broadcast transcripts, issues of Moral Majority Report and the Liberty Report newsletter, theological statements by Elmer L. Towns (then Dean of Liberty Baptist Seminary), and diverse policy documents."

Direct link to the collection is listed above. In addition, researchers here at Berea College can access this collection and other open collections through J-Stor. Here are some steps you can follow:

• Start at the library website: https://libraryguides.berea.edu/.
• Click on "Electronic Resources."
• Click on the "J" link to get to J-Stor.
• Once you open J-Stor, hover the mouse over "Browse" and you will see "Collections." Click on "Collections" then set the search, "Collection Type"  to "Open Collections." You can then search this and other open collections. You can also narrow this search by a specific institution. Using the example from the article, you could select Liberty University.

If you have further questions or need assistance to access this or any of our resources, you can contact the Reference Desk via email at reference@berea.edu or via telephone at 859-985-3109.

We recently acquired this book for the library. It is part of Oxford University Press's series of "What Everyone Needs To Know." This is a second edition of the book. The author is a professor of History and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria and writes on modern Ukraine and Russian-Ukraine relations. The book uses a question and answer format to provide a good primer on Ukraine, its history, and the current situation. The book also includes a chronology of events, map, notes, and a list of books for further reading.

This book may be of interest for students who may be exploring and researching topics related to Ukraine and the war with Russia. The book can provide a good primer of the topic. It can also help students learn terms and vocabulary to aid in doing additional searching, and it provides references for further reading. The book can provide a good start for researchers on the topic.

You can find this book in the library's Reference Collection. You can read the publisher's description of the book below for more details.

* * * * *

April's reference book of the Month:  Woman and war.

In this unique encyclopedia, 120 leading scholars from around the world provide comprehensive treatment of the role of women in war, from the first written history to the present. This authoritative encyclopedia presents the work of leading scholars from all over the world to give the first detailed coverage of the role of women in wars throughout history. Histories of war are typically histories of men: great leaders and heroic fighters. Yet the roles of women often receive only limited coverage. Except for such notables as Joan of Arc, traditional histories give short shrift to women as leaders and fighters. Similarly, the direct victimization--particularly sexual abuse as a weapon of terror and domination--and cultural dislocations women suffer in war float as background, without detailed coverage. This work represents a first, devoted in its entirety to thorough examination of all aspects of women in war. For the first time, readers have a single source for information on the scope of women's role in war, and war's effects on them.

~ Recommended for students majoring in Woman and Gender Studies and History~

Women and War In this unique encyclopedia, 120 leading scholars from around the world provide comprehensive treatment of the role of women in war, from the first written history to the present. This authoritative encyclopedia presents the work of leading scholars from all over the world to give the first detailed coverage of the role of women in wars throughout history. Histories of war are typically histories of men: great leaders and heroic fighters. Yet the roles of women often receive only limited coverage. Except for such notables as Joan of Arc, traditional histories give short shrift to women as leaders and fighters. Similarly, the direct victimization--particularly sexual abuse as a weapon of terror and domination--and cultural dislocations women suffer in war float as background, without detailed coverage. This work represents a first, devoted in its entirety to thorough examination of all aspects of women in war. For the first time, readers have a single source for information on the scope of women's role in war, and war's effects on them. * Nearly 500 A-Z entries on women as combatants, spies, auxiliaries, medics, supporters, opponents, and victims of war from antiquity to the present and on all continents * Contributions from 140 leading scholars from the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe * Sidebars containing original documents from autobiographies, archives, and newspapers present firsthand coverage of women at war * Text enlivened by more than 70 photographs of women combatants, medical personnel, peace activists, spies, and secret agents by Bernard A. Cook (Editor)

Call Number: 355.0208 w872 2006

Publication Date: 2006-05-19

In this unique encyclopedia, 120 leading scholars from around the world provide comprehensive treatment of the role of women in war, from the first written history to the present. This authoritative encyclopedia presents the work of leading scholars from all over the world to give the first detailed coverage of the role of women in wars throughout history. Histories of war are typically histories of men: great leaders and heroic fighters. Yet the roles of women often receive only limited coverage. Except for such notables as Joan of Arc, traditional histories give short shrift to women as leaders and fighters. Similarly, the direct victimization--particularly sexual abuse as a weapon of terror and domination--and cultural dislocations women suffer in war float as background, without detailed coverage. This work represents a first, devoted in its entirety to thorough examination of all aspects of women in war. For the first time, readers have a single source for information on the scope of women's role in war, and war's effects on them. 

