Blacks Greatest Homeland

In the last six years, Nigeria has broken the grip of dictatorship, poverty, and corruption to emerge as one of Africa's most peaceful nations. A role model for other developing countries, Nigeria now enjoys its position as a peace and power broker, defying the odds of its past. Home to the world's greatest concentration of black people and led by President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria now enjoys economic prosperity and the fruits of democracy. But these successes were fraught with challenges. The denigration and stereotyping of black people created a constant barrier to change, one that was not easily overcome. Dr. Jubril Olabode Aka delivers a compelling portrayal of Nigeria, focusing on the country's emerging force for tolerance and hope. Aka discusses such topics as peaceful conflict resolution, Nigeria's foreign policy, the government's success in eliminating fraud and corruption, and the need to eradicate discrimination. Blacks Greatest Homeland examines Nigeria's history, leadership, and future, offering an honest and positive look at the sweeping changes Nigeria has made in the last decade.

Monograph examining the political development and economic development of the Black homelands regions of Bophuthatswana and Kwazulu. Covers legal aspects of apartheid, political and economic administration, sources of income and public finance, leadership development and homeland public administration, etc., and comments on relevant legislation and future development planning.

SOCIAL SCIENCE / POLITICAL / GENERAL Womanhood is an embodiment of love, motherhood, blessings, better presidency and compassionate leadership. Femininity is indispensable. Women motivational abilities make them outstanding managers of human and economic resources. They represent the magic wand for progress and development, stability, peace and prosperity. They do better in education, health-care, socio-economics, politics and focus better with political savvy and sagacity, transparency, security and spirituality. They excel in diplomacy, peaceful conflict resolution, love, empathy, sincerity, responsibility and discrimination-free irrespective of race, color, religion, gender or disability. Antithetically, manhood characterizes war presidency, defensiveness, negligence and staying the course with failed policies, prosecuting avoidable wars instead of diplomacy to win hearts and peace. Unwittingly, they sacrificed over 3,000 US soldiers, 20,000 wounded, over $500 billion and created scandals and civil war. If the first woman 'Eve' turned the world up-side-down, great women world-wide should realign it upward and forward moving. Unequivocally, a woman US President can speedily restore America's image which is at its lowest ebb. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

What does it mean to be from somewhere? If most people in the United States are "from some place else" what is an American homeland? In answering these questions, the contributors to Homelands: A Geography of Culture and Place across America offer a geographical vision of territory and the formation of discrete communities in the U.S. today. Homelands discusses groups such as the Yankees in New England, Old Order Amish in Ohio, African Americans in the plantation South, Navajos in the Southwest, Russians in California, and several other peoples and places. Homelands explores the connection of people and place by showing how aspects of several different North American groups found their niche and created a homeland. A collection of fifteen essays, Homelands is an innovative look at geographical concepts in community settings. It is also an exploration of the academic work taking place about homelands and their people, of how factors such as culture, settlement, and cartographic concepts come together in American sociology. There is much not only to study but also to celebrate about American homelands. As the editors state, "Underlying today's pluralistic society are homelands—large and small, strong and weak—that endure in some way. The mosaic of homelands to which people bonded in greater or lesser degrees, affirms in a holistic way America's diversity, its pluralistic society." The authors depict the cultural effects of immigrant settlement. The conviction that people need to participate in the life of the homeland to achieve their own self realization, within the traditions and comforts of that community. Homelands gives us a new map of the United States, a map drawn with people's lives and the land that is their home.

Sibert Award Winner: This true story of five years of starvation in Ireland is “a fascinating account of a terrible time” (Kirkus Reviews). In 1845, a disaster struck Ireland. Overnight, a mysterious blight attacked the potato crops, turning the potatoes black and destroying the only real food of nearly six million people. Over the next five years, the blight attacked again and again. These years are known today as the Great Irish Famine, a time when one million people died from starvation and disease and two million more fled their homeland. Black Potatoes is the compelling story of men, women, and children who defied landlords and searched empty fields for scraps of harvested vegetables and edible weeds to eat, who walked several miles each day to hard-labor jobs for meager wages and to reach soup kitchens, and who committed crimes just to be sent to jail, where they were assured of a meal. It’s the story of children and adults who suffered from starvation, disease, and the loss of family and friends, as well as those who died. Illustrated with black and white engravings, it’s also the story of the heroes among the Irish people and how they held on to hope. “Bartoletti humanizes the big events by bringing the reader up close to the lives of ordinary people.”—Booklist (starred review)

A Treasury of Hundreds of Books that Help Boys Grow and Flourish "Images-strong, proud and happy, brave, and now also humorous . . . what a joy it is to see black faces of all shades in our children's books."-Doug E. Doug, Actor, The Bill Cosby Show "As a child . . . I wish there had been more books that reflected my world and my interests."-Earl G. Graves, Chairman, Publisher, and CEO, Black Enterprise magazine How do you know which books are the best for boys at every age? Now, two of the mothers who founded the esteemed Black Books Galore!-the nation's leading organizer of African American children's book festivals-and the authors of the highly acclaimed Black Books Galore! Guide to Great African American Children's Books, share their expert advice. Let BBG! help you open the door to a wonderful world of reading for the boys in your life. Invaluable for parents, teachers, and librarians, this easy-to-use, delightfully illustrated reference guide features: * Quick, lively descriptions of over 350 books * Hundreds of young black heroes and positive role models * Reflections from kids, famous authors, illustrators, and public figures about their favorite childhood books * Easy-to-find listings organized by age level and indexed by title, topic, author, and illustrator * Recommended reading for parents of boys "This is a great resource that fills a tremendous need. It should be on parents' shelves at home as well as in every school."-Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D., Harvard Medical School, on Black Books Galore! Guide to Great African American Children's Books

Homelands blends oral history, documentary studies, and quantitative research to present a colorful local history with much to say about multicultural identity in the South. Homelands is a case study of a unique ethnic group in North America--small-town southern Jews. Both Jews and southerners, Leonard Rogoff points out, have long struggled with questions of identity and whether to retain their differences or try to assimilate into the nationalculture. Rogoff shows how, as immigrant Jews became small-town southerners,they constantly renegotiated their identities and reinvented their histories. The Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish community was formed during the 1880s and 1890s, when the South was recovering from the Reconstruction era and Jews were experiencing ever-growing immigration as well as challenging the religious traditionalism of the previous 4,000 years. Durham and Chapel Hill Jews, recent arrivals from the traditional societies of eastern Europe, assimilated and secularized as they lessened their differences with other Americans. Some Jews assimilated through intermarriage and conversion, but the trajectory of the community as a whole was toward retaining their religious and ethnic differences while attempting to integrate with their neighbors. The Durham-Chapel Hill area is uniquely suited to the study of the southern Jewish experience, Rogoff maintains, because the region is exemplary of two major trends: the national population movement southward and the rise of Jews into the professions. The Jewish peddler and storekeeper of the 1880s and the doctor and professor of the 1990s, Rogoff says, are representative figures of both Jewish upward mobility and southern progress.

Originally published in 1994, Homelands, Harlem & Hollywood examines the anti-colonialist struggle against apartheid, and the ways in which American and South African culture have been fascinated with and influenced by one another. Rob Nixon’s wide-ranging analysis looks at Hollywood representations of the struggle for liberation, the impact of the Harlem Renaissance on the Sophiatown writers, the banning and censorship of television under apartheid, Mandela and messianic politics, the sports and cultural boycotts, ethnic nationalism, and the culture of violence. Nixon concludes with an investigation of how the collapse of communism and anti-communism and the rise of ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union had powerful implications for the shape of post-apartheid South Africa.