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Books by Benjamin E.
Mays
Born to Rebel: An Autobiography /
Disturbed about Man /
The Negro's God, As Reflected in His Literature
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Dr.
Benjamin E. Mays Speaks
Representative Speeches of a Great
American Orator
Edited by Freddie C. Colston
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Reviews
Dr.
Benjamin E. Mays Speaks is a documentary
of thirty-one speeches delivered by the great educator, civil
rights advocate, minister, philosopher, humanitarian, and
orator. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to Dr. Mays as his
"spiritual and intellectual father," indicating the
influence Mays had on the development of his social and
religious thought. Dr. Mays inspired King while he was a student
at Morehouse College during the 1940s through his Tuesday
morning chapel speeches to the student body and in informal
chats thereafter. The close bond between them remained
throughout their lives.
In addition to
mentoring King, the Nobel prize laureate, Mays had a significant
impact on the lives of an immeasurable number of others who made
meaningful contributions to American life and culture. Dr. Mays
was a powerful, credible, smooth speaker who captured the
audience's full attention in the first few minutes and held it
until the end. This book is the first attempt to craft a
representative collection of Dr. May's oratory that embraces the
pre- and post-civil rights eras, along with lucid and logical
analyses of many of the key issues of the twentieth century
--Publisher
As a minister, educator, ecumenist,
counselor, civil rights activist, and author, Benjamin E. Mays
achieved national and international renown. After earning a
Ph.D. in Christian theology from the University of Chicago
Divinity School, Mays became dean of the Howard University
School of Religion. Serving in that capacity from 1934 to 1940,
his contributions gained national recognition for the School of
Religion and earned him an invitation to become the sixth
president of Atlanta's Morehouse College. From that post until
his retirement in 1967, Mays inspired generations of students to
strive for moral and academic excellence and to work for racial
justice in America. His 1948 chapel address introduced a young
student named Martin Luther King Jr. to Gandhi's philosophy of
nonviolence. Such a legacy made Benjamin Mays one of the most
influential educators of twentieth century America.
Source:
Dr.
Benjamin E. Mays Speaks
For orders and information please contact the publisher
University Press of America, Inc. 4720 Boston Way / Lanham, Maryland
20706 / 1-800-462-6420 /
www.univpress.com
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Freddie C. Colston has published articles on
politics and the black experience in professional journals. he
was a student at Morehouse College during the presidency of Dr.
Mays where he received his B.A. in political science in 1959. He
received an M.A. from Atlanta University in 1966 and a Ph.D. in
1972 from Ohio State University; both graduate degrees are in
political science. He has done extensive research on the life
and career of Dr. Mays since 1984. The author has taught
political science at Fort Valley State university, Southern
University, University of Detroit, Dillard University, Tennessee
State University, North Carolina Central University, and Georgia
Southwestern State University. In addition to his academic
appointments, Professor Colston served a stint at the Executive
Seminar Center, U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in Oak
Ridge, Tennessee, where he resides. |
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Debt: The First 5,000 Years
By David Graeber
Before there was money, there was debt. Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it. Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors. Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history—as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy. Economist Glenn Loury /Criminalizing a Race
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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updated 3 October 2007
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