 March's reference book of the Month:  The Jim Crow Encyclopedia

~ Recommended for students majoring in African-American Studies, history, and peace and Justice Studies~

The Jim Crow Encyclopedia Jim Crow refers to a set of laws in many states, predominantly in the South, after the end of Reconstruction in 1877 that severely restricted the rights and privileges of African Americans. As a caste system of enormous social and economic magnitude, the institutionalization of Jim Crow was the most significant element in African American life until the 1960s Civil Rights Movement led to its dismantling. Racial segregation, as well as responses to it and resistance against it, dominated the African American consciousness and continued to oppress African Americans and other minorities, while engendering some of the most important African American contributions to society. This major encyclopedia is the first devoted to the Jim Crow era. The era is encapsulated through more than 275 essay entries on such areas as law, media, business, politics, employment, religion, education, people, events, culture, the arts, protest, the military, class, housing, sports, and violence as well as through accompanying key primary documents excerpted as side bars. This set will serve as an invaluable, definitive resource for student research and general knowledge. The authoritative entries are written by a host of historians with expertise in the Jim Crow era. The quality content comes in an easy-to-access format. Readers can quickly find topics of interest, with alphabetical and topical lists of entries in the frontmatter, along with cross-references to related entries per entry. Further reading is provided per entry. Dynamic sidebars throughout give added insight into the topics. A chronology, selected bibliography, and photos round out the coverage. Sample entries include Advertising, Affirmative Action, Armed Forces, Black Cabinet, Blues, Brooklyn Dodgers, Bolling v. Sharpe, Confederate Flag, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Detroit Race Riot 1943, Ralph Ellison, Eyes on the Prize, G.I. Bill, Healthcare, Homosexuality, Intelligence Testing, Japanese Internment, Liberia, Minstrelsy, Nadir of the Negro, Poll Taxes, Rhythm and Blues, Rural Segregation, Sharecropping, Sundown Towns, Booker T. Washington, Works Project Administration, World War II. by Nikki L. M. Brown (Editor); Barry M. Stentiford (Editor)

Call Number: 305.896 J614 2008

Publication Date: 2008-09-30

Jim Crow refers to a set of laws in many states, predominantly in the South, after the end of Reconstruction in 1877 that severely restricted the rights and privileges of African Americans. As a caste system of enormous social and economic magnitude, the institutionalization of Jim Crow was the most significant element in African American life until the 1960s Civil Rights Movement led to its dismantling.

Racial segregation, as well as responses to it and resistance against it, dominated the African American consciousness and continued to oppress African Americans and other minorities, while engendering some of the most important African American contributions to society. This major encyclopedia is the first devoted to the Jim Crow era. The era is encapsulated through more than 275 essay entries on such areas as law, media, business, politics, employment, religion, education, people, events, culture, the arts, protest, the military, class, housing, sports, and violence as well as through accompanying key primary documents excerpted as side bars.

This set will serve as an invaluable, definitive resource for student research and general knowledge. The authoritative entries are written by a host of historians with expertise in the Jim Crow era. 

From Tim Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives:

Michael and Carrie Nobel Kline Field Recordings Preserved by Berea College and CLIR

In 2019-2020, Berea College Special Collections and Archives conducted a Recordings at Risk digitization project to preserve and provide online access to more than 700 audio and video recordings created by folklorists Michael and Carrie Nobel Kline. The focus of the project was to save field recordings made between 1994 and 2006 documenting families and communities in an area that stretches from Parkersburg, West Virginia to the coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The resulting digital archive (https://libraryguides.berea.edu/KlineCollectionGuide) comprises a diverse selection of oral history interviews, personal reminiscences, historical presentations, music performances, and radio programs. These recordings document life experiences in neighborhoods, religious congregations, businesses, factories, mines, farms, ethnic social clubs, singing societies, and music ensembles. Some recordings reflect on Native American life, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, slavery, the Underground Railroad, later African American experiences, natural disasters, and fading technologies and crafts. Ethnic groups represented include those that are rarely associated with the Appalachian region, despite their long presence here: Jews and immigrants from Asia, Latin America, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe.

