Showing results by narrator "Karen   Chilton" in All Categories

Since the publication of the first edition of Critical Race Theory in 2001, the United States has lived through two economic downturns, an outbreak of terrorism, and the onset of an epidemic of hate directed against immigrants, especially undocumented Latinos and Middle Eastern people. On a more hopeful note, the country elected and re-elected its first black president and has witnessed the impressive advance of gay rights. Critical Race Theory is essential for understanding developments in this burgeoning field, which has spread to other disciplines and countries.

This audiobook is an updated edition of a guide to the basic science of climate change, and a call to action. The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity has significantly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—most dramatically since the 1970s. Yet global warming skeptics and ill-informed elected officials continue to dismiss this broad scientific consensus. In this updated edition of his authoritative book, MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel outlines the basic science of global warming and how the current consensus has emerged.

Even the most disorganized among us can take control of our on- and off-line details so our loved ones won’t have to scramble later. The experts at Everplans make it possible in this essential and easy-to-follow book. Breaking the task down into three levels, from the most urgent (like granting access to passwords), to the technical (creating a manual for the systems in your home), to the nostalgic (assembling a living memory), this clear, step-by-step program not only removes the anxiety and stress from getting your life in order, it’s actually liberating. And deeply satisfying.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017.

In this evocative short piece, Candace worries that her mother, Annie, has reached an emotional breaking point. When her best friend loses her battle with cancer, Annie is acting in uncharacteristic ways, seemingly less concerned than ever about what her friends and neighbors think of her - a troubling development in her daughter’s eyes. But while Candace may think she knows her mother better than anyone, something deeper lingers beneath the surface, and times of hardship have a way of bringing us closer together than ever.

From her start playing paddle tennis on the streets of Harlem as a young teenager to her eleven Grand Slam tennis wins to her professional golf career, Althea Gibson became the most famous Black sportswoman of the mid-twentieth century. In her unprecedented athletic career, she was the first African American to win titles at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. In this first full-scale biography, Ashley Brown narrates the public career and private struggles of Althea Gibson (1927–2003).

Once in a great while a book comes along that radically changes our understanding of a crucial political issue and helps to fuel a social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Lawyer and activist Michelle Alexander offers a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status, denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights movement.

In this blinding debut, Robert Jones Jr blends the lyricism of Toni Morrison with the vivid prose of Zora Neale Hurston to characterise the forceful, enduring bond of love and what happens when brutality threatens the purest form of serenity. The Halifax plantation is known as Empty by the slaves who work it under the pitiless gaze of its overseers and its owner, Massa Paul. Two young enslaved men, Samuel and Isaiah, dwell among the animals they keep in the barn, helping out in the fields when their day is done. But the barn is their haven, a space of radiance and love.

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.

At 7:30 a.m. on June 16, 1944, George Junius Stinney, Jr., was escorted by four guards to the death chamber. Wearing socks but no shoes, the 14-year-old Black boy walked with his Bible tucked under his arm. The guards strapped his slight, five-foot-one-inch frame into the electric chair. His small size made it difficult to affix the electrode to his right leg and the face mask, which was clearly too large, fell to the floor when the executioner flipped the switch. That day, George Stinney became the youngest person executed in the United States during the 20th century.

Vern, a Black woman with albinism, is hunted after escaping a religious compound, then she discovers that her body is changing and that she is developing extra-sensory powers. Alone in the woods, she gives birth to twins and raises them away from the influence of the outside world. But something is wrong - not with them, but with her own body. To understand her body's metamorphosis, Vern must investigate not just the secluded religious compound she fled but the violent history of dehumanisation, medical experimentation and genocide that produced it.

Between grad school and multiple jobs, Naledi Smith doesn't have time for fairy tales . . . or the patience for constant emails claiming she's betrothed to an African prince. Sure. Right. Delete! As a former foster kid, she's learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and the scientific method, and a silly email won't convince her otherwise. Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed.

Nothing could stop Toni “Tomboy” Stone from playing baseball—not even her parents. The only girl on a church team, she persevered as insults were hurled her way from the boy players. She caught the attention of former major leaguer Gabby Street, who gave her a chance at his summer baseball school. With Coach Street’s training—and the cleats he gifted her—Toni managed to earn a spot in the minor leagues. Though teams were hesitant to sign a woman, she pitched the idea that fans would pay to see a woman play—and it worked

Throughout history, the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has protected the right to bear arms. For Black Americans, this has come with the understanding that the moment they exercise this right (or the moment that they don’t), their life - as surely as the lives of Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor - may be snatched away in a single, fateful second.

Piven and Cloward have updated their classic work on the history and function of welfare to cover the American welfare state's massive erosion during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the US welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society.

On June 17, 2015, 12 members of the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina welcomed a young white man to their evening Bible study. He arrived with a pistol, 88 bullets, and hopes of starting a race war. Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine innocents during their closing prayer horrified the nation. In Grace Will Lead Us Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes provides a definitive account of the tragedy’s aftermath.

Twelve-year old Charley Cuffey is many things: a granddaughter, a best friend, and probably the best pitcher in all of Lee's Mill. Set on becoming the first female pitcher to play professional ball, Charley doesn't need reminders from her best friend Cool Willie Green to know that she has lofty dreams for a Black girl in the American South. When Charley challenges a neighbourhood bully to a game at the church picnic, she knows she can win, even with her ragtag team. But when the picnic spills over onto their ball field, she makes a fateful decision.

In the midst of her groundbreaking twenty-year career in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm once declared, “Everyone—with the exception of the black woman herself—has been interpreting the black woman.” Edited and introduced by Zinga A. Fraser, Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words gives listeners a rare opportunity to engage with the congresswoman’s powerful ideas in her own voice.

In Rye, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An eighth-grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye’s mascot should stay or change. Now six middle schoolers get involved in the issue that already has the suburb turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly. At the center of this story about human rights and Native sovereignty, there are six young people.

Our ancestors gathered around a fire in a circle, families gather around their kitchen tables in circles, and now we are gathering in circles as communities to solve problems. This peacemaking practice draws on the ancient Native American tradition of a talking piece and combines that with concepts of democracy and inclusivity.