An invaluable and inspiring compilation that shines a light on unsung athletes of color. Sports have long been used as a vehicle for change, as a way to break down barriers and foster greater understanding. But while we know the stories of trailblazers like Jackie Robinson, just as important are the journeys of lesser-known athletes who used sports as a platform to fight injustice, racism, and discrimination. In Remember Their Sacrifice: Stories of Unheralded Athletes of Color, Arif Khatib and Pete Elman share the extraordinary stories of a special group of athletes, of their struggles, achievements, and incredible impact on the world of sports and beyond. It includes Pumpsie Green, the first Black player for the Red Sox; Alice Coachman, the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal; Sammy Lee, the great Asian American diver who won Olympic gold; Toni Stone and Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, two women who played in baseball’s Negro Leagues; Billy Mills, a Native American icon who won Olympic gold in the 10,000 meters; and many more. Featuring an array of sports such as boxing, track and field, golf, auto racing, basketball, football, soccer, and baseball, as well as exclusive interviews with the authors, Remember Their Sacrifice elevates these pioneering athletes to their deserved position in the pantheon of sports.
On the morning of July 27, 1940, police arrested African American labor organizer Clinton Clark during a parishwide rally in Natchitoches, Louisiana. That day, over 800 black farmers and plantation workers made their way to town to protest for fair payments for their crops and equal access to New Deal assistance programs. Though those arrested with him were released after only three days, Clinton remained in jail for three weeks without charges and faced a possible lynching. News of Clark's captivity reached New Orleans labor organizers and spread to national civil liberties groups, making him a public figure among civil rights organizations. Recounting Clark's life in his own words, Remember My Sacrifice is an exceptional first-hand account of the lives of African Americans in rural Louisiana and of Clark's covert efforts to organize sharecroppers and farm workers during the Great Depression. Born in 1903, Clark grew up in a sharecropping family in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. Like many of his counterparts, Clark struggled to find work in the 1920s, and in 1931 he moved to California with hopes of finding work. Instead, he was introduced to the Unemployed Benefits Council, a Communist-affiliated relief organization. For Clark, the organization's mission of collective action coupled with respect and relief for the unemployed was the ideal political expression for the frustration he felt within the southern economy. Upon returning to Louisiana in 1933, Clark used his newfound confidence to organize sugar plantation workers and sharecroppers on his own, often hiding out in the woods to escape the persecution of landowners and town officials. Known as the "Black Ghost of Louisiana," Clinton Clark worked to connect rural Louisiana with a larger southern farmers' union movement, an effort that culminated in the formation of the Louisiana Farmers' Union in 1937. Helping small farmers and farm workers -- most of whom were black -- take advantage of President Franklin Roosevelt's agricultural benefit programs and form goods cooperatives that served to break down the tenant farmers' reliance upon plantation commissaries, Clark assisted Louisiana farmers in their search for an equitable income. In 1942 Clinton Clark penned his autobiography at night while working at a trucking company in New Orleans, and shortly afterwards, he fled Louisiana for New York City. In the years that followed, Clark faced the FBI's Communist surveillance, though his memoir suggests that Clark never wholeheartedly endorsed communism -- he simply wanted equality. With an introduction and thorough annotations by Elizabeth Davey and Rodney Clark, Clinton Clark's nephew, Clark's unique narrative illuminates the relationships between labor and civil rights groups and their important work organizing against racial discrimination in the years before the modern civil rights movement.
During the Second World War, 291,577 men and women of the United States armed forces were killed in action in the fight against the Axis powers. Each of these service members was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart medal in recognition for the loss of their lives in the pursuit of worldwide freedom. Over the last seven decades, all but a few of these brave men and women have been forgotten. Subsequently, many of their Purple Hearts languished in attics and drawers for years before being donated to museums, surfacing at estate sales, or sold by families to people eager to rediscover their lost history. With the goal of educating and deepening the appreciation of the medal for families, historians, museums, and collectors, this book serves as a tangible reminder of ultimate sacrifice, providing a visual guide to Purple Heart medal and those who earned it. Through the biographies of over three hundred men who were awarded the Purple Heart after they were killed in action, this book conveys the meaning and importance of this medal and what it represents. Additionally, the variations, types, engraving styles, and manufacturing differences are examined at a level of detail never before published to give the reader a full appreciation of the development of the medal and how it changed over time to become the medal we know today. Sacrifice Remembered is a key reference across the historical research spectrum: from museums maintaining Purple Hearts in their collections to historians, researchers, and collectors seeking to appreciate essential details about the medal.Most importantly, families searching to discover their genealogical history will gain a better understanding of the tremendous sacrifices made by those who came before them.
The shocking and affecting memoir from a gold-star widow searching for the truth behind her Green Beret husband's death, this book bears witness to the true sacrifices made by military families. When Green Beret Bryan Black was killed in an ambush in Niger in 2017, his wife Michelle saw her worst nightmare become a reality. She was left alone with her grief and with two young sons to raise. But what followed Bryan's death was an even more difficult journey for the young widow. After receiving very few details about the attack that took her husband's life, it was up to Michelle to find answers. It became her mission to learn the truth about that day in Niger--and Sacrifice is the result of that mission. In this heartbreaking and revelatory memoir, Michelle uses exclusive interviews with the survivors of her husband's unit, research into the military leadership and accountability, and her own unique vantage point as a gold-star widow to tell a previously unknown story. Sacrifice is both an honest, emotional look inside a military marriage and a searing investigation of the people and decisions at the heart of the US military.