All materials in the digital archive are part of a larger collection of folklife and music resources donated to Berea College Special Collections and Archives by the Klines for scholarly study. The preservation process included migrating data off magnetic tape and other recording media and storing digital master and access files on secure servers. Audio Archivist Harry Rice managed the grant project in consultation with Special Collections and Archives staff. To enhance discovery of the data, Hutchins Library director Calvin Gross and colleagues Ann Cinnamond and Jessica Hayden assisted by creating individual item records in the Berea College Library catalog and in OCLC Worldcat.org.

Recordings at Risk is a national regranting program administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to support the preservation of rare and unique audio, audiovisual, and other time-based media of high scholarly value through digital reformatting. The program is made possible by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of blacks in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.

“If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated,” Woodson said of the need for such study.

In 1926, Woodson and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History(ASALH) launched a “Negro History Week” to bring attention to his mission and help school systems coordinate their focus on the topic. Woodson chose the second week in February, as it encompassed both Frederick Douglass’ birthday on February 14 and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on February 12.

Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.

Decsription from:

History.com Editors. “Black History Month.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 14 Jan. 2010, www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month.

Zorthian, Julia. “Black History Month: How It Started and Why It's in February.” Time, Time, 29 Jan. 2016, time.com/4197928/history-black-history-month/.

Carter G. Woodson by Burnis R. Morris

Call Number: 973.049 W898zm 2017

This study reveals how historian Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) used the black press and modern public relations techniques to popularize black history during the first half of the twentieth century. Explanations for Woodson's success with the modern black history movement usually include his training, deep-rooted principles, and single-minded determination. Often overlooked, however, is Woodson's skillful use of newspapers in developing and executing a public education campaign built on truth, accuracy, fairness, and education. Burnis R. Morris explains how Woodson attracted mostly favorable news coverage for his history movement due to his deep understanding of the newspapers' business and editorial models as well as his public relations skills, which helped him merge the interests of the black press with his cause. Woodson's publicity tactics, combined with access to the audiences granted him by the press, enabled him to drive the black history movement--particularly observance of Negro History Week and fundraising activities. Morris analyzes Woodson's periodicals, newspaper articles, letters, and other archived documents describing Woodson's partnership with the black press and his role as a publicist. This rarely explored side of Woodson, who was often called the "Father of Black History," reintroduces Woodson's lost image as a leading cultural icon who used his celebrity in multiple roles as an opinion journalist, newsmaker, and publicist of black history to bring veneration to a disrespected subject. During his active professional career, 1915-1950, Woodson merged his interests and the interests of the black newspapers. His cause became their cause.
 

Black Pioneers by William Loren Katz

Call Number: 977.004 K19b

Out of a past little noted in history texts comes this tale of African American pioneers in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. These pathfinders were slaves, poets, runaways, missionaries, farmers, teachers, and soldiers. For these African Americans, the frontier meant freedom, and from the earliest times, some seized liberty by joining Indian nations.As Southern slaveholders tried to pass laws to make slavery legal in the West and territorial legislatures wrote "Black Laws" that limited basic rights to white settlers, African American pioneers became freedom fighters. From Ohio to Kansas they battled slavehunters and developed Underground Railroad stations. Black families built their own schools and churches and created unique forms of protest to ensure their advancement.Historian William Loren Katz reveals a frontier saga that has often been buried, glossed over, or lost.
 

The Black Campus Movement by Ibram H. Rogers

Call Number: 378.198 R726b 2012

This book provides the first national study of this intense and challenging struggle which disrupted and refashioned institutions in almost every state. It also illuminates the context for one of the most transformative educational movements in American history through a history of black higher education and black student activism before 1965.

 

 

And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

Call Number: 821 A584a Copy 3

Maya Angelou's unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS's American Masters.   Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.   Thus begins "Phenomenal Woman," just one of the beloved poems collected here in Maya Angelou's third book of verse. These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh--and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering. And Still I Rise is written from the heart, a celebration of life as only Maya Angelou has discovered it.   "It is true poetry she is writing," M.F.K. Fisher has observed, "not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity. . . . It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night . . . it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes."
 

