A richly informative alphabet picture book celebrating Harlem's vibrant traditions, past and present.

For more than a century, Harlem has been the epicenter of black America, the celebrated heart of African American life and culture—but it has also been a byword for the problems that have long plagued inner-city neighborhoods: poverty, crime, violence, disinvestment, and decay. Photographer Camilo José Vergara has been chronicling the neighborhood for forty-three years, and Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto is an unprecedented record of urban change. Vergara began his documentation of Harlem in the tradition of such masters as Helen Levitt and Aaron Siskind, and he later turned his focus on the neighborhood’s urban fabric, both the buildings that compose it and the life and culture embedded in them. By repeatedly returning to the same locations over the course of decades, Vergara is able to show us a community that is constantly changing—some areas declining, as longtime businesses give way to empty storefronts, graffiti, and garbage, while other areas gentrify, with corporate chain stores coming in to compete with the mom-and-pops. He also captures the ever-present street life of this densely populated neighborhood, from stoop gatherings to graffiti murals memorializing dead rappers to impersonators honoring Michael Jackson in front of the Apollo, as well as the growth of tourism and racial integration. Woven throughout the images is Vergara’s own account of his project and his experience of living and working in Harlem. Taken together, his unforgettable words and images tell the story of how Harlem and its residents navigated the segregation, dereliction and slow recovery of the closing years of the twentieth century and the boom and racial integration of the twenty-first century. A deeply personal investigation, Harlem will take its place with the best portrayals of urban life.

Publisher Description

As a diplomat's son, star athlete, and Harvard Law School graduate, in the early 1980s Joseph Holland had a world of opportunities awaiting him on Wall Street and in corporate America. Instead, Holland moved to the inner city, driven by a divine calling full of unfolding mystery and challenge. He found himself in Harlem during the nadir of its blight and endeavored to contribute to a neighborhood that was tough in every sense of the word. A Republican among Democrats, a privileged Southern scion among working-class Northerners, Holland earned his stripes as an entrepreneur/activist embracing a vision of personal and community transformation. A five-year sojourn became a three-decade commitment, as his Harlem-based career morphed from practicing law to empowering the homeless, to running small businesses, to writing plays, to serving in politics, to building housing--all aimed at revitalizing a beaten-down, dream-deferred cultural mecca haunted by poignant memories of its glory days in the early twentieth century.

Long identified with African-American style and culture, Harlem is also a pillar of New York's social and architectural history. In this beautifully illustrated study, historian Michael Henry Adams presents an evocative portrait of the various and divergent Harlems of yesteryear, from the Native American settlements discovered by the Dutch in the seventeenth century to the vibrant community of present-day preservationists. In addition to the legacy of residential architecture—Dutch farmhouses, Native American longhouses, mansions and country villas, thoughtfully planned row houses, and handsome apartment buildings, the author examines schools, industrial facilities, stores, churches, and more. Harlem's spectrum of designers ranges from the well known—McKim, Mead & White, responsible for part of Strivers' Row; George B. Post & Sons, architects of the monumental Shepard Hall at the City College of the City University of New York—to practitioners who, though today mostly forgotten, designed much of the urban fabric of Harlem and New York City. All have contributed to an extraordinarily rich streetscape that today preserves the best of Harlem's past.

Through a series of far-reaching historical and personal vignettes, the reader is challenged to question their time-honored was they understand and interact with the world. In this book, Dr. Steven Harlem challenges us to have The Courage to Think Differently. Dr. Harlem's perspective will have us reflecting on the following: The importance of considering alternative models to better understand events in our own lives. The beliefs that unconsciously shape your perception. The need to develop multiple ways of seeing and questioning in order to tease out the truths from the myths of our society. How communication and your assessment of human behavior can enhance your personal and professional lives. Utilizing results from both his professional and personal experience, clinical psychologist Steven Harlem surprises, enlightens, and challenges our traditional ways of thinking about behavior and improvement. Through the pages of this book, you will be equipped to test alternative models, question previous dogmas, and revolutionize the ideas that shape our world.

When it was released in 2004, Harlem Stomp! was the first trade book to bring the Harlem Renaissance alive for young adults! Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated, the book is a veritable time capsule packed with poetry, prose, photographs, full-color paintings, and reproductions of historical documents. Now, after more than three years in hardcover, three starred reviews and a National Book Award nomination, Harlem Stomp! is being released in paperback.

