I was delighted when author Lerone Martin extended my earlier connection between Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr. to find— through his own resourcefulness— that King began reciting Hughes’s poetry as early as ten years old when he was a 5th grade student in Miss Lemon’s class in Atlanta. For any Tina Fey | 30 Rock fans, Miss Lemon’s first name was (unbelievably) . . . Elizabeth!
Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King, Jr, portrays a wide-smiling King dancing the Charleston in front of his classmates while he recites a Hughes poem about Black dancers.
As someone fascinated with birds— especially those I’ve seen all across Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Europe— The Story of Birds: A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present traces our feathered friends through fossils, feather analysis, and even time-lapse images taken through the eggshell before they even hatch.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the renowned paleontologist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a sweeping evolutionary history of birds, from their dinosaur origins to the 10,000+ extraordinary species alive today.
Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishingly diverse array of species that are present nearly everywhere humans call home—and many places we do not. With their flamboyant plumage, joyous dawn serenades, extraordinary aerial feats, they have captivated human imagination for millennia. Undeniably delicate creatures with hollow bones and thin skin protected by downy feathers, how did such a…
Having spent three of the last five summers hiking in New Mexico, I picked up a copy of The Jemez Mountains: A Cultural and Natural History while buying supplies at a local roadside stop. I was traveling down Highway 4, on my way to the historic Gisewatowa Pueblo. Like the land itself, the book covers ecology, sustainable forestry, ecology, geography, myth, and history. Next time you find yourself in Sante Fe or Taos, head west to Jemez Springs (after climbing up to 13,167 ft. of Wheeler Peak of course!) and hike Valles Caldera or Cerro Grande. The information in this book ensures you won’t forget it!
The Jemez Mountains are a quintessential New Mexico landscape. For centuries, Pueblo, Spanish, and Anglo cultures have mixed and melded here. Many ancient villages are scattered across the mesas and in the canyons below the Valles Caldera-the crater of a giant, slumbering volcano. Rocks and trees of this landscape tell stories of past eruptions, lava flows, droughts, floods, forest fires, and hot springs damming a river. People tell stories of conquistadores, pueblos, and priests, of battles for land and water, of farming and sheep herding, and of raiders, rustlers, forest rangers, and hippies.
On March 24, 1965, Nina Simone performed at a rally for twenty-five thousand people on the last night of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march. Though luminaries like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahalia Jackson, and Dick Gregory were in attendance, it was Langston Hughes, celebrated poet and leader of the Harlem Renaissance, who was the singer’s closest confidant and supporter. They had one of the most important—yet unheralded—friendships of the Black Power era.
Simone’s performance on that Montgomery night catapulted her into a lead role in the civil rights movement, with Hughes as her guide. In Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, W. Jason Miller offers a riveting history of how their relationship helped spark the birth of Black Power—indeed, the phrase itself, made famous by Stokely Carmichael, was a quote from collaborative lyrics by the two. Hughes gave Simone the fuel to be one of the most politically charged artists of the era, while Simone offered Hughes a way to carry his influence into pop music and shape a national movement. Drawing on new firsthand accounts, Miller takes readers inside one of the most powerful friendships in music and civil rights history.
