edited by Peggy Brooks-Bertram ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 2, 2021
Ardent testimony to the significance of Harris’ triumph.
Grateful letters on the occasion of a historic election.
After Barack Obama was elected, Brooks-Bertram, an activist, historian, and co-founder of the Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women, gathered and published a compendium of letters to Michelle Obama, and she followed with a collection to support the first Black woman superintendent of Buffalo Public Schools. Kamala Harris’ election as vice president inspires her latest effort, a volume of “greetings, advice, warnings, prayers, requests, affirmations, and demands” from 100 women around the world, including activists, professionals, civil rights leaders, and Girl Scouts. “I am going to reach for my dreams because of Kamala and not be criticized as a black girl,” writes a ninth grade Girl Scout from New York. “One piece of advice I would give you is to not listen to people who say you can’t do it,” counsels a fifth grade Girl Scout from California. The letters are consistently ebullient, celebratory, and hopeful. A retired community activist from Atlanta exults, “My heart got that burst of pride that comes when one of my own children does something that makes me particularly proud to be their mother.” A Jamaican immigrant living in NYC: “Your drive, leadership and fortitude is so needed in this country right now, and I know that you will be able to accomplish your goals despite roadblocks that will come your way….I also hope that you and Joe Biden will reestablish The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.” Many writers urge Harris to address the nation’s many ills: systemic racism, White supremacy, climate change, the criminal justice system, and the racial, economic, housing, and medical disparities that have accelerated during the pandemic. “You have the opportunity to be a light in the darkness,” notes a business leader from Oklahoma. “You have our support behind you,” says a director and cinematographer, “but please, vote for us as we voted for you.”
Ardent testimony to the significance of Harris’ triumph.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68435-162-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Red Lightning Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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by Ilyse Hogue & Ellie Langford ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 22, 2020
A cogent “horror story” about the plot to reanimate mid-20th-century White male supremacy at the expense of abortion access.
Incisive look at the destructive path of anti-abortion ideology in the U.S.
Even though most Americans believe in a woman’s right to choose—“consistent research has shown that more than 7 in 10 Americans support legal access to abortion”—the radical right has succeeded in steadily eroding reproductive freedoms since Roe v. Wade. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders Hogue and Langford, the campaign against abortion is but a means to an end for the architects of the pro-life movement. Their true aim is the uncontested dominion of White Christian men. The battle began in 1954, when Brown v. Board of Education struck down “state laws used by segregationists to maintain structural inequality in the nation’s schools.” In 1976, the IRS rescinded the tax-exempt status of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s segregationist Bob Jones University. What has followed, argue the authors convincingly, is more than a half-century of machinations designed “to halt progressive cultural change and maintain power for a privileged minority.” Anti-abortion rhetoric is just a weapon, driven by design, propaganda, disinformation, and cowed Republican politicians—hallmarks of the Trump era. Hogue and Langdon make a strong case that the rises of Trump, fake news, and science skepticism are not flukes but rather the culmination of a dogged campaign by forces still smarting from desegregation and second- and third-wave feminism. The reproductive freedom of American women is the victim of an “anti-democratic power grab on a historic scale.” The authors build a chilling case that the startling 2019 wave of abortion bans across the nation should serve as a canary in the coal mine for citizens concerned with democracy and a catalyst for bolder messaging, better strategic planning, and sustained action to combat disinformation.
A cogent “horror story” about the plot to reanimate mid-20th-century White male supremacy at the expense of abortion access.Pub Date: July 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947492-50-9
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Strong Arm Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2020
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by Clint Hill ; Lisa McCubbin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 19, 2013
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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