VOICES Library Lecture Series Archives: Suggested Readings

Known as 'the angriest black man in America', Malcolm X was one of the most famous activists to ever live. Going beyond biography, Black Minded examines Malcolm X's philosophical system, restoring his thinking to the pantheon of Black Radical Thought. Michael Sawyer argues that the foundational concepts of Malcolm X's political philosophy - economic and social justice, strident opposition to white supremacy and Black internationalism - are often obscured by an emphasis on biography. The text demonstrates the way in which Malcolm X's philosophy lies at the intersection of the thought of W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon and is an integral part of the revolutionary politics formed to alleviate the plight of people of African descent globally. Exploring themes of ontology, the body, geographic space and revolution, Black Minded provides a much-needed appraisal of Malcolm X's political philosophy.

Challenging incarceration and policing was central to the postwar Black Freedom Movement. In this bold new political and intellectual history of the Nation of Islam, Garrett Felber centers the Nation in the Civil Rights Era and the making of the modern carceral state. In doing so, he reveals a multifaceted freedom struggle that focused as much on policing and prisons as on school desegregation and voting rights. The book examines efforts to build broad-based grassroots coalitions among liberals, radicals, and nationalists to oppose the carceral state and struggle for local Black self-determination. It captures the ambiguous place of the Nation of Islam specifically, and Black nationalist organizing more broadly, during an era which has come to be defined by nonviolent resistance, desegregation campaigns, and racial liberalism. By provocatively documenting the interplay between law enforcement and Muslim communities, Felber decisively shows how state repression and Muslim organizing laid the groundwork for the modern carceral state and the contemporary prison abolition movement which opposes it. Exhaustively researched, the book illuminates new sites and forms of political struggle as Muslims prayed under surveillance in prison yards and used courtroom political theater to put the state on trial. This history captures familiar figures in new ways ? Malcolm X the courtroom lawyer and A. Philip Randolph the Harlem coalition builder ? while highlighting the forgotten organizing of rank-and-file activists in prisons such as Martin Sostre. This definitive account is an urgent reminder that Islamophobia, state surveillance, and police violence have deep roots in the state repression of Black communities during the mid-20th century.

This fresh biography unearths previously unpublished nuances about Malcolm X's life. Malcolm X: A Biography is a historical and political analysis of the black leader's life and times, offering a detailed treatment of its subject's multifaceted story. Laid out chronologically, the book treats Malcolm's life from his birth through his childhood, adult life, work as a Civil Rights activist, and assassination. Readers will learn about the torching of Malcolm's family's Lansing, MI, home when he was a young child and about the death of his father a few years later--both acts attributed to a white supremacist organization. They will learn of his participation in narcotics, prostitution, and gambling rings and of his arrest and prison term. And they will learn about his discovery of the teachings of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, his conversion to the Muslim faith, his break with NOI, and his eventual espousal of faith in integration. Finally, the book looks at Malcolm's assassination and at his legacy and importance today.

This book provides reliable information about important world religious leaders, correcting the misinformation that can be on the internet. Religious leaders have shaped the course of history and deeply affected the lives of many individuals. This book offers alphabetically arranged profiles of roughly 160 religious leaders from around the world and across time, carefully chosen for their impact and importance and to maximize inclusiveness of faiths from around the world. Scholars from around the world, each one an expert in his or her field and all holding advanced degrees, came together to create an essential resource for students and for those with an interest in religion and its history. Every entry has been carefully edited in a two-stage review process, guaranteeing accuracy and readability throughout the work. Not strictly a biographical reference that recounts the facts of religious figures' lives, the book helps users understand how the selected figures changed history. The entries are accompanied by excerpts of primary source documents and suggestions for further reading, while the book closes with a bibliography of essential print and electronic resources for further research.

Leonard Moore has been teaching Black history for twenty-five years, mostly to white people. Drawing on decades of experience in the classroom and on college campuses throughout the South, as well as on his own personal history, Moore illustrates how an understanding of Black history is necessary for everyone. With Teaching Black History to White People, which is ?part memoir, part Black history, part pedagogy, and part how-to guide,? Moore delivers an accessible and engaging primer on the Black experience in America. He poses provocative questions, such as ?Why is the teaching of Black history so controversial?? and ?What came first: slavery or racism?? These questions don?t have easy answers, and Moore insists that embracing discomfort is necessary for engaging in open and honest conversations about race. Moore includes a syllabus and other tools for actionable steps that white people can take to move beyond performative justice and toward racial reparations, healing, and reconciliation.

