Whether sung around a campfire, in a classroom, or on a family road trip, call and response songs, in which a leader sings a phrase and a group sings back a reply, are a wonderful interactive experience for kids! Because they are easy to learn and fun to sing, call and response songs are a wonderful way to engage children, while at the same time plant the seeds of musical sensitivity and imagination. This special book, for the first time, collects the most cherished of these songs (some in danger of being lost or forgotten), enabling your family to carry on the tradition of laughter and learning that call and response songs have inspired for generations!

During 2020, widespread protests rooted in the call-and-response tradition of the Black community gained worldwide attention in the wake of high-profile wrongful deaths of Black people. From the founders to watershed moments, follow the activists and organizers on their journeys and discover the ways that protest has been fundamental to American democracy, eventually making meaningful change.

This comprehensive, chronological anthology of African and African American literature asserts that there is a distinctly black literary and cultural aesthetic, one that originated in the oral traditions of Africa and was kept alive during the American slavery experience. This text represents the centuries-long emergence of this aesthetic in poetry, fiction, drama, essays, speeches, sermons, criticism, journals, and the full range of song lyrics from the spiritual to rap. Produced in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution, the audio CD is a one-of-a-kind collection of many of the poems, chants, and songs included in the book.

"Forrest Hamer's poems rise out of the places where religion and dancing-- spirit and body-- join, and in reading Call and Response 'We are journeying to the source of all wonder, / We journey by dance. Amen.' Amen! We call in celebration. Amen!" --Andrew Hudgins

This publication presents Betye Saar's sketchbooks--which she has kept during her entire career--for the first time and offers insights into the artist's creative process. A child of the Great Depression and one of the only African American students in her UCLA art program, Betye Saar has, over the course of more than six decades, made work that exposes stereotypes and injustices based on race and gender. From early prints and watercolors to Joseph Cornell-inspired assemblages and full-scale sculptural tableaux, her work has inspired generations of artists. This ingeniously designed publication plays off the format of Saar's original sketchbooks. Made throughout her extraordinary career, Saar's sketches are an integral part of her creative process and offer a greater understanding of the themes woven into her finished works, which are also featured in the book. Saar's sources and influences range from Simon Rodia's Watts Towers and Haitian Vodou fetishes to Australian Aboriginal paintings, Native American leatherwork, and African American history, literature, and music. An original, intimate, and valuable resource for Saar's many fans, this book will also educate future generations about Saar's significant contributions to American art. Published with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Poetry. "Rob Carney is tuned to some amazing frequency--it comes from 500 North and Morton, it comes from beyond, it comes from when we were wooded slopes--but he listens and returns with these poems, thrumming with 'lifeblood,' these songs which throw down and call out (see 'Poetic Justice'), which are often rich with praise but never falsify. Sure, one might want to 'lovetalk' nature but nature will always kick our ass. It's always there, underneath us, 'with teeth.' I find this book both serious and joyful. CALL AND RESPONSE is such a good journey."--Kate Northrop

The South African photographer Cedric Nunn began working professionally as a photographer when he was twenty-five. It was 1983 and South Africa was entering one of the darkest periods in its history. Nunn had joined the agency and collective Afrapix, determined to make images about life in South Africa that he was not seeing in the media. Almost thirty years later, Nunn is firmly established as one of South Africa's most important photographers. His work has ranged widely across the South African physical and political landscape and he has photographed rallies, funerals, and, in the early 1990s, the momentous political events surrounding Nelson Mandela's release from prison -- page 4 of cover.