(Akiit.com) James Langston’s book, “GrandMamma’s Prayers is now available through Lulu Publishing Enterprises, Inc.

NAPLES, ITALY, July 2007 – When we think of GrandMamma, we often think of food, Sunday afternoons, and church. GrandMamma’s Prayers records a simpler time in life when people cared about you, not because of what you had, but who you were – another human being.

Life in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was anything but simple. Yet, even with all the uncertainties inherent in those times, those still were some of the best of times and worst of times, seemingly at the same time. GrandMamma’s Prayers takes a nostalgic look at those bygone years. Times when a neighbor helped a neighbor and looked for nothing in return, when a ride in an old wagon was the highlight of the summer and Sundays’ were the official church days.

So often you’d hear people say things like, “You know my GrandMamma always said…” or “My GrandMamma always did this…” or “She taught me how to…” These words were testimonies to the countless grandmothers who through the ages had influenced and affected the lives not only of their grandchildren, but everyone around them.
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(Akiit.com) Balancing Christian and spiritual living with being a black American in a world that seems to be falling backward in time instead of going forward?

In the mid-1980’s, I read a book by Charles R. Swindoll titled “Strengthening Your Grip: Essentials in an Aimless World.” That book taught me a lot, and stuck with me over the years; but as timeless as its truths were it was too “americana.” Swindoll told his stories from the only perspective that he could, a young white man growing up in America during the 50s-80s. Much of what he said, I couldn’t relate to because I grew up in a very different America between the 60s and 90s…however, the beauty of his words stayed with me.

Here we are in the new millennium and black people can’t stop using the word “racist” yet because time seems to have shifted in reverse. The attacks against blacks in America are not new, but they have been reinvented to be more appealing to a more open and diverse nation than we had 40 years ago.

It can be confusing trying to wheel and deal in today’s world, and still grip the principles of God-inspired living at the same time. We keep hearing “we are in the last days,” but until that happens, there is still much work to be done in the here and now.
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(Akiit.com) After working on the book for more than a decade, Haley was stuck — and desperate

I just love to get out in the ocean. You are really out there, thinking in ways you haven’t thought before. The best writing I ever possibly could do was after The Digest helped me go to Africa and Europe, and I was not known and I could just take my time and nobody was pressing me. God, I don’t know how long it took me. I was working slowly, slowly. When I had done all the research, nine years, working in between doing articles for other magazines, I was ready to write. I didn’t know where to go, didn’t know what to do. I knew I had a monumental task. And I got on a cargo ship. I went from Long Beach, California, completely around South America and back to Long Beach. It was 91 days.

There’s something about a ship. Usually I go out on freight ships, cargo ships. (I wouldn’t get caught on a liner. How can you write with 800 people dancing?) But the freight ships carry a maximum of 12 people, and they tend to be very quiet people.

I work my principal hours from about 10:30 at night until daybreak. The world is yours at that point. Most all the passengers are asleep.

I had written from the birth of Kunta Kinte through his capture. And I had got into the habit of talking to the character. I knew Kunta. I knew everything about Kunta. I knew what he was going to do. What he had done. Everything. And so I would talk to him. And I had become so attached to him that I knew now I had to put him in the slave ship and bring him across the ocean. That was the next part of the book. And I just really couldn’t quite bring myself to write that.
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Book Review: Acolytes

(Akiit.com) Nikki Giovanni is a name recognizable to poetry readers and anyone else who was intellectually living and breathing during the Black Arts Movement. She is the author of at least 30 books for adults and children and the recipient of almost an equal number of honorary degrees. She has been named woman of the year by various journals, received keys to dozens of cities, and is currently a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. Her most recent literary honors were for her illustrated children’s history book, Rosa, published in 2005.

Giovanni has now published a collection of new poems and essays titled Acolytes, dedicated to the memory of three women: her mother; Rosa Parks; and Edna Lewis, the “Grande Dame of Southern Cooking.” In fact, the entire book is a tribute to more than 30 African Americans, their names gleaned from a wide span of history, from Gabriel Prosser’s activism in the slave uprisings in the late 1700s to Leo Sacks’ musical response to Hurricane Katrina. Artists, illustrators, educators, writers, artists, activists, poets, academics, sports figures, book editors, historical victims of racially motivated oppression, and institutional representations of African American quests for freedom are all referenced, cited and positioned as “acolytes,” the bearers of inspiration.

The essays in the first third of the book (Giovanni divides the text into three “stanzas“) are predominantly reflections on events in African American history: the death of Emmett Till, the Middle Passage, the Underground Railroad, the creative response of the Harlem Renaissance, and the contemporary music/oral poetry performance theater movement. These events, Giovanni posits, are the foundations from which poets sustain their power: “Come here, Rap, let me tell you something. You ain’t no orphan. You got folks. You come up from the south with that sweat and that moan.”
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San Francisco, CA (Akiit.com) - The Financial-Quest Group (FQ-Group) has begun to market an economic advancement program that’s anchored by the family reunion format. Over 200,000 family reunions occur in the U.S. each year and more than 37% of U.S. adults attend these events. “Family reunions offer an excellent opportunity to promote economic advancement through a program itinerary,” according to Howard Ware, CFP® and founder of FQ-Group.

The economic advancement program is known as a Family Reunion Business Plan. It’s promoted, coordinated and practiced throughout the year by family members. Surveys are also conducted to identify family needs and seminar topics for the reunion itinerary.

These plans build on relatives’ emotional ties and the premise that family resources should be exhausted before going “outside” for solutions. Some components developed to coordinate this process include: an e-mail alert system, disaster response plan, family-tree profiles, education program, personal financial planning, small business development and an annual reunion. Read The Full Story…