Audiobooks narrated by Allyson Johnson

Beyond 1619: The Atlantic Origins of American Slavery

Beyond 1619 brings an Atlantic and hemispheric perspective to the year 1619 as a marker of American slavery's origins and the beginnings of the Black experience in what would become the United States by situating the roots of racial slavery in a broader, comparative context. In recent years, an extensive public dialogue regarding the long shadow of racism in the United States has pushed Americans to confront the insidious history of race-based slavery and its aftermath, with 1619-the year that the first recorded enslaved persons of African descent arrived in British North America-taking center stage as its starting point. Yet this dialogue has narrowed our understanding of slavery, race, and their repercussions to the U.S. context. Beyond 1619 showcases the results when scholars examine and put into conversation multiple empires, regions, peoples, and cultures to get a more complete view of the rise of racial slavery in the Americas. Painting racial slavery's emergence on a hemispheric canvas, and in one compact volume, provides historical context beyond the 1619 moment for discussions of slavery, racism, antiracism, freedom, and lasting inequalities. This volume shines new light on these topics and illustrates the centrality of racial slavery, and contests over its rise, in nearly every corner of the early modern Atlantic World.

Tbd (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Indigo Field

'Indigo Field brims with multigenerational drama, earthy spirituality, and deeply imagined characters you are unlikely to forget.' -Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Invention of Wings, The Book of Longings, and The Secret Life of Bees In the rural South, a retired colonel in an upscale retirement community grieves the sudden death of his wife on the tennis court. On the other side of the highway, an elderly Black woman grieves the murder of her niece by a white man. Between them lies an abandoned field where three centuries of crimes are hidden, and only she knows the explosive secrets buried there. When the colonel runs into her car, causing a surprising amount of damage, it sparks a feud that sets loose the spirits in the Field, both benevolent and vengeful. In prose that's been called 'dazzling' and 'mesmerizing,' in the animated voices of trees and birds and people, in Southern-voiced storytelling as deeply layered as that of Pat Conroy, Marjorie Hudson lays out the boundaries of a field that contains the soul of the South, and leads us to a day of reckoning.

Marjorie Hudson (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color

Octavia E. Butler said, 'There's nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.' New Suns 2 brings you fresh visions of the strange, the unexpected, the shocking-breakthrough stories, stories shining with emerging truths, stories that pierce stale preconceptions with their beauty and bravery. Like the first New Suns anthology (winner of the World Fantasy, Locus, IGNYTE, and British Fantasy awards), this book liberates writers of many races to tell us tales no one has ever told. Many things come in twos: dualities, binaries, halves, and alternates. Twos are found throughout New Suns 2, in eighteen science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories revealing daring futures, hidden pasts, and present-day worlds filled with unmapped wonders. Including stories by Daniel H. Wilson, K. Tempest Bradford, Darcie Little Badger, Geetanjali Vandemark, John Chu, Nghi Vo, Tananarive Due, Alex Jennings, Karin Lowachee, Saad Hossain, Hiromi Goto, Minsoo Kang, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Malka Older, Kathleen Alcalá, Christopher Caldwell, and Jaymee Goh with a foreword by Walter Mosley and an afterword by Dr. Grace Dillon.

Nisi Shawl (Author), Allyson Johnson, Diontae Black (Narrator)

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The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom

In The Emancipation Circuit Thulani Davis provides a sweeping rethinking of Reconstruction by tracing how the four million people newly freed from bondage created political organizations and connections that mobilized communities across the South. Drawing on the practices of community they developed while enslaved, freedpeople built new settlements and created a network of circuits through which they imagined, enacted, and defended freedom. This interdisciplinary history shows that these circuits linked rural and urban organizations, labor struggles, and political culture with news, strategies, education, and mutual aid. Mapping the emancipation circuits, Davis shows the geography of ideas of freedom-circulating on shipping routes, via army maneuvers, and with itinerant activists-that became the basis for the first mass Black political movement for equal citizenship in the United States. In this work, she reconfigures understandings of the evolution of southern Black political agendas while outlining the origins of the enduring Black freedom struggle from the Jim Crow era to the present.

