Stars For Freedom

Download or read book Stars for Freedom written by Emilie Raymond and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Oprah Winfrey to Angelina Jolie, George Clooney to Leonardo DiCaprio, Americans have come to expect that Hollywood celebrities will be outspoken advocates for social and political causes. However, that wasn’t always the case. As Emilie Raymond shows, during the civil rights movement the Stars for Freedom - a handful of celebrities both black and white - risked their careers by crusading for racial equality, and forged the role of celebrity in American political culture. Focusing on the “Leading Six” trailblazers - Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dick Gregory, and Sidney Poitier - Raymond reveals how they not only advanced the civil rights movement in front of the cameras, but also worked tirelessly behind the scenes, raising money for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legal defense, leading membership drives for the NAACP, and personally engaging with workaday activists to boost morale. Through meticulous research, engaging writing, and new interviews with key players, Raymond traces the careers of the Leading Six against the backdrop of the movement. Perhaps most revealing is the new light she sheds on Sammy Davis, Jr., exploring how his controversial public image allowed him to raise more money for the movement than any other celebrity. The result is an entertaining and informative book that will appeal to film buffs and civil rights historians alike, as well as to anyone interested in the rise of celebrity power in American society. A Capell Family Book A V Ethel Willis White Book

Download or read book The Freedom Star written by Jeff Andrews and published by . This book was released on 2012-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: COMPELLING HISTORICAL FICTION - The Freedom Star is a riveting, character-driven saga of two families, one owned by the other, at the outbreak of America's Civil War. One reader calls it, "Powerful and evocative." Another describes it as, "Just one of those special books." The year is 1860. A young slave named Isaac toils in the tobacco fields while longing for the freedom that Henry, his boyhood friend and owner's son, takes for granted. Awaiting his chance to escape, he steals away under cover of darkness to shepherd others on their journey north along the Underground Railroad. When war comes, Henry enlists to fight for Virginia. In his absence, Patrick, his older brother, seizes control of the family farm. Fear grips the slave quarters as Patrick's harsh new ways become law. Suddenly, slaves feel the sting of the whip, Patrick sells Isaac's father, and Isaac's mother must now shield her children, as well as Henry's invalid father, from Patrick's greed-driven brutality. Following false promises and failed escapes, Isaac's only hope of reuniting with the woman he loves lies in joining Henry and the Rebels on their march north. When Henry is wounded and taken prisoner, Isaac is finally behind Union lines and free, but facing a choice: should he follow his dreams north or return to slavery to save his friend? The Freedom Star unfolds against the backdrop of the Civil War, bringing added tension to this gripping family drama. One reader said, "Jeff Andrews paints a vivid picture of the civil war slave life. His character development is superb. By the end of the story, you feel like you know each of the characters intimately." WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: "Riveting and real - Just two words to describe this wonderful book." "A Wonderful Story - Transporting me back in time, I was pulled into the lives of the slaves and the slave owners. Mr. Andrews created characters that soon either won my heart or made my blood boil." "Fantastic - ...impossible to put down, which resulted in me staying up way too late for too many nights. It has been quite sometime since I have become this involved in a book. A MUST read " "Fascinating Novel - The author did a wonderful job creating believable, three-dimensional characters and portraying realistic scenarios and interactions between them." "Great story with characters that will be hard to forget -A very well-written story that will stay with you well after the last pages are read." "Strongly recommended - The characters are so real I miss them now that I have finished reading the book."

Download or read book A Dream of Freedom written by Diane McWhorter and published by Scholastic Nonfiction. This book was released on 2004 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McWhorter offers an incisive and personal look at the American civil rights movement, honoring its heroes as well as the ordinary individuals behind it.

Download or read book A Breath of Freedom written by Maria Höhn and published by Palgrave MacMillan. This book was released on 2010-09-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on an award-winning international research project and photo exhibition, this poignant and beautifully illustrated book examines the experiences of African American GIs in Germany and the unique insights they provide into the civil rights struggle at home and abroad. Thanks in large part to its military occupation of Germany after World War II, America’s unresolved civil rights agenda was exposed to worldwide scrutiny as never before. At the same time, its ambitious efforts to democratize German society after the defeat of Nazism meant that West Germany was exposed to American ideas of freedom and democracy to a much larger degree than many other countries. As African American GIs became increasingly politicized, they took on a particular significance for the Civil Rights Movement in light of Germany’s central role in the Cold War. While the effects of the Civil Rights Movement reverberated across the globe, Germany represents a special case that illuminates a remarkable period in American and world history. Digital archive including videos, photographs, and oral history interviews available at www.breathoffreedom.org

Download or read book Dancing Down the Barricades written by Matthew Frye Jacobson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-11-26 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deep dive into racial politics, Hollywood, and Black cultural struggles for liberation as reflected in the extraordinary life and times of Sammy Davis Jr. Through the lens of Sammy Davis Jr.'s six-decade career in show business--from vaudeville to Vegas to Broadway, Hollywood, and network TV--Dancing Down the Barricades examines the workings of race in American culture. The title phrase holds two contradictory meanings regarding Davis's cultural politics: Did he dance the barricades down, as he liked to think, or did he simply dance down them, as his more radical critics would have it? Davis was at once a pioneering, barrier-busting, anti-Jim Crow activist and someone who was widely associated with accommodationism and wannabe whiteness. Historian Matthew Frye Jacobson attends to both threads, analyzing how industry norms, productions, scripts, roles, and audience expectations and responses were all framed by race against the backdrop of a changing America. In the spirit of better understanding Davis's life and career, Dancing Down the Barricades examines the complexities of his constraints, freedoms, and choices for what they reveal about Black history and American political culture.

Download or read book The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star written by and published by . This book was released on 1871 with total page 842 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Monsters written by Claire Dederer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A timely, passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of cancel culture, and of the link between genius and monstrosity. Can we love the work of controversial classic and contemporary artists but dislike the artist? "A lively, personal exploration of how one might think about the art of those who do bad things" —Vanity Fair • "[Dederer] breaks new ground, making a complex cultural conversation feel brand new." —Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, Monsters is “part memoir, part treatise, and all treat” (The New York Times). This unflinching, deeply personal book expands on Claire Dederer’s instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" Can we love the work of artists such as Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Miles Davis, Polanski, or Picasso? Should we? Dederer explores the audience's relationship with artists from Michael Jackson to Virginia Woolf, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. Does genius deserve special dispensation? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art. “Monsters leaves us with Dederer’s passionate commitment to the artists whose work most matters to her, and a framework to address these questions about the artists who matter most to us." —The Washington Post A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Vulture, Elle, Esquire, Kirkus