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Finalist for the National Book Award (November 19), historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family’s dispersal after Jefferson’s death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings’s siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson’s wife, Martha. The Hemingses of Monticello sets the family’s compelling saga against the backdrop of Revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of its own revolution, 1790s Philadelphia, and plantation life at Monticello. Much anticipated, this book promises to be the most important history of an American slave family ever written. To see and learn more visit the Thomas Jefferson YouTube Channel!
This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family’s dispersal after Jefferson’s death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings’s siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson’s wife, Martha.
The Agitator’s Daughter: A Memoir of Four Generations of One Extraordinary African-American Family
Sheryll Cashin
PublicAffairs, July 7, 2008
$26.00 US; ISBN: 1586484222
During Reconstruction, Herschel V. Cashin was a radical republican legislator who championed black political enfranchisement throughout the South. His grandson, Dr. John L. Cashin, Jr., inherited that passion for social justice and formed an independent Democratic party to counter George Wallace’s Dixiecrats, electing more blacks to office than in any Southern state.
Toni Morrison discusses her new novel, A Mercy. . .
A Mercy
Toni Morrison
Knopf, November 11, 2008
$23.95 US; ISBN: 0307264238
In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root.
Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, “with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady.” Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master’s house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.
Darfur Refugees: A Global Issue
by Marlive, TheGRITS.com
Bloggers Unite, a "call to action" group at BlogCatalog.com, along with Refugees United are giving bloggers, vloggers and photo bloggers from all walks of life an opportunity to use their space to make the world a better place. Today I join bloggers world-wide to speak up on behalf of more than 40 million voiceless refugees who have been forced to leave their homes because of man’s inhumanity to man via — GENOCIDE!
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish scholar, coined the word genocide in 1944 to describe the systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Though this word came into existence just 64 years ago, genocide has been a common practice since ancient times in all parts of the world.
Genocide is what happened to:
- Native Americans in the US from 1490-1914
- Tasmanian Aborigines in 1803-1847
- Armenians in 1915-1917
- Cambodians in 1975-1979
- Guatemalans in 1981-1983
- Bosnians in 1992-1995
- Rwandans in just 100 days in 1994
And here we are in the 21st century, an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, and information about the genocide in Darfur and the millions of refugees left in its wake is a crisis we just don’t hear about. Read the rest of this entry »
Election night, November 4, 2008, became an unforgettable date in United States history! CBS Early Show host Harry Smith spoke with author Maya Angelou about Barack Obama’s achievement and it is her famous poem, “Still I Rise,” that she recites for him that eloquently captures what this election and presidency has come to mean to so many African-Americans in this country!
The Given Day: A Novel
Dennis Lehane
William Morrow, September 23, 2008
$27.95 US; ISBN: 0688163181
Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane’s long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters more richly drawn than any Lehane has ever created, The Given Day tells the story of two families–one black, one white–swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Beat cop Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city’s most beloved and powerful police captains, joins a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for violent radicals. Luther Laurence, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin family and tries desperately to find his way home to his pregnant wife.
Here, too, are some of the most influential figures of the era–Babe Ruth; Eugene O’Neill; leftist activist Jack Reed; NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois; Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson’s ruthless Red-chasing attorney general; cunning Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge; and an ambitious young Department of Justice lawyer named John Hoover.
Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the time–including the Spanish Influenza pandemic–and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.
“[An] engrossing epic. . . . A vision of redemption and a triumph of the human spirit.” –Publishers Weekly
Jewel
Beverly Jenkins
Avon, April 2008
$5.99 US, ISBN 0061161357
An unexpected love…
Jewel Crowley had pretty much resigned herself to being a spinster, caring only for her father and brothers, tending to their needs for the rest of her life. Eli Grayson, the town’s most notorious Lothario, has never been interested in having a wife. But when the success of a major business deal is dependent on his marital status, Eli has no choice but to produce a wife. The first person that comes to mind is Jewel. Anxious to secure the deal, Eli asks Jewel to pose as his wife. She scoffs at the idea, but eventually gives in.
Jewel and Eli find themselves unable to resist the passion that sparks uncontrollably between them. And before long, a marriage that is supposed to be in name only turns into an unexpected love. Their love is put to the test, though, when a blast from Eli’s past blows into town, bringing with it trouble and strife.
I’ve been an avid romance reader since my early teens, but since I am not a history buff, I shied away from any novel that was historical in nature. A dear friend urged me to give Beverly Jenkins a try, and even gave me my first set of Mrs. Jenkins novels. I’ve been hooked from the very first read and eagerly anticipate each and every story written by this very talented author.
Even though romance novels have to follow a certain plot structure, it is amazing what Mrs. Jenkins can do with that formulaic storyline. Not only does she turn it into a history lesson, but also a beautiful love story between strong characters. Even the staunchest critic of the romance genre would have a hard time not approving of her stories.
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Renee Williams, a freelance reviewer and promotional assistant for TheGRITS.com, is the CEO of Literary Signature Services, an event planning business specializing in literary gifts and events for authors and literary blogger/reviewer at All The Buzz.
The Bahamas Weekly brings you an exclusive interview with best-selling author Terry McMillan, of “Waiting to Exhale” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” recorded earlier this year at the suites of Pelican Bay Hotel.
Ms. McMillan was in Grand Bahama to participate in the prequil to the “Island Heart Beats Experience”, the brainchild of Nicole Scott of Turquoise Water Productions out of Miami, a new annual event for the island that will be run each year over Valentines Day and will give African-American women the chance to “take their hearts on vacation.”
What is NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month!
Starting Novebmer 1st, writers, young and old, all across this country will commit to writing a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. This fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to writing began July 1999 in the San Francisco Bay Area with a total of 21 participants. The number of participants in 2007 swelled to over 100,000 with more than 15,000 of them crossing the 50k word finish line by midnight on November 30th! Those 15,000+ were inducted into the NaNoWriMo Hall of Fame as NOVELIST . . . LOL!
The Way You Love Me: A Grayson Family Friends Novel
Francis Ray
St. Martin’s Paperbacks, August 26, 2008
$6.99 US; ISBN: 0312946848
About the Book
Nothing gets to Shane Elliott. A former Army Ranger, now head of security for a wealthy real estate tycoon, Shane can handle whatever life throws at him—until he meets the beautiful, kindhearted Paige Albright. She’s about to inherit a fortune, and Paige’s mother has asked Shane to investigate her boyfriend. It should have been a simple, standard assignment for Shane…if only Paige’s seductive mix of strength and vulnerability didn’t leave him wanting her for himself. Read the rest of this entry »
Starting Novebmer 1st, writers, young and old, all across this country will commit to writing a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. This fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to writing began July 1999 in the San Francisco Bay Area with a total of 21 participants. The number of participants in 2007 swelled to over 100,000 with more than 15,000 of them crossing the 50k word finish line by midnight on November 30th! Those 15,000+ were inducted into the NaNoWriMo Hall of Fame as NOVELIST . . . LOL! 
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