Thulani Davis (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom

When Samuel Townsend died at his home in Madison County, Alabama, in November 1856, the fifty-two-year-old white planter left behind hundreds of slaves, thousands of acres of rich cotton land, and a net worth of approximately $200,000. In life, Samuel had done little to distinguish himself from other members of the South's elite slaveholding class. But he made a name for himself in death by leaving almost the entirety of his fortune to his five sons, four daughters, and two nieces: all of them his slaves. In this deeply researched, movingly narrated portrait of the extended Townsend family, R. Isabela Morales reconstructs the migration of this mixed-race family across the American West and South over the second half of the nineteenth century. Searching for communities where they could exercise their newfound freedom and wealth to the fullest, members of the family homesteaded and attended college in Ohio and Kansas; fought for the Union Army in Mississippi; mined for silver in the Colorado Rockies; and, in the case of one son, returned to Alabama to purchase part of the old plantation where he had once been held as a slave. In Morales's telling, the Townsends' story maps a new landscape of opportunity and oppression, where the meanings of race and freedom-as well as opportunities for social and economic mobility-were dictated by highly local circumstances.

R. Isabela Morales (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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First-Year Teaching For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Make your first year of teaching one to remember Becoming a new teacher is one of the most fun, exciting, and challenging experiences you'll encounter in your life. Who wouldn't want a little help getting ready before sitting down behind the teacher's desk for the first time? That's where First-Year Teaching For Dummies comes in. You'll find easy-to-follow strategies and techniques to help you navigate the politics of education in your community, develop fun and fulfilling relationships with your students, and refine your own instructional style. You'll learn to: - Survive and thrive in your first two weeks as you hit the ground running and win over your students, coworkers, and administrators - Avoid or reduce the major stressors that can lead to burnout and other common problems - Understand and handle twenty-first-century issues with skill and sensitivity It's almost time for you to take charge of your first classroom and you're raring to go. So, grab a copy of First-Year Teaching For Dummies to find the last-minute tips and common-sense guidance you need to help make your first school year a rewarding one!

Carol Flaherty, Flirtisha Harris, W. Michael Kelley (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement

An engrossing social history and memoir of the unsinkable Mollie Moon, the stylish founder of the National Urban League Guild and fundraiser extraordinaire who reigned over the glittering 'Beaux Arts Ball,” the social event of New York and Harlem society for fifty years—a glamorous event rivalling today’s Met Gala, drawing America’s wealthy and cultured, both Black and white. Our Secret Society brilliantly illuminates a little known yet highly significant aspect of the civil rights movement that has been long overlooked—the powerhouse fundraising effort that supported the movement—the luncheons, galas, cabarets, and traveling exhibitions attended by middle-class and working-class Black families, the Negro press, and titans of industry, including Winthrop Rockefeller. No one knew this world better or ruled over it with more authority than Mollie Moon. With her husband Henry Lee Moon, the longtime publicist for the NAACP, Mollie became half of one of the most influential couples of the period. Vivacious and intellectually curious, Mollie frequently hosted political salons attended by guests ranging from Langston Hughes to Lorraine Hansberry. As the president of the National Urban League Guild, the fundraising arm of the National Urban League; Mollie raised millions to fund grassroots activists battling for economic justice and racial equality. She was a force behind the mutual aid network that connected Black churches, domestic and blue-collar laborers, social clubs, and sororities and fraternities across the country. Historian and cultural critic Tanisha C. Ford brings Mollie into focus as never before, charting her rise from Jim Crow Mississippi to doyenne of Manhattan and Harlem, where she became one of the most influential philanthropists of her time—a woman feared, resented, yet widely respected. She chronicles Mollie’s larger-than-life antics through exhaustive research, never-before-revealed letters, and dozens of interviews, including with Mollie’s daughter and namesake. Our Secret Society ushers us into a world with its own rhythm and rules, led by its own Who’s Who of African Americans in politics, sports, business, and entertainment. It is both a searing portrait of a remarkable period in America, spanning from the early 1930s through the late 1960s, and a strategic economic blueprint today’s activists can emulate. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Tanisha Ford (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Technology Touchpoints: Parenting in the Digital Dystopia