The Black 100 by Columbus Salley

Call Number: 973.049 S168b 1993

"Who are the most influential African-Americans that ever lived?" "Any such list is subject to passionate discussion and debate. It is within this controversy that readers are educated about the full breadth and depth of the African-American experience." "After extensive thought and research author and educator Dr. Columbus Salley has selected the 100 most influential African-Americans of all time, and then ranked them according to their contributions to the struggle for equality." "As a result, the Black 100 is a unique compendium of the most significant African-Americans, past and present. Dr. Salley identifies 100 black women and men as the collective giants on whose shoulders African-Americans stand in their unending quest for full economic, political and social equality." "The Black 100 is not a debate on the "most talented" or "most famous" Black Americans, but is a listing - and ranking - of those who have had the greatest impact on the progress toward complete participation in our society. Here are the 100 who have fundamentally altered the ways in which millions of Americans - of all races - live today." "It is fascinating to read how the author ranks the influence of some personalities as opposed to others. Who is first? Who is last? And why? The list of names in The Black 100 reads like a history of African-Americans over nearly 400 years. To name just a few: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James Baldwin, Booker T. Washington, Fannie Lou Hamer, Muhammad Ali, Bill Cosby." "Dr. Salley reveals the unique contributions of each of the 100 to African-American history." "The Black 100 is one of the most provocative and informative books ever written on this subject. It will be endlessly debated, discussed and scrutinized. A compellingly readable contribution to an understanding of our history, it will prove to be an essential book for all students and teachers in the field - as well as for a vast reading public of all colors - for many years to come."

 

Kentucky: Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is a powerful historical research and reference tool. The Atlas presents in maps and text complete data about the creation and all subsequent changes (dated to the day) in the size, shape, and location of every county in Kentucky.

It also includes non-county areas, unsuccessful authorizations for new counties, changes in county names and organization, and the temporary attachments of non-county areas and unorganized counties to fully functioning counties. The principal sources for these data are the most authoritative available: the session laws of the colonies, territories, and created and changed the counties.

~ Recommended for students majoring in History~

Kentucky by John H. Long (Editor)

Call Number: 911.769 A881

Publication Date: 1905-06-01

Kentucky: Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is a powerful historical research and reference tool. The Atlas presents in maps and text complete data about the creation and all subsequent changes (dated to the day) in the size, shape, and location of every county in Kentucky.

It also includes non-county areas, unsuccessful authorizations for new counties, changes in county names and organization, and the temporary attachments of non-county areas and unorganized counties to fully functioning counties. The principal sources for these data are the most authoritative available: the session laws of the colonies, territories, and states that created and changed the counties.

Post by Tim Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives:

I would like to share with you a new online exhibit of items from the Special Collections and Archives that has just been posted.

The Path to Woman Suffrage in the United States: 1848 – 1920 (https://scaexhibits.omeka.net/exhibits/show/pathtowomansuffrage) highlights period print materials from the curio book collection and the archives that advocated for (or against) extending voting rights to women. Normally we would show these works as a physical exhibit behind glass. However, due to current circumstances, the exhibit will be online only. On-campus students, faculty, and staff may make appointments to view all items in the SCA reading Room via https://berea.libwizard.com/f/ReadingRoom. As an added feature, the online exhibit offers hyperlinks to free online copies of the featured texts. So even if you cannot come to the reading room, you can still read the works in question.

The exhibit was produced to accompany the National Archives pop-up display “Rightfully Hers” that is currently in the Hutchins Library foyer. (https://libraryguides.berea.edu/blog/Rightfully-Hers-Popup-Exhibit-Celebrates-Womens-Suffrage-Centennial-at-Hutchins-Library)

I hope that you will enjoy exploring both and gaining some insights about the struggle for equal rights.

May we all value our hard-won voting rights enough to exercise them this fall.

Post by Timothy Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives,

If you have walked into Hutchins Library lately, you are likely to have noticed something new in the foyer. It is a temporary “popup” display produced by the National Archives and Records Administration and the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission (WSCC). These organizations are partnering with Berea College Special Collections and Archives to share the story of women’s fight for their right to vote in the United States.

Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote explores the history of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and the state of voting rights before and after the women’s suffrage movement. Consisting of four panels of images, insights, and quotations, the popup exhibit will be on view in the Hutchins Library foyer August 14 to December 14, 2020. The full museum exhibit in Washington, D.C. can be viewed online at https://museum.archives.gov/rightfully-hers.

Concerning the exhibit, curator Corinne Porter noted that: “Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment provides an unparalleled opportunity to elevate the untold stories of women’s history.” “The exhibit at the National Archives and the Rightfully Hers popups are part of our nationwide initiative to share the story of the relentless struggle of diverse activists throughout U.S. history to secure voting rights for all American women.”

