Troy

Chris, my friend, the devil is always in the details. Life is never simple. Racism in America may be about power but most racists here are actually ignorant and powerless. In fact, it is our collective unwillingness to understand these complexities that prevents us from fixing many of our problems, including the issue of race. Of course West has a profit motive--and he should-- but it would be naive to suggest that is his only motive. West, like you and I could be doing a great many other things to make more money, but only shallow, greedy people are motivated solely by money. I do not think West is that shallow. Sure if West sees perspectives like his as being important, and his perspective is being shut out by the power that be I understand his reaction. Cynique, it does not take too much bending over backwards to support West, I've seen him in action too many times when there were no cameras around. The man strikes me as genuinely interested in improving the position of all poor people. I will not dismiss West's contributions for single bizarre Facebook post. I think there is a big difference between my support of West and blind support of Obama. I have been highly critical of West's treatment of Coates. Obama sycophants behave as if Obama is beyond critique. But let me flip the question to you Cynique; Do you (or anyone out there) believe, as Morrison suggests the Ta-Nehisi Coates is the only brother with the capacity to fill the "intellectual void" left by Baldwin's passing almost 30 years ago? To even take seriously that there was an intellectual void since Baldwin passed is absurd on it's face. But again, since we do not control our narrative the voices of people Dr. Yosef “Dr. Ben” Ben-Jochannan, Dr. John Henrik Clarke and Dr. Ivan Van Sertima who were very much alive and kicking when Baldwin passed have been relegated to obscurity. It is not just West's voice being marginalized. It is anyone's voice that is for the people.

NEWS from the LIBRARY of CONGRESS August 5, 2015 Press contact: Gayle Osterberg, (202) 707-0020; gosterberg@loc.gov Public contact: Center for the Book (202) 707-5221; cfbook@loc.gov Spanish version of the press release: www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-138.html New International Pavilion at the Library of Congress 2015 National Book Festival Features Celebrated Writers From Throughout Latin America Best-selling Latin American fiction writers from numerous countries, including Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina, will be featured in the new International Pavilion at the Library of Congress National Book Festival on Saturday, Sept. 5, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Programs in this pavilion will run from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and will straddle a number of subjects, from world religions to the best of Latin America’s fiction and poetry, and will end with fascinating, true stories from the Amazon jungle. The festival runs from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. (doors open at 9 a.m.). The International Pavilion will open with a program featuring three contributing editors of the new “Norton Anthology of World Religions,” a comprehensive, two-volume work described by The New York Times as “a landmark documentary history.” The work focuses on Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Jack Miles, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author as well as the leading editor of the anthology, will moderate a conversation between Islam scholar Jane McAuliffe and Buddhism and Daoism scholar Donald S. Lopez Jr. At 11:50 a.m., the pavilion will present several Latin American fiction writers. Homero Aridjis, Mexico’s greatest living poet, will talk about his country’s rich literary traditions. A panel of four writers—including Mexican novelists Álvaro Enrigue (“Sudden Death,” Muerte subita) and Cristina Rivera Garza (“No One Will See Me Cry,” Nadie me vera llorar) together with Chile’s Alejandro Zambra (“Bonsai”) and María José Navia (Instrucciones para ser feliz)—will discuss trends in contemporary Latin American fiction. Moderating the discussion will be the director of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University, Gwen Kirkpatrick. There will be five solo presentations. Peru’s Santiago Roncagliolo, winner of the prestigious Alfaguara Prize for his novel “Red April” (Abril rojo), will talk about his highly successful novels about fear as well as his latest collection of black-humor stories, “Hi, This is Conchita.” Chile’s prizewinning Alejandro Zambra will reappear to talk about his novels “Bonsai” (made into a feature film in 2011) and “My Documents,” as well as short stories published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Harper’s. Valeria Luiselli, Mexican author of the internationally acclaimed novel “Faces in the Crowd,” which won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, will speak of a writing career that has spanned Africa, Europe, Asia and the United States. Argentine novelist Andrés Neuman—winner of Spain’s coveted Herralde Prize and finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for “Traveler of the Century”—will talk about his fiction, poetry and cultural commentary. (Neuman, Zambra and Roncagliolo were all selected by Granta magazine as among the 22 Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists.) Closing out the fiction programs in this pavilion is Colombia’s renowned Juan Gabriel Vásquez, who won the IMPAC Dublin Award for “The Sound of Things Falling.” Apart from his novels, Vásquez is also known as a columnist, cultural critic and translator of John Hersey, Victor Hugo and E.M. Forster. His latest novel is “The Informants.” The International Pavilion will close with a special segment called Amazon Stories, featuring renowned British historian, explorer and past president of the Royal Geographic Society, John Hemming, who is best known for his magisterial “The Conquest of the Incas” and “Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon.” Hemming will talk about his latest book, “Naturalists in Paradise: Wallace, Bates and Spruce in the Amazon.” He will be followed by a multimedia presentation and conversation between ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin (“Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice”) and David Good, the American son of a Yanomami tribeswoman, who will recount their travels and adventures among the peoples of the South American rainforest. The National Book Festival (www.loc.gov/bookfest) is funded by private donors and corporate sponsors who share the Library’s commitment to reading and literacy. Since 2010, National Book Festival Board Co-Chairman David M. Rubenstein has been the festival’s lead benefactor and has pledged funding for the festival for five more years. Charter Sponsors include AARP, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Washington Post and Wells Fargo; Patron sponsor, the National Endowment for the Arts; Contributor-level sponsors C-SPAN2’s Book TV, Jacqueline B. Mars, The Junior League of Washington, National Geographic, Scholastic Inc. and WAMU 88.5 FM; and, in the Friends category, the Marshall B. Coyne Foundation Inc., the Cultural Institute of the Embassy of Mexico in the United States, The Embassy of Peru in the United States of America, Georgetown University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, The Hay-Adams, the Inter-American Development Bank, The Jefferson Hotel, Susan Carmel Lehrman, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute with support from board chair Roger A. Strauch, the Mensa Education & Research Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, NPR, Small Press Expo and Split This Rock. Those interested in supporting the National Book Festival can contact the Library at devofc@loc.gov. Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov) is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs, publications and exhibitions. ### Rep. James Clyburn at the 2014 National Book Festival:

