BOOKS Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson
Despite the trials and tribulations of a rocky marriage and of having Paul, Jr. to raise, Essie remained a fiercely-independent trailblazer in her own right
2013-03-28
Kam Williams Special To The Skanner News
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1896, Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson was a descendant of slaves and Sephardic Jews. Although there were enormous barriers encountered by African-Americans during the early 20th Century, she somehow managed to gain admission to an Ivy League school, Columbia University, at a time when most black women worked as domestics and most black males had to settle for menial labor. Read the complete article
Review: This Is the Day: The March on Washington by Kam Williams 
Award-Winning Author Assesses the State of Black Relationships 
Anybody who’s seen Quentin Tarantino’s movie, “Django Unchained,” knows that the incendiary adventure represents a refreshing first step in terms of questioning the enduring stereotype of African-Americans as having been docile during slavery. Though carefully cultivated by both Hollywood and the history books, nothing could be further from the truth than that very demeaning image of black folks generally accepting their lowly lot. 
What’s the key to becoming a millionaire for an African-American? That’s the basic question posed by Dr. Dennis Kimbro to a thousand of the most affluent blacks in the United States in a study conducted over the last seven years. 
Barber Franklin Whatley wondered why he had never seen a textbook for clipper haircutting. After searching the Internet, and coming up empty, he decided to write his own. 
Their revealing responses range from “When I became a mother” (author Terry McMillan) to “When my appendix ruptured” (Donzaleigh Abernathy) to “When I was diagnosed with breast cancer and went on the air bald” (ABC-TV’s Robin Roberts). 
S. Renee Mitchell hopes to boost children’s self-esteem with her new children’s book “The Awakening of Sharyn: A Shy and Brown Supergyrl”. 
When Barack Obama first ran for President, a strategy employed by those seeking to torpedo his campaign was to portray his wife, Michelle, as the proverbial “angry black woman.” The New Yorker even went so far as to put a drawing of her on the cover of the magazine wearing camouflage fatigues while sporting a huge afro and brandishing a rifle.