by William J. Barber II with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2016
A heartfelt dose of old-time religion mixed with modern-day activism.
A battle-hardened pastor calls for a faith-based, grass-roots movement for social justice.
Now that the white power structure has “found quieter, more subtle ways to suppress the electoral power of black and poor people,” it’s time, writes the author, for a Third Reconstruction to combat extremists. With the help of Wilson-Hartgrove (New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church, 2008, etc.), Barber offers a narrative that’s part memoir, part civil rights history, and part organizer handbook. The author came to national prominence in 2013 as the leader of Moral Mondays, where for 13 consecutive weeks, hundreds of North Carolinians went to jail, peacefully arrested after protesting the General Assembly’s assault on a wide range of issues dear to progressives. These demonstrations drew tens of thousands of participants and attracted the national spotlight, a success attributable to years of patient coalition-building based on truths Barber drew from the Bible, history, and his own personal experience. He links his life story—fighting for unions, for death row inmates, heading up North Carolina’s NAACP, pastoring a small church—to the civil rights battles of the past, identifying common themes and successful tactics that run from Frederick Douglass through Martin Luther King to the present. It’s the religious component that makes his story particularly interesting. Fully aware of the suspicion Bible-speak arouses in modern progressive circles, the author still insists on viewing the justice struggle through a moral prism, one always backstopped by “a Higher Power.” His coalition welcomes people of all religions, including those “who struggle with faith,” and he pointedly rejects attempts by opponents to divide the movement on controversial issues like same-sex marriage. Sufficiently hip to the modern leftist vocabulary to name-check the likes of Saul Alinsky or Cornel West, Barber more often employs language—“yield to the Spirit”—likely to baffle or irritate his largely secular progressive audience.
A heartfelt dose of old-time religion mixed with modern-day activism.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8070-8360-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
More by William J. Barber II
BOOK REVIEW
by William J. Barber II & Liz Theoharis with Rick Lowery
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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
Share your opinion of this book
by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
Share your opinion of this book
More by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.