Well I agree 100% with you on the fact that the Internet will change. Now whether that change will be positive is a matter of opinion. In the short term, I do not think it will be positive for the majority of people. If recent history is any indicator, a handful of people, who are likely already wealthy, will benefit fantastically, and the vast majority of us will be shorted--in many cases blindly. But one can always hope. I'm all-in and can not give up.

Chris, perhaps Mosley is right (at least based upon my paraphrasing of what he said). But I think it is actually more complex than that. I think Reed's advice to West above is more indicative of the problem that frustrates West; "You denounce Farrakhan and they'll let you back in." Listen no one reasonable, Morrison's blurb aside, would suggest Coates is the equivalent of Baldwin. Indeed no one would even suggest that Coates is West's intellectual peer. However since we control nothing the folks in power can appoint anyone they like. They have anointed Ta-Nehisi Coates. I think this, fundamentally is what West takes issue with. Sure, West has been further marginalized as a result and because of this, it is easy to say this is the only reason for his reaction. I think this is a mistake, because the man has decades of demonstrated commitment to the Black community. It is hard to read West's Race Matters and assume his reaction is that simple. West was one of the few progressive Black men or prominence to critically critique the Obama administration. Black people vilified West for that saying he was jealous. Again it is not that simple. If we allow voices like West to be shut out, who then will speak honestly to Black peoples concerns? Al Sharpton, President Obama, who? I completely disagree, on several levels, with West's approach regarding Coates, but I can not attribute his reaction to simple jealousy alone. Again it is not that simple. Of course those in control of the media would be happy to have us believe such a simplistic rational it serves their agenda and we are simple enough to buy it. Cynique given that way West is portrayed in the media, I could very easily see why you might say he is no different than Donald Trump, but again I've seen him in action far too many times to draw the same conclusion

