Sunday, January 4, 2009

Urban Land Use Planning or Up from Slavery

Urban Land Use Planning

Author: Philip Berk

This book balances an authoritative, up-to-date discussion of current practices with a vision of what land use planning should become. It explores the societal context of land use planning and proposes a model for understanding and reconciling the divergent priorities among competing stakeholders; explains how to build planning support systems to assess future conditions, evaluate policy choices, create visions, and compare scenarios; and sets forth a methodology for creating plans that will influence future land use change.



Book review: Seductive Salsa or The Little Book of Cheese Tips

Up from Slavery

Author: Booker T Washington

Booker T. Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period.

"Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transitions from ex-slave to teacher and founder of one of the most important schools for African Americans in the south, The Tuskegee Industrial Institute.

Booker T. Washington's words are profound. Washington includes the address he gave at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, which made him a national figure. He imparts 'gems of wisdom' throughout the book, which are relevant to Americans who aspire to achieve great attainments in life.

Listeners will appreciate the impassioned delivery of the reader, Andrew L. Barnes. Legacy Audio is proud to present this audio book production of "Up From Slavery" by Booker T. Washington.

Langston Hughes

Washington's story of himself, as half-seen by himself, is one America's most revealing books.

Sacred Fire

The history of the African in America has often been personalized or embodied within one individual, one spokes-person who represented the sentiments of the moment. In the South of the 1890s, Booker T. Washington stood as the often controversial personification of the aspirations of the black masses. The Civil War had ended, casting an uneducated black mass adrift or, equally tenuous, creating a class of sharecroppers still dependent on the whims of their former owners. Black Reconstruction, for all its outward trimming, had failed to deliver its promised economic and political empowerment. While an embittered and despairing black population sought solace and redemption, a white citizenry systematically institutionalized racism.

From this Armageddon rose this Moses, Booker Taliaferro Washington, who was born in 1856 in Virginia, of a slave mother and a white father he never knew. But he gave no indication in his autobiography of the pain this almost certainly caused him: "I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the nearby plantations. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time." After Emancipation, Washington began to dream of getting an education and resolved to go to the Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia. When he arrived, he was allowed to work as the school's janitor in return for his board and part of his tuition. After graduating from Hampton, Washington was selected to head a new school for blacks at Tuskegee, Alabama, where he taught the virtues of "patience, thrift, good manners and high morals" as the keys to empowerment.

An unabashed self-promoter (Tuskegee was dependent upon the largesse of its white benefactors) and advocate of accommodation, Washington's "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" and "be patient and prove yourself first" philosophy was simultaneously acclaimed by the masses, who prescribed to self-reliance, and condemned by the black intelligentsia, who demanded a greater and immediate inclusion in the social, political, and economic fabric of this emerging nation. Washington's philosophy struck a chord that played like a symphony within the racial politics of the times. It gave a glimmer of hope to the black masses; it created for whites a much-needed locus for their veneer of social concern—funds flooded into Tuskegee Institute; and finally, the initiatives of the black intelligentsia, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, were, for the moment, neutralized.

Washington "believed that the story of his life was a typical American success story," and he redefined "success" to make it so: "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in his life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." His powerfully simple philosophy that self-help is the key to overcoming obstacles of racism and poverty has resonated among African Americans of all political stripes, from Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan.

Library Journal

Washington's memoir begins with his life as a slave on a plantation in western Virginia. Once he's freed, he looks for ways to gain knowledge, while also working in a coal mine and eventually as a house boy for a noted member of the white community. Later, he attends Hampton Institute where for the first time he is exposed to higher education and begins to develop his philosophy. The author then goes to Tuskegee Institute where he is first a teacher and later its president. Up from Slavery includes much of Washington's thinking on economic empowerment and the importance of education. Also included here is an 1895 speech he made at the International Exposition in Atlanta that turned him into a national figure and a role model. Washington's words continue to inspire many but also ruffle the feathers of those who follow the work of scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, who had a different view regarding the role of African Americans in society. Andrew L. Barnes offers a fine reading of this important work. For all libraries.-Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

John Hope Franklin
The ascendancy of [Booker T. Washington] is one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in the history of American education and of race relations.




Table of Contents:
Foreword
Preface
Pt. 1Introduction : "an exemplary citizen"1
Pt. 2The document37
Up from slavery an autobiography37
Pt. 3Related documents195
1Letter to Booker T. Washington, 1895195
2Letter to Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney, 1395196
3An open letter to Benjamin Ryan Tillman, 1895197
4A statement on southern politics, 1900200
5Letter to John A. Hertel, 1900202
6Letter to Booker T. Washington, 1900203
7Letter to Lyman Abbott, 1900205
8Book review of Up from slavery, 1901206
9A review of Up from slavery, 1901210
10Letter to Edgar Gardner Murphy, 1904214
11Booker T. Washington and his critics, 1904217
AppA Booker T. Washington chronology (1856-1915)222
App: Questions for consideration225
App: Selected bibliography227
Index229

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