African American Review articles from June 1997

African American Review archives from June 1997

Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement.
June 22, 1997... David L. Chappell. Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. 303 pp. $42.00 This book, the author declares in the introduction, is about the relationship between morality and...

African Americans and the Living Constitution.
June 22, 1997... John Hope Franklin and Genna Ree McNeil. African Americans and the Living Constitution. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution P. 1995. 364 pp. $45.00. The Constitution of the United States was adopted in 1787 and became effective in 1789....

Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana.
June 22, 1997... Judith Kelleher Schafer. Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1994. 389 pp. $45.50 cloth/$16.95. paper. This very important book focuses on the evolution of law and the operation of...

Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy.
June 22, 1997... Stephen Steinberg. Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy. Boston: Beacon, 1995. 276 pp. $25.00. In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made much-quoted statements about...

The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990.
June 22, 1997... Charles T. Banner-Haley. The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1994. 258 pp. $40.00 cloth/ $16.95 paper. There are some books one's home library ought not be without, and...

American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender.
June 22, 1997... Robyn Wiegman. American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. 288 pp. $45.95 cloth/$15.95 paper. American Anatomies is an ambitious book; as its subtitle suggests, it promises to read race and gender as mutually...

Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism.
June 22, 1997... Victor Anderson. Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism. New York: Continuum, 1995. 180 pp. $22.95. For nearly a century Du Bois's proclamation concerning the "color-line" and "double...

Scars of Conquest/Masks of Resistance.
June 22, 1997... Tejumola Olaniyan. Scars of Conquest/ Masks of Resistance. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. 196 pp. $42.00 cloth/$16.95 paper. In this brilliant study, Professor Olaniyan surveys the origins and parameters of African-based theatre through a...

Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy.
June 22, 1997... Houston A. Baker, Jr. Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1963. 110 pp. $16.95. Houston Baker's Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy has two goals: First, Baker analyzes Black and Afro-American Studies...

The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930.
June 22, 1997... Steven Watson. The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930. New York: Pantheon, 1995. 235 pp. $22.00. The Harlem Renaissance still entrances. As an important part of the period that swept America to the forward look of...

Women of the Harlem Renaissance.
June 22, 1997... Cheryl A. Wall. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. 266 pp. $29.95 cloth/$14.95 paper. In the last decade a growing body of scholarship devoted to women of the Harlem Renaissance has transformed our understanding...

"Doers of the Word": African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830-1880).
June 22, 1997... Carla L. Peterson. "Doers of the Word". African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830-1880). New York: Oxford UP, 1995. 293 pp. $38.00. Doers of the World is an important to scholarship on nineteenth-century African...

Conversions and Visions in the Writings of African-American Women.
June 22, 1997... Kimberly Rae Connor. Conversions and Vision in the Writings of African-American Women. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1994. 317 pp. $34.00. This book will be of more use to scholars in religious studies than to those in literary criticism or...

Spooks, Spies and Private Eyes: Black Mystery, Crime and Suspense Fiction.
June 22, 1997... Paula L. Woods, ed. Spooks, Spies and Private Eyes: Black Mystery. Crime and Suspense Fiction. New York: Doubleday, 1995. 368 pp. $22.95. Anyone who pays attention to trends in popular fiction cannot help being struck by the appearance and...

The Critical Response to Richard Wright.
June 22, 1997... Robert J. Butler, ed. The Critical Response to Richard Wright. Westport: Greenwood, 1995. 199 pp. $55.00. In 1991 the Library of America published two volumes of Richard Wright's work and prompted a Richard Wright renaissance. The early and...

James Baldwin: A Biography.
June 22, 1997... David Leeming. James Baldwin: A Biography. New York: Knopf. 1994. 457 pp. $15.95. Terry Eagleton recently observed that "the structure of biography is biology: even the most wayward of geniuses have to get themselves born and educated,...

Cultural Contexts for Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
June 22, 1997... Eric J. Sundquist. Cultural Contexts for Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Boston: Bedford Books, 1995. 258 pp. $6.95. Teachers and students of Ralph Ellison's canonical anatomy of African American cultural experience will welcome this...

August Wilson and the African-American Odyssey.
June 22, 1997... Kim Pereira. August Wilson and the African-American Odyssey. Urbana: U Illinois P. 1995. 123 pp. $29.95 cloth/$12.95 paper. Critical discourse on August Wilson's dramatic agenda is now well underway. Fueled by the prolific playwright's...

Dusky Maidens: The Odyssey of the Early Black Dramatic Actress.
June 22, 1997... Jo A. Tanner. Dusky Maidens: The Odyssey of the Early Black Dramatic Actress. Westport: Greenweed, 1992. 171 pp. $47.95. What stands out in Jo Tanner's valuable account of the early black dramatic actresses in this country are both the...

Representing Jazz.
June 22, 1997... Krin Gabbard, ed. Representing Jazz. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. 320 pp. $16.95. --, ed. Jazz Among the Discourses. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. 288 pp. $16.95 The publication of these two collected anthologies represents an important moment in the...

The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Vol. 1, The New York Age Editorials (1914-1923).
June 22, 1997... James Weldon Johnson. The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Volume I: The New York Age Editorials (1914-1923). Ed. with an Intro. by Sandra Kathryn Wilson. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. 324 pp. $45.00. --. The Selected Writings of James...

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: vol. 2,-Rediscovering Precious Values, July 1951-November 1955.
June 22, 1997... Carson, Clayborne, ed. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Volume II--Rediscovering Precious Values, July 1951-November 1955. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994. 645 pp. $35.00. The second volume of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,...

