Nanzee and Basil Barden-Love, with their family, continually and un-dauntingly conquer whatever life metes out. Meanwhile, Gwen Duncan is on the rollercoaster ride of her life; she finds herself enduring things she emphatically detests. For Love, her reason for endurance is the cause of her misery. He is determined not to be bullied by her. She will know there is a difference between Basil and himself! Nanzee, on occasion winces at Gwens thoughtlessness; but she determines never to let it ruin her marriage. Meanwhile, Gwen, herself moves through a maze of uncertainty as their friendship forged since childhood is threatened.
Writings Created Throughout the Soul By: Melonie White Writings Created Throughout the Soul is a heartfelt collection of the beautiful words that come from author Melonie White’s heart. This inspirational piece celebrates black lives, love, and miracles from God. May we all be inspired to have these words within soften our hearts and minds.
More than fifty years ago, Nathaniel "Nate" Northington changed the face of sports as the first African American to play college football in the Southeastern Conference. When this trailblazing athlete stepped onto the field for the University of Kentucky vs. Ole Miss game on September 30, 1967, he played not only for his team, but for his best friend and roommate, Greg Page, whose tragic death pushed Northington further into the spotlight—and into the fight for equality. In Still Running: My Life as the First Black Football Player in the SEC, Northington recounts how he and other African American football players fought on the gridiron throughout the civil rights movement to achieve success both on and off the field. Northington shares the story of his life—growing up in hardworking, self-reliant neighborhoods, first in Louisville's "Little Africa" and later in Newburg; the strong, supportive foundation provided by his parents; and the events of his childhood that forged in him a desire to confront racial injustice and violence. His athletic ability, character, and scholastic achievement took him to the front lines of the struggle, compelling Kentucky Governor Ned Breathitt and UK president John Oswald to select him to help lead the way for integration in Kentucky college football. Northington reveals what life was like in the locker room and on campus, and how his brotherly friendship with Greg Page—also a Black member of UK's 1966 freshman team—and subsequently Page's devastating death, propelled him forward in his goal of integrating the SEC. Containing new material and an updated history addressing the ongoing racial justice movement, Northington's story is about more than integration within college football—it is an honest and inspirational testament to a life defined by faith, strength, resilience, and determination.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “[Mat Johnson’s] unrelenting examination of blackness, whiteness and everything in between is handled with ruthless candor and riotous humor.”—Los Angeles Times “Razor-sharp . . . Loving Day is that rare mélange: cerebral comedy with pathos.”—The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • San Francisco Chronicle • NPR • Men’s Journal • The Miami Herald • The Denver Post • Slate • The Kansas City Star • San Antonio Express-News • Time Out New York Warren Duffy has returned to America for all the worst reasons: His marriage to a beautiful Welsh woman has come apart; his comics shop in Cardiff has failed; and his Irish American father has died, bequeathing to Warren his last possession, a roofless, half-renovated mansion in the heart of black Philadelphia. On his first night in his new home, Warren spies two figures outside in the grass. When he screws up the nerve to confront them, they disappear. The next day he encounters ghosts of a different kind: In the face of a teenage girl he meets at a comics convention he sees the mingled features of his white father and his black mother, both now dead. The girl, Tal, is his daughter, and she’s been raised to think she’s white. Spinning from these revelations, Warren sets off to remake his life with a reluctant daughter he’s never known, in a haunted house with a history he knows too well. In their search for a new life, he and Tal struggle with ghosts, fall in with a utopian mixed-race cult, and ignite a riot on Loving Day, the unsung holiday for interracial lovers. A frequently hilarious, surprisingly moving story about blacks and whites, fathers and daughters, the living and the dead, Loving Day celebrates the wonders of opposites bound in love. Praise for Loving Day “Incisive . . . razor-sharp . . . that rare mélange: cerebral comedy with pathos. The vitality of our narrator deserves much of the credit for that. He has the neurotic bawdiness of Philip Roth’s Alexander Portnoy; the keen, caustic eye of Bob Jones in Chester Himes’s If He Hollers Let Him Go; the existential insight of Ellison’s Invisible Man.”—The New York Times Book Review “Exceptional . . . To say that Loving Day is a book about race is like saying Moby-Dick is a book about whales. . . . [Mat Johnson’s] unrelenting examination of blackness, whiteness and everything in between is handled with ruthless candor and riotous humor. . . . Even when the novel’s family strife and racial politics are at peak intensity, Johnson’s comic timing is impeccable.”—Los Angeles Times “Johnson, at his best, is a powerful comic observer [and] a gifted writer, always worth reading on the topics of race and privilege.’”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