Here West elaborated on his critique of Ta-Nehisi's latest book and his being dubbed the next Baldwin. ---------------- "My response to Brother Ta-Nehisi's new book should not be misunderstood. I simply tried to honestly evaluate the book at the level of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Since I believe there will never be another Baldwin -- just as there will never be another Coltrane, Morrison, Du Bois, Simone [as in Nina], Robeson or Rakim -- the coronation of Coates as our Baldwin is wrong. His immense talents and gifts lie elsewhere and lead to different priorities. He indeed tells crucial truths about the vicious legacy of white supremacy as plunder on a visceral level, yet he fails to focus on our collective fightback, social movements or political hope. Even his fine essays downplay people's insurgency and resistance. The full truth of white supremacy must include our historic struggles against it. His critical comments in his essays about the respectability politics or paternalistic speeches of the black president in power (absent in his book) do not constitute a critique of the presidency -- pro-Wall Street policy as capitalist wealth inequality, drone policy as U.S. war crimes, massive surveillance as violation of rights, or defense of ugly Israeli occupation as immoral domination. For example, none of the black or white neo-liberals who coronate Coates say that 500 Palestinian babies killed by U.S. supported Israeli forces in 50 days or U.S. drones killing over 200 babies are crimes against humanity. Yet they cry crocodile tears when black folk are murdered by U.S. police. Unlike Baldwin, Coates gives them this hypocritical way out -- with no cost to pay, risk to take, or threat to their privilege because of his political silence on these issues. I love Coates' obsession with Baldwin's beautiful prose, and Coates does have beautiful moments too. Baldwin's beauty is profoundly soulful, wise and eager to inspire others. Coates' beauty is deliberately nerdy, smart and draws attention to itself. Hence, Coates' obsession with beauty weakens the Baldwin-like truths of resistance to be told or the Baldwin-like goodness tied to social hope. Like a Blues man or Jazz woman, Baldwin offers his whole blood-drenched and tear-soaked soul in words and sounds to an incomplete world, whereas Coates offers his well-crafted words with a sad spectatorial self to a doomed world. In this Age of Ferguson, we indeed need different voices, yet the most needful voices should be Baldwin-like all the way down and all the way LIVE!" --Dr. Cornel West, July 20 at 6:00 a.m. --------------- Of course it still irks me that Cornel's camp posts this stuff on Facebook. The very idea that they would continue to enrich the plutocracy is completely incongruous with his mission. I mean West could post these things here and enrich an AALBC.com. But I guess the thinking is that more people will read it on Facebook. The tools of the oligarchy will never serve us... Another Brother surprisingly active on Facebook, Ishmael Reed, shared the following in reaction: "black opinion in the east is owned by billionaires conde nast (the new yorker), right winger and ALEC supporter Brian Roberts (msnbc) and and chris hughes (the new republic) they set the trends and a large part of black intelligentsia sheepishly go along with the trends that they set.your problems began before this controversy. you denounce farrakhan and they'll let you back in." --Ishmael Reed, July 20 at 6:29 p.m. Why is it lost on Brothers, like Reed, that posting his opinion (one I strongly agree with) on Facebook actually makes the condition he described worse? Image if I had to visit the Chicago Defender's website or the Amsterdam News website to read his reaction. Again I guess the thinking is no one would engage him there. I know the quote from West is from three weeks ago, but I was think about his comments and decided to go see if he had anything to add. This past weekend I was in St Louis and got to hear Walter Mosley speak. Mosley mentioned West's reaction to Coates and essentially said that West was jealous that the younger Coates was getting attention that he felt he deserved. Now I think Mosley is a brilliant man, but his explanation of West's reaction seemed far too simplistic. Besides, West is only 62 years old!

Sure Black books got very little light historically and don;t get much now currently. The difference today, I think, is that word of mouth is far less effective. For example, online word of mouth is corralled into corporate controlled filter bubbles on Facebook or Amazon primarily. For example, I don't use Goodreads, because links to external sites are generally precluded, which focuses participation on an single site, to the exclusion of all others, creating a classic filter bubble. In the offline world, with the virtual elimination of Black book platforms including, book stores, less coverage in magazines, newspapers, etc, the conversation about Black book is constricted as well. Amazon will not, has not made this better. Sure some individuals can benefit, but collectively we remain underserved. Sure AALBC.com's will continue to exisit, but we will struggle; mere survival will be our gauge of success. But we can still hope for a miracle.

