Forty Five Ways To Feel Alive Black And White

Now with a new foreword, this timely reissue features a remarkable collection of oral histories that trace three decades of turbulent race relations and social change in the United States for a new generation of activists. One evening in 1955, Howard Spence, a Mississippi field representative for the NAACP investigating the Emmett Till murder, was confronted by Klansmen who burned an eight-foot cross on his front lawn. "I felt my life wasn't worth a penny with a hole in it." Twenty-four years later, Spence had become a respected pillar of that same Mississippi town, serving as its first Black alderman. The story of Howard Spence is just one of the remarkable personal dramas recounted in Black Lives, White Lives. Beginning in 1968, Bob Blauner and a team of interviewers recorded the words of those caught up in the crucible of rapid racial, social, and political change. Unlike most retrospective oral histories, these interviews capture the intense racial tension of 1968 in real time, as people talk with unusual candor about their deepest fears and prejudices. The diverse experiences and changing beliefs of Blauner's interview subjects—sixteen of them Black, twelve of them white—are expanded through subsequent interviews in 1979 and 1986, revealing as much about ordinary, daily lives as the extraordinary cultural shifts that shaped them. This book remains a landmark historical and sociological document, and an exceptional primary-source commentary on the development of race relations since the 1960s. Republished with a foreword by Professor Gerald Early, Black Lives, White Lives offers new generations of scholars and activists a galvanizing meditation on how divided America was then and still is today.

A dazzling memoir that explores what it means to become fully alive and holy when we embrace the silenced stories we’ve inherited—from the creator of Black Coffee with White Friends. “Marcie Alvis Walker writes with an honesty that is both dauntless and compassionate.”—Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh In her debut book, Everybody Come Alive, Marcie Alvis Walker invites readers into a deeply intimate and illuminating memoir comprising lyrical essays and remembrances of being a curious child of the seventies and eighties, raised under the critical and watchful eye of Jim Crow matriarchs who struggled to integrate their lives and remain whole. While swimming in rivers of racial trauma and racial reckoning, Alvis Walker explores her earliest memories—of abandonment and erasure, of her mother’s mental illness and incarceration, and of her ongoing struggles with perfectionism and body dysmorphia—in hopes of leaving a healed and whole legacy for her own child. Nostalgic but unflinching, candid yet tender, Everybody Come Alive is an invitation to be vulnerable along with the author as she unravels all the beauty and terror of God, race, and gender’s imprint on her life. This is a coming-of-age journey touching on the bittersweet pain and joy of what it takes to become a person who embraces being Black, a woman, and holy in America. Alvis Walker’s unforgettable writing challenges readers to not only see and hold her story as being fully human, but also to see and hold their own stories too.

New York Times bestselling author Julie Lythcott-Haims is back with a groundbreakingly frank guide to being a grown-up What does it mean to be an adult? In the twentieth century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finish your education, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. Since then, every generation has been held to those same markers. Yet so much has changed about the world and living in it since that sequence was formulated. All of those markers are choices, and they’re all valid, but any one person’s choices along those lines do not make them more or less an adult. A former Stanford dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising and author of the perennial bestseller How to Raise an Adult and of the lauded memoir Real American, Julie Lythcott-Haims has encountered hundreds of twentysomethings (and thirtysomethings, too), who, faced with those markers, feel they’re just playing the part of “adult,” while struggling with anxiety, stress, and general unease. In Your Turn, Julie offers compassion, personal experience, and practical strategies for living a more authentic adulthood, as well as inspiration through interviews with dozens of voices from the rich diversity of the human population who have successfully launched their adult lives. Being an adult, it turns out, is not about any particular checklist; it is, instead, a process, one you can get progressively better at over time—becoming more comfortable with uncertainty and gaining the knowhow to keep going. Once you begin to practice it, being an adult becomes the most complicated yet also the most abundantly rewarding and natural thing. And Julie Lythcott-Haims is here to help readers take their turn.

A lawyer with a well-stamped passport and a passion for human rights, Lisa-Jo Baker never wanted to be a mom. And then she had kids. Having lost her own mother to cancer as a teenager, Lisa-Jo felt lost on her journey to womanhood and wholly unprepared to raise children. Surprised by Motherhood is Lisa-Jos story of becoming and being a mom, and in the process, discovering that all the what to expect and how to books in the world can never truly prepare you for the sheer exhilaration, joy, and terrifying love that accompanies motherhood. Set partly in South Africa and partly in the US (with a slight detour to Ukraine along the way), Surprised by Motherhood is a poignant memoir of one womans dawning realization that being a mom isnt about being perfectits about being present.

Beyond Loving provides a critical examination of interracial intimacy in the beginning decades of the twenty-first century-an era rife with racial contradictions, where interracial relationships are increasingly seen as symbols of racial progress even as old stereotypes about illicit eroticism persist. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, Amy Steinbugler examines the racial dynamics of everyday life for lesbian, gay, and heterosexual Black/White couples. She disputes the notion that interracial partners are enlightened subjects who have somehow managed to "get beyond" race. Instead, for many partners, interracial intimacy represents not the end, but the beginning of a sustained process of negotiating racial differences. Her research reveals the ordinary challenges that partners frequently face and the myriad ways that race shapes their interactions with each other as well as with neighbors, family members, co-workers and strangers. Steinbugler analyzes the everyday actions and strategies through which individuals maintain close relationships in a society with deeply-rooted racial inequalities-what she calls "racework." Beyond Loving reveals interracial intimacy as an ongoing process rather than a singular accomplishment. This analytic shift helps us reach a new understanding of how race "works"-not just in intimate spheres, but across all facets of contemporary social life.

Big flavours from a small island '"Curry Everything" says the title of the curry section in this delicious book. To which I reply: "Bring it on!" But that's not all. Cynthia also takes us on a journey through the stories and memories of her family to decipher the rich oral tradition of Sri Lankan cooking. This book makes me hungry to travel, explore and eat new things, especially curries.' - Yotam Ottolenghi 'This book is a thing of great beauty and heart. The food jumps out at you with a promise of deliciousness. I want to cook every single recipe' - Anna Jones 'Rambutan is a joyous book, stuffed with tantalising food and beautiful writing. Cynthia's recipes and reminiscences speak with warmth and heart and soul to the experience of those of us with roots elsewhere, of growing up feeling slightly displaced, of having to come to terms with different cultures' - Shamil Thakrar, Dishoom 'This book is a diamond in the rough: a proper (and honest) insider's guide to Sri Lankan home cooking via Cynthia's kitchen. I picked up this book for the food, but I'll treasure it forever for the stories' - Meera Sodha Rambutan tells the story of Sri Lanka's unique, spicy, fresh, vegan-friendly cuisine that deliciously combines Javanese, Malay, Indian, Arab, Portuguese, Dutch and British influences. Cynthia serves up a feast of over 80 simple recipes, including coconut dal, hoppers, kothu roti, cashew nut curry and her mum's slow-cooked Jaffna lamb curry. Stories of family and travel combine with beautiful landscapes and candid photography to show both ancient and modern Sri Lanka. From crispy hopper pancakes to spicy drinking snacks, this exuberant guide is for beginners and experienced cooks alike.