Overly concerned about what people think of you? Welch uncovers the spiritual dimension of people-pleasing and points the way through a true knowledge of God, ourselves, and others.

In today's business environment of slim budgets and ever-increasing demand for demonstrable results and return-on-investment, bringing recently hired team members into your organization efficiently and successfully is one of the most challenging tasks you face as a manager. Emphasizing how to incorporate younger professionals--those in the "Generation Y" demographic that will make up the single largest generation in the workplace by 2016--into your existing company structure, Alexia Vernon's 90 Days 90 Ways: Onboard Young Professionals to Peak Performance demonstrates how to achieve the goal of getting new employees oriented, integrated, and trained within the first 90 days of their employment so they can make significant contributions to your business. 90 Days 90 Ways is based on nine easy-to-digest strategies for growing your new hires into competent, accountable members of your organization. These strategies include: how to successfully design the crucial first-day experience for your new young professional how to identify and communicate the most important concepts required for success in your organization how to integrate your new hires into your workplace culture how to develop employees who communicate effectively for maximum impact how to create employees who deliver results, grow from mistakes, and are accountable how to keep young professionals focused on their top priorities how to teach relationship-building and service-orientation within your organization how to create a possibility-centered culture, encourage autonomy, and foster work-life integration how to empower peak performance in your employees, and grow the next generation of leaders. These fundamental strategies are supported by 90 corresponding, practical tactics to help ensure the bottom-line effectiveness of your new-hire training program. Utilizing objective facts and figures; pragmatic, experience-based insights and suggestions; case examples; and hands-on exercises for you and your employees, 90 Days 90 Ways is truly a comprehensive guide to developing new talent which will contribute to your organization's success.

If you feel an intense pressure to be perfect, this evidence-based workbook offers real strategies based in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you develop a more balanced and healthy perspective. Do you hold yourself--and perhaps others--to extremely high standards? Do you procrastinate certain tasks because you're afraid you won't carry them out perfectly? If you've answered "yes" to one or both of these questions, chances are you're a perfectionist. And while there's nothing wrong with hard work and high standards, perfectionism can also take over your life if you let it. So, how can you find balance? With this workbook, you'll identify the causes of your perfectionism and the ways it is negatively impacting your life. Rather than measuring your self-worth by productivity and accomplishments, you'll learn to exercise self-compassion, and extend that compassion to others. You'll also learn ways to prioritize the things that really matter to you, without focusing on attaining fixed goals. Life isn't perfect, and neither are we. If you're ready to break free from out-of-control perfectionism and start living a richer, fuller life, this workbook will help you get started.

The most difficult aspect of work has nothing to do with profitability or deadlines or competition. It has to do with the immense and beautiful challenges opened up by the fact that we must deal, on an ongoing basis, with that often amazing but always complicated entity known as the colleague. Our colleagues can be the sources of our greatest joys and triumphs: they compensate for our weaknesses, enlarge our strengths and aggregate our energies. However, working successfully around others is neither intuitive nor simple: it requires us to communicate effectively, to understand our own minds and blind spots, to master our emotions and to see the world through others' perspectives. The School of Life has been working with organisations since its foundation, releasing the latent talents of employees and equipping them with the emotional intelligence required to succeed. This book compresses our learning into a series of lessons on workplace psychology. The result is nothing less than an essential guide to more profitable and harmonious.

Change is only 50 minutes away! Find out everything you need to know about developing your assertiveness with this straightforward guide. Virtually all of us have struggled with assertiveness at one point or another, and the prospect of standing up for ourselves at work, in relationships or even in our families can be daunting. Fortunately, with a little practice we can hone our communication skills to ensure that our needs are respected, learn to express our needs and beliefs without fear and reach compromises that satisfy everyone involved.

The essential guide to making your voice heard and having your efforts recognised. Do you find it hard to say 'no'? Are you tongue-tied in important meetings? Bored of 'mansplaining' when you know that you're the best qualified person on a particular topic? Understanding the difference between being assertive and being aggressive can be a crucial lesson on your career journey, and Assert Yourself can help you find your voice and stand up for yourself. Full of practical advice on how to change the way you work and live for the better, the book contains a self-assessment quiz, step-by-step guidance, top tips, common mistakes and advice on how to avoid them, and summaries of key points.