The National Archives is an independent federal agency that serves American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of our Government, so people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. The WSCC was formed by the U.S. Congress to coordinate the nationwide commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment, which was officially ratified and signed into the Constitution on August 26, 1920. The National Archives’ Rightfully Hers popup display is presented by the WSCC, Unilever, Pivotal Ventures, Carl M. Freeman Foundation in honor of Virginia Allen Freeman, AARP, Denise Gwyn Ferguson, and the National Archives Foundation.

May this temporary exhibit remind every Berean that voting is an important right and responsibility.

* * * * *

Exhibit can be viewed inside the library during library regular hours. Due to COVID-19 at this point in time, only those with campus card ID access can enter the building. The exhibit will be on view through December 14, 2020.

I Love Libraries, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) has published "Librarians Share a Black Lives Matter Comics Reading List." The list provides titles ranging in ages from children to adult. The list contains both fiction and nonfiction titles. From their list, Hutchins Library has the titles listed below that you can request to read. During the COVID-19 situation,  you can contact Library Director Calvin Gross via e-mail (grossj AT berea DOT edu), and the books can be pulled out for you, checked out in your name, and then either set up in a bag in the library foyer or mailed to you via postal service if you are out of town (and affiliated to Berea College).

Titles from the list available at Hutchins Library:

Black History in Its Own Words by Ron Wimberly (Artist)

Call Number: 973.049 W757b 2017

ISBN: 9781534301535

Publication Date: 2017-02-14

A look at Black History framed by those who made it. BLACK HISTORY MONTH IN ITS OWN WORDS presentsquotes of dozens of black luminaries with portraits & illustrations byRonald Wimberly. Featuring the memorable words and depictions of Angela Davis,Jean-Michael Basquiat, Kanye West, Zadie Smith, Ice Cube, Dave Chappelle, JamesBaldwin, Spike Lee and more.

 

March: Book One by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Call Number: 741.5 L674m 2013 bk. 1

ISBN: 9781603093002

Publication Date: 2013-08-13

#1 New York Times Bestseller Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon and key figure of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president. Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and New York Times best-selling artist Nate Powell (winner of the Eisner Award and LA Times Book Prize finalist for Swallow Me Whole). March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall. Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1958 comic book "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story." Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations. Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award -- Special Recognition #1 Washington Post Bestseller A Coretta Scott King Honor Book An ALA Notable Book One of YALSA's Top 10 Great Graphic Novels for Teens One of YALSA's Top 10 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults One of YALSA's Outstanding Books for the College Bound One of Reader's Digest's Graphic Novels Every Grown-Up Should Read Endorsed by NYC Public Schools' "NYC Reads 365" program Selected for first-year reading programs by Michigan State University, Marquette University, and Georgia State University Nominated for three Will Eisner Awards Nominated for the Glyph Award Named one of the best books of 2013 by USA Today, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, The Horn Book, Paste, Slate, ComicsAlliance, Amazon, and Apple iBooks.

 

March: Book Two by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Call Number: 741.5 L674m 2015 bk. 2

ISBN: 9781603094009

Publication Date: 2015-01-20

Congressman John Lewis, an American icon and one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, continues his award-winning graphic novel trilogy with co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell, inspired by a 1950s comic book that helped prepare his own generation to join the struggle. Now, March brings the lessons of history to vivid life for a new generation, urgently relevant for today's world. After the success of the Nashville sit-in campaign, John Lewis is more committed than ever to changing the world through nonviolence - but as he and his fellow Freedom Riders board a bus into the vicious heart of the deep south, they will be tested like never before. Faced with beatings, police brutality, imprisonment, arson, and even murder, the movement's young activists place their lives on the line while internal conflicts threaten to tear them apart. But their courage will attract the notice of powerful allies, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy... and once Lewis is elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, this 23-year-old will be thrust into the national spotlight, becoming one of the "Big Six" leaders of the civil rights movement and a central figure in the landmark 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. New York Times Bestseller One of YALSA's Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2016 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work - Winner 2016 Harvey Award for Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation - Winner 2016 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album Original - Winner 2016 Street Literature Book Award Medal for Best Graphic Novel - Winner 2016 Denver Independent Comic & Art Expo Award for Best Work - Mid/Large Press - Winner

 

March: Book Three by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Call Number: 741.5 L674m 2016 bk. 3

