On December 4, 1906, on Cornell University’s campus, seven black men founded one of the greatest and most enduring organizations in American history. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. has brought together and shaped such esteemed men as Martin Luther King Jr., Cornel West, Thurgood Marshall, Wes Moore, W. E. B. DuBois, Roland Martin, and Paul Robeson. “Born in the shadow of slavery and on the lap of disenfranchisement,” Alpha Phi Alpha—like other black Greek-letter organizations—was founded to instill a spirit of high academic achievement and intellectualism, foster meaningful and lifelong ties, and racially uplift those brothers who would be initiated into its ranks.

In Alpha Phi Alpha, Gregory S. Parks, Stefan M. Bradley, and other contributing authors analyze the fraternity and its members’ fidelity to the founding precepts set forth in 1906. They discuss the identity established by the fraternity at its inception, the challenges of protecting the image and brand, and how the organization can identify and train future Alpha men to uphold the standards of an outstanding African American fraternity. Drawing on organizational identity theory and a diverse array of methodologies, the authors raise and answer questions that are relevant not only to Alpha Phi Alpha but to all black Greek-letter organizations.

Gregory S. Parks, assistant professor of law at Wake Forest University School of Law, is coeditor of African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision and editor of Black Greek-Letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century: Our Fight Has Just Begun.

Stefan M. Bradley, associate professor of history and African American studies at Saint Louis University, is the author of Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s. He lives in Alton, Illinois.

The acceleration in science, technology, communication, and production that began in the second half of the twentieth century— developments which make up the concept of the “digital”—has brought us to what might be the most contradictory moment in human history. The digital revolution has made it possible not only to imagine but to actually realize a world in which social inequality and poverty are vanquished. But instead these developments have led to an unprecedented level of accumulation of private profits. Rather than the end of social inequality we are witness to its global expansion.

Recent cultural theory tends to focus on the intricate surface effects of the emerging digital realities, proposing that technological advances effect greater cultural freedom for all, ignoring the underpinning social context. But beneath the surfaces of digital culture are complex social and historical relations that can be understood only from the perspective of a class analysis which explains why the new realities of the “digital condition” are conditioned by the actualities of global class inequalities. It is no longer the case that “technology” can take on the appearance of a simple or neutral aspect of human society. It is time for a critique of the digital times.

In The Digital Condition, Rob Wilkie advances a groundbreaking analysis of digital culture which argues that the digital geist—which has its genealogy in such concepts as the “body without organs,” “spectrality,” and “différance”—has obscured the implications of class difference with the phantom of a digital divide. Engaging the writings of Hardt and Negri, Poster, Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida, Haraway, Latour, and Castells, the literature and cinema of cyberpunk, and digital commodities like the iPod, Wilkie initiates a new direction within the field of digital cultural studies by foregrounding the continuing importance of class in shaping the contemporary.

One of the most important books published on slave society, Stolen Childhood focuses on the millions of children and youth enslaved in 19th-century America. This enlarged and revised edition reflects the abundance of new scholarship on slavery that has emerged in the 15 years since the first edition. While the structure of the book remains the same, Wilma King has expanded its scope to include the international dimension with a new chapter on the transatlantic trade in African children, and the book’s geographic boundaries now embrace slave-born children in the North. She includes data about children owned by Native Americans and African Americans, and presents new information about children’s knowledge of and participation in the abolitionist movement and the interactions between enslaved and free children.

The 4th United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiment saw considerable action in the eastern theater of operations from late 1863 to mid-1865. The regiment—drawn largely from freedmen and liberated slaves in the Middle Atlantic and New England states—served in Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler’s Army of the James, whose mission was to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. From May to December 1864, the 4th saw action in the Bermuda Hundred and Richmond-Petersburg campaigns, and in early 1865 helped capture the defenses of Wilmington, North Carolina, the last open seaport of value to the Confederacy.

Citing recently discovered and previously unpublished accounts, author Edward G. Longacre goes beyond the battlefield heroics of the 4th USCT, blending his unique insights into political and social history to analyze the motives, goals, and aspirations of the African American enlisted men. The author also emphasizes how these soldiers overcame what one of their commanders called “stupid, unreasoning, and quite vengeful prejudice” and shows how General Butler, a supporter of black troops, gave the unit opportunities to prove itself in battle, resulting in a combat record of which any infantry regiment, black or white, could be proud.

In his seminal article “Freedom Then, Freedom Now,” renowned civil rights historian Steven F. Lawson described his vision for the future study of the civil rights movement. Lawson called for a deeper examination of the social, economic, and political factors that influenced the movement’s development and growth. He urged his fellow scholars to connect the “local with the national, the political with the social,” and to investigate the ideological origins of the civil rights movement, its internal dynamics, the role of women, and the significance of gender and sexuality.

In Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement, editors Danielle L. McGuire and John Dittmer follow Lawson’s example, bringing together the best new scholarship on the modern civil rights movement. The work expands our understanding of the movement by engaging issues of local and national politics, gender and race relations, family, community, and sexuality. The volume addresses cultural, legal, and social developments and also investigates the roots of the movement. Each essay highlights important moments in the history of the struggle, from the impact of the Young Women’s Christian Association on integration to the use of the arts as a form of activism. Freedom Rights not only answers Lawson’s call for a more dynamic, interactive history of the civil rights movement, but it also helps redefine the field.

Danielle L. McGuire, assistant professor at Wayne State University, is the author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Race and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.

