Troy

Hey Waterstar we missed you, or at least I did :-)

We are currently in the sign of Ophiuchus. Or rather the sun's is is passing through the constellation Ophiuchus right now. I always, and incorrectly believed that the 12 astrological signs actually mapped directly the 12 constellation to which we associate them. It seems that the Earth's path has changed over the centuries since Astrology was invented. If would seem that Astrology should change as well.

Cynique, clearly, Bill's behavior was not about sex, it was more about power and his perverse predilections. If Dyson came out against Johnson, Dyson is a fool. We can begin to see why Bill's crimes went unreported for so long, with reactions like Johnson. This is sick, just sick. Bill has done so much for Black people, financially. This is such a shame. If would be foolish to return any money BIll has given to institutions, like Spelman. But Black folks have lost a benefactor and a role model. The type of person we can sorely afford to lose.

Harry, I hear you man, and truth be told I agree with you. At the end of the day very few entities are celebrating the literary accomplishments of Black folks, and those that do get very little support. So since the NAACP is behind the biggest Black book event in the country I will support them even if they fall short of perfection in my eyes. I'd rather the literary awards exist than dry up like so many other platform that support our books. In fact, with our support perhaps the NAACP will improve, and be free of dependency on funding from overt racists.

OK Del, I know longer doubt that Bill Cosby drugged and raped women. Here model Beverly Johnson tells her story in Vanity Fair: [Editor’s Note: Cosby’s attorneys did not respond to Vanity Fair’s requests for comment.] My head became woozy, my speech became slurred, and the room began to spin nonstop. Cosby motioned for me to come over to him as though we were really about to act out the scene. He put his hands around my waist, and I managed to put my hand on his shoulder in order to steady myself. As I felt my body go completely limp, my brain switched into automatic-survival mode. That meant making sure Cosby understood that I knew exactly what was happening at that very moment. “You are a motherfucker aren’t you?” That’s the exact question I yelled at him as he stood there holding me, expecting me to bend to his will. I rapidly called him several more “motherfuckers.”

Harry that was an excellent book suggestion! There are always gems in your posts. I was not familiar with this one but it looks good. Carol of the Brown King: Nativity Poems by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Ashley Bryan (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, October 1, 1998)

There was a time I complained about the NAACP image awards; not about the award itself, but the nominees. It seemed to be a popularity contest, which I thought marginalized the better books available, that needed more attention. I thought the NAACP with their platform could do a better job of pulling together a list. Here is a typical conversations from almost a decade ago. But I was griping during a time when there was a LOT more attention paid to Black books. I also have a much better understanding on why the popularity aspect of this show is important--it draws more people. In 2014, the NAACP Image Awards is our, National Book Awards, Pulitzer and Nobel all rolled into one. Their Literary Awards are far-and-away the best thing we have going and I applaud their efforts without reservation or conditions. Also Gwen Richardson author of 101 Scholarship Applications: What It Takes to Obtain a Debt-Free College Education, is my partner on compiling the Power List Best-selling Books -- Congrats Gwen! Here are the winners from previous years (I'm not sure when the literary awards started) The 45th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2014 The 44th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2013 The 43rd NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2012 The 41st NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2010 The 38th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2007 The 37th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2006 The 36th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2005

