This is one of the most disturbing books I've read in a long time.

Some of the essays are chilling, and all are informative, well-written and compelling. There is little here in which one can take comfort.

A must-read for whites and open-minded blacks as well.

This was great book. The chapters always kept my attention. It provides great insight into a lot of different areas. This book seems to be comprised of logic and clear thinking.

On December 29, 1992 one of the most brutal racially motivated killings since the era of lynching occurred in South Carolina. The victim was Melissa McLauchlin, a young woman who was kidnapped, raped, violently tortured and then dumped on a highway in an effort to avenge "400 years of oppression".

I heard about the crime quite by accident while passing through the area at just the right time. For years I thought that no one else would remember this woman's death as it was blatantly ignored by the national media. It was quite a surprise to open this book and find an entire chapter largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the killing.

This alone would justify reading the book, which also focuses on other "politically incorrect" subject matter relating to race. The editors do a commendable job of presenting challenges to the moral character and direction of the modern civil rights movement while disallowing racist implications and language.

Milt was just about the best bass player there ever was -- and his playing was only matched by his wonderful personality. And the collection and stories reflect him, without any bull -- the way it really was!

This is an incredible book! Milt Hinton was born in Mississippi, raised in depression-era Chicago, and embarked on a career as bassist with Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and then as one of the first black musicians to cross the color line in the New York recording studios. The whole time, Mr. Hinton was documenting his travels in exquisite black and white photographs, which appear throughout the book. Hinton's memory is as sharp as his photographic skills, and the story telling is just marvelous. You won't be disappointed if you buy this one!

Richard Congress has championed the music of the late Yank Rachell, one of the few blues artists to record extensively on the mandolin. Congress has made available some of rachell's hard to fine post-war recordings on his Random Chance label as well as put together Rachell's oral history. The first 100 or so pages are devoted to Rachell's recollections and if some parts are sketchy, its because Rachell's death prevented Congress from fleshing out more details. Rachell's association with John Estes and others in the neglected Jackson, Tennessee music scene is discussed as is his life as a travelling musician, as well as his pursuits of daytime employment unlike others he played with. He recounts playing in St. Louis and then recording, Big Joe Williams and John Lee "Sonny Boy Williamson" and his early recordings as well as moving up to Indianopolis for the last years of his life. The oral history is supplemented by Rich Delgrosso's discussion of Yank's mandolin style, David Evans' distillation of Yank's guitar playing and recollections of those who came under Yank's spell including Henry Townsend and Charlie Musselwhite. A full discography of Yank's recordings, both as a leader and an accompanist is provided. In summary, this is a very nicely put together volume that provides us with a window into a slice of the blues past often neglected.

Richard Congress' Blues Mandolin Man provides a biography of the life and music of Yank Rachell, a 1960s blues mandolin performer. This is his first biography, and one of the few books to discuss the mandolin instrument's contributions to blues.

A really interesting overview and analysis of the "baad man" as a central figure in African-American literature, tracing the origins from his earliest appearances in myth and folklore. Lively, literate without being pedantic, and full of interesting and surprising examples. Real insights into such major figures as Richard Wright and Toni Morrison, along with a fascinating section on the sources and achievements of Ice-T and the contemporary rappers that I, never a rap fan, found really eye-opening..

Jerry Bryant has written a most compelling study of the African-American male using history, poetry, song, literature, along with myth and fact. This is a must read for anyone interested in, deeply or just superficially, the ways and the cultural whys and wherefors of the black man in american...yesterday and today. It is done with sensitivity and thoughtfulness and worth anyone's time...and it is damned readable!

This is a book about African American "badmen" like Stagolee, John Hardy, Railroad Bill, and Devil Winston and how this archetypal figure gets taken up by black novelists, convict "toasters" and gangsta rappers. It tells the story of the defiance of this black folk hero and how middle class novelists and commercial rap artists soften and exploit an originally spontaneous figure of freedom that first emerges at the end of the nineteenth century. Jerry Bryant is professor emeritus of English, California State University, Hayward. By the way, the 5-star rating isn't vanity, it's just that some rating is required by Amazon and I figured it would be counter-productive to give my book anything less. JB

Ethnic Notions is a catalog of images exploring racist memorabilia from the collection of Jan Faulkner, examining racial stereotypes in commercial imagery from toys to sheet music. Over 200 items are examples of how the black image has been distorted over the years. The black and white images provide powerful testimony.

Ethnic Notions: Black Images In The White Mind explores American racial stereotypes in commercial imagery, including toys, household items, postcards, sheet music, and advertisements. More than two hundred items showcased in these pages accurately depict the ways in which the black image was distorted and black people misrepresented in the broader American culture from 1847 to the present day in order to establish and reinforce the existing social discrepancies, justify discrimination, and perpetuate traditional majority/minority relationships in the county. Ethnic Notions is very highly recommended reading for Black Studies, social issues, and American cultural history reading lists and library reference collections.

