Mel Hopkins

Yes, but the book is not out of circulation. A quick check at a local library might turn up a copy. Also, I think the book re-sellers have a few copies too - I saw the book jacket on librarything.com Unfortunately, I lost my edition's book jacket some time ago. The book cover is black with the title written on the spine.

One of the most enlightening books that I've read on the reconstruction period, the events leading up to and after is "A Pictorial History of the Negro in America" edited by Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer - Third Revision by C. Eric Lincoln and Milton Meltzer. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York Now that I'm looking at this book again through "new millennium" eyes - I realize this picture book with its complement of editorial copy is the literary version of "Instagram" today.

Back in the early 2000s when I was researching for my first novel - Graham Hancock's findings turned up a lot in my search on both the internet and in books. This dude is relentless, I see. He is not letting it go. In fact, his reporting pointed me to the "Kebra Nagast" (glory of kings) and that led to more information available in Ethiopia and Eritrea about the underground churches and the fact that it was the birthplace of Christianity... Thank you for sharing this - I remember how proud I was to learn all this about African continent...and it took me on an odyssey (both inside my novel and outside) to learn a lot more about our knowledge of electricity et al ...in fact the protagonist in my book intimates that she went to a technology high school because of her ancestors.

I think JAY-Z said his father was heavily into christianity so it's likely he would know that Matthew "rapped" about Jesus, Jews and loans first Matthew 21:12-13King James Version (KJV) 12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, 13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Again where was the go-fund me page?

@Troy Are you kidding? Hobby Lobby executives paid 1.6 million dollars for clay blocks with wedges carved in it (ancient clay cuneiform tablets that had been smuggled into the United States from Iraq.) ... allegedly because they're collectors of biblical artifacts. They have since agreed to pay 3$ million fine and return the 5500 artifacts they smuggled out of Iraq. All this to say, if we are interested, nothing will deter us from your presentation!

LOL! I'm still trying to figure out how that happened too! #giggles ... and @Troy , I'd swear you were 125 years old, if I didn't know you... "Fornication/Deflowering"? You are cracking me up over here!

My college group of friends were really open about their sex lives that's how I knew I was the last one in my group to have sex . And it still baffles that one of my friends came forward in 2015 to say Bill Cosby assaulted her... We really didn't keep secrets like that because sex wasn't taboo ...there was no "good/bad" girl blah blah - but I guess assault was the taboo topic - Also in my generation practically no one cared if their future husband or wife for that matter was going to be the first. Shoot, the best any of us could hope for is if we didn't have sex with each other's future husband/wife ... (Edit)

@Troy I wasn't talking about my very first time having sex... and were you talking about other women's experience Here ? I was referring to the the first time with that particular man... not my very first time having sex... although that was ok - but dude was more into himself vertical, so I imagine it wasn't going to ever get any better and it didn't... Did you really write "deflower" pwuahahaha...

Oh my... Sorry to read that... LOL Excellent perspective, because sex is definitely a head game... I can say, I've never had sex with an ignorant man in my life... If you "stupid" that's a huge-a turn off for me. We can't even be friends let alone engage in sex. It's frustrating to have awful sex.. a huge let down... so wanting to punch someone in the face is for wasting my time...

Is this possible to make love any other way? do you mean sexual intercourse using different holes -mouth, anus, vagina? Or meaning a variety of people i.e. menage a trois? BDSM ? same-sex? If you are referring to sexual intercourse - do you mean same wo/man in both situations or different man for the first and same man for the latter or combination for both... If you're referring to opposite sex - sexual intercourse .. then Same/different man fabulous sex but the same every time is a yes for my lifetime. I've once had sex with a man and our first time it was freakin' amazing. I mean, so mind-blowing I had to write a blog post about how good we were together... and then the next few times it was different but never measured up to our first time together. A lifetime can be too long to have "different " sexual intercourse that makes me want to punch someone in the face

I don't need to wish for superpowers because I already possess what some call superpowers. They really aren't superpowers more like "unacknowledged or undeveloped abilities" ...Having said that can feel and read energy (vibrations) so I'm an empath. I help people listen to themselves so I am clairaudient (that one gets me in trouble because I hear people before they say it" ... Now here's one I will call a superpower (but it probably isn't either, but is to me) I would like to transform my energy into the highest level of LOVE in an effort to move through dimensions.

It's still broken to you, the page administrator so there's still a lesson for us all!

@Troy It's there and I even put a like on it!