46th NAACP Image Awards will be presented February 6, 2015 The Literature winner were announced Thursday, February 5, 2015, and are highlighted below. Location: Pasadena Civic Auditorium 300 E. Green Street Pasadena, CA 91101 Date: LIVE! Friday, February 6, 2014 on TV One Red Carpet – 8/7c, Image Awards 9/8c Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction A Wanted Woman – Eric Jerome Dickey (Penguin Random House) An Untamed State – Roxane Gay (Grove/Atlantic – Black Cat) Another Woman’s Man – Shelly Ellis (Kensington Publishing Corp.) Momma: Gone – Nina Foxx (Brown Girls Publishing) The Prodigal Son – Kimberla Lawson Roby (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group) Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction Bad Feminist – Roxane Gay (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins) Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau) Place not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America – Sheryll Cashin (Beacon Press) The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act – Clay Risen (Bloomsbury Press) Who We Be: The Colorization of America – Jeff Chang (St. Martin’s Press) Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author Forty Acres – Dwayne Alexander Smith (Atria Books) Queen Sugar – Natalie Baszile (Pamela Dorman Books/Penguin Random House) Remedy For A Broken Angel – Toni Ann Johnson (Nortia Press) The 16th Minute of Fame: An Insider’s Guide for Maintaining Success Beyond 15 Minutes of Fame – Darrell Miller (Dunham Books) Time of the Locust – Morowa Yejide (Atria Books) Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/ Auto Biography Breaking Ground: My Life in Medicine – Louis Sullivan with David Chanoff (University of Georgia Press) Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair) – Rosie Perez (Crown Archetype) Life In Motion – Misty Copeland (Touchstone) Mayor for Life – Marion Barry, Omar Tyree (Strebor Books) Stand Up Straight and Sing! – Jessye Norman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional 101 Scholarship Applications: What It Takes to Obtain a Debt-Free College Education – Gwen Richardson (Cushcity Communications) 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse – J.J. Smith (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster) Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed – Bryant Terry (Ten Speed Press) Justice While Black: Helping African-American Families Navigate and Survive the Criminal Justice System – Robbin Shipp, Nick Chiles (Agate Bolden) Promises Kept: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and in Life – Joe Brewster, Michele Stephenson, Hilary Beard (Spiegel & Grau) Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry Citizen: An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press) Digest – Gregory Pardlo (Four Way Books) The New Testament – Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press) The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013? – Derek Walcott, Selected by Glyn Maxwell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters – Brian Gilmore (Cherry Castle Publishing, LLC) Outstanding Literary Work – Children Beautiful Moon – Tonya Bolden (Author), Eric Velasquez (Illustrator) (Abrams/Abrams Books for Young Readers) Little Melba and Her Big Trombone – Katheryn Russell-Brown (Author), Frank Morrison (Illustrator) (Lee & Low Books) Malcolm Little – Ilyasah Shabazz (Author), AG Ford (Illustrator) (Simon & Schuster) Searching for Sarah Rector – Tonya Bolden (Abrams/Abrams Books for Young Readers) Dork Diaries 8: Tales From A Note-So-Happily Ever After – Rachel Renee Russell with Nikki Russell and Erin Russell (Simon & Schuster) Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens Because They Marched: The People’s Campaign for Voting Rights That Changed America – Russell Freedman (Holiday House) Brown Girl Dreaming – Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Paulsen Books) Revolution – Deborah Wiles (Scholastic Press) The Freedom Summer Murders – Don Mitchell (Scholastic Press) The Red Pencil – Andrea Davis Pinkney (Author), Shane Evans (Illustrator) (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

The 7 Previous Winners of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence may be found here. This award honors Louisiana’s revered storyteller, Ernest J. Gaines, and serves to inspire and recognize rising African-American fiction writers of excellence at a national level. The book award, initiated by donors of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation has become nationally recognized in its role of enhancing visibility of emerging black fiction writers while also expanding the audience for this literature. The annual award of a $10,000 cash prize is to support the writer and help enable her/him to focus on her/his art of writing.

