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Books by Dorothy
Rice
Pennies to Dollars
/ The Seventeenth Child
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Christians Are Forgivers: Obama as Healer
By Dorothy Rice
In 1977, after a
year of church-hopping, I joined a church in Richmond,
Virginia. I joined for three reasons: the country-church
intimacy, and great singing, and my mother was also a
member. The fiery, animated sermons fueled me from week
to week. Although the sermons varied, they always ended
with the pastor acknowledging the exact time and place
when he became born again.
There were things
about the church that occasionally annoyed me. For
example, the choirs' beautiful harmony and inspiration
were sometimes daunted by the repetitive and loud
attempts to whip everyone into a spiritual frenzy. My
mother and I would glance knowingly at each other to
signal "enough is enough."
Also the pastor,
for all his humility, was sought after during election
times. City council and state legislature members and
aspirants courted our vote. The pastor was partisan in
his politics and made no bones about whom we should vote
for. I resented that because I wanted to make my own
decisions. On occasion I would simply walk out as a
quiet protest.
Nonetheless, my
children and I participated in vacation bible school and
they also joined the children's, youth, and young adult
choir causing me to swell with pride as they proceeded
down the aisle in their angel robes. I could always hear
their individual voices as I watched them sing and clap,
and rock. The church also had the best meals. Ours was a
feeding church.
The pastor died two
decades later, so we floundered for three years with
interim pastors before we elected a young man from
Georgia. An educated fellow who had been preaching since
he was a boy. His father was also a preacher. This young
man could be articulate, but he also had some of that
Georgia countryisms which sometimes endeared us, made us
laugh. He was a crowd-pleaser with his characteristic
droning, and throwing his handkerchief in the air and
catching it. He lasted seven years until his lies caught
up with him. He had lost his driver's license because of
his drinking and driving convictions. Then he got caught
cross dressing as a prostitute.
But we were a
loving church, a forgiving church. So we recommended
counseling. After all, all of us had cross-dressed in
some sin. But he was not penitent either, so we had to
dismiss him. It tore us up emotionally because we had to
start searching again. Another three years passed,
during which time, I visited other churches and
considered joining another when my husband asked me to
stay so that the family could continue to worship
together. I stayed. We got a new pastor: a young,
impatient man ready to evangelize the world, take all
our tithes and offerings to build a mega church. Sure we
wanted to build a larger church, but mega was not on our
minds.
Little did we know
his impatience would morph into pitting congregants
against each other as he attempted to dismantle our
cherished traditions, disrespected our elders, and
demonized any opposition to his ecclesiastical
authority. It got really bad and was about to get worse.
He has become an outrageous dictator, but still it was
hard to leave our church. The church was more than one
person. It is all the people, resources, ministries,
traditions, and shared vision. But one person can
dismantle all the good will and destroy a church. The
reason we didn’t leave are as varied and similar as the
reasons Hillary decided to remain with her philandering
husband. Christians are forgivers.
Still, I wonder why
so many seemingly intelligent or educated people
continued to follow him. I wonder what character flaws
they share. My mother always said, “Tell me who your
friends are and I’ll tell you what you are.” And my
siblings and I were drawn to some unsavory associates
and friends. Sometimes we did what they did. Sometimes
we were mere voyeurs of their clandestine behaviors.
When one of my girlfriends got pregnant in high school,
some people denigrated her, but we remained friends. I
accepted her for the good friend she had always been.
Barack Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright is like
that. Why throw away the baby with the water? I believe
Obama is the only candidate who has the qualities for
healing this war-torn nation. Belief and reason are
sometimes at odds. Sometimes qualifications are
intangible.
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Dorothy Marie Rice is a literature and
history resource teacher at the Arts and Humanities Center in
Richmond, Virginia. She presents her original poetry in
local venues. She was a winner of the first Furious Flower
Poetry Prize in 1995. She has co-authored two books:
Pennies to Dollars with her cousin Muriel Miller Branch, and
The Seventeenth Child with her mother Lucille Mabel Walthall Payne.
Both books are currently out of print. In addition to
creating poems, she makes paper jewelry and papier-mâché
bowls. |
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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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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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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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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 3 April 2008
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