Justice Howard S Voodoo

Peer behind the curtain and journey into Voodoo's hidden world. A forbidden and often misunderstood subject, Voodoo has never before been photographically depicted in this way. The people and the spirits of Voodoo are creatively conjured in 69 photos from world-renowned photographer Justice Howard, coupled with the insightful words of Voodoo Queen Bloody Mary. Subjects include Papa Legba, gatekeeper of the crossroads, and the revered priestess Marie Laveau. See the realities behind Voodoo dolls and meet graveyard rulers Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte. Voodoo priestess Bloody Mary shares intriguing background information for each of the concepts and explains the meaning of ritual items, from food offerings to libation to the misconceptions of animal sacrifice.

From the author of Barefoot Tribe, whose “manifesto offers hope and inspiration for people of all faiths” (Booklist), comes a spiritually exhilarating guide toward living a life full of purpose, authenticity, and justice. Growing up in Liberia, Palmer Chinchen often heard people say, “Carry me halfway.” Dangerous predators lurked in the dark, making it unsafe for anyone to walk alone in the jungle. So friends would gather to walk each other home. But they'd never actually stop halfway; they would always walk you all the way home. From years of experience, Chinchen has learned that this concept can also be applied to one's spirituality. The church does well carrying people halfway, but unfortunately, a great majority of churchgoers rarely mature past the halfway mark—leaving them to unknowingly lead spiritually underdeveloped lives, never nearing their full potential. The theology, Bible memorization, weeknight services, choir groups, and sermons are somehow not enough, and something often seems strangely missing, inadequate. We have been taught that we develop spiritually through knowing and introspection. But Chinchen offers another way, a way many have missed. In Carry Me Halfway Palmer Chinchen presents inspiring and practical ways to find the purpose, authenticity, and justice lacking in our lives. Heinvites us to walk together, all the way, toward selfless living and becoming far less concerned with self-preservation and personal piety. When we live like that...we grow. And we will be transformed.

An interdisciplinary, code-switching, critical collection by revisionist African American scholar and activist Bernard W. Bell.

Understanding crime, criminals, and criminal justice from a radical/critical perspective is indispensable in today's academic, applied research, and policy sectors. Neglect of this approach leads to narrow-mindedness and the probability of repeating past mistakes or reinventing the wheel. Cutting the Edge by Jeffrey Ian Ross will encourage individuals and organizations, especially students and instructors, to innovatively identify ways of experimenting with new policy initiatives designed to improve not only criminal justice, but social and human justice as well. Ross has significantly changed this volume to include six new chapters and three revised ones as well. The studies chosen demonstrate the difference between critical criminology and other approaches used to study and explain criminological phenomena. The authors do not approach the inequalities of the criminal justice system as phenomena that should be studied, but as wrongs that must be righted. Cutting-edge critical criminology combines concerns about fairness in punishment, tools of class analysis and the insights of feminism, postmodernism, and ethnography. The authors included here wield these newer tools with elegance and enthusiasm. Written with passion by experts in the field, the book engages the mind as fully as it engages the emotions.

During the 1920s and 1930s, anthropologists and folklorists became obsessed with uncovering connections between African Americans and their African roots. At the same time, popular print media and artistic productions tapped the new appeal of black folk life, highlighting African-styled voodoo as an essential element of black folk culture. A number of researchers converged on one site in particular, Sapelo Island, Georgia, to seek support for their theories about "African survivals," bringing with them a curious mix of both influences. The legacy of that body of research is the area's contemporary identification as a Gullah community. This wide-ranging history upends a long tradition of scrutinizing the Low Country blacks of Sapelo Island by refocusing the observational lens on those who studied them. Cooper uses a wide variety of sources to unmask the connections between the rise of the social sciences, the voodoo craze during the interwar years, the black studies movement, and black land loss and land struggles in coastal black communities in the Low Country. What emerges is a fascinating examination of Gullah people's heritage, and how it was reimagined and transformed to serve vastly divergent ends over the decades.

‘And behind him, like a misshapen black frog, bounded the Thing, its red tongue lolling out of its gash of a mouth, its diminutive blubbery lips drawn back in a murderous snarl…’ Let Henry S. Whitehead take you into the mysterious and macabre world of voodoo where beasts invade the mind of man and where lives of the living are racked by the spirits of the dead. In this collection of rare and out of print stories you will encounter the curses of the great Guinea-Snake, the Sheen, the weredog whose very touch means certain death, the curious tale of the ‘magicked’ mirror, and fiendish manikins who make life a living hell. Included in this festival of shivering fear is the remarkable narrative ‘Williamson’ which every editor who read the story shied away from publishing. With deceptive simplicity and chilling realism, Whitehead’s Voodoo Talesare amongst the most frightening ever written.

They call him "America's Mayor." But to blacks that title sugarcoats Rudy Giuliani's real reputation as one of the most racially divisive leaders in the nation. Peter Noel's book puts Giuliani's often-ignored record of oppressing the "other New York" front and center in the 2008 presidential race. Noel was a witness to "Giuliani time" in New York. As the race beat journalist for The Village Voice, he reported exclusively on the police brutality that rained down on blacks, and the denigration of black leadership by Giuliani. In this collection of his exposés, Noel provides stunning insights into the most notorious events of Giuliani's tenure, including the execution-style killing of Amadou Diallo and the sadistic torture of Abner Louima. Both men-like many black victims of Giuliani's stop-and-frisk policing-were innocent of any wrongdoing. This brutality sparked a new black activist movement. Scores, including Jesse Jackson, were arrested-and Peter Noel was there to cover it. No journalist was more insightful about the rise of Al Sharpton, Khallid Muhammad's "Million Youth March," and Giuliani's demonization of David Dinkins, the city's first black mayor. There are interviews with major political players, inside accounts of the shifting alliances and violent conflicts between ethnic groups, and a stinging critique of the white-dominated media. And then there is Peter Noel's interview with Giuliani, which took the form of a street fight in Harlem. In these eloquent, often searing pieces, written in an outraged and authentic voice, Peter Noel spoke truth to the power of an "Afriphobic" mayor. In this revealing book, he still does.