Thank you for making me aware of this transaction. When we finally have our meeting - would you teach this concept to me? Is this something that would need to go into our webinar? Can other independent authors do this too?

@Troy , Why I’m devoting a year to helping black newspapers survive by Regina H. Boone Columbia Journalism Review article Mentions AALBC... "The African American Literature Book Club, which tracks independent, black-owned newspapers, counts more than 100 such papers, including the Richmond Free Press. "

Thank you, Troy! I saw it! It looks great! Please let me know how the distribution works through AALBC.. Once I publish, I'd be more than happy to drop ship books to the buyers that are sold through AALBC... You're beyond generous with your space and time - and I want to support through sales too! Edit: Wait - when I publish, maybe you can just have the buy direct from AALBC and you just send me the ship-to, my royalties via paypal and shipping cost (I'll let you know if I do free shipping too) and I'll send you copy of the tracking number (I usually ship USPS priority mail envelope)??? OR somehow we can determine the sale came from AALBC and we can settle on your percentage??? And to be clear on my part, I can't prove it but I'm not letting amazon off the bootlegging hook! Yes, it is easy for others to grab my digital and bootleg but specifically related to amazon, so many people have told me they purchased my book SWADM through amazon, yet it's not reflected in my royalties ...same with my digital short story.. My daughter bought several copies for her friends - I saw her receipt but it never showed up on my statement. So even if create space isn't printing - which I believe they are what stops them from not printing if they already have the digital copy. At least if I sell physical copies there's a paper trail...

Yes! This is exactly why I won't put another book on their platform... I probably sold a lot more but if Amazon is printing out my book and selling it - how will I know? So I'm not going to worry about it - if my book is gains some interest then folks will be willing to buy from me... And if indie booksellers pick up my book - I will promote them too but I'm no longer putting my books in digital format format for someone to bootleg - that's ship has sailed.

Now that's just funny - even though I suspect you might be right... We don't rally around our own when it comes to securing a financial foundation. This goes on my list of "what the black community can do better"

@Troy , The EU just BITCH-SLAPPED Google with 2.7 BILLION DOLLAR FINE for promoting their own ads in the search query https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-slapped-with-2-7-billion-eu-fine-over-search-results-1498556971 Google Slapped With $2.7 Billion EU Fine Over Search Results EU orders Google to treat rival comparison-shopping services equally in its search results By Natalia Drozdiak and Sam Schechner Updated June 27, 2017 9:36 a.m. ET 231 COMMENTS BRUSSELS—The European Union’s antitrust regulator on Tuesday fined Alphabet Inc.’sGOOGL -1.72% Google a record €2.42 billion ($2.71 billion) for favoring its own comparison-shopping service in search results and ordered the search giant to apply the same methods to rivals as its own when displaying their services. The decision, if it is upheld, would force Google to reshape the way it presents search results for products in Europe, the latest move by Brussels to rein in the tech world. The decision could also have further-reaching implications for other Google products and services—as well as those from competitors. If the ruling sets a precedent that holds, these firms might all have to rethink how they make products that—like Google’s search engine—have become more than just tools, but dominant gateways to the wider internet. More at the WSJ -

We bloggers are short on time but have to spend a lot of time writing articles. So. I wrote this post for my blog " Long on Words, Short On Time; Pitch to Your Inner Editor in it, I give 10 steps to complete to create a story idea pitch to yourself for future article development. It's an attempt to get the blogger to form blogging "muscle memory" for content production. Step 7 is to how to use a news hook in the intro of the blog post ... A News Hook ties your author and their book into a national news story and/or event. In addition, a blogger can use a news hook for SEO to continue to generate traffic . In January of this year, I followed up on "Nasty Woman" the poem Ashley Judd performed at the Women's March and it's the number 1 search term that brings visitors to my site, So here's one way booksellers can use a News Hook in their article: Make even the most staid topic provocative, titillating, timely and SEO friendly by using a News Hook. Hint: Check out a social network trending topics such as Twitter or Google.

I'm wondering if the indie booksellers are using their blogs to promote little-known books. Writing articles focusing on the benefits of a book / using a news hook as a tie-in to books they're selling could be a win - win.

Glad to know it wasn't my imagination.

@Troy , of course not, they are referring to the people of Afroia... J/K it used to - but when I began flying around the world I learned it was European /Asian term.. In fact, I think the Latin countries use it too. But I became familiar with the term when dealing with the Dutch - I think the Dutch refer to black people as "Afro" descent.

4 year old start-up Fly Jamaica Airways, owned mainly by Captain Ronald Reece and his wife Roxanne.