John Dittmer, professor emeritus at DePauw University, is the author of The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care. He lives in Fillmore, Indiana.

This is the gripping story of the civil rights movement in Jackson, Mississippi, told by one of its foremost activists, John R. Salter Jr. In 1961 Salter, then a teacher at Tougaloo Southern Christian College, the private and almost entirely African American school just north of the state capital, became the adult advisor of the North Jackson NAACP Youth Council, a post that for lifelong activist Salter blossomed into impassioned involvement in the Jackson movement.

The struggle for civil rights featured some of the bloodiest resistance by a panoply of repressive resources—“lawmen,” hoodlums, politicians, and vigilantes—but also introduced Salter to the movement’s most compelling and important figures, including NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers. Jackson, Mississippi tells the riveting story of their campaigns to abolish Jim Crow, including a committed and courageous economic boycott of Jackson that was instrumental in the desegregation of the capital’s business district. A fierce and passionate retelling of frontline stories from a cultural revolution, Jackson, Mississippi is a vivid snapshot of the Deep South in the 1960s and a testament to the brilliant, dangerous, and historic actions of the civil rights activists there.

East Tennessee State University (ETSU), located in Johnson City, was founded in 1911 as East Tennessee State Normal School to provide teachers for the state’s public schools. The institution originally offered two courses of study: a four-year high school program and a two-year normal school curriculum, which initially enrolled 29 students. Today ETSU serves more than 14,000 students and offers over 100 undergraduate programs, 75 master’s programs, and a dozen areas of doctoral study. The university is organized into 11 colleges and schools. Approximately 700 full-time faculty members, 80 percent of whom hold doctorates, serve the institution’s students. Indicative of embracing its Appalachian heritage and location, the university boasts several unique programs, which include bluegrass studies and storytelling. While ETSU offers all the opportunities and resources of any large university, it also has many advantages typically found only in small colleges.

As a result of tremendous social, legal, and political movements after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the South led the nation in school desegregation from the late 1960s through the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, following a series of court cases in the past two decades–including a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that raised potentially strong barriers for districts wishing to pursue integration–public schools in the South and across the nation are now resegregating faster than ever.

In this comprehensive volume, a roster of leading scholars in educational policy and related fields offer eighteen essays seeking to illuminate new ways for American public education to counter persistent racial and socioeconomic inequality in our society. Drawing on extensive research, the contributors reinforce the key benefits of racially integrated schools, examine remaining options to pursue multiracial integration, and discuss case examples that suggest how to build support for those efforts. Framed by the editors’ introduction and a conclusion by Gary Orfield, these essays engage the heated debates over school reform and advance new arguments about the dangers of resegregation while offering practical, research-grounded solutions to one of the most pressing issues in American education.

The contributors are:

Courtney Bell, Educational Testing Service

Robert Bifulco, Syracuse University

John Charles Boger, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Casey D. Cobb, University of Connecticut

Elizabeth DeBray, University of Georgia

Sarah L. Diem, University of Missouri

Jacquelyn Duran, Columbia University

Erica Frankenberg, Pennsylvania State University

Patricia Gándara, University of California, Los Angeles

Ellen Goldring, Vanderbilt University

Willis D. Hawley, Univer¬sity of Maryland

Jennifer Jellison Holme, University of Texas at Austin

Eric A. Houck, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, Emory University

Richard D. Kahlenberg, The Century Foundation

Chinh Q. Le, New Jersey Division on Civil Rights

Katherine Cumings Mansfield, University of Texas at Austin

Gary Orfield, University of California, Los Angeles

Myron Orfield, University of Minnesota

Douglas D. Ready, Columbia University

Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University

Lori Rhodes, Stanford University

Janelle Scott, University of California, Berkeley

Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, University of California, Los Angeles

Megan R. Silander, Columbia University

Claire Smrekar, Vanderbilt University

Amy Stuart Wells, Columbia University

Sheneka Williams, University of Georgia

Terrenda White, Columbia University

Brimming with color photographs and reflecting the latest scientific research, this book is the definitive guide to the rich diversity of frogs and salamanders found throughout Tennessee. Featuring detailed accounts of all eighty of the state’s species of amphibians, it will delight and inform the professional scientist and amateur naturalist alike.
The species accounts form the core of the book. Each account includes the scientific and common name of the species (with etymology of the scientific name); information on size, physical appearance, and coloration of adults, juveniles, and larvae; an up-to-date GIS range map showing both county records and potential ranges; and details on similar species, habitat, natural history, conservation status, and more. High-quality photographs illustrate the life stages of the various species.
Among the book’s other valuable features are detailed drawings and taxonomic keys to assist with identification, as well as introductory chapters that encompass amphibian biology and conservation and the geology and habitats of Tennessee. Sprinkled throughout the book are lively personal accounts, called “Field Notes,” which describe successful amphibian hunts.
The only complete work of its kind for the Volunteer State and generously supported by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, The Amphibians of Tennessee fills a long-standing need for both a popular identification guide and an authoritative reference.

Matthew Niemiller and R. Graham Reynolds are doctoral graduates of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. Niemiller is an Indiana native whose research focuses on the ecology, evolution, and conservation of cave-dwelling organisms, particularly amphibians and fishes. Reynolds, who grew up in North Carolina, has concentrated his research on the population genetics, ecology, and conservation of amphibians and reptiles in Tennessee, Central America, and the Caribbean.