Showing results by narrator "Rodney Tompkins" in All Categories

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass covers the life of the prominent abolitionist during and after the Civil War. Here, Douglass provides a fuller account of his escape from slavery and the underground railway to freedom. It includes his recollections of presidents Garfield and Lincoln, Johnson and Garfield, and an account of his service as Marshall of the District of Columbia.

The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois is a landmark in sociology and a cornerstone of African American literature. The book comprises various essays on race, some of which had previously appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. As an uncompromising advocate of civil rights, Du Bois stated that through work, culture, and liberty, the dual heritage of African Americans could be melded into a force for positive social and cultural change.

A rivetting account of the western pioneers and their journeys across the wildlands in the early years of the 19th century. Travelling from the east to Pacific Coast held many dangers. The narrative describes those who traveled with him and many encounters with Indian tribes.

Daniel A. Payne went down in history as a supporter of the education and liberation of African Americans as well as the first black man selected to lead a college. First published in the Lutheran Herald, his oration supporting the abolition of slavery unites a religious stance with a social criticism. Payne’s words describe slavery as the great oppressor, detaching man from his divinity and lowering him to the level of brutes.

Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835-1923) was an editor, historian, and prominent theologian of his time who founded The Christian Recorder, an early African American newspaper. In his 1895 book The Color of Solomon, he contends that King Solomon of the Bible did not belong to the white race.

The Jamaican orator and entrepreneur Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (1887-1940) preached success to the African diaspora. He believed that attaining economic, cultural, and political success would free African Americans in this life. Identifying integrity of character as the first step toward achievement, Garvey promoted capitalism as the means to establish African Americans as an independent group.

Rufus L. Perry was an educator and Baptist minister from Brooklyn, New York. He was a member of the African Civilization Society and was a co-founder of the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum. The Cushite is a short work that investigates the history of ancient peoples.

Dr. William Lucius Hunter, MD (1850-1915) was a clergyman of the African Methodist-Episcopal Church and a physician who graduated at the University of Buffalo in 1890. In his 1901 book Jesus Christ Had Negro Blood in His Veins, Dr. Hunter researches scripture in order to fight segregation and abuse. He identifies Canaanites as being black and claimed that several important Jewish figures and ancestors of Jesus had children by this group of people. Hunter came to the conclusion that Jesus had black ancestry dating back to Ham, the son of Noah.

Born a slave, William Wells Brown (1814-1884) escaped to the North where he became a prominent abolitionist, historian, novelist and playwright. His 1863 book The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements portrays the lives of individuals selected by Brown that had “by their own genius, capacity, and intellectual development, surmounted the many obstacles which slavery and prejudice have thrown in their way, and raised themselves to positions of honor and influence."

The author was born a slave on a plantation near Wilmington, North Carolina. He discusses the religious meetings he conducted as a slave near Wilmington, including encounters with patrols that attempted to prevent such meetings, and instances of benign social interaction between the races. This 1885 edition of Thomas H Jones's expanded 1862 edition of his memoir includes an addendum on his ministry during slavery and on his experiences as a minister on the abolitionist lecture circuit.

In the year 2166, baseball is just a distant memory, lost to history in the aftermath of a devastating second American Civil War a hundred years earlier. But, when Joe Scott, a curious 12-year-old, stumbles upon a relic from the distant past, from before the war, it sparks a search for its meaning. Little does he know that the wheels of Providence have been unwittingly set in motion which leads him on an epic quest of adventure and discovery.

Aspirational Justice author and subject matter expert Robert Spicer presents his global scale philosophy for healing and reconciliation. With a solutions-based approach, this method of aspirational justice for African Americans focuses on three areas of concentration: our shared suffering, triumphs, and healing.

Langston delivers this speech at his old alma mater in 1874, touching on the topic of slavery in the United States. He addresses the president and friends on how the colored American has risen from being treated like a beast to an enfranchised man. His view is that the land is no longer ravaged by hate, but breeds a fraternal appreciation.

Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835 - 1923) was an African American clergyman and editor. He served as a Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1886, and founded The Christian Recorder, an important early African American newspaper. In The Negro in Holy Writ, published in 1900, Tanner shows that the African people are described in the Bible. He argues that the ancient Cushim were the ancient Ethiopians, and that they were Negroes. The book provides evidence for the unity of all mankind.

In 1802, Richard Drake (1790-1857) at the age of 12, joined his uncle on a slaving voyage between Benin and Brazil. It was the beginning of his 50 years’ career as a slave trader. Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, published posthumously in 1860, tells his stories including those of journeys to the interior of Africa, slave hunts, gold prospecting in West Africa, his capture by an African tribe, lion hunting, marriage to an African woman, visits with African rulers, slave markets, and the West Indies trade.

Jesse Max Barber, born in Blackstock, South Carolina, to former slave parents, was a journalist, dentist, and civil rights leader. His literary career began in 1903 while attending Virginia Union University in Richmond. In this work, The Negro of the Earlier World, Barber contends that a race without traditions and without history is most likely to be a race without backbone and without self-respect.

Although Alex had no idea which of his yet-to-be monumental achievements would be the one to launch him on his road to success, that was of little concern to him because the path was irrelevant, as long as the destination fulfilled his desire: to be famous. As Alex reaches for his goals of fame and fortune, he finds love along the way, but there are those who live to turn his dreams into a nightmare that even a classic muscle car—known as The Black Phantom—cannot outrun.

This book covers the life and experiences of Lester Patrick, an African American born and raised in North Carolina during the Jim Crow and segregation periods of our country's history. It covers some events that took place following Reconstruction that led up to the Jim Crow period and Black and White Americans' attitudes that evolved because of these events. This book is written for audiences of all ages and races for this extraordinary time in our country's history. And it contains both serious and humorous experiences.

My sincere thoughts as I wrote this book was to capture the many marriage lessons I have learned over time. One of the greatest revelations is that your marriage journey will always start with you. You can only control your actions. I can tell you that if you do not ask the right relationship questions, you will never get the right answers to sustain a viable marriage.

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was an English playwright, poet, translator, and fiction writer from the Restoration era. Oroonoko (1688) is a unique early example of the novel genre. It employs a first-person narrative from a female perspective and addresses some of the controversial political, economic, and social issues of the time. The injustices of the slave trade are exposed through the author’s graphic account of the cruel realities of life in the English colonies.