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By These
Hands
A Documentary History of African
American Humanism
Edited by Anthony B. Pinn
Review
The
Black church is often praised for its contribution to Black
culture and politics. More recently Islam has been recognized as
an important force in African American liberation. Anthony
Pinn's new anthology
By These
Hands demonstrates the crucial,
often overlooked role that Humanism has played in African
American struggles for dignity, power and justice. Pinn collects
the finest examples of African American Humanism and shows how
it's embrace by a variety of prominent figures in African
American thought and letters has served as the basis for
activism and resistance to American racism and sexism.
Pinn uncovers little known
treasures of African American Literature such as The Slave
Narrative of James Hay, where an abused slave decides to rely on
himself, rather than God, for deliverance from the horrors of
slavery, and a letter from Frederick Douglass which scandalized
his religious friends by proclaiming that "One honest
Abolitionist was a greater terror to slaveholders than whole
acres of camp-meeting preachers shouting glory to God."
Essays by Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright demonstrate the
profound influence of Humanism in the Harlem Rennaisance, and
pieces by James Farmer, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Huey
Newton show Humanism's impact on the civil rights and Black
Power movements.
Designed for classroom use,
this radical reconsideration of African American history will be
a must read for anyone interested in African American History,
African American Religion and Philosophy, and American History.
Contributors: Norm Allen, Jr., Herbert Aptheker,
James Baldwin, Amiri Imamu Baraka, J. Mason Brewer, Sterling
Brown, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B.Du Bois, James Foreman, Duchess
Harris, Hubert H. Harrison, Harry Haywood, Zora Neale Hurston,
William R. Jones, William Loren Katz, Benjamin E. Mays, Huey P.
Newton, Daniel Payne, J. Saunders Redding, William L. Van DeBurg,
Alice Walker, and Richard Wright.
Contents
Preface
xiii
Introduction:
Humanism in the U.S. Context 1
Part
I. Nineteenth-Century Humanism: Nineteenth-Century African
American History 17
A.
HISTORY, CULTURE, AND POLITICS
1. Religious Humanism: Its problems and Prospects in Black
Religion and Culture 25
William R. Jones
2. Nineteenth-Century Black Feminist Writing and Organizing as a
Human Act 55
Duchess Harris
B.
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
3. The Story of James Hay 71
William Loren Katz, Editor
4. An Unpublished Frederick Douglass
Letter 75
Herbert Aptheker
5. Fredrick Douglass: Maryland Slave to Religious
Liberal 83
William L. Van Deburg
C.
OBSERVATIONS
6. Negro Folk Expression: Spirituals, Seculars, Ballads, and
Work Songs 103
Sterling Brown
7. Daniel Payne's Protestation of
Slavery 123
Daniel Payne
Part
II. Twentieth-century Humanism: Twentieth-Century
African-American History 131
A.
HISTORY, CULTURE, AND POLITICS
8. The Negro's God as Reflected in His Literature: Ideas of God
Involving Frustration, Doubt, God's Impotence, and His
Non-Existence 137
Benjamin E. Mays
9. Humanism in Political Action 147
Norm R. Allen, Jr.
B.
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
10. On a Certain Conservatism in Negroes
163
Hubert H. Harrison
11. Religion, from Dust Tracks on a Road
171
Zora Neale Hurston
12. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and
Youth 183
Richard Wright
13. On Being Negro in America 193
J. Saunders Redding
14. Experiences of a Chimney Sweeper 201
Lyle Saxon, Editor
15. The Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois: A Soliloquy on Viewing
My Life from the Last Decade of Its First
Century 211
William Edward Burghardt DuBois
16.The Fire
Next Time 227
James Baldwin
17. The Legacy
of Malcolm X and the Coming of the Black
Nation 237
Amiri Imamu Baraka
18. Halley's
Comet and My Religion 249
Harry Haywood
19.
"Corrupt Black Preachers" and "God Is Dead: A
Question of Power" 261
James Forman
20. The Only
Reason You Want to Go to Heaven Is That You Have been Driven Out
of Your Mind 287
Alice Walker
C.
OBSERVATIONS
21. On the
Relevance of the Church: May 19, 1971
301
Huey P. Newton
22. An
African-American Humanist Declaration
319
African Americans for Humanism
Acknowledgements
327
Index
331
About the Editor
339
Source:
By These
Hands
A Documentary History of African
American Humanism
Anthony Pinn
is associate professor in the Macalester religious studies
department, teaching courses on African American religion,
history of Black religious thought and Black theology. Author of
several acclaimed books, including Why Lord?: Suffering and Evil
in Black Theology and Varieties of African American Religious
Experience, he is currently researching religion in the African
Diaspora and social protest thought in the AME church.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 3
December 2011
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