Mitchell S. Jackson Wins 8th Annual Gaines Award Award Honors Literary Legend Ernest Gaines BATON ROUGE, La. - The Baton Rouge Area Foundation has named Mitchell S. Jackson winner of the 2014 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for his novel "The Residue Years." The Ernest Gaines Award ceremony will be held January 22, 2015 at 6:30 PM at the Manship Theatre in downtown Baton Rouge. Doors open at 6:00 PM. The ceremony is free and open to the public but a reservation is required. Now in its eighth year, the Gaines Award is a nationally acclaimed, $10,000 annual prize created by foundation donors to honor outstanding work from rising African-American fictionwriters while honoring Louisiana native Ernest Gaines' extraordinary contribution to the literary world. "The Residue Years," published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Books, is a semi-autobiographical novel based on Jackson's experience growing up in Portland, Ore., in a neighborhood ravaged by violence and drug use. It follows a mother and former addict trying to steer her three sons away from drugs. "The Residue Years" received critical acclaim from The New York Times, The Times of London, Sydney Morning Herald and O, the Oprah Magazine, and was a finalist for the Center For Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for best fiction by a writer of African descent. Jackson's novel was also considered for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, the Chautauqua Prize, and was named a fiction honor book by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Mitchell S. Jackson earned a master's degree in writing from Portland State University and a master's in creative writing from New York University, where he now teaches. He also earned fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Urban Artists Initiative and The Center For Fiction. His previous honors include the Hurston Wright Foundation award for college writers. In 2012, he published the e-book "Oversoul: Stories and Essays." Due to the high number of exceptional entries, several books were short listed for the Gaines Award by the judges. They are: "Celestial Blue Skies" by Maggie Collins"Red Now and Laters" by Marcus J. Guillory"The Secret of Magic" by Deborah Johnson"Long Division" by Kiese LaymonPrevious winners of the Ernest J. Gaines award include Attica Locke for "The Cutting Season", Stephanie Powell Watts for "We Are Taking Only What We Need" and Dinaw Mengestu for "How to Read the Air." The national panel of judges for the 2014 Gaines Award are: Thomas Beller, award-winning author and journalist; Anthony Grooms, a critically acclaimed author and creative writing professor at Kennesaw State University; renowned author Elizabeth Nunez, professor of English at Hunter College-City University of New York; Francine Prose, author of more than 20 books, including "Blue Angel," a nominee for the 2000 National Book Award; and Patricia Towers, former features editor for O, The Oprah Magazine and a founding editor of Vanity Fair magazine. Ernest Gaines is a native of Pointe Coupee Parish, La. and became a literary legend and influential American author. He is a 2013 recipient of the National Medal of Arts, a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and a member of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of publication of his first novel, "Catherine Carmier" and the 40th anniversary of the adaptation of his critically acclaimed novel, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," into a made-for-TV movie in 1974 that won nine Emmy awards. His novel, "A Lesson Before Dying," published in 1993, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. The Baton Rouge Area Foundation is one of the Gulf Coast region's largest community foundations. Winner of the Association of Fundraising Professionals' 2011 Award for Outstanding Foundation, BRAF connects donors to projects and nonprofit groups, along with investing in and managing community projects. For more information, visit BRAF.org. ###