ISBN: 9781603094023

Publication Date: 2016-08-02

Welcome to the stunning conclusion of the award-winning and best-selling MARCH trilogy. Congressman John Lewis, an American icon and one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, joins co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell to bring the lessons of history to vivid life for a new generation, urgently relevant for today's world. By the fall of 1963, the Civil Rights Movement has penetrated deep into the American consciousness, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis is guiding the tip of the spear. Through relentless direct action, SNCC continues to force the nation to confront its own blatant injustice, but for every step forward, the danger grows more intense: Jim Crow strikes back through legal tricks, intimidation, violence, and death. The only hope for lasting change is to give voice to the millions of Americans silenced by voter suppression: "One Man, One Vote." To carry out their nonviolent revolution, Lewis and an army of young activists launch a series of innovative campaigns, including the Freedom Vote, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and an all-out battle for the soul of the Democratic Party waged live on national television. With these new struggles come new allies, new opponents, and an unpredictable new president who might be both at once. But fractures within the movement are deepening ... even as 25-year-old John Lewis prepares to risk everything in a historic showdown high above the Alabama river, in a town called Selma. Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Young People's Literature #1 New York Times Bestseller 2017 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner 2017 Michael L. Printz Award Winner 2017 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Winner 2017 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction - Winner 2017 Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature - Winner 2017 Flora Stieglitz Straus Award Winner 2017 LA Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature - Finalist  

 

Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer; Michelle Alexander (Foreword by); Sabrina Jones

Call Number: 364.973 J791r 2013

ISBN: 9781595585417

Publication Date: 2013-04-02

The United States' rate of incarceration is the highest in the world. Mauer's Race to Incarcerate is the essential text for understanding the exponential growth of the US prison system, and it has become canonical for those active in the US criminal justice reform movement. Now Sabrina Jones has collaborated with Mauer to adapt his seminal book into a vivid graphic narrative designed to reach a mainstream audience. Jones's dramatic artwork adds passion and compassion to the complex story of four decades of prison expansion and its corrosive effect on society.

 

Black History for Beginners by Denise Dennis; Susan Willmarth

Call Number: 305.896 D411b

ISBN: 0863160689

Publication Date: 1984-06-01

Covering a rich but often ignored history, the author chronicles the black struggle from capture and enslavement in Africa right up to the Civil Rights movement and different kinds of struggles that black people face today.

 

 

The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks; Caanan White (Illustrator)

Call Number: 940.403 B873h 2014

ISBN: 9780307464972

Publication Date: 2014-04-01

From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment--the Harlem Hellfighters In 1919, the 369th infantry regiment marched home triumphantly from World War I. They had spent more time in combat than any other American unit, never losing a foot of ground to the enemy, or a man to capture, and winning countless decorations. Though they returned as heroes, this African American unit faced tremendous discrimination, even from their own government. The Harlem Hellfighters, as the Germans called them, fought courageously on--and off--the battlefield to make Europe, and America, safe for democracy.   In THE HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS, bestselling author Max Brooks and acclaimed illustrator Caanan White bring this history to life. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, they tell the heroic story of the 369th in an action-packed and powerful tale of honor and heart.

 

Kindred: a Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler; Damian Duffy (Adapted by); John Jennings (Illustrator); Nnedi Okorafor (Introduction by)

Call Number: 741.597 D858k

ISBN: 9781419728556

Publication Date: 2018-07-24

More than 35 years after its release, Kindred continues to draw in new readers with its deep exploration of the violence and loss of humanity caused by slavery in the United States, and its complex and lasting impact on the present day. Adapted by celebrated academics and comics artists Damian Duffy and John Jennings, this graphic novel powerfully renders Butler's mysterious and moving story, which spans racial and gender divides in the antebellum South through the 20th century. Butler's most celebrated, critically acclaimed work tells the story of Dana, a young black woman who is suddenly and inexplicably transported from her home in 1970s California to the pre-Civil War South. As she time-travels between worlds, one in which she is a free woman and one where she is part of her own complicated familial history on a southern plantation, she becomes frighteningly entangled in the lives of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder and one of Dana's own ancestors, and the many people who are enslaved by him. Held up as an essential work in feminist, science-fiction, and fantasy genres, and a cornerstone of the Afrofuturism movement, there are over 500,000 copies of Kindred in print. The intersectionality of race, history, and the treatment of women addressed within the original work remain critical topics in contemporary dialogue, both in the classroom and in the public sphere. Frightening, compelling, and richly imagined, Kindred offers an unflinching look at our complicated social history, transformed by the graphic novel format into a visually stunning work for a new generation of readers.