My Soul Is a Witness: African-American Women's Spirituality.
June 22, 1997... Gloria Wade-Gayles, ed. My Soul Is a Witness: African-American Women's Spirituality. Boston: Beacon, 1995. 370 pp. $24.00. Several of the essays in the first section of My Soul is a Witness provided me with metaphors to describe my...

Classic Plays from the Negro Ensemble Company.(Brief Article)
June 22, 1997... Paul Carter Harrison and Gus Edwards, eds. Classic Plays from the Negro Ensemble Company. Foreword by Douglas Turner Ward. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1995. 618 pp. $79.95 cloth/$29.95 paper. Founded in 1967, the Negro Ensemble Company...

In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry.
June 22, 1997... E. Ethelbert Miller, ed. In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry. New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 1994. 256 pp. $24.95. Ethelbert Miller, director of Howard University's African American Resource Center,...

Fast Talk, Full Volume: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry.
June 22, 1997... Alan Spears, ed. Fast Talk, Full Volume: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. Cabin John, MD: Gut Punch P, 1993. 250 pp. $11.95. When Fast Talk, Full Volume first arrived in the mail and I perused it, I thought, we have...

The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells.
June 22, 1997... Miriam DeCosta-Willis, ed. The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells. Boston: Beacon, 1995. 238 pp. $24.00. To know Ida B. Wells, more than a hundred years after she launched her journalistic career, is to love her. We admire the courageous...

Shadow and Light: An Autobiography.
June 22, 1997... Mifflin Wistar Gibbs. Shadow and Light: An Autobiography. Intros. by Booker T. Washington and Tom W. Dillard. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1995. 372 pp. $15.00. In 1902, year following the appearance of Booker T. Washington's popular Up From...

A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story.
June 22, 1997... Elaine Brown. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1994. 463 pp. $14.95. Huey Newton's of act Elaine Brown to succeed him as leader of the Black Panther Party in 1974 was historic. Whatever his self-serving...

Be I Whole.
June 22, 1997... Gita Brown. Be I Whole. Aspen, CO: MacMurray and Beck, 1995. 267pp. $16.95. The recent novels by Bebe Moore Campbell and Gita Brown illustrate the variegated richness of contemporary African American women's writing. Brothers and Sisters,...

Brothers and Sisters.
June 22, 1997... Moore Campbell. Brothers and Sisters. New York: Berkeley, 1994. 544 pp. $6.99. The recent novels by Bebe Moore Campbell and Gita Brown illustrate the variegated richness of contemporary African American women's writing. Brothers and...

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.
June 22, 1997... Anna Deavere Smith. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1994. 265 pp. $21.95. In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry, with A Raisin in the Sun, revolutionized the American theater when she created an African intellectual the likes...

Harlem Wrestler and Other Poems.
June 22, 1997... Alvin Aubert. Harlem Wrestler and Other Poems. Lotus Poetry Series. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1995. 56 pp. $10.00. In Alvin Aubert's new collection, his second since his 1985 new and selected, South Louisiana, we meet the same...

Wounded in the House of a Friend.
June 22, 1997... Sonia Sanchez. Wounded in the House of a Friend Boston: Beacon, 1995, 105 pp. $15.00. Sonia Sanchez's latest collection of poetry Wounded in the House of a Friend, published in April 1995, reached a second printing in May, a third in the...

"Protection in My Mouf": self, voice, and community in Zora Neale Hurston's 'Dust Tracks on a Road' and 'Mules and Men.' (autobiography and ethnography by Zora Neale Hurston)
June 22, 1997... Zora Neale Hurston opens her first collection of African-American folklore, Mules and Men, with a condensed version of the story of her own life: When I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the crib of negroism. From the earliest...

"It's a Time in the Land": gendering black power and Sarah E. Wright's place in the tradition of black women's writing. (on racism and sexism)
June 22, 1997... The concept of Black Power rests on a fundamental premise: Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks. By this we mean that group solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively from a bargaining position...

"Our Father, God; Our Brother, Christ; or are we bastard kin?": images of Christ in African American painting.
June 22, 1997... On August 31, 1924, in New York City, Fourth International Convention of Negroes of the World closed with a unique ceremony that celebrated a Blessed Black Man of Sorrows and the Blessed Black Mary. With much fanfare and to a hall filled to...

Following the traces of female desire in Toni Morrison's 'Jazz'. (novel)
June 22, 1997... Toni Morrison's exploration of desire seeps into every aspect of her novel Jazz, from the richness of her style to the content matter of her love triangle. She moves from clarinets on Harlem street corners which awaken desire in passers-by to...

The pull to memory and the language of place in Paule Marshall's 'The Chosen Place, The Timeless People' and 'Praisesong for the Widow.' (novels)
June 22, 1997... Merle Kinbona in The Chosen Place, The Timeless People and Avey Johnson in Praisesong for the Widow reveal subtle, if ultimately optimistic, models of resistance to the insidious, internalized effects of racism and Western acquisitiveness....

Reading 'Rice': a local habitation and a name.(a collection of poems)
June 22, 1997... Nikky Finney, a South Carolinian Black woman, wrote Rice, her second collection of poems, over an extended period of gestation and personal growth. I read the collection two years before it was eventually published by Sister Vision Press in...

"The Black Dick": race, sexuality, and discourse in the L.A. novels of Walter Mosley. (African American detective novels)
June 22, 1997... The streets were dark with something more than night. (Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder" 13) Black narrative writing in America often employs a detective-like protagonist struggling against an evil society - as Theodore O. Mason,...

"Come-to-Jesus Stuff" in James Baldwin's 'Go tell It on the Mountain' and 'The Amen Corner.' (a novel and a play)
June 22, 1997... By his own account, James Baldwin wrote The Amen Corner in reaction to the reception of his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. His reaction was a complex one, perhaps more complex than he admitted openly in his preface to the published...