The All-White World of Children's Books by Nancy Larrick from The Saturday Review, September 11, 1965, pp. 63-65 This article reports; "Of the 5,206 children's trade books launched by the sixty-three publishers in the three-year period [1962,1963,1964], only 349 include one or more Negroes--an average of 6.7 percent." Almost 50 years later, in 2013, a study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin which looked at 3,200 children’s books published in 2013, just 93 were about black people (that is less than 3%). Only 68 were written by African-Americans a whopping 2%! Sure it would be a mistake to directly compare the percentages from the 1965 article and the 2013 study. However the sobering stories these percentages tell across a 50 year period is the same. In March of 2014, four months before he passed, celebrated author, Walter Dean Myers published an article in The New York Times, "Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?" "Thousands of young people have come to me saying that they love my books for some reason or the other, but I strongly suspect that what they have found in my pages is the same thing I found in Sonny’s Blues. They have been struck by the recognition of themselves in the story, a validation of their existence as human beings, an acknowledgment of their value by someone who understands who they are. It is the shock of recognition at its highest level. I’ve reached an age at which I find myself not only examining and weighing my life’s work, but thinking about how I will pass the baton so that those things I find important will continue. In 1969, when I first entered the world of writing children’s literature, the field was nearly empty. Children of color were not represented, nor were children from the lower economic classes. Today, when about 40 percent of public school students nationwide are black and Latino, the disparity of representation is even more egregious. In the middle of the night I ask myself if anyone really cares." I've been asking myself that question since I began selling books over 17 years ago. The answer is, sure there are people who care; there simply are not enough of us, with the resources, to make a difference. Therefore the outcomes we are observing are no different than an environment in which no one cared. As recently as 1985, when then-CCBC Director Ginny Moore Kruse served as a member of the Coretta Scott King Award Committee that year, she was appalled to learn that, of the approximately 2,500 trade books that were published that year for children and teens, only 18 were created by African Americans, and thus eligible for the Coretta Scott King Award. I often wondered why the same names kept popping up as Coretta Scott King Award winners, not I see the pool of book of good book written by Black writers is not very deep. Given the staggering lack of attention paid to the CSK Awards I have to wonder it the American Library Association, who presents the awards, has begun to question the relevancy. As I work on a revamped version of the Power List's website, I too question if it is worth the effort to celebrate Black books. I have gotten a few requests to add a category for Childrens books, and I think it is a good idea. But it is hard enough producing this quarterly list given the lack of widespread support. Perhaps as Myers describes, we have gone far too long without a validation of our existence as human beings, or an acknowledgment of our value, to do anything about this situation. I for one have no idea what to do about it....

Our press release announcing the publication of our latest national best-selling books list, the Power List: http://aalbc.it/plfall2014 I’m interested in getting our newspapers to run this bestsellers list. While this is not the first list of its kind, right now it is the only one. It is also the most serious attempt by anyone to systematically look at, and regularly report on, the book buying habits of African Americans. Corporate newspapers essentially do not cover Black books. There has not been a Black novelist on the NY Times in at least 6 months. In reality, we could do a better job covering our books ourselves. I think this might be a good way for newspapers to begin covering books in a more meaningful way.

I'll add an excerpt of this my my next Newsletter too. If anyone does share this please use this URL http://aalbc.it/blacked-out to link back to this page. This too is reminiscent of your editorial days Cynqiue, what I call "Classic Cynique" :-) It is not just Billboard failing to reflect the existence of Black artists, has anyone noticed that there has not been a single Black novelist on the NY TImes Bestsellers List for at least 6 months? Nope. probably not. I've been promoting the nation's only bestsellers list focused in recognizing the bestselling books written by or about Black people, The Power List, but it has been really hard to gain traction, presumably no one cares least of all other Black people. What kills me the most is what we do get riled about. Recently at the National Book Awards. Daniel Handler, of Lemony Snicket fame, told an inside joke about his friend, a Black woman, named Jacqueline Woodson. Black Twitter went crazy in reaction. The misguided outrage from keyboard activists was swift and relentless in its ignorance. But my coverage of the event was bolstered by this nonsensical outrage. I even wrote about it on this website. The problem is that virtually every media outlet covered the dumb joke, completely ignoring everyone's accomplishments. There were two other Black poets nominated and you'd be hard pressed to find coverage of them--even on Black platform. However Black platforms, covered the watermelon joke as if it was the most important thing that happened. I'm also tired of "diversity" this term has contributed more to our being "Blacked Out" more than anything else. What does "diversity" mean to Black people when one can completely exclude Black people and still be diverse?

Cynique you know, of course, the promulgation of Barkley's comments has more to do with ratings than the media's desire to offer informed, thoughtful commentary from a intelligent Black person. This is a consequence of having no Black owned media that Black people can rely on for reporting. Then again I'm not very confident Black owned media or news source would do anything differently Barkley is famous and is granted a platform and audience when he offers his superficial and inflammatory opinions on controversial subjects. We listen, we get irritated, but the fact is we listen and whoever made the video makes a mint. Corporate Media - 1 Black People - 0

I just posted an interview with Tavis: http://aalbc.it/smiley2014 If I was aware of his Dancing with the Stars appearance I definitely would have asked that question.

