"In a vigorous, reasoned style, Robert G. Athearn tells the story of the black migration from areas of the South to Kansas and other midwestern and western states that occurred soon after the end of the Reconstruction. Working almost from primary sources- letters of some of the black migrants, government investigative reports, and black newspapers- he describes and explains the "Exoduster" movement and sets it into perspective as a phenomenon in frontier history. The book begins with details of the blacks on the move. Atherarn then fills in the background of why they were moving; relates how other people- black and white, Northern and Southern- felt about the movement; examines political considerations; and finally, evaluates the episode and provides an explanation as to why it failed." -- from Book Jacket

Word spread across the southern farm country, and into the minds of those who labored over cotton or sugar crops, that the day of reckoning was near at hand, that the Lord hand answered black prayers with the offer of deliverance in a western Eden. In this vast state where Brown had caused blood to flow in his righteous wrath, there was said to be land for all, and land especially for poor blacks who for so long had cherished the thought of a tiny patch of America that they could call their own. The soil was said to be free for the taking, and even better, passage to the prairie Canaan was rumored to be available to all. . . . Thus began a pell-mell land rush to Kansas, an unreasoned, almost mindless exodus from the South toward some vague ideal, some western paradise, where all cares would vanish. In a vigorous, reasoned style, Robert G. Athearn tells the story of the Black migration from areas of the South to Kansas and other midwestern and western states that occurred soon after the end of Reconstruction. Working almost entirely from primary sources—letters of some of the Black migrants, government investigative reports, and Black newspapers—he describes and explains the “Exoduster” movement and sets it into perspective as a phenomenon in frontier history. The book begins with details of the Exodusters on the move. Athearn then fills in the background of why they were moving; relates how other people—Black and white, Northern and Southern—felt about the movement; examines political considerations; and finally, evaluates the episode and provides an explanation as to why it failed. According to Athearn, the exodus spoke in a narrower sense of Black emigrants who sought frontier farms, but in the main it told more about a nation whose wounds had been bound but had not yet healed. The Republicans, without any issues of consequence in 1880, gave the flight national importance in the hope that it would gain votes for them and, at the same time, reduce the South’s population and hence its representation in Congress. Thousands of Black Americans, many of them former slaves, were deluded by false promises made by individual interests. As the hawkers of glad tidings beckoned to the easily convinced, the word “Kansas” became equated with the word “freedom.” Emotional, often biblical, overtones gave the movement millenarian flavor, and Kansas became the unwilling focus of a revitalized national campaign for Black rights. Athearn describes the social, political, economic, and even agricultural difficulties that blacks had in adapting to white culture. He evaluates the activities of black leaders such as Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, northern politicians such as Kansas Governor John P. St. John, and refugee aid organizations such as the Kansas Freedmen’s Relief Association. He tells the Exoduster story not just as a southern story—the turmoil in Dixie and flight from the scenes of a struggle—but especially as a western story, a meaningful segment of the history of a frontier state. His remarkably objective, as well as suspenseful, account of this unusual episodes contributes significantly to Kansas history, to western history, and to the history of Black people in America.

Canaan, Dim and Far argues for the importance of Pittsburgh as a case study in analyzing African American civil rights and political advocacy in an urban setting. Focusing on the period from the Progressive Era to the end of World War II, this book spotlights neglected aspects of middle-class Black activism in the decades preceding the civil rights movement. It features a revolving cast of social workers, medical professionals, journalists, scholars, and lawyers whose social justice efforts included but also extended past racial uplift ideology and respectability politics. Adam Lee Cilli shows how these Black reformers experimented with a variety of strategies as they moved fluidly across ideologies and political alliances to find practical solutions to profound inequities. In the period under study, they developed crucial social safety supports in Black communities that buffered southern migrants against the physical, civil, and legal impositions of northern Jim Crow; they waged comprehensive campaigns against anti-Black stereotypes; and they built inroads into the industrial labor movement that accelerated Black inclusion. Committed to an expansive vision of economic and political citizenship, Pittsburgh’s activists challenged white America to face its contradictions and to live up to its democratic ideals.

At the Church of Fire and Brimstone and Gods Almighty Baptizing Wind, Grandpa Herman makes the rules for everyone, and everyone obeys, or else. Try as she might, Ninah hasn't succeeded in resisting temptation her prayer partner, James and finds herself pregnant. She fears the wrath of Grandpa Herman, the congregation and of God Himself. But the events that follow show Ninah that Gods ways are more mysterious than even Grandpa Herman understands.

In colonial North Carolina, German-speaking settlers from the Moravian Church founded a religious refuge--an ideal society, they hoped, whose blueprint for daily life was the Bible and whose Chief Elder was Christ himself. As the community's demand for labor grew, the Moravian Brethren bought slaves to help operate their farms, shops, and industries. Moravians believed in the universalism of the gospel and baptized dozens of African Americans, who became full members of tightly knit Moravian congregations. For decades, white and black Brethren worked and worshiped together--though white Moravians never abandoned their belief that black slavery was ordained by God. Based on German church documents, including dozens of rare biographies of black Moravians, A Separate Canaan is the first full-length study of contact between people of German and African descent in early America. Exploring the fluidity of race in Revolutionary era America, it highlights the struggle of African Americans to secure their fragile place in a culture unwilling to give them full human rights. In the early nineteenth century, white Moravians forsook their spiritual inclusiveness, installing blacks in a separate church. Just as white Americans throughout the new republic rejected African American equality, the Moravian story illustrates the power of slavery and race to overwhelm other ideals.