This first full-length biography of Harrison offers a portrait of a man ahead of his time in synthesizing race and class struggles in the U.S. and a leading influence on better known activists from Marcus Garvey to A. Philip Randolph. Harrison emigrated from St. Croix in 1883 and went on to become a foremost organizer for the Socialist Party in New York, the editor of the Negro World, and founder and leader of the World War I-era New Negro movement. Harrison s enormous political and intellectual appetites were channeled into his work as an orator, writer, political activist, and critic. He was an avid bibliophile, reportedly the first regular black book reviewer, who helped to develop the public library in Harlem into an international center for research on black culture. But Harrison was a freelancer so candid in his criticism of the establishment-black and white-that he had few allies or people interested in protecting his legacy. Historian Perry s detailed research brings to life a transformative figure who has been little recognized for his contributions to progressive race and class politics. Copyright Booklist Reviews 2008.

Harlem Bible---In the Beginning by Grant Harper Reid (Uptown Special-Rare Jimi Hendrix plays Harlem Vintage Photo Collection-Included) Multi-Book Award-winning author Grant Harper Reid has authored his second 5-Star book Harlem Bible which right out of the bat became an NAACP Mid-Manhattan Black History Month Founders Day Award Winner. Grant has taken a nod from the old master Lao Tzu the keeper of the Imperial Archives who proclaimed to the world, "A Good Reckoner Needs No Tally." In "Harlem Bible" Reid demonstrates himself to be a good reckoner indeed. Reid's first book was considered to be a work of pure literary genius, full of humor that pushes the envelope. Harlem Bible is a delightfully amazing and exceedingly enjoyable book. Grant reminiscences his early years as an innocent young black child growing up in Harlem and the suburbs of New. We are weaved through the author's past with flashbacks and timelines that are assembled and chock full of fascinating bygone circumstances of yesteryear. The impetus behind the Harlem Bible came from the author's angst as his beloved Harlem neighborhood became gentrified. With gentrification came newcomers who distorted and misrepresented the historical descriptions of his community. Grant took it personally when condescending intruders flooded onto his beloved streets and defined Harlem's glorious past to suit their own one-sided cravings. Reid watched as many authentic Harlemites passed away taking their tales with them to their hereafters. He chose to do something about it and thus he wrote the Harlem Bible. Harlem Bible arranges the groundwork with corroborated verifiable information then discharges it with reflections for the benefit of the readers. Please don't misperceive the Harlem Bible with the usual pasteurized half-stepping Negro books with no basis in fact. If you want to understand the hidden black culture that most colored people won't admit to then this book is for you. Harlem Bible is a look through Grant's life with his family, friends, associates, and adversaries. We follow little Grant as he's bussed to an all-white public school in the Bronx. While there he discovers for the first time what it's like to be a black boy when white students call him Nigger. We find out the authors reaction when he goes to a black summer camp and the "It" girl asks him for a dance. We learn of Reid's reaction at a Jewish day camp after he attempts to befriend the beautiful Jewish American Princess who rebuffs him and won't give him the time of day? What happens to the young author when he sneaks into Jimi Hendrix's limousine without the proper authorization? Discover what happens when the author looks into the mirror and mistakenly concludes that, "he ain't got one scintilla of talent" himself. Laugh with and at him as he attempts and nosedives downward when he wants to become a black hippie. What happens when Grant visits the mixed-race Negro hillbillies called Jackson Whites and believes they want to make him their main dinner course? The Harlem Bible journeys in a world full of jazz, rhythm & blues, soul music and rock & roll and famous celebrities. Take a breathtaking gallop into this world full of upwardly mobile African-Americas, original uptown hang-outs, riots, romance, civil rights and the underworld as this innocent young man tries to acquire a fair and equal education. Oh, the gangsters, ministers, stars and a potpourri harebrained, zany characters. Extra Special Rare Vintage "Jimi Hendrix Play's Harlem" photographs! Contact: www.rhythmforsale.com email: [email protected]

Presents a poem celebrating the African-American experience and what it means to be part of a strong, proud, and free people.