This film delves into the radical history of Britain's first black bookshop which was founded by John La Rose and Sarah White in 1966. As well as creating a much needed space for black communities to access and publish their own literature, it helped support important campaigns such as the Caribbean Artists Movement, the Black Parents Movement as well as playing a pivotal role in the historic Black Peoples Day of Action. Decades on, 'New Beacon Books' is still a functioning bookshop but in a world of Amazon and Kindles can it really survive forever?

Chris these are all excellent ideas. Several of the ideas you've mentioned are a couple I've worked pretty hard on. Everyday authors send me links to Amazon without an affiliate code. Below is a typical email I used to send to those authors: I noticed you use not using an Amazon affiliate code in the Amazon link you sent me. Here is a short URL you may use as an alternative to send people to Amazon: [sample URL not shown] Besides being shorter and easier to remember, any sales generated count toward AALBC.com’s bestsellers list. If your book makes the list it will result in a lot of additional, free promotion for you book. The benefit to AALBC.com is that it generates commissions for us without costing you or your customers and additional cent – win-win J This seems like a no-brainer to me, but the majority of authors don't take me up on the offer. Some do, but an alarming number don't. I'm not so much a fan of sending everybody to Amazon, but all authors do it. If you are going to send people to Amazon you have to stop leaving money on the table. You also know I tried to rally support for an advertising network of book sites but it did no go very well. Indeed two of the more popular sites, that were part of the network, Mosaicbooks.com and The Book Look, shut down their websites. Cushcity and their event website The National Black Book Festival are my only remaining partners. The other sites like The Power List, Edit First are sites I run. I hoped to scale this type of relationship, but this is very hard too. We just don't have the platforms. Chris I would be very willing to place my vertical ad code on your website and I appreciate the offer. After 30 days we can review traffic and see how much I can offer you for placement. You can then compare that to what you could get from Google or by selling the space yourself. When I sell ads that also appears on Cushcity's website -- they get paid. The same happens when they sell an advertisement that appears on my website. Also, I don't sell a lot of the vertical, skyscraper of 160x600 ads. The ad below (which is just $79 for 32 days, and appears on most of my content pages) just rolled off yesterday when ads I sell directly roll off I replace them with Google ads to continue to monetize the space.

It is always tricky when a rich Black man harshly critiques the actions of poor struggling people. However condemning the action of looters and condoning the verdict are unrelated things. If your business, home, or car were destroyed you would probably feel differently. There is no reason some unrelated business should have been destroyed as a result if this verdict.

Chris, yes you are correct. My tone in the last post was somewhat negative, and may have implied that the Hurston/Wright folks were just taking advantage of my largess, which may not be true. I do know, for a fact, that managing a website is a challenge for many institutions and the failure to link is often a lack of control rather than spite, as I may have implied with H/W. A lack of technical skill is also one of the reasons we have so wholeheartedly embraced social media. Increasingly I see many using a Facebook Page as their primary platform. This is not only bad for that organization, but it actually makes our collective situation worse. This point is even more difficult to get a across to folks particularly when the trade off is a presence on Facebook or no presence at all. That said, I also know there are institutions that have complete control over their websites that don't return my support either. Generally these are the larger commercial driven (versus mission driven) websites that are solely interested in generating traffic (read: revenue), so uplifting a 17 year old site that is supportive, but covers books is not likely to attract much attention, so their resources are invested elsewhere. I could no on all day about the lack of support from entities like Essence (even before they were completely bought out by Time) or Black Enterprise. I can't tell you how many subscriptions I've sold for those magazines or how much of their content I've promoted. But again, the queries speak for themselves. Black Enterprise on AALBC.com, Essence on AALBC.com versus AALBC.com on Essence, AALBC.com on Black Enterprise. When I found out how Essence ditched the Black Bookseller during their music festival (an event I actually attended), I was basically done with going out of my way to support Essence. I even dropped my own subscription, but again they are owned by Time so no at that organization could give less... I agree we have a lot of work to do. We have to; Develop the capability to support each other and; Once we achieve a level of success we have to actually support our own--even if a sacrifice is required. Both are very tall orders at this time.