Annotation This book discusses the role of religion in Canaanite and Israelite society, from the Middle Bronze Age through the Israelite Divided Monarchy (2000-587 BC). It contains an extensive archaeological study of all known Middle Bronze through Iron Age temples, sanctuaries, and open-air shrines, organized by period and geographic region. Social science and textually based analyses of sacrifice in antiquity reveal the many ways in which religion was related to social structure, and the author emphasizes the ways in which social, economic and political relationships determined - and were shaped by - forms of religious organization.

Covering the time span from the Paleolithic period to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the eminent Egyptologist Donald Redford explores three thousand years of uninterrupted contact between Egypt and Western Asia across the Sinai land-bridge. In the vivid and lucid style that we expect from the author of the popular Akhenaten, Redford presents a sweeping narrative of the love-hate relationship between the peoples of ancient Israel/Palestine and Egypt.

A book documenting the history of the Historic community of Sugarland in Montgomery County, Maryland.

What part does the land of Canaan play in the biblical conception of “Israel”? To what extent does the religion promoted by the Hebrew Bible require that Israel live its communal life in the national homeland? And how does life in the land compare in importance with other elements presented as belonging to Israel’s ultimate destiny, such as, for example, adherence to the law? To what extent must the people of Israel take hold of and settle in the “entire land of Canaan” for them to fulfill their destiny? Might the land be shared with other peoples, or must non-Israelites be expelled and subjugated, or at least kept at a safe and isolated distance? Frankel asks these questions and others of the Hebrew Bible as a whole and of the biblical texts individually. He shows that all of these questions were addressed by various biblical authors and that diverse and even opposing answers were given to them. These issues are not completely new. Many of them have been addressed in recent times by various scholars and theologians who have taken a renewed interest in the “territorial dimension” of the Hebrew Bible. However, works of a predominantly theological or sociological orientation often suffer from a tendency to read the biblical texts holistically and to gloss over textual snags and inconsistencies. For Frankel, the snags and inconsistencies in the texts are of central importance. They allow him carefully to reconstruct the process of the growth of the texts in question and to reveal both their original forms and their final transformations at the hands of the editors. Frankel’s analysis shows that behind the present form of several biblical texts lie earlier versions that often displayed remarkably open and inclusive conceptions of the relationship between the people of Israel and the land of Canaan. Diachronic analysis of the biblical text is thus an essential component in this book’s attempt to retrieve something of the heated theological dynamic that animated the work of the authors and editors whose efforts were consummated in the formation of the Hebrew Bible. Frankel presents here many new and previously unrecognized biblical conceptions and traditions that have significant theological implications for the contemporary religious and political situation in the State of Israel. Once the biblical conceptions have been accurately identified, analyzed, and categorized, he opens a discussion of the possible relevance of these conceptions to the contemporary situation in which he lives.

"Gloria Ladson-Billings provides a perceptive and interestingaccount of what is needed to prepare novice teachers to besuccessful with all students in our multicultural society. Thisbook is must reading for all those entering the profession ofteaching today and for those who prepare them for this importantwork." --Ken Zeichner, associate dean and professor of curriculum andinstruction, School of Education, University ofWisconsin-Madison "The multiple voices in Gloria Ladson-Billings's book arecompelling, provocative, and insightful-they provide a powerful'insider' perspective on what it really means to learn to teach allchildren well." --Marilyn Cochran-Smith, professor of education and editor, Journalof Teacher Education, Boston College, School of Education "Ladson-Billings, one of the stellar researchers and mostpassionate advocates for social justice, has written yet anothermasterpiece. By weaving the novice teachers' voices, her personalteaching journey, and language rich in compelling research andinspiring metaphors, Ladson-Billings has documented how newteachers transform schools and teach poor children of color." --Jacquline Jordan Irvine, Candler Professor of Urban Education,Emory University, Division of Educational Studies "Masterful teacher and teacher-educator Gloria Ladson-Billings hasgiven us--in highly readable form--a brilliant vision of whatteacher education might become. In Crossing Over to Canaan we get aglimpse of how a carefully constructed teacher education programfocused on teaching for social justice can produce excellentteaching, even by young, middle-class teachers-in-training, indiverse educational settings." --Lisa D. Delpit, Benjamin E. Mays Professor of EducationalLeadership, Georgia State University The author of the best-selling book The Dreamkeepers shows howteachers can succeed in diverse classrooms. Educating teachers towork well in multicultural classrooms has become an all-importanteducational priority in today's schools. In Crossing Over toCanaan, Gloria Ladson-Billings details the real-life stories ofeight novice teachers participating in an innovative teachereducation program called Teach for Diversity. She details theirstruggles and triumphs as they confront challenges in the classroomand respond with innovative strategies that turn cultural strengthsinto academic assets. Through their experiences, Ladson-Billingsillustrates how good teachers can meet the challenges of teachingstudents from highly diverse backgrounds--and find a way to "crossover to Canaan." She offers a model of teaching that focuses onacademic achievement, cultural competence, and socio-politicalconsciousness. Drawing from her own experiences as a young African-Americanteacher working in Philadelphia, she successfully weaves togethernarrative, observation, and scholarship to create an inspirationaland practical book that will help teachers everywhere as they workto transcend labels and categories to support excellence among allstudents.