A Moment in the Sun

A Moment in the Sun

Author: John Sayles

Publisher: McSweeney's

Published: 2011-10-18

Total Pages: 1293

ISBN-13: 1936365707

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It’s 1897. Gold has been discovered in the Yukon. New York is under the sway of Hearst and Pulitzer. And in a few months, an American battleship will explode in a Cuban harbor, plunging the U.S. into war. Spanning five years and half a dozen countries, this is the unforgettable story of that extraordinary moment: the turn of the twentieth century, as seen by one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Shot through with a lyrical intensity and stunning detail that recall Doctorow and Deadwood both, A Moment in the Sun takes the whole era in its sights—from the white-racist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina to the bloody dawn of U.S. interventionism in the Philippines. Beginning with Hod Brackenridge searching for his fortune in the North, and hurtling forward on the voices of a breathtaking range of men and women—Royal Scott, an African American infantryman whose life outside the military has been destroyed; Diosdado Concepcíon, a Filipino insurgent fighting against his country’s new colonizers; and more than a dozen others, Mark Twain and President McKinley’s assassin among them—this is a story as big as its subject: history rediscovered through the lives of the people who made it happen.


Flash of the Spirit

Flash of the Spirit

Author: Robert Farris Thompson

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-05-26

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0307874338

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This landmark book shows how five African civilizations—Yoruba, Kongo, Ejagham, Mande and Cross River—have informed and are reflected in the aesthetic, social and metaphysical traditions (music, sculpture, textiles, architecture, religion, idiogrammatic writing) of black people in the United States, Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, Mexico, Brazil and other places in the New World.


The Grasp That Reaches beyond the Grave

The Grasp That Reaches beyond the Grave

Author: Venetria K. Patton

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2013-06-20

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1438447388

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The Grasp That Reaches beyond the Grave investigates the treatment of the ancestor figure in Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters, Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, Phyllis Alesia Perry's Stigmata and A Sunday in June, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Tananarive Due's The Between, and Julie Dash's film, Daughters of the Dust in order to understand how they draw on African cosmology and the interrelationship of ancestors, elders, and children to promote healing within the African American community. Venetria K. Patton suggests that the experience of slavery with its concomitant view of black women as "natally dead" has impacted African American women writers' emphasis on elders and ancestors as they seek means to counteract notions of black women as somehow disconnected from the progeny of their wombs. This misperception is in part addressed via a rich kinship system, which includes the living and the dead. Patton notes an uncanny connection between depictions of elder, ancestor, and child figures in these texts and Kongo cosmology. These references suggest that these works are examples of Africanisms or African retentions, which continue to impact African American culture.


The Four Moments After Death

The Four Moments After Death

Author: Joseph B. Geraci Ph.D

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2009-06-12

Total Pages: 51

ISBN-13: 1477178945

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The Four Moments After Death are reflections of the stages one may go through upon losing a loved one. regardless of who they may be. The events in this short book are seen through the eyes of the author as he experiences life after death of his wife. Having been a college instructor of psychology and death and dying courses the author is able to address both the clinical and personal aspects of grieving and surviving. Other Books: New book depicts life as a police officer during the 60s and 70s Author Dr. Joseph B. Geraci draws on his personal experiences as an officer during a difficult time for our country in Wednesdays Cop. Using his diary which was written over a period of eleven years, Dr. Geraci provides a kaleidoscope of police experiences during an important era in American history. Some accounts are graphic and question the normalcy and sanity of human behavior. Veterans of law enforcement and the military will not be shocked. Rather, they will be reminded of the potentially horrific consequences of human actions. For more information or to request a free copy, members of the press can contact the author at [email protected] or www.iuniverse.com. Wednesdays cop is available for sale online at Amazon.com, iuniverse.com and through retail channels worldwide.