 

 

Hutchins Library is hosting an exhibit of Lakota artifacts and cultural objects in the library's main floor during the month of April 2019. The exhibit is presented in conjunction with the college convocation "History and Culture of the Lakota" featuring speaker Vance Blacksmith on April 4, 2019. Exhibit can be viewed during regular library hours. It is free and open to the public.

Statement for Lakota Cultural Exhibit

Hide painting, from Lakota Cultural Exhibit

Check out Dr. Mack's book for yourself:

Violence Against Black Bodies by Sandra Weissinger (Editor); Elwood Watson (Editor); Dwayne A. Mack (Editor)

Call Number: 305.896 V795 2017 - BC Scholarship Collection (3rd Floor)

Publication Date: 2017

Violence Against Black Bodies argues that black deaths at the hands of police are just one form of violence that black and brown people face daily in the western world. rough the voices of scholars from different academic disciplines, this book gives readers an opportunity to put the cases together and see that violent deaths in police custody are just one tentacle of the racial order¿a hierarchy which is designed to produce trauma and discrimination according to one¿s perceived race-ethnicity.

January's reference book of the month is Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. The following description is from amazon.com: 

Defining the Enlightenment as the "long eighteenth century," the Encyclopedia focuses on the entire range of philosophic and social changes engendered by the Enlightenment. It extends the conventional geographical boundaries of the Enlightenment, covering not only France, England, Scotland, the Low Countries, Italy, English-speaking North America, the German states, and Hapsburg Austria but also Iberian, Ibero-American, Jewish, Russian, and Eastern European cultures. Nor does the Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment limit itself to major centers like Paris in France and Edinburgh in Scotland, but shares the rich lode of recent scholarship on "secondary" and "provincial" centers such as Berlin and Geneva; Philadelphia and Milan.
The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment brings a similar spirit of inclusion to the new theoretical and methodological approaches that have flowered in the humanities during the past two decades. Including feminist and various post-modernist reassessments alongside more traditional perspectives, the four volumes offer the broadest possible range of current knowledge.
Accessibility combined with scholarly rigor make the Encyclopedia the first choice for researching any aspect of the Enlightenment.

Recommended for history majors.

Interesting tidbit: This book includes various images representing the Enlightenment era.

Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment by Alan Charles Kors (Editor)

Call Number: 940.2503 E56 2003

Publication Date: 2002

 

October's reference book of the month is Philip Mattar's Encyclopedia of Modern Middle East and North Africa. The following description is from amazon.com:

With nearly 600 new entries and 1,000 updates, the second edition of this authoritative resource reflects the far-reaching changes the Middle East has undergone in recent years, making the work more relevant and more necessary than ever before. The set covers the modern history of the Middle East and North Africa, with major sections on Colonialism and Imperialism, the World Wars, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the United Nations involvement in the region. Each country in the region is reviewed, detailing its population, economy and government. With 3,000 nonpartisan articles written by specialists in anthropology, history, political science, religion and social sciences, this four-volume set is an indispensable tool.

Recommended for history majors.

Interesting fact:  The book starts with a map highlighting which specific countries are included when looking at the Middle East and North Africa.

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa

Call Number: 956.003 E563 2004

Publication Date: 2004

Updating the 1996 edition in light of many new developments (e.g., the failed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2000, September 11th, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), this new edition presents some 3,000 entries covering topics in fields such as politics, history, economics, religion, sociol

Hutchins Library would like to let patrons know that the library now offers Hein Online as part of its online electronic resources. The database can be described  as follows:

"HeinOnline is the world’s largest fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains comprehensive coverage from inception of both U.S. statutory materials and more than 2,300 scholarly journals, all of the world’s constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential documents, and access to the full text of state and federal case law powered by Fastcase."

Some of the materials available on Hein Online include, but are not limited to:

• Case law
• Law Journals
• Government documents like the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), U.S. Federal Agencies documents, decisions, and appeals, and U.S. Treaties and Agreements.
• Various legal history collections such  as religion and the law.

You can access Hein Online via the library website. It is listed under "Electronic Resources." This database can be useful for students working on topics such as legal issues, political science, history, women's studies, and other subjects.

Please note this is a subscription-based resource. If you are off campus, you will need to authenticate to gain access by providing your Berea College credentials (username and password).

