The life and accomplishments of an influential leader in the desegregated South This biography of educational activist and Black studies forerunner Bertha Maxwell-Roddey examines a life of remarkable achievements and leadership in the desegregated South. Sonya Ramsey modernizes the nineteenth-century term “race woman” to describe how Maxwell-Roddey and her peers turned hard-won civil rights and feminist milestones into tangible accomplishments in North Carolina and nationwide from the late 1960s to the 1990s.  Born in 1930, Maxwell-Roddey became one of Charlotte’s first Black women principals of a white elementary school; she was the founding director of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Africana Studies Department; and she cofounded the Afro-American Cultural and Service Center, now the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Art + Culture. Maxwell-Roddey founded the National Council for Black Studies, helping institutionalize the field with what is still its premier professional organization, and served as the 20th National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., one of the most influential Black women’s organizations in the United States.  Using oral histories and primary sources that include private records from numerous Black women’s home archives, Ramsey illuminates the intersectional leadership strategies used by Maxwell-Roddey and other modern race women to dismantle discriminatory barriers in the classroom and the boardroom. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey offers new insights into desegregation, urban renewal, and the rise of the Black middle class through the lens of a powerful leader’s life story. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In his native Lenoir, North Carolina, Will Wallace, Jr. is a 1943 baseball star. It is said that his skills surpassed his father’s legendary baseball feats. The mother of his high school sweetheart, Dena, disapproves of their romance and declares Will, a mere baseball player and lumberjack, to be beneath their social status. Soon, Will joined the fight against America’s apartheid in baseball. Soon, the Ku Klux Klan teaches Will a lesson in the status. Will’s father’s friend, a former Atlanta Crackers baseball player, devises for Will a clever escape from Klan pursuit and hides him in the U.S. Army. Will’s 366th Infantry Regiment’s first mission in Italy is keeping the pilots and planes of the 99th Fighter Squadron (Tuskegee Airmen) safe from enemy saboteurs while on the ground between aerial sorties. When Will fulfills his wish to fight against the Germans, he finds himself in intense combat that leaves him with flagging hope he will live to see Dena again.

Women of all ages, races, and nations share their hopes, fears, desires, advice, and support with the new Vice President. As the first woman of color elected as the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris broke through many barriers and made history, energizing a host of women who have a lot to say. Seeing a model of themselves filling the second-most-powerful office in the Free World, women from Africa to California, Canada to Florida began writing to the new Vice President. Dear Kamala: Women Write to the New Vice President showcases a selection of these heartfelt and moving letters. Girl Scouts confide their fears for a future ravaged by climate change; a business owner in Harlem offers unflinching advice about the need for real investment in inner cities; civil rights activists share their stories, struggles, and successes over the decades. Filled with moving personal stories and heartbreaking tales of racial injustices suffered, Dear Kamala offers much more than kind words. They represent an offer of support and a call to action for all those who will be at Vice President Harris's side throughout the next four years.

Imagine knowing a lot about liquid toxic poison that goes into our landfillshow it's created, how we make it, what it's doing to our city, country, worldand not being able to do anything about it because we don't have the simple systems in place to allow us to stop killing ourselves, or the air, water, and seas. Or because we are too lazy to stop for a minute and think about what it is that we are throwing away: our world. Join our revolution against global warming and creat

EBONY is the flagship magazine of Johnson Publishing. Founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson, it still maintains the highest global circulation of any African American-focused magazine.

EBONY is the flagship magazine of Johnson Publishing. Founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson, it still maintains the highest global circulation of any African American-focused magazine.