Hidden in Plain View

Hidden in Plain View

Author: Jacqueline L. Tobin

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2000-01-18

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0385497679

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The fascinating story of a friendship, a lost tradition, and an incredible discovery, revealing how enslaved men and women made encoded quilts and then used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. In Hidden in Plain View, historian Jacqueline Tobin and scholar Raymond Dobard offer the first proof that certain quilt patterns, including a prominent one called the Charleston Code, were, in fact, essential tools for escape along the Underground Railroad. In 1993, historian Jacqueline Tobin met African American quilter Ozella Williams amid piles of beautiful handmade quilts in the Old Market Building of Charleston, South Carolina. With the admonition to "write this down," Williams began to describe how slaves made coded quilts and used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. But just as quickly as she started, Williams stopped, informing Tobin that she would learn the rest when she was "ready." During the three years it took for Williams's narrative to unfold—and as the friendship and trust between the two women grew—Tobin enlisted Raymond Dobard, Ph.D., an art history professor and well-known African American quilter, to help unravel the mystery. Part adventure and part history, Hidden in Plain View traces the origin of the Charleston Code from Africa to the Carolinas, from the low-country island Gullah peoples to free blacks living in the cities of the North, and shows how three people from completely different backgrounds pieced together one amazing American story. With a new afterword. Illlustrations and photographs throughout, including a full-color photo insert.


A Dance of Assassins

A Dance of Assassins

Author: Allen F. Roberts

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2012-12-20

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 0253007593

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A Dance of Assassins presents the competing histories of how Congolese Chief Lusinga and Belgian Lieutenant Storms engaged in a deadly clash while striving to establish hegemony along the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika in the 1880s. While Lusinga participated in the east African slave trade, Storms' secret mandate was to meet Henry Stanley's eastward march and trace "a white line across the Dark Continent" to legitimize King Leopold's audacious claim to the Congo. Confrontation was inevitable, and Lusinga lost his head. His skull became the subject of a sinister evolutionary treatise, while his ancestral figure is now considered a treasure of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Allen F. Roberts reveals the theatricality of early colonial encounter and how it continues to influence Congolese and Belgian understandings of history today.


Gods of the City

Gods of the City

Author: Robert A. Orsi

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1999-07-22

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9780253113313

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"Fascinating insights into modern urban religious practice make Orsi's collection a must-read." -- Publishers Weekly "The essays provide insight into the cultural creativity, reinterpretation of worship and religious ingenuity of city people over the last 50 years." -- Library Journal "At last, a major dissection of the great mystery in modern Americanlife -- how religion and spirituality prospered amidst industrialization,urbanization, and rampant technological change after 1880!" -- Jon Butler, Yale University "Urban religion" strikes many as an oxymoron. How can religion thrive in the alienated, secular, fast-paced, and materialistic world of the modern, Western city? The authors in this collection believe that cities not only can provide the settings for religious expression, but also are material to the experiences which give rise to those religious expressions. In this book, they explore the distinctly urban forms of religious experience and practice that have developed in relation to the spaces, social conditions, and history of American cities.


Afro-Cuban Religious Arts

Afro-Cuban Religious Arts

Author: Kristine Juncker

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2014-07-15

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0813055024

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This book profiles four generations of women from one Afro-Cuban religious family. From a plantation in Havana Province in the 1890s to a religious center in Spanish Harlem in the 1960s, these women were connected by their prominent roles as leaders in the religions they practiced and the dramatic ritual artwork they created. Each woman was a medium in Espiritismo—communicating with dead ancestors for guidance or insight—and also a santera, or priest of Santería, who could intervene with the oricha pantheon. Kristine Juncker argues that, by creating art for more than one religion, these women shatter the popular assumption that Afro-Caribbean religions are exclusive organizations. Most remarkably, the portraiture, sculptures, and photographs in Afro-Cuban Religious Arts offer rare glimpses into the rituals and iconography of these religions. Santería altars are closely guarded, limited to initiates, and typically destroyed upon the death of the santera, while Espiritismo artifacts are rarely considered valuable enough to pass on. The unique and protean cultural legacy detailed here reveals insights into how ritual art became popular imagery, sparked a wider dialogue about culture inheritance, attracted new practitioners, and enabled the movement to explode internationally.