Ready to take your career to the next level? Find out everything you need to know about becoming more assertive with this practical guide. Both at home and at work, we are constantly bombarded with demands and requests, and it can be difficult to say no. However, if we do not put our own needs first from time to time, we can end up frustrated, angry and even burnt out. Assertiveness is therefore a vital asset, as it allows us to set clear boundaries and ensure that they are respected, which makes for healthier communication and professional relationships. In 50 minutes you will be able to

Your Perfect Right--the leading assertiveness guide with over 1.3 million copies sold--is now fully updated and revised. This indispensable guide to equal-relationship assertiveness is packed with step-by-step exercises, tips, and skills to help you express yourself effectively. Are you comfortable starting a conversation with strangers at a party? Do you sometimes feel ineffective in making your needs clear? Do you have difficulty saying no to persuasive people? Everyone needs a little help getting along with others. Assertiveness is a key social skill, as well as a tool for making your relationships more equal. Learning to respond more effectively to others can help you reduce stress and increase your sense of self-worth. In this fully updated and revised tenth edition, you'll learn practical advice on dealing with difficult people, handling criticism, and expressing your feelings. You'll also discover how to use humor in conflict resolution, ways to clarify others' intentions, and how to distinguish between encouraging and discouraging communication habits. This edition also includes a new introduction by coauthor Robert Alberti, in addition to research and information on the subjects of anger and interpersonal communication. Assertiveness is an alternative to personal powerlessness or manipulation. The program in this book will help you develop effective ways to express yourself, maintain your self-respect, and show respect for others. This is not a "me-first" book--it's all about equal-relationship assertiveness!

People who know how to influence others in the office enjoy a greater measure of control over their work lives and advance their careers more rapidly than others. But what many don't know is that the mysterious quality known as influence can be learned and developed by anyone. This practical book, filled with easy-to-apply tips for influencing managers, peers, and subordinates, shows readers how to: Win support for their ideas and projects * Contribute more fully to important decisions * Resolve conflicts more easily * Frame important issues for maximum benefit * Lead and manage more effectively * And much more Readers will discover how to develop the most important attributes necessary for influence--trustworthiness, reliability, and assertiveness--and find out how to move beyond being passive participants in their work lives, and gain the cooperation and atten tion of those who matter most.

Isn't it time you took a stand? Many women struggle with assertiveness, but if you're prone to anxiety and avoidance, it is especially difficult. Grounded in attachment theory, this essential guide will help you identify your thoughts and feelings, balance your emotions, communicate your needs, and set healthy boundaries to improve your life. When you're assertive, you're able to communicate your needs and wishes clearly while respecting yourself and anyone else involved in the interaction. But when you aren't assertive, you may stop yourself from saying anything when your needs aren't being met, or end up lashing out in hostile or hurtful ways. People with different attachment styles struggle with being assertive for different reasons, and even women with a secure attachment style may have difficulty expressing emotion when faced with challenging circumstances. Using strategies based in mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), The Assertiveness Guide for Women can help you understand the attachment styles that keep you from asserting yourself. You'll learn about the three communication stances--from the passive Doormat to the aggressive (or passive-aggressive) Sword to the assertive Lantern--and find practical examples that show you how to apply your new communication and emotional awareness skills in your own life. Rather than being caught in a cycle of rumination and regret when you're unable to express yourself or even acknowledge your own needs, you'll be ready to assert yourself and get what you want. Whether you're anxious and overwhelmed by the intensity of your emotions, avoidant and struggle to identify your emotions, or otherwise have difficulty expressing yourself, this book will help you become more aware of your own thoughts and feelings, and empower you to ask for what you need, set boundaries, and speak your truth for a more fulfilling life.

Techniques for managing others while maintaining mutual respect. Asserting Yourself at Workprovides business professionals with the communication tools and psychological foundation they need to perform more assertively on the job. Designed for front-line managers, supervisors, team leaders, team members, employees, and life-long learners, this course promotes the use of direct, inclusive communication as a powerful tool for achieving targeted goals and building lasting relationships. Asserting Yourself at Workteaches students the skills they need to behave and communicate more assertively—and therefore more effectively—in the workplace. Students learn to address their needs and interests at work, and, at the same time, consider the needs and interests of others. Beginning with the foundation of self-awareness, the course builds these skills step by step. Students learn about and practice assertive verbal and nonverbal communication techniques, learn how to set proper boundaries in workplace relationships, and analyze how assertiveness plays out in other cultures. The interactive format includes self-assessment tools, worksheets, sidebars, exercises, and quizzes that prompt students all along the way. Course Objective: Understand techniques for managing others while maintaining mutual respect and recognize and avoid self-defeating behaviors. Selected Learning Objectives • Set boundaries • Manage others without being aggressive or manipulative • Respond to other people's needs without giving up your own • Say "no" to unfair demands • Resolve conflicts and deal with aggressiveness in others • Enhance your self-image—and your on-the-job authority