Author: Imani, Blair, author. Le, Monique, artist. Published: 2018 Call Number: 320.082 Format: Books Summary: "An illustrated and informative primer on the progressive social change movements of the last 60 years as told through the stories of 60 diverse female and non-binary leaders in those movements, from the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall riots through today. Inspiring a radical and inclusive approach to history, Modern HERstory celebrates 60 modern women and non-binary people who have changed the world. From the the civil rights movement and the women's movement to the LGBT rights movement and Black Lives Matter, these trailblazers come from backgrounds and communities that are traditionally overlooked and under-celebrated despite making huge contributions to the social change and progress movements of the last century: not just women, but people of color, queer people, trans people, Muslims, and young people. Authored by rising star activist Blair Imani, Modern HERstory tells the important stories of these leaders and their movements in an easy-to-follow format appropriate for all ages, granting them the visibility and acknowledgment they deserve, and educating readers about the people changing the world right here and right now--and inspiring them to do the same"--
Author: Whitaker, Mark, author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 305.896 WHITAKER Format: Books Summary: "The other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place--Pittsburgh, PA--from the 1920s through the 1950s. Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson's famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson--and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne. Mark Whitaker's Smoketown is a captivating portrait of this unsung community and a vital addition to the story of black America. It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. Whitaker takes readers on a rousing, revelatory journey--and offers a timely reminder that Black History is not all bleak." --Amazon.com.
Author: Beam, Cris, author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 152.4 Format: Books Summary: A cogent, gorgeous examination of empathy, illuminating the myths, the science, and the power behind this transformative emotion. Empathy has become a gaping fault line in American culture. Pioneering programs aim to infuse our legal and educational systems with more empathic thinking, even as pundits argue over whether we should bother empathizing with our political opposites at all. Meanwhile, we are inundated with the buzzily termed "empathic marketing"--Which may very well be a contradiction in terms. In I Feel You, Cris Beam carves through the noise with a revelatory exploration of how we perform empathy, how it is learned, what it can do--indeed, what empathy is in the first place. She takes us to the labs where the neural networks of compassion are being mapped, and the classrooms where children are being trained to see others' views. Beam visits courtrooms and prisons, asking how empathy might transform our justice system. She travels to places wracked by oppression and genocide, where reconciliation seems impossible, to report on efforts to heal society's deepest wounds through human connection. And finally, she turns to how we, as individuals, can foster compassion for ourselves. Brimming with the sensitive and nuanced storytelling that has made Beam one of our most respected journalists, I Feel You is an eye-opening affirmation of empathy's potential--
Author: Hartley, Gemma, 1988- author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 155.3 Format: Books Summary: "In her ultra-viral article 'Women Aren't Nags--We're Just Fed Up,' ... Gemma Hartley gave ... voice to the frustration and anger experienced by countless women. Now, in Fed Up, Hartley expands outward from the everyday frustrations of performing thankless emotional labor to illuminate how the expectation to do this work in all arenas--private and public--fuels gender inequality, limits our opportunities, steals our time, and adversely affects the quality of our lives"--Dust jacket flap.
Author: Weisman, Jonathan, author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 305.892 Format: Books Summary: "A short, literary, powerful contemplation on how Jews are viewed in America since the election of Donald J. Trump, and how we can move forward to fight anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism has always been present in American culture, but with the rise of the Alt Right and an uptick of threats to Jewish communities since Trump took office, New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman has produced a book that could not be more important or timely. When Weisman was attacked on Twitter by a wave of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, witnessing tropes such as the Jew as a leftist anarchist; as a rapacious, Wall Street profiteer; and as a money-bags financier orchestrating war for Israel, he stopped to wonder: How has the Jewish experience changed, especially under a leader like Donald Trump? In (((Semitism))), Weisman will explore the disconnect between his own sense of Jewish identity and the expectations of his detractors and supporters. He will delve into the rise of the Alt Right, their roots in older anti-Semitic organizations, the odd ancientness of their grievances--cloaked as they are in contemporary, techy hipsterism--and their aims--to spread hate in a palatable way through a political structure that has so suddenly become tolerant of their views. He will conclude with what we should do next, realizing that vicious as it is, anti-Semitism must be seen through the lens of more pressing threats. He proposes a unification of American Judaism around the defense of self and of others even more vulnerable: the undocumented immigrants, refugees, Muslim Americans, and black activists who have been directly targeted, not just by the tolerated Alt Right, but by the Trump White House itself"--
Author: Chemaly, Soraya L., author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 155.3 Format: Books Summary: "A new, conversation-shifting book that encourages women to own their anger and use it as a tool for positive change, written by one of today's most influential feminist thinkers"--