Hi Shaniqka, congrats on your new book, and thanks for sharing information about it here. Do you have a website? If so, post the URL (I looked but could not find one). I also noticed a video of you on Amazon, but I could not find a version on a place where it may be embedded here. Consider creating a youtube account and uploading your video there. I also noticed your Amazon link did not have an affiliate code applied. Alternatively, you may use this link http://aalbc.it/myheartsaysthis to send people to Amazon, which embeds AALBC.com's affiliate code; not only does this generate commissions, any sales count toward AALBC.com bestsellers list, one of the most popular pages on the website. Plus it is a cleaner looking URL :-) Check out this article, "5 Things Writers Must Do to Survive Online" for more info.

True there are plenty of Black writers in the genre, but if they get no promotion or exposure how do we learn about them? The lack of coverage is that same as if they never wrote the stories in the first place. Yeah it would be nice to fantasize about "Black owned film or television or online streaming services" making a difference, but I'm not holding my breath. Only the most massive of corporations Amazon, Netflix, seem to be able to pull off both the production and distribution of films. A Black owned Netflix however would be a great material for a sci-fi story, in an alternate university of course, were that scenario would be remotely plausible. Now I learned about N.K. Jemisin through you, via Amazon (who owns Goodreads), and this sees to be the direction of things, at least as far as the Black Book ecosystem is concerned; Amazon owns it. There may be are other good Black writers interviewed on Goodreads, but I will never know because I don't like using the Goodreads site.

thanks for sharing information about this author. I was previously unfamiliar with her work. I recently listened to another author speak about how sci-fiction is dominated by white male sensibilities. They cited Stars Wars as not being just white male but blond haired, blue eyed white male. Apparently James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, was not even listed in the credits.

Hi James, it is good you've posted your request here on our forum. You've already gotten some good advise from another published author. Your posting here also allows to me to reply to your inquiry (I saw your email), and potentially any other writers with the same requests, so I'm also more willing to respond here than I would via email. AALBC.com does not publish books authors (at least not yet). I've worked hard to make the services we do provide easy to find on our website. Our Frequently Asked Questions or About Us page are the most obvious places to learn more about the services we provide and how to take advantage of the website. As a result, I generally ignore emails which make any variation of the request, "I just wrote a book and I'd like your help getting it published." There are several reasons I ignore these emails, but the primary one is, if the person making the request did not take a couple of minutes to research our company and learn about the services we provide, then I don't feel obliged to take a few minutes to respond. That said, we do provide a variety of resources for authors, particularly authors interested in connecting with readers of African American literature. This forum is one example, also check out our Writers Resources page for many more resources. The best advice I can give an author looking to get published by a publisher, or to self-publish, is to study both the craft and business of writing. If you lack connections you can build them, over time, by networking; attend conferences, workshops, book events, and participate in on-online forums like this. You'll meet like minded people, potentially folks who will help connect you with the right professionals to get your book published. You wrote you lack "resources." I'm not sure what that means exactly, but if you mean money. Who better save or raise some money, if you want to self-publish your book. For example, if can not afford not to have your book edited or a professional design its cover--don't waste your time--you'll be competing against others you have taken these steps, and you will not fare well. These are just two areas self-published authors cut corners to save money and it is a mistake. Also, not allocating money to promote your book is big mistake too. No one will buy your book if they don't know it exists. Getting the word out about your book will take money; advertising, travel, conference fees, marketing materials, etc. Even if you are published by a major publishing house, you'll need money for promotion. The subject of your book is topical; Rhoden's Forty Million Dollar Slaves immediately comes to mind, a fictionalized account might be a very interesting read. Good luck with our work!

