Showing results by narrator "David Sadzin" in All Categories

Race, Work, and Leadership is a rare and important compilation of essays that examines how race matters in people's experience of work and leadership. What does it mean to be Black in corporate America today? How are racial dynamics in organizations changing? How do we build inclusive organizations?

August Wilson (1945-2005) was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who had a particular talent for capturing the authentic everyday voice of black Americans. As a child, he read off soup cans and cereal boxes, and when his mother brought him to the library, his whole world opened up. After facing intense prejudice at school from both students and some teachers, August dropped out. However, he continued reading and educating himself independently.

Take a drive through the Mississippi Delta today and you'll find a landscape dotted with memorials to major figures and events from the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most chilling are those devoted to the murder of Emmett Till, a tragedy of hate and injustice that became a beacon in the fight for racial equality. In Remembering Emmett Till, Dave Tell gives us five accounts of the commemoration of this infamous crime.

Our world has been torn asunder by racial, ethnic, and ideological differences. It is seen in our politics, felt in our families, and ingrained in our theology. Sadly, the church has often reinforced these ethnic and racial divides. To cast off the ugliness of disunity and heal our fractured humanity, we must cultivate spiritual practices that help us pursue beautiful community. In The Beautiful Community, pastor and theologian Irwyn Ince boldly unpacks the reasons for our divisions while gently guiding us toward our true hope for wholeness and reconciliation.

Business executive Shundrawn Thomas reveals how work is intended to produce lasting value and should be meaningful and productive. A healthy attitude toward work and the workplace requires intentionality and effort. Thomas helps us to a greater understanding of our abilities and passions, which in turn will help us develop into the people we are meant to be. He addresses issues of work ethic, character formation, and work-life synergy to find better harmony between what we do and who we are.

The powers-that-be in auto racing in the 1920s, namely the American Automobile Association's Contest Board, prohibited everyone who wasn't a White male from the sport. Dewey Gaston, a Black man who went by the name Rajo Jack, broke into the epicenter of racing in California, refusing to let the pervasive racism of his day stop him from competing against entire fields of White drivers. In The Brown Bullet, Bill Poehler uncovers the life of a long-forgotten trailblazer and the great lengths he took to even get on the track.

On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers?

A retired NFL player shares his story of achieving maximum success as a professional athlete, followed by notoriety in corporate America, then catastrophic failures that cost him everything he owned in just 90 days. But even in the face of crushing defeat, he identified and put into action the traits required to rise from the ashes and find success again. Now this inspiring, candidly written, and time-tested method of success is available to you!

Reap the benefits of a diverse workforce. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you create a culture that seeks and celebrates difference. This book will inspire you to: identify and address bias; short-circuit discrimination instead of unintentionally feeding it; attract, retain, and engage talented people who represent myriad identities; ensure that everyone has equal access to growth opportunities; trade outdated policies for practices that are proven to foster inclusion; and more.

Relive the moments when African Americans fought for equal rights, and made history. Even though slavery had ended in the 1860s, African Americans were still suffering under the weight of segregation a hundred years later. They couldn't go to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants, or...

“As intellectually playful as the best of Thomas Pynchon and as sardonically warm as the best of Kurt Vonnegut, The Heap is both a hilarious send-up of life under late capitalism and a moving exploration of the peculiar loneliness of the early 21st century. A masterful and humane gem of a...

From fighting for his life to pursuing a career in the NFL, ACC Player of the Year and star Pittsburgh Steelers running back James Conner shares how his choice to not fear the unknown made all the difference in his extraordinary journey. During his first two years at the University of Pittsburgh...

In the tumultuous year after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, 29-year-old Pete O'Neal became inspired by reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and founded the Kansas City branch of the Black Panther Party (BPP). The same year, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declared the BPP was the "greatest threat to the internal security of the country." Arrested in 1969 and convicted for transporting a shotgun across state lines, O'Neal was free on bail pending his appeal when Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the BPP, was assassinated by the police

Buck O'Neil once described him as "Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one". Among experts, he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime, he became a legend in Cuba and one of Black America's most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today.

The Stories They Hear is a profound testament to the power of mentorship and the impact one visionary program has had on America's best and brightest African American male college students.

Border walls, school bathrooms, student loans, gun control, diversity, abortion, climate change—today, nothing seems out of reach for the president's pen. But after all the press releases, ceremonies, and speeches, shockingly little gets done. The American presidency promises to solve America's problems, but presidents' unilateral solutions are often weak, even empty. Kenneth Lowande argues this is no accident.

A gripping true story exploring violence, mental health, and trauma, A Life for a Life follows Kevin Shird and Damion Neal, who meet as inmates in Federal Correctional Institute Allenwood. Kevin is serving time for drug trafficking, and he suffers from severe nightmares and sleep deprivation due to past traumas and copes through rigorous exercise instead of medication. He tries to guide Damion, a temperamental young man, hoping to keep him out of trouble in a dangerous environment and reunite him with his young daughter.

From the high seas to high commands in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, Sea Dog: A Seafaring Captain's Lessons in Leadership tells the tale of Charles L. Stuppard and his journey from growing up surrounded by poverty and violence to becoming a Navy Captain in charge of the US Navy's most technologically sophisticated warship.

The Shaping of Black Identities explores the generations of African Americans who have lived in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and the impact that living in the United States has had on them. Jimmie R. Hawkins examines how identity is formed and shaped by internal and external forces. He investigates collective memory and the stories told to each succeeding generation about the lives of the preceding generations. But most of all, this book is about belonging.