Author: Cullen, Art, author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 071.77 Format: Books Summary: "From a 2017 Pulitzer-winning newspaperman, an unsentimental ode to America's heartland as seen in small-town Iowa--a story of reinvention and resilience, environmental and economic struggle, and surprising diversity and hope. When The Storm Lake Times, a tiny Iowa twice-weekly, won a Pulitzer Prize for taking on big corporate agri-industry for poisoning the local rivers and lake, it was a coup on many counts: a strike for the well being of a rural community; a triumph for that endangered species, a family-run rural news weekly; and a salute to the special talents of a fierce and formidable native son, Art Cullen. In this candid and timely book, Cullen describes how the rural prairies have changed dramatically over his career, as seen from the vantage point of a farming and meatpacking town of 15,000 in Northwest Iowa. Politics, agriculture, the environment, and immigration are all themes in Storm Lake, a chronicle of a resilient newspaper, as much a survivor as its town. Storm Lake's people are the book's heart: the family that swam the Mekong River to find Storm Lake; the Latina with a baby who wonders if she'll be deported from the only home she has known; the farmer who watches markets in real time and tries to manage within a relentless agriculture supply chain that seeks efficiency for cheaper pork, prepared foods, and ethanol. Storm Lake may be a community in flux, occasionally in crisis (farming isn't for the faint hearted), but one that's not disappearing--in fact, its population is growing with immigrants from Laos, Mexico, and elsewhere. Thirty languages are now spoken there, and soccer is more popular than football"--
Author: Theoharis, Jeanne author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 323.1196 Format: Books Summary: The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History, award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light. We see Rosa Parks not simply as a bus lady but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; Martin Luther King, Jr. as not only challenging Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals, too; and Coretta Scott King not only as a "helpmate" but a lifelong economic justice and peace activist who pushed her husband's activism in these directions. Moving from "the histories we get" to "the histories we need," Theoharis challenges nine key aspects of the fable to reveal the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it took; the role of the media and "polite racism" in maintaining injustice; and the immense barriers and repression activists faced. Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive vision of justice -- which a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared. By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred.
Author: Hargrave, Courtney, author. Published: 2018 Call Number: 305.8 Format: Books Summary: "A harrowing true story of the modern Ku Klux Klan and an act of grace that shook a community in the Deep South. In 1996, the town of Laurens, South Carolina, was thrust into the international spotlight when a white supremacist named Michael Burden opened a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan on the community's main square. Journalists and protestors flooded the town, and hate groups rallied to the establishment's defense, dredging up the long history of racial violence in this formerly prosperous mill town. What came next is the subject of an upcoming major motion picture starring Forest Whitaker, Garrett Hedlund, Tom Wilkinson, Andrea Riseborough, and Usher Raymond. Shortly after his museum opened, Michael Burden abruptly left the Klan at the urging of a woman he fell in love with. Broke and homeless, he was taken in by Reverend David Kennedy, an African American preacher and leader in the Laurens community, who plunged his church headlong in a quest to save their former enemy. In this spellbinding Southern epic, journalist Courtney Hargrave uncovers the complex events behind the story told in the film, exploring the choices that led to Kennedy and Burden's friendship, the social factors that drive young men to join hate groups, the intersection of poverty and racism in the divided South, and the difference one person can make in confronting America's oldest sin"--
Author: Harpham, Heather Elise, 1967- author. Published: 2017 Call Number: B HARPHAM Format: Books Summary: Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny, but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant, Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends. Mere hours after Gracie's arrival, Heather's bliss is interrupted when a nurse wakes her, "Get dressed, your baby is in trouble." This is not how Heather had imagined new motherhood, alone, heartsick, an unexpectedly solo caretaker of a baby who smelled "like sliced apples and salted pretzels" but might be perilously ill. Brian reappears as Gracie's condition grows dire; together Heather and Brian have to decide what they are willing to risk to ensure their girl sees adulthood. The grace and humor that ripple through Harpham's writing transform the dross of heartbreak and parental fears into a clear-eyed, warm-hearted view of the world. Profoundly moving and subtly written, Happiness radiates in many directions, new, romantic love; gratitude for a beautiful, inscrutable world; deep, abiding friendship; the passion a parent has for a child; and the many unlikely ways to build a family. Ultimately it's a story about love and happiness, in their many crooked configurations. When Heather becomes pregnant, Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends. Mere hours after Gracie's arrival, a nurse wakes her: "Get dressed, your baby is in trouble." Brian reappears as Gracie's condition grows dire; together they have to decide what they are willing to risk to ensure their girl sees adulthood. Harpham writes about heartbreak and parental fears, the passion a parent has for a child, and the many unlikely ways to build a family.
