Worthwhile insight on the role of the church in social justice movements.
A concise debut memoir of a Protestant pastor in the 1960s and ’70s.
Newell was born into relative affluence in Detroit, 1927. His father worked hard as a businessman, but after his mother became ill (possibly bipolar disorder), Newell’s father grew increasingly absent both physically and spiritually. Young Newell was most influenced by his paternal grandfather, a theologian and teacher, and by the turtles in Gull Lake that inspired his search for “a world that could make sense.” Newell’s move to a working-class area and, later, his time in the Merchant Marine further instilled a curiosity and sense of social justice. He enrolled in Harvard Divinity School, taking time off to study with George MacLeod at the Iona community in Scotland. Newell was impressed by MacLeod’s ideas—that “a church not deeply engaged in ministering to those in need…is a moribund church.” He endeavored to bring this concept home and eventually became a pastor at New York Avenue Presbyterian in Washington, where he worked “to understand the nature of the social ills we witnessed.” He writes of his work with Martin Luther King Jr. to organize the 1963 March on Washington and Stokely Carmichael on voter registration in the South. Newell offers insightful, firsthand accounts of the 1968 riots and King’s assassination and its aftermath. In the 1980s, he lived in New York and tackled community and labor issues. Newell’s voice is clear and engaging throughout his memoir. He provides a wealth of factual details and illustrates these with vivid personal anecdotes. He also demonstrates—in his book and life—the potential of ministry to serve and empower all. Perhaps lacking is sufficient counterbalance to Newell’s conviction and success, although he briefly mentions familial struggles.
Worthwhile insight on the role of the church in social justice movements.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5043-7125-4
Page Count: 118
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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