I have worked within the system and witnessed many things, I can attest to the accuracy and honesty in this book. Father Booker explains the events that lead to his incarceration and rehabilitation with such honest emotion,that one can not help but "feel" as if they are actually on the journey with him. He was able to accomplish many things( education, work, tutor) that would normally be viewed as impossible to do from a prison cell. His positive outlook on life and love of God are evident in his life. Perhaps, this is why he is able to write so honestly about his journey.

This book should be made readily available to all prison inmates. The story would be enlightening to correcctions(incarceration) staff. The author(s) have shed light on many issues which should be addressed in today's legal and penal system. Those in society who believe, incorrectly, in the infalability of law enforcement and corrections people would have their eyes opened by this very nicely handled treatment of a delicate subject.

I love this book (and the movie also) they both ROCK!!Sure its makin' fun of action movies but it too is an action movie!Anyway the book does not stray too much from the movie,and if you like action and adventure novels you are sure to like this great novel.And after I read this novel I read some of Robert Tines other novels and if you like this book I reccomend Eraser.And if you like the book you should see the movie and vise versa.

This was the sweetest book in the world. Avery scary thriller about a kid who goes inside a movie. The coolest plot I have seen in a book.

We of course need more transgressive/radical voices than this volume, because it is only tentative in condemning the white male eurocentric paradigms of hatred. Instead, Armour somewhat haughtily tells white Americans how to *stop* being racist(!) while failing to intimately observe the white male mindset. As a feminist who is also a white woman, I am always a little disappointed in books of this sort; feminism attacks racism both head-on and discursively, and it is to feminism which this author devotes little space. However, this book could be a useful primer to high school students, especially in predominantly white schools. I must recommend the more courageous work of feminist thinkers for college students.

In reading this book I left with a different but more aware state of mind. I am in school for law and after reading this book it allowed me to see that as a country and me being a black woman that we still have a very long way to go for racial justice. I recomend this book to everyone because it was excellent and I tend to read it again.

This book is the second volume of the Library of America's documentary, journalistic history of the Civil Rights Movement. The first volume covers the years 1941-1963 and takes the story up to the March on Washington in August, 1963. The second volume covers a shorter time span, 1963 - 1973, but an equally momentous series of events. Volume II is easily important enough for its own short notice and review here.

The centerpiece of the two volumes is the March on Washington which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Indeed, the 1963 March, led by Dr. King, may be the watershed event of the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. There are three eyewitness accounts of the March presented in this book offering three different perspectives. The 1963 March, and the moment of idealism, justice and peace it has come to represent pervades and suggests worlds of commentary upon the rest of the volume.

The articles in this book have an emphasis on Congressional action. In 1964, following the 1963 events in Birmingham Alabama and the 1963 March, Congress passed the Civil Rights Law which, in time, would effectively end segregation in the South. In 1965, following events in Selma, Alabama and the March from Selma to Montgomery Alabama, Congress enacted voting rights legislation which at long last fulfilled the promise of the 15th Amendment to protect the voting rights of blacks. The events in Selma, and the manner in which they galvanized the nation are well documented in this book.

The story recounted in this volume is marked by assasination, violence and discord. There are two major assassinations highlighted here. The volume describes Malcom X's break from the Black Muslim movement and his assassination in February, 1965. A great deal of space is given to the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1965 and to its tragic aftermath.

There is much space given to the violence that haunted the struggle for Civil Rights. In particular, many articles are given over to the murder of three young Civil Rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Cheney during June, 1964. Their murder involved the FBI in a massive manhunt which ultimately led to the conviction of Klansmen and of local law enforcement officials.

There is a great deal of material in the volume on the riots in Watts and Detroit and with the rise of Black Power and the Black Panther movement.

There are articles in this volume that draw excellent portraits of the leaders of the Civil Rights movement, including Malcom X, Stokely Carmichael, Bayard Rustin, Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, and, of course, Dr. King.

There are pictures of dusty roads and small towns in the South. Many articles are given to pictures of the South before and after the victories of the Civil Rights Movement. There is a suggestion in more than a few articles that the South may have, given its past, an ultimately easier time of moving towards a unified, racially egalitarian and united society than will the North. Time still needs to tell whether this is will in fact bethe case.

These are two indespensible volumes on the most important social movement of 20th Century America. The Civil Rights Movement is an essential component in the formation of the American dream and the American ideal.

America's largest, most continuous, and most pressing domestic issue has been the treatment it has accorded black Americans. Similarly, the most important and valuable social movement in our country in the Twentieth Century was the Civil Rights movement which began, essentially, in the 1940's with WW II, received its focus with the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and continued through the 1950s 60s, and 70s.

The Library of America has published a two-volume history of the American Civil Rights Movement which focuses on contemporaneous journalistic accounts. The LOA's collection centers around the March on Washington in August 1963 which opens the second volume. The publication of the volumes, indeed, was timed to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of the March on Washington. This March is best known for Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech.

