Randi Weingarten

"Jeanne’s book not only inspired the documentary but has been a catalyst in changing our national understanding of Rosa Parks. Highly recommend!”—Soledad O’Brien, executive producer of the Peabody Award–winning documentary The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks 2014 NAACP Image Award Winner: Outstanding Literary Work–Biography/Autobiography 2013 Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians Choice Top 25 Academic Titles for 2013 The definitive political biography of Rosa Parks examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement. This revised edition includes a new introduction by the author, who reflects on materials in the Rosa Parks estate, purchased by Howard Buffett in 2014 and opened to the public at the Library of Congress in February 2015. Theoharis contextualizes this rich material—made available to the public for the very first time and including more than seven thousand documents—and deepens our understanding of Parks’s personal, financial, and political struggles. Presenting a powerful corrective to the popular iconography of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who with a single act birthed the modern civil rights movement, scholar Jeanne Theoharis excavates Parks’s political philosophy and six decades of activism. Theoharis masterfully details the political depth of a national heroine who dedicated her life to fighting American inequality and, in the process, resurrects a civil rights movement radical who has been hidden in plain sight far too long.

The inspirational true story of Ruby Bridges. The year is 1960, and six-year-old Ruby Bridges and her family have recently moved from Mississippi to New Orleans in search of a better life. When a judge orders Ruby to attend first grade at William Frantz Elementary, an all-white school, Ruby must face angry mobs of parents who refuse to send their children to school with her. Told with Robert Coles' powerful narrative and dramatically illustrated by George Ford, Ruby's story of courage, faith, and hope continues to resonate more than 60 years later.

The world is hungry to have an awakening. Hope and purpose are just waiting to be discovered. This is my guidebook. In 1938, a three-year-old Bavarian boy's father was called to war. His destination was the Russian front. The boy vividly remembered the family's outhouse. Toilet paper hung from a wire, but when the Great War came, the toilet paper was replaced with newspaper. Then there came a day that the newspaper, too, would be gone. All that was left were the religious texts of the boy's father, a Lutheran minister. A decision by the boy's mother had to be made, and the fallout later would have a postwar German family trying to put the pieces of their lives back together. Their quest: to rediscover their hope and purpose when everything had been stripped away from their lives. The description came to me from my father in a handwritten letter in March of 2020 as the global pandemic was bringing back long buried thoughts about the war. The Rediscovery of Hope and Purpose projects light on a course of action for civic and personal development. This book is unique in that it does not advocate for change. A moral compass of hope and purpose is alive within each person, but over time many people lose the ability to recognize this. This book helps you, the reader, rediscover the comfort and joy that come from living a life of hope and purpose through a call to rediscovery, not change. Written from the vantage point of a seasoned educator who is a former New York State Teacher of the Year and National Teachers Hall of Famer, this book contains explicit examples to guide readers by focusing on factors that can improve individuals and communities. The Rediscovery of Hope and Purpose challenges hopelessness by providing an uplifting experience. The book is designed to drive home a compelling message that hope and purpose are eternal fires ready to be rediscovered. It unlocks the shackles so many have clamped on hope allowing for a reawakening. Ten highly encaptivating interviews with inspiring people from all walks of life, intertwined with narratives, and history provide an investigation into social philosophy that promise the reader to think deeper and reflect stronger on the future. This book is based in a brand-new genre coined Investigative Social Philosophy. Contributors to this book include: World renown whittler, Chris Lubkemann; the first female Boston Marathon runner, Kathrine Switzer; the founder of Field of Dreams Uganda, Michael Warneke; globally recognized photographer, QT Luong; the last American homesteader, Ken Deardorff; Seinfeld writer and co-producer, Peter Mehlman; three-time NCAA National Champion Head Football Coach, Tom Osborne; billionaire philanthropist and founder of 5-Hour Energy, Manoj Bhargava; Harvard President, Lawrence Bacow; and 104-year old children’s author, Beverly Cleary- most likely her final interview. "A refreshing read!" - Field of Dreams, Uganda