"....just keep having more children to supply cannon fodder for the violent conditions in the inner cities..." sheesh Cynique you really have a way with words. You should really need a book of your nonfiction articles. I have nothing to say in rebuttal. As we used to say to those in control, its your world :-)

Thanks for sharing Griot Mommy Says! Trailer 2014

Well telling people they must not have a baby seems to be PP's goal. Given the support by the government, seems to have found a way to intrude without laws. The government does not have to impose laws to influence behavior or oppress Black people for that matter. Nor do the politicians themselves have to be conscious of the consequences of their actions as they are manipulated by lobbyists. There are no laws saying police must lock up more people, as a percentage of population, than any other country on Earth, there are no laws saying we have to make education so expensive that it is out of reach for most and those who get one will be burdened with crippling debt. There are no laws saying the Black must abort a significant portion of their children. Nonetheless the results are the same. The issue is always has been, who stands to gain by how our behavior is influenced--usually it is not us.

I spent the better part of the last 24 hours trying to sort of the problem with this discussion forum. Very painful because, of course, had better thing to do, than deal with the finger pointing between the software vendors and web host, and the technical challenges of getting the discussion forum back up without losing data. I suspect I may have compromised the forum by installing a rogue script (obtained from the vendors support forum) to correct a relatively minor problem with the emoticons not working properly. There were hundred of extra files. in fact so many more that they exceeding the site of the entire website to the point my websites billed me at a rate of 7 times my normal monthly charge which was my first clue something was wrong. I got that charge before the forum crashed. When I finally looked I saw the hackers were pretty clever masking their scripts belonging to the program. I could not sort out which files belonged and which ones did not, so I deleted everything. At any rate, everything seems to be working fine not, but I had to delete everything, change passwords and reinstall the software. Now back to some real work...

If really is difficult to discern if it is the media overreacting to the lion's senseless slaughter or actual people. I don't think most people really care that much. One could even argue if the story is even news worthy. I mean, just this past weekend in Brooklyn, there were 10 separate shootings that left 3 dead and 22 wounded I don't see the same outrage from the liberal white heres. Is it because the liberal white here are not at all outraged, or is it because the media has not covered it to the same extent as Cecil the lion. For Christ sakes it is one lion half a world away, relative to the 3 killed in Brooklyn Saturday I could care less.

I like the idea of have a tool to check how diverse a company leadership and board are, but I don't think for a split second it will change anything. Giving people information and having them change behavior in the real world are two completely different things. Everyone knows Google, Facebook, and Amazon are all white at the top, but that will not stop Black people from using their services. In fact, I can give you a list of Black owned companies to support and Black people have not demonstrated any particular interest in increasing support of these companies or sharing the information, even as we watch many of them go out of business. I would be interested if the application could tell me the percentage of Black people the top. Why not have a website for this too, or simply start with one, why focus on the mobile ap?

Harry you are back huh. I wonder if this forum's recent hacking impacted your ability to post.

Vocational training is no different that many of the schools of the day. Even white schools did the same. Only a small percentage of white were trained for management or leadership positions. Remember we are talking about a time when even the majority of white people did not have a college education, and a huge percentage of Black people were illiterate. It would be very interesting to look at the outcomes of Tuskegee graduates and their descendants and compare them to the outcomes of other Blacks of the day.