The first volume of the series, which I am discussing here, begins in 1941 and ends in the middle of 1963. In consists of about 100 articles and essays documenting the Civil Rights struggle during these momentous years. Given the centrality of the March on Washington to the collection, the volume opens with a "Call to Negro America" dated July 1, 1941 calling for 10,000 Black Americans to march on Washington D.C. to secure integration and equal treatment in the Armed Forces. Philip Randolph, then the President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters" was primarily responsible for this attempt to organize the 1941 march, and he participated prominently 22 years later in the 1963 March on Washington.

The volume documents other ways in which Civil Rights activities in the 1940s foreshadowed subsequent events. For example, there is an article detailing how Howard University students used the "sit-in" technique to desegregate Washington D.C. restaurants beginning in 1942. (see Pauli Murray's article on p. 62 of this volume). The sit-in technique was widely used beginning in the early 1960s to desegregate lunch counters in Southern and border states. There are many articles in this volume documenting these later sit-ins and their impact, as well as the original sit-in organized by Pauli Murray.

Among the many subjects covered by this book are Thurgood Marshall's early legal career for the NAACP, the Supreme Court's decision in "Brown", the lynching of Emmett Till in 1954 and the acquittal of the guilty parties by an all-white Mississippi jury, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which Martin Luther King first gained prominence, of 1956, the integration of Little Rock High School in 1957, the lunch counter sit-ins that I have already mentioned, the "Freedom Rides" the admission of James Meridith to the University of Mississippi in 1962, the Birmingam riots, and the murder of Medgar Evars, Missippi Field Secretary for the NAACP. on June 12, 1962. There is a great deal more, and the articles given in the volume address Civil Rights in the North as well as in the South.

There is an immediacy and an eloquence to this collection that gives the reader the feel of being there and participating at the time. The cumulative effect of reading the book through is moving and powerful. By reading the book cover-to-cover and as the articles are presented the reader will get a better feel for the Civil Rights Movement and Era that can be gotten anywhere else. The book records a seminal Era in our Nation's history and an idealism and a sprit that is difficult to recreate or recapture.

I would like to point out some of the longer articles that the reader should notice in going through the book. I enjoyed James Poling's 1952 essay "Thurgood Marshall and the 14th Amendment" which chronicles Marshall's early career. Another important essay is William Bradford Huie's "Emmett Till's Killers Tell their Story: January, 1956." which recounts the confession to Till's murder of the individuals acquitted by the Mississippi jury. Robert Penn Warren's 1956 book-length essay "Segregation: the Inner Conflict in the South" is reprinted in the volume in full. There is a lengthy excerpt from James Baldwin's 1962 "The Fire Next Time" which recounts Baldwin's meeting with Elijah Muhammad and his thoughts about the Black Muslim Movement. Norman Podhoretz's 1963 essay "My Negro Problem and Ours" remains well worth reading. Probably the most significant single text in this volume is Martin Luther King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail" written in 1963. In this famous letter, Dr. King responds eloquently to criticism of his movement and his techniques voiced by eight Birmingham clergymen. The letter is a classic, not the least for Dr. King's writing style.

The book contains a chronology which will help the reader place the articles in perspective, and biographical notes on each of the authors. I found myself turning to the biographies and the chronology repeatedly as I read the volume. The Library of America has also posted excellent study material for this book and its companion volume on its Website.

This is a book that documents American's history and our country's continuing struggle to meet and develop its ideals.

Compiled and edited by David Alan Black, (Professor of New Testament and Greek, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism is a selection of essays by five learned authors concerning interpretations of the New Testament and the various methods to determine the original text among conflicting readings. Topics addressed include the case for reasoned eclecticism versus the case for thoroughgoing eclecticism, the case for a Byzantine priority, and more in a thoughtful account that spans debate from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The essayists include: Eldon Jay Epp (Issues in New Testament Textual Criticism: Moving from the Nineteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century); Michael W. Holmes (The Case for Reasoned Eclecticism); J. K. Elliott (The Case for Thoroughgoing Eclecticism); Maurice A. Robinson (The Case for Byzantine Priority); and Moises Silva (Response). Enhanced with both a Subject Index and a Scripture Index, Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism is a work of confidently recommended scholarship and a welcome contribution to Christian Studies reference collections and reading lists.

This is an excellent book that tries to fairly portray the three major streams of N.T. Textual Criticism; Reasoned Eclecticism, Thoroughgoing Eclecticism, and Byzantine Priority. Eldon Jay Epp writes an extensive introduction and talks about some of the main issue facing modern textual criticism. He is followed by Michael Holmes who presents the case for Reasoned Eclecticism. Then J.K Elliott argues for Thoroughgoing Eclecticism, and Maurice Robinson sublimely conveys the Byzantine Priority point of view. Moises Silva consummates the book with a tongue in cheek critique of the all of the views presented, making no apologies for his own bias in doing so. All in all, an excellent book, Epps article was especially engaging, and I'm afraid the dust is still settling in my attic. This book is definitely worth the price.