In Fifty Years from the Basement to the Second Floor, Tom Colbert, former chief of justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, shares his extraordinary life story—a story of resilience, determination, and hope. From his great-great grandmother who, though born into slavery, lived to be over 100 years old to his great grandfather who fought to be enrolled as a member of Creek Tribal Nation to his grandfather who walked over a mile home after being shot in the chest, never giving up no matter how hard the journey was instilled into Tom at a very young age. Born on December 30, 1949, Tom was raised by his mother and grandparents in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, when segregation laws were in effect. In fact, a few days after Tom was born, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher had just started her second semester as a law student at the University of Oklahoma Law School after fighting for three years to be admitted there, refusing to attend the makeshift “Black-only” law school set up in the basement of the State Capitol. Though racial segregation was deemed unconstitutional in 1954, integration was intentionally delayed in Tom’s town, and he didn’t attend an integrated school until the fall of 1965. Although some teachers at his high school were welcoming, many staff and students were not, and Tom and his friends experienced racism, bigotry, and hatred, despite being star athletes and diligent students. Though he grew up in poverty and a world entrenched in systemic racism as well as dealt with family tragedies, Tom beat impossible odds, proving the naysayers of his youth wrong. He not only worked hard and became an outstanding lawyer, but reached the pinnacle of judiciary—and became the first Black man in Oklahoma to do so. Just like Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, Tom refused the “basement,” and that noble resistance led him all the way to the second floor of the Oklahoma State Capitol.

Originally published in 1970 this title commemorates the men and ideas that started, inspired and established a pioneer institution in British psychiatry. Based on the impetus of Freudian and related innovations after the First World War, the Tavistock Clinic offered treatment, training and research facilities in the field of neurosis, child guidance and later on group relations. Dr Dicks, who had been associated for nearly forty years with the work and personalities that helped to develop the Tavistock venture, describes the struggles and capacity for survival of the clinic. He shows how, belonging neither to the older classical psychiatry nor to orthodox psychoanalysis, and suspect to both, the Clinic nevertheless became increasingly used by the rest of the profession as a psychotherapeutic resource. Dr Dicks describes the influence of the Tavistock on the medical, psychological and social work scene both before and after the Second World War, and assesses its achievements as a centre of psycho- and socio-dynamic thinking. The Tavistock is shown as a pioneer sui generis, launching psychosomatic research and initiating the exciting ventures in social psychiatry associated with the Army in the Second World War. As the Tavistock was the outcome of work with shell-shock victims in the first war, so its offspring, the Institute of Human Relations, was the natural continuation of the military effort in man-management, morale and group dynamic studies. The book includes an account of the inter-relationship between the Clinic, now part of the National Health Service, and the Institute, a private corporation. Still going strong as part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust today this is an opportunity to revisit its early history.

Join Letitia Stuart Savage on a journey to a time of leisurely shopping for the latest fashions complete with a side of Mile High Ice Cream Pie from the Tic Toc Restaurant. In 1871, Jacob and Isaac Kaufmann created a classic Pittsburgh institution. The business grew from a small store on the South Side to a mammoth clothing house downtown that outfitted the community. The removal of the original freestanding clock upset customers, so Kaufmann's added its iconic version in 1913. A redesign of the store's first floor attracted national attention in the 1930s. While most Pittsburghers remember and celebrate the downtown store, others recall the suburban branches - miniatures of the expansive flagship store.