**Updated to include the short story Middle Ground.** Everything Emma loves has been ripped away—Jake, Will, and her unborn baby. Within minutes of confronting her new reality, Emma is thrust in the middle of a war between two supernatural beings and she’s the prize. To save her son she must choose a side, but Emma wonders if there’s another option—Water. He was losing his mind. You can’t love someone you don’t know. The Vinco Potentia thinks Will knows something about a woman he doesn’t remember. Will’s only memory of Emma is their few minutes together in the forest, but he is consumed with emotions for her—love and belonging. When his best friend shows up and helps Will escape, his story seems off and Will wonders what he’s hiding. You are not bound to destiny. The book stolen from the Vinco Potentia holds the key to a new set of rules and everyone involved will stop at nothing to get it. Torn between her destiny and her desires, Emma will face her biggest sacrifice yet. The Chosen series: Chosen Hunted Sacrifice Redemption
The TROJAN WAR SONG OF PRINCES, Book One of the Homeric Chronicles Sing Muse. Sing of the shining citadel of Troy rising from the hot sands of Asia. Sing of the Greek palaces ascending from their rocky hilltops. Sing of one woman's dream heralding the madness of men and the murder of innocents. From bull dancing rings and wild meadows, the Forgotten Prince must choose between love and a golden crown. From seclusion and safety, the Golden Warrior must choose between his honor and his life. From behind the Great Wall, the Golden Prince must choose between his family and his city. And from a rugged realm on the far side of Greece, the Warrior King must choose between his son's life and certain exile. Here shepherds and princes, warriors and kings, and seers and lovers seek to conquer their passions, outwit destiny or surrender to it. PARIS, the FORGOTTEN PRINCE. ACHILLES, the GOLDEN WARRIOR. HEKTOR, the GOLDEN PRINCE. ODYSSEUS, the WARRIOR KING. Where did their legends begin before their lives converged at Troy in one of the most famous battles of all time? The HOMERIC CHRONICLES tell the stories of Paris, Achilles, Hektor, and Odysseus in one chronological tale, beginning before the ILIAD and ending long after the ODYSSEY. Blending both history and myth, the Homeric Chronicles will satisfy your love of Greek mythology, while paying homage to the original storyteller, Homer. SONGS OF PRINCES begins with the birth of Paris and Achilles, and introduces us to a young Hektor and Odysseus. The journey of the princes begins... Fall in love with Greek mythology for the first time or all over again. ...READ THEM ALL... #songofprinces #riseofprinces #returnofkings #homericchronicles THE BIRTH OF PARIS The labor began with the pull of the full moon. Hecuba's eyes opened. She recognized the familiar dull ache. The squeeze tightened down her lower back and wrapped itself around her lower hips and belly like a merciless snake. It begins, she thought. The child whose destiny she'd agonized over these many weeks pressed his entrance into a hostile world. She rolled onto her side to ease the progressing pains. She knew precious little time remained before she would be forced to call Tessa to fetch the midwife. Hecuba planned to endure as much pain as she could bear buying time with her unwelcomed son...unwelcomed by all, except for her. She loved the child despite the prophecy. Tears filled her eyes for the child pushing his way to the light. Hecuba wept into her pillow. His innocence would be her life's burden. She would never know the burn of the first milk passing to her breasts as his little mouth suckled for the first time. She would not know the smell of his baby skin. She would not feel the weight of him in her arms as she cradled him to sleep, or the weight of his little body as it grew to fill the circle of her arms, making them ache with his increasing size. She would not know him at all. He would be stolen away from her and lost forever. With each new tug on her body, she clenched her teeth and tried to breathe as quietly as possible. In between the pains, she shifted to the opposite side to keep the mounting pressure from making her cry out. As the moonlight shifted past the high window, the birthing process accelerated. A piercing pain below Hecuba's pelvis forced a shrill scream into the stillness shattering the silver calm. The warm sticky wetness washed down her thighs. Eleithyia wasted no time bringing the child along. Why goddess? Let him stay with me a while longer, I beg you. Her plea hung unheeded in that space between earth and sky.
Is it singing? A church service? All of life? Helping Christians think more theologically about the nature of true worship, Rhythms of Grace shows how the gospel is all about worship and worship is all about the gospel. Mike Cosper ultimately answers the question: What is worship?
Slaying the Mermaid addresses the great numbers of women of all ages who find themselves constantly disregarding their own well-being to put the needs of others first. Drawing on the experiences of a diverse array of women, Stephanie Golden examines the dichotomy between selfhood and sacrifice, enabling women to become conscious of self-defeating behavior. Using the image of Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, the ultimate ideal of the self-sacrificing woman, Golden offers a new paradigm: in order to run with the wolves, you must first slay the mermaid. Slaying the Mermaid uncovers the mythic and archetypal roots of the need felt by women to sacrifice their personal potential for the good of others. This book will help women reclaim their energy, creativity, and identity, while rediscovering the original, empowering meaning of sacrifice as an expansive and self-fulfilling act.
Every veteran has a story. You just have to listen to it. It can be surprising how difficult it is...and also how easy...for a veteran to be able to tell their story. The impacts of combat, deployments, or even just military experience in general are felt long after a veteran leaves the service. The guns do not always go silent when a veteran leaves the military...neither should the veteran. When combat veteran and retired Army Noncommissioned Officer Duane France retired, he knew he wanted to continue to serve his fellow veterans. As a grandson, nephew, and son of combat veterans, he grew up knowing the impact of combat and military service on veterans and their families, and as a leader with five combat and operational deployments, he saw the same things happening in the service members of his generation. After starting to work as a clinical mental health counselor exclusively for veterans and their spouses, Duane started to write his observations and experiences on his blog, Head Space and Timing, located at www.veteranmentalhealth.com. This book is a collection of 52 articles designed to help veterans, those who support them, and those who care for them to understand the military experience and to change the way they think about veteran mental health.