One of our student Building Managers, Breanna Dunning, has created a display in honor of Black History Month. Located near the Reference Desk, the books and DVDs on display are available for check-out.
 

Black History Month grew from Negro History Week, which was first celebrated in 1926, due to the efforts of historian (and Berea alum) Carter G. Woodson and prominent African-American minister Jesse E. Moorland.
 

Over time, with the growing awareness of black identity and the Civil Rights Movement, Negro History Week evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses.
 

In 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month, urging the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Want to know more? Check out these titles:
 

March by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Artist, Cover Design by)

Call Number: 741.5 L674m 2013 bk. 1 (Graphic Novels)
 

Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president. Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and New York Times best-selling artist Nate Powell. March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement.

 

March: Book Two by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Artist, Cover Design by)

Call Number: 741.5 L674m 2015 bk. 2
 

Now, March brings the lessons of history to vivid life for a new generation, urgently relevant for today's world.After the success of the Nashville sit-in campaign, John Lewis is more committed than ever to changing the world through nonviolence - but as he and his fellow Freedom Riders board a bus into the vicious heart of the deep south, they will be tested like never before. Faced with beatings, police brutality,imprisonment, arson, and even murder, the movement's young activists place their lives on the line while internal conflicts threaten to tear them apart. But their courage will attract the notice of powerful allies, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy... and once Lewis is elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, this 23-year-old will be thrust into the national spotlight, becoming one of the "Big Six" leaders of the civil rights movement and a central figure in the landmark 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

 

From Selma to Montgomery by Barbara Harris Combs

Call Number: 323.119 C731f 2014
 

On March 7, 1965, a peaceful voting rights demonstration in Selma, Alabama, was met with an unprovoked attack of shocking violence that riveted the attention of the nation. In the days and weeks following "Bloody Sunday," the demonstrators would not be deterred, and thousands of others joined their cause, culminating in the successful march from Selma to Montgomery. The protest marches led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a major piece of legislation, which, ninety-five years after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, made the practice of the right to vote available to all Americans, irrespective of race. From Selma to Montgomery chronicles the marches, placing them in the context of the long Civil Rights Movement, and considers the legacy of the Act, drawing parallels with contemporary issues of enfranchisement. In five concise chapters bolstered by primary documents including civil rights legislation, speeches, and news coverage, Combs introduces the Civil Rights Movement to undergraduates through the courageous actions of the freedom marchers.

 

Blacks in Bondage by Robert S. Starobin (Introduction by); Ira Berlin (Introduction by)

Call Number: 301.4493 S795b

 

A collection of documents by black American slaves, written while enslaved or shortly after escape. The words recorded here express complexity and diversity of thought and feeling about slavery and being black, and offer glimpses into the interior lives of a number of American slaves.

 

 

 

Not the Triumph but the Struggle by Amy Bass

Call Number: 796.48 B317n

 

A sweeping examination of the role of Black Power in the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City reveals the emergence of militancy and political consciousness in American sports.

 

 

 

We've Got a Job by Cynthia Y. Levinson

Call Number: 323.119 L6655w 2012

 

The inspiring story of one of the greatest moments in civil rights history as seen through the eyes of four young people who were at the center of the action. The 1963 Birmingham Children's March was a turning point in American history. In the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, the fight for civil rights lay in the hands of children like Audrey Hendricks, Wash Booker, James Stewart, and Arnetta Streeter. Through the eyes of these four protesters and others who participated, We've Got a Job tells the little-known story of the 4,000 black elementary, middle, and high school students who voluntarily went to jail between May 2 and May 11, 1963. The children succeeded - where adults had failed - in desegregating one of the most racially violent cities in America. By combining in-depth, one-on-one interviews and extensive research, author Cynthia Levinson recreates the events of the Birmingham Children's March from a new and very personal perspective.

 

Join us for a very special event here at Hutchins Library, Berea College. The details are as follows:

• What: film screening of documentary "A History of Co-education and Women at Berea College." Film followed by a Question and Answer session with the film's producer Joel Deutscher, '16.
• Where: Hutchins Library, Library Room 107.
• When: Thursday, January 19, 2017.
• Time: 4:00pm
• Need to learn more or have questions? You may contact Dr. Rebecca Bates at rebecca_bates@berea.edu for more information.

Refreshments will be provided.

This event is free and  open to the public.