Unconventionally Successful (NFB Publishing, Buffalo, NY) is the first book released from a broad grassroots project Christopher Albrecht (2018 New York State Teacher of the Year & 2019 Inductee into the National Teachers Hall of Fame) has published, which uncovers what best practices schools, individuals, and communities need to consider to increase their levels of success. People want our world to be full of successful journeys and results. This book sheds light on many unconventional and potentially unconsidered out of the box thoughts and actions that led to extraordinary outcomes. Entertaining and informative, this novel binds three formats: interview, reflection, and narrative. Albrecht spent three years interviewing hundreds people with a diversity of backgrounds and lifestyles asking them to reflect on their recollections, memories and experiences with teachers and their many impacts on their lives. Focused around eight interviews, the author parallels research on similar historical narratives and reflections. The result is a one of a kind read that uncovers unconventional patterns, unique circumstances, and opportunities, which light the road of joy and happiness that root themselves in our schools and colleges. The patterns Albrecht has discovered and shares in this groundbreaking book have the potential for lifelong effects and impacts on the success of individuals, communities, schools, and the world we live in that are not explicitly obvious.This book is a must-read for all people who enjoy discovering non-linear, unique and creative pathes that lead to innovative ways individuals and groups have found happiness, joy and success.

In The Teacher Insurgency, Leo Casey addresses how the unexpected wave of recent teacher strikes has had a dramatic impact on American public education, teacher unions, and the larger labor movement. Casey explains how this uprising was not only born out of opposition to government policies that underfunded public schools and deprofessionalized teaching, but was also rooted in deep-seated changes in the economic climate, social movements, and, most importantly, educational politics. With an eye to maintaining the momentum of the insurgency, the author examines four key strategic questions that have arisen from the strikes: the relationship of mobilization to organizing; the relationship between protests and direct action; the conditions under which teacher strikes are most likely to be successful; and the importance of “bargaining for the common good.” More broadly, Casey  examines how to organize teachers for collective action, focusing on four discourses of teaching: teaching as nurturance; as professionalism; as labor and craft; and as a vocation of democratic intellectual work.

“A page-turning book that spans a century of worker strikes.... Engrossing, character-driven, panoramic.” —The New York Times Book Review We live in an era of soaring corporate profits and anemic wage gains, one in which low-paid jobs and blighted blue-collar communities have become a common feature of our nation’s landscape. Behind these trends lies a little-discussed problem: the decades-long decline in worker power. Award-winning journalist and author Steven Greenhouse guides us through the key episodes and trends in history that are essential to understanding some of our nation’s most pressing problems, including increased income inequality, declining social mobility, and the concentration of political power in the hands of the wealthy few. He exposes the modern labor landscape with the stories of dozens of American workers, from GM employees to Uber drivers to underpaid schoolteachers. Their fight to take power back is crucial for America’s future, and Greenhouse proposes concrete, feasible ways in which workers’ collective power can be—and is being—rekindled and reimagined in the twenty-first century. Beaten Down, Worked Up is a stirring and essential look at labor in America, poised as it is between the tumultuous struggles of the past and the vital, hopeful struggles ahead. A PBS NewsHour Now Read This Book Club Pick

#1 New York Times Bestseller The former Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison in the Trump White House provides an eye-opening look into the corruption and controversy of the current administration. Few have been a member of Donald Trump’s inner orbit longer than Omarosa Manigault Newman. Their relationship has spanned fifteen years—through four television shows, a presidential campaign, and a year by his side in the most chaotic, outrageous White House in history. But that relationship has come to a decisive and definitive end, and Omarosa is finally ready to share her side of the story in this explosive, jaw-dropping account. A stunning tell-all and takedown from a strong, intelligent woman who took every name and number, Unhinged is a must-read for any concerned citizen.