August 4th, 2015 For Immediate Release! Black & Hispanic Babies Make Up Over 80% of Planned Parenthood Abortions By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD In the wake of Center for Medical Progress release of videos showing Planned Parenthood’s sale of human baby organs for profit, there has been an outcry that those who protest such organ sales are “attacking women” or “blocking women’s health.” What an outrageous statement. As a physician specialist in Women’s Health for over 25 years, I say categorically that abortion is NOT “healthcare.” Medicine and physicians strive to preserve LIFE. Abortion is death. Abortion is the anti-thesis of life. That is why most physicians do not practice abortion and cringe at the thought. In fact, for over 2,500 years, the Oath of Hippocrates for physicians has prohibited us from performing abortions or prescribing abortifacient drugs. In my clinical practice seeing women, I find two victims of abortion: the soul and life of the baby who never had a choice, and the soul and psyche of the woman who chose to have her baby killed. Years later, the abortion takes its toll on women in higher rates of depression, anxiety, and even endocrine hormonal problems. Let’s be correct in terms: Abortion ends the life of a baby. In fact, if it isn’t a baby, then the woman isn’t pregnant. Planned Parenthood uses benign terms as fetus, tissue, specimen, or “glob of cells” is designed to confuse patients and the public, and to hide the emotional impact of the reality: this is a human baby whose life is being snuffed out. Now we see that PP is using body parts from this “blob of tissue” to bring in revenue, beyond its 500 million a year in federal funding from taxpayers! Planned Parenthood abortion practices are even more horrific than anyone knew. Doctors and their assistants actually use ultrasound, normally a life-saving diagnostic tool, as instrument of death to crush the baby in such a way to retrieve undamaged organs. Doctors who did this in a normal hospital setting would likely lose their license or possibly face jail. The baby’s death is not done in any gentle or humane way. Babies are crushed. Torn apart while alive. Cut into pieces in ways to save whole organs for sale and profit. Abortionists cannot use feticides such as digoxin to kill the baby first. That would make the saleable (profitable) organs then unusable. That means the baby is crushed for organ retrieval while still alive. The Planned Parenthood doctors make Dr. Joseph Menegle, Hitler’s “Doctor of Death” look like an angel of mercy by comparison. Planned Parenthood itself is a misleading name, designed to obscure the role as agency of death to 1.6 million babies annually. It is more correctly called Planned Infanticide. An even darker side of Planned “Parenthood” is the connection to the American Eugenics movement of the early 1900s that subsequently led Hitler to his views of racial cleansing to create a “Master Race”. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood in 1916 and idolized by feminists today, was a leader in the Eugenics movement, speaking and writing extensively on the urgency of “exterminating inferior races.” Sanger focused particularly on blacks, saying “Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.” Sanger also wrote “Slaves, Latin, and Hebrew immigrants are…a deadweight of human waste. Blacks,soldiers, and Jews are a menace to the (human) race.” Sanger must be ecstatic. Her legacy of Planned Parenthood has cost the lives of over 57 million babies since 1973, with over 13 MILLION of them African-American babies. That makes Planned Parenthood the leader in Black Genocide. Over 80% of Planned Parenthood abortions are either Black or Hispanic babies. There are now more abortions among Blacks in New York than there are live births. Today’s Black Lives Matter proponents apparently do not know this hidden side of Planned Parenthood’s abortion deaths of Blacks, or they would not keep supporting political candidates who vote for taxpayer funding of Planned clinics that destroy so many black babies. CONSIDER: Planned Parenthood conducts 1.6 million abortions annually, according to CDC statistics. They receive more than half a billion dollars annually in taxpayer funding. It is against US law to perform abortions in a manner designed to preserve heart, lung, liver and other organs intact. Yet for Planned Parenthood, this is exactly what they are doing according to their own admissions on camera. Sales of baby organs are big business for Planned Parenthood’s coffers. Details of actual dollars generated are still withheld from public scrutiny. In another bizarre twist, typical of the cronyism and hidden agendas that dominate the Washington DC cartel today, House Speaker Boehner’s Health Policy Director Charlotte Ivancic, is the sister of Cate Dyer, the CEO of Stem Express, LLC that buys organs from Planned Parenthood. Could this explain Speaker Boehner’s block of the House vote to defund Planned Parenthood? Planned Parenthood reports to be a “women’s health” provider to justify its federal funding. Yet all of the non-abortion medical services are already available through taxpayer-funded federal community health clinics. Taxpayers should not be hit twice for the same services. America, what have we become that we allow such mass killing of human babies and selling of their organs? What have we become that our elected representatives do not enforce existing laws to stop criminal practices? Is this who we as a country really are? “Women’s health” needs to return to a focus on life, health, and the entirety of our humanness with multiple medical, emotional, and spiritual needs. ### The press release through extremist in tone; Dr. Menegle, looking like "an angel of mercy by comparison," is a bit much; the connection to the eugenics movement seems perfectly plausible. The selling of baby parts does doesn't help PP's cause either. But no worries, when Trump is president, perhaps PP will be defunded.