This is a story about a family coming of age at the same time as smartphones and social media; a multiracial family coming into its own as windows into social injustice opened up before our very screens; and a multi-parent multi-professional family with children living differently depending on which house and which combination of family members happen to be home. While it is a story about a family, it is really the story of technological and global changes unfolding on our doorsteps. While many revile the ascendance of smartphones and social media and the way they suck us into the vortex of cyberspace, there are cultural touchpoints that reflect deeper human and technology development patterns, patterns which we would all do well to understand, no matter whether or how we choose to engage in the ever-innovating digital frontiers. Informed by research and interviews with leaders in policy, human development, ethics, and technology, Loretta Brady helps listeners understand the complex systemic challenges and findings related to technology and human development. We do not have to hate or fear technology. It is neither friend nor foe. But understanding its impact on our daily lives is paramount to cultivating a healthier relationship both with our digital lives and our real, lived ones.

Loretta L. C. Brady Phd Mac, Phd Mac Loretta L. C. Brady (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Making Black Girls Count in Math Education: A Black Feminist Vision for Transformative Teaching

Nicole M. Joseph investigates factors that contribute to the glaring underrepresentation of Black female students in mathematics. Joseph's account calls attention to educational structures and practices that contribute to race- and gender-based stratification in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In her assessment of the intersectional difficulties facing this marginalized group, Joseph offers a critical view of the existing mathematics education research, practice, and policies that have neglected Black girls and women; confronts the problematic history of mathematics education policy; and considers imbalances in the current teacher workforce in United States mathematics programs. She then provides suggestions for reform. Joseph invites students, families, and educators, as well as researchers, policy makers, and other relevant stakeholders to disrupt systems, structures, and ideologies. She calls for an end to racism and sexism in many areas of mathematics education. A must-listen for anyone concerned about supporting the mathematical learning and development of Black girls and women, this work advocates for coalition-building so that greater, more equitable opportunities for learning and engagement may be offered to Black female students.

Nicole M. Joseph (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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My Soul Is a Witness: The Traumatic Afterlife of Lynching

An intimate look at the afterlife of lynching through the personal stories of Black victims and survivors who lived through and beyond its trauma Mari N. Crabtree traces the long afterlife of lynching in the South through the traumatic memories it left in its wake. African American victims and survivors had to find a way to live through and beyond the horrors of lynching. Crabtree offers a theory of African American collective trauma and memory rooted in a strategy for “working through” trauma that has long existed within the African American cultural tradition: the ironic spirit of the blues sensibility—a spirit of misdirection and cunning that blends joy and pain. Black southerners often shielded their loved ones from the most painful memories of local lynchings with strategic silences but also told lynching stories about vengeful ghosts or a wrathful God or the deathbed confessions of a lyncher tormented by his past They protested lynching and its legacies through art and activism, and they mourned those lost to a mob’s fury. They infused a blues element into their lynching narratives to confront traumatic memories and keep the blues at bay, even if just for a spell. Telling their stories troubles the simplistic binary of resistance or submission that has tended to dominate narratives of Black life and reminds us that amid the utter devastation of lynching were glimmers of hope and an affirmation of life.

Mari N. Crabtree (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Black Women Writers at Work

Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the twentieth century. Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose work laid the foundation for many who have come after. Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art. Finally available for a new generation, this classic work has an urgent message for readers and writers today.

Claudia Tate (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Women Who Invented the Sixties: Ella Baker, Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson, and Betty Friedan

Women Who Invented the Sixties tells the story of how four women helped define the 1960s and made a lasting impression for decades to follow. In 1960, Ella Baker played the key role in the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which became an essential organization for students during the civil rights movement and the model for the antiwar and women's movements. In 1961, Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, changing the shape of urban planning irrevocably. In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, creating the modern environmental movement. And in 1963, Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, which sparked second-wave feminism and created lasting changes for women. Their four separate interventions helped, together, to end the 1950s and invent the 1960s. Women Who Invented the Sixties situates each of these four women in the 1950s-Baker's early activism with the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jacobs's work with Architectural Forum and her growing involvement in neighborhood protest, Carson's conservation efforts and publications, and Friedan's work as a labor journalist and the discrimination she faced-before exploring their contributions to the 1960s and the movements they each helped shape.

Steve Golin (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Allyson Johnson