Author: May, Elaine Tyler, author. Published: 2017 Call Number: 306.09 Format: Books Summary: "Fear has seeped into every area of American life: Americans own more guns than citizens of any other country, sequester themselves in barricaded houses and gated communities, and retreat from public spaces. And yet, since the 1990s crime rates have plummeted. Why then, are Americans so afraid? In Fortress America, award-winning historian Elaine Tyler May demonstrates how our obsession with security has made citizens fear each other and distrust the government, eroding American democracy. This trend is not merely an aftershock of 9/11--indeed, it dates back to the end of World War II. Cold War anxieties resulted in widespread nuclear panic. Officials encouraged Americans to build bunkers in their backyards and shun anyone they suspected of communist sympathies. In the 1960s and 1970s, Atomic Age anxieties gave way to misplaced fear of crime, leading to a preoccupation with "law and order." The media pointed to black men as dangerous and women as vulnerable, inaccurate claims that nevertheless led to mass incarceration of African Americans and women's exaggerated distrust of strangers. The threat of terrorism is only the most recent in a series of overblown fears that set Americans against each other. With fear on the rise, the concept of citizenship has deteriorated and concern for the common good has all but disappeared. In this remarkable work of history May charts the rise of a muscular national culture grounded in fear. Instead of a thriving democracy of engaged citizens, we have become a paranoid, bunkered, militarized, and divided vigilante nation."--Dust jacket flap.
Author: Brown, Brené, author. Published: 2017 Call Number: 158.2 Format: Books Summary: Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives -- experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame, and empathy. Now Brown redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarization. Brown argues that we're experiencing a spiritual crisis of disconnection, and introduces four practices of true belonging that challenge everything we believe about ourselves and each other. She writes, "True belonging requires us to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness both in being a part of something and in standing alone when necessary. But in a culture that's rife with perfectionism and pleasing, and with the erosion of civility, it's easy to stay quiet, hide in our ideological bunkers, or fit in rather than show up as our true selves and brave the wilderness of uncertainty and criticism. But true belonging is not something we negotiate or accomplish with others; it's a daily practice that demands integrity and authenticity. It's a personal commitment that we carry in our hearts." Brown offers us the clarity and courage we need to find our way back to ourselves and to each other. And that path cuts right through the wilderness. Brown writes, "The wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it's the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand."
Author: Frankel, Laurie author. Published: 2017 Call Number: F FRANKEL Format: Books Summary: "This is how a family keeps a secret...and how that secret ends up keeping them. This is how a family lives happily ever after...until happily ever after becomes complicated. This is how children change...and then change the world. When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it's another baby boy. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. But Claude is not like his brothers. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. He wants hair long enough to sit on. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn aren't panicked at first. Kids go through phases, after all, and make-believe is fun. But soon the entire family is keeping Claude's secret. Until one day it explodes. This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it's about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again; parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts; children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don't get to keep them forever"--
Author: Corera, Gordon author. Published: 2016 Call Number: 327.1202 Format: Books Summary: Reveals the history of espionage and its use of and dependency on technology, beginning with the Second World War and continuing through the Cold War and into rhe present Internet age where hackers and surveillance are commonplace.
Author: Smith, Mychal Denzel, 1986- author. Published: 2016 Call Number: 305.42421 Format: Books Summary: "A prominent journalist and contributing writer to The Nation magazine describes his education and the experiences of black masculinity against a backdrop of the Obama administration, the death of Trayvon Martin, the career of LeBron James and other pivotal influences that have shaped race relations in today's America,"--NoveList. How do you learn to be a black man in America? For young black men today, it means coming of age during the presidency of Barack Obama; witnessing the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and too many more. Smith chronicles his own personal and political education during these tumultuous years, describing his efforts to come into his own in a world that denied his humanity.
Author: Talese, Gay author. Published: 2016 Call Number: 306.7709 Format: Books Summary: Reveals the story of a man who bought a motel and secretly observed his guests to satisfy his voyeuristic desires, and kept extensive journals capturing the changing sexual mores of the country.
Author: Carville, James author. Published: 2016 Call Number: 324.2734 CARVILLE Format: Books Summary: "In We're Still Right, They're Still Wrong, Carville analyzes how the Republican party has ultimately failed to deliver on its promises and how Donald J. Trump--the party's likely nominee in the 2016 presidential election--is the embodiment of that failure--and worse..."--Dust jacket.
Author: Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, 1947- author. Obstfeld, Raymond, 1952- author. Published: 2016 Call Number: 305.5097 Format: Books Summary: Traces the evolution of the author's views on social justice, from his youth in the civil rights era to his current role as a cultural commentator on topics ranging from race and economic inequality to music and the influence of the media.
Author: Glaude, Eddie S., Jr., 1968- author. Published: 2016 Call Number: 305.896 GLAUDE Format: Books Summary: "A polemic on the state of black America that argues that we don't yet live in a post-racial society"--