Chris you are absolutely right about the lack of transparency about what happens to the funds after you give you money away. There is no accountability, you have to trust the people you are giving the money to. Over the years I have donated to several film campaigns and I have NEVER been given the gift I was promised. About a year ago, while contributing to yet another film project, I noticed the contribution website told who I gave to previously, then it dawned on my I'd never received a single gift, so I decided to follow up with everyone I made a contribution to. One Brother got back to me right away, apologized and promised to send my thank you gift. I never heard from him again or any of the other people I gave money to. I stopped giving money away to filmmakers; I should have at least 10 DVDs by now. Chris, I'm telling you if we could all get together and really work together there would be nothing we could not do, least of all get paid. Honestly I wish I could say that I was working with Hurston-Wright. Don't assume my unbridled support for them is reciprocated, for it is not. Indeed a search on their website for AALBC.com versus a search on my site for Hurston/Wright will tell you the story. i don't mean to pick on that organization, but the time it takes me to promote their organization takes away from opportunities to promote others, generate revenue to just rest rest. Again, if they did anything obvious to uplift AALBC.com I would grow and that would enable me to better help them. But I know you know this Chris. I'm really writing it for others who may not appreciate this concept. Again I survived this long not because I got pissed of every time someone failed to reciprocate or even tried to do me harm. I succeed because there are still, despite it all, people who support. Chris you link to AALBC.com and so do many others. Thank you. If it were not for people like you I'm not sure what we would have left...

Today we get so many more solicitations for contributions than just a few years ago. I wonder if we are, collectively, any better off? I'm sure I get a dozen or more solicitations for contributions each month. They range from helping established filmmakers fund a movie to helping people pay their rent. Of course many are worthy causes and other seem a bit sketchy. In the meantime, the solicitations for contributions from traditional sources (mail and phone) has not let up. Indeed, they may have redoubled their efforts given the competition from new online solicitors. Shoot, two years ago I even started requesting contributions for my eNewsletter. Often I'm left just feeling bad that I can't help a friend pay their rent, as I fight to pay my own, or am unable to support a foundation I believe in. Cultural organization and charities need our support as funding from grants, and government support, dries up. Meanwhile the buying power of Americans has failed to increase and, for most of us, has declined over the last several years. These platforms, like indiegogo, that make it easy for people to ask for donations seem to be the only entities truly and consistently benefiting. It is like the book industry; technology has made it easier to make a book, but are readers collectively better off with an order of magnitude more books available to buy? Are the individual authors better off, with so many products in the market place to compete against? There are some benefits to the existence of barriers to entry. The cost of production and gate keepers helped ensure that bad books never got published. I think the same is true for asking for contributions. If it is so much easier to make the ask, and collect the funds, more people will do it -- what do you have to lose? The problem is that donors don't have unlimited resources; it is a zero sum game. So we end up in an environment, we have today, where established institutions are struggling to get a smaller piece of a shrinking pie. Some would argue that maybe those old organization deserve to die. I don't know, but I doubt it.

Marita Golden, Co-Founder & Interim Executive Director of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and Tope Folarin, Hurston/Wright Foundation Board Member and Winner, 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing introduce the foundation's 25th year of service, and a new $25,000 Indiegogo campaign. This crowdfunding effort will raise $25,000 toward's Hurston/Wright's operating expenses, and the creation a literary and cultural center for accomplished and aspiring Black writers of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hurston-wright-25-years-of-serving-black-writers

Yeah I see Q-Tip has issued an open call to join the Zulu Nation on Twitter: https://twitter.com/QtipTheAbstract/status/537461789613903872 The Zulu Nation's website is soliciting membership as well