Church is a big component of all the HBCU's as it is for most colleges and universities of the era. As far as creating "subservient graduates" that has been the goal of colleges particularly vocational colleges. College produce people who are ideal for corporate America. Most graduates produced today are in a far less able to fed for themselves than a graduate of Tuskegee 100 years ago. Black graduates today have it a lot harder, with the elimination of affirmative action, finding a job than I did over 30 years ago. At least at Tuskegee, people came out with skills that allowed them to create their own jobs.

Hi Richard this is an interesting program. I just shared my list of the remaining Black owned independent stores on the website. I'm not aware of any remaining Black owned bookstore chains. No Richard, you would not be going out on a limb to say that all Black owned bookstores are local. Author, Carl Weber operated several stores in several cities but those are closed as far as I can tell. Karibu have several using in DC, MD and VA, but those all closed. There were a couple of other with more than one stores, but again they are either closed or down to one store like Marcus Books in CA. I don't think the Kobo program will be very helpful, at least not in the Black community. Black people overwhelming by books/eBooks through Amazon. Indeed, I do not think I have sold a single Kobo eBook. On my Power List website, I link to IndieBound (they sell books online for local bookstores and ebooks for the kobo platform.) On the new version of AALBC.com website I will present the option to buy via Indiebound at the same level of prominence as buying from Amazon, but I have very little hope people will take advantage of that option. I have never earned a penny through affiliate commissions from Indiebound. When I publish surveys people never say they download Kobo ebooks. I also think there are indications that dedicated ebook readers have plateaued and may even be in the decline, along with readership eBooks Amazon's hugh push for Prime members with future bodes poorly for Kobo's position. Any slack B&N Nook has provided will be sucked up by Amazon. Even Amazon's opponents are Prime members...

Well I look forward to reading more of what you have to write Ivy. How did you discover the forum and what promoted you to post? Also adding videos is pretty easy; you just paste the youtube or vimeo URL and the forum will automatically embed it. For images you click the blue "insert other media" at the lower right-hand side of the editing window and paste the URL of the image you'd like to include. The image of your client's book is actually stored on Amazon's site. I usually only paste images that are stored on my server, because you never know what another site is going to do with an image in the future. For example, if Amazon decides to rename, move or delete the above image it will show that broken image icon. {It is also frowned upon to display images that are stored on someone else's server. But in this case Amazon has massive servers and I am linking back to their website, so they'll not likely complaint or notice.} You can also copy and paste form an email or word document. The system is pretty good at retaining the original formatting.

Well we all know Al Sharpton was a informant, and today he has the ear of the President. Carver wasn't even 60 when he passed but accomplished a great deal. I don't know if you've ever visited Tuskegee, but that is in the deeeep south and feels like it today. If Booker was not as anxious as the Brothers in the north to be so aggressive against white folks I would not be so willing to second guess his tactics. He was a man of his time and environment. It is bad in the south today, imagine what it was like 100 years ago.

Hi Ivy welcome to the forums. I added the cover of Dark Justice I also could not resist sharing this video I noticed on your website. At the 18:30 mark the host says your email address should reflect your business; it should not be @yahoo.com or @gmail.com I think the same thing should apply to social media. I believe business owners who send people to social media, instead of directing them to their website, are making a mistake.

Ashthereader, your wording is fine, but it would be a good idea to let us know what you think about the book to get the ball rolling. I was not familiar with this book, Uncle Tom or New Negro?, until you mentioned it. SO I can;t speak to it directly, but I do know the issue with Washington is not an either/or proposition when it comes to being an "Uncle Tom." Indeed, "Uncle Tom" is a confusing term generally meaning a Black who sells out to the white man, but the character from Stowe's book, where the term originates, did the exact opposite. I see from the PW review that Malveaux is quoted as saying some of what Washington did was pure evil. As a president of an HBCU, that is a bold statement. I hope she backed it up. Again, what do you think Ash? Here is the description from Amazon: