Presents an account of one year with a teacher in an urban high school and depicts her students' struggles against all odds

Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students and Their High School

Politics & Social Sciences

Freedman, Samuel G.

Social Sciences

Harpercollins

The story of "miracle worker" Reverend Youngblood reveals how one man was able to build a spiritual community in the face of urban despair. By the author of Small Victories. 50,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo.

Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church

Small Victories is Samuel Freedman's remarkable story of life on the front lines in the sort of high school that seems like a disaster with walls--old, urban, overcrowded, and overwhelmingly minority. Seaward Park High School, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, has been ranked among the worst 10 percent of high schools in the state--yet 92 percent of its graduates go on to higher education. The reason is dedicated teachers, one of whom, English instructor Jessica Siegel, is the subject of Freedman's unforgettably dramatic humanization of the education crisis. Following Siegel through the 1987-88 academic year, Freedman not only saw a master at work but learned from the inside just how a school functions against impossible odds. Small Victories alternates Jessica's experiences with those of others at Seaward Park, and as we cone to know intimately a number of the astonishing students and staff, Small Victories reveals itself as a book that has the power to change the way we see our world.

Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students, and Their High School

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Harper-perennial

In this widely acclaimed bestseller, the author of Small Victories tackles another explosive issue, this time race in America, by taking an in-depth look at the pastor of a thriving black church in one of New York's most desperate slums.

Upon This Rock : The Miracles of a Black Church

Community & Culture

From one of the country's most distinguished journalists, a revisionist and riveting look at the American politician whom history has judged a loser, yet who played a key part in the greatest social movement of the 20th century.During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president -the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate -but whether theDemocrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists-the so-called Dixiecrats-in the New Deal coalition.On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, just 37 and the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium. Defying Truman's own desire to occupy the middle ground, Humphrey urged the delegates to "get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightlyinto the bright sunshine of human rights." Humphrey's speech put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party, and the country, forward.To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil-rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in partto an unprecedented surge of Black voters.The outcome of that week in July 1948-which marks its 75th anniversary as this book is published-shapes American politics to this day. And it was in turned shaped by Humphrey. His journey to that pivotal speech runs from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis ashe tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, ChristianNationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America - one of whom tries to assassinate him.Here is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about.

Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights

Oxford University Press

It is no secret that journalism's mission is seriously imperiled these days, but in Letters to a Young Journalist, Samuel G. Freedman shows that the craft is not only worth pursuing but more crucial than ever. Freedman draws on his thirty-year career as an award-winning practitioner and professor of journalism to inspire students and seasoned professionals alike with wise guidance, penetrating insights, and astonishing anecdotes. In this updated edition, Freedman also addresses the recent unprecedented transformations within the industry—changes with which journalists at every level now have to contend.

Letters to a Young Journalist (Art of Mentoring (Paperback))

Basic Books

A saga covering more than eighty years of American history investigates how three obscure immigrant families made and unmade the Democratic majority and how their grandchildren eventually ended up as ardent Republicans. 40,000 first printing. Tour.

The Inheritance: How Three Families and America Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond

History

Americas

Simon&Schuster

Investigates how three obscure immigrant families made and unmade the Democratic majority

The INHERITANCE: HOW THREE FAMILIES AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL MAJORITY MOVED FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

The author of The Inheritance explores the meaning of Judaism in America today, concluding that beneath its prosperous exterior, American Jews are bitterly divided along sectarian and political lines.

Jew Vs Jew: The Struggle For The Soul Of American Jewry

Fundamentalist vs. secularist, denomination vs. denomination, liberal vs. conservative -- in the last forty years, American Jews have increasingly found themselves torn apart by their diversity. In this chronicle of the evolution of American Jewry, Samuel G. Freedman illuminates the forces that have undermined the traditional peaceful coexistence among the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist branches, and secular and unaffiliated Jews. Examining recent headline-making stories as well as less publicized controversies, Freedman discusses the vitriolic battles that have arisen over intermarriage, standards of conversion, the role of women in religious ritual, the Middle East peace process, and the secular influence on religious life. As he weighs the arguments of both extremes, Freedman comes to the controversial conclusion that the Jewish-American community is headed for a Reformation, a permanent fracture of one faith into many.

Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry

Touchstone

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