Black Passports: Travel Memoirs as a Tool for Youth Empowerment

by Stephanie Y. Evans

Overview

In this resource guide for fostering youth empowerment, Stephanie Y. Evans offers creative commentary on two hundred autobiographies that contain African American travel memoirs of places around the world. The narratives are by such well-known figures as Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Billie Holiday, Maya Angelou, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor, Angela Davis, Condoleezza Rice, and President Barack Obama, as well as by many lesser-known travelers. The book addresses a variety of issues related to mentoring and curriculum development. It serves as a tool for "literary mentoring," where students of all ages can gain knowledge and wisdom from texts in the same way achieved by one-on-one mentoring, and it also provides ideas for incorporating these memoirs into lessons on history, geography, vocabulary, and writing. Focusing on four main mentoring themes—life, school, work, and cultural exchange—Evans encourages readers to comb the texts for models of how to manage attitudes, behaviors, and choices in order to be successful in transnational settings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438451558
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	05/14/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	310
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Stephanie Y. Evans is Associate Professor of African American Studies, Africana Women's Studies, and History at Clark Atlanta University. She is the author of Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850–1954: An Intellectual History and coeditor (with Colette M. Taylor, Michelle R. Dunlap, and DeMond S. Miller) of African Americans and Community Engagement in Higher Education: Community Service, Service-Learning, and Community-Based Research, also published by SUNY Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Prologue: “Wisdom Is the Best of All Treasures”: Adolescent Development and the ABCs of Power

1. Introduction: Literary Mentoring

2. Life

3. School

4. Work

5. Exchange

6. Conclusion: Writing Your Own Freedom Papers

Epilogue: Regeneration, A Song for Strong Bones

Appendix A: Alphabetical List
Appendix B: Passport Geography
Appendix C: Passport Vocabulary
Appendix D: Nenoku Poetry

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Making meaningful contributions in the fields of autobiography, youth studies, education, and African American Studies, Stephanie Y. Evans's Black Passports: Travel Memoirs as a Tool for Youth Empowerment is an important book that grapples with ways to inspire today's young people … It offers a captivating collection of autobiographies that will not only allow students to learn about and be inspired by notable people of African descent but also inspire them to manifest their destinies." — CLA Journal

"This book provides a new and refreshing way to think about Black youth and issues of empowerment. It will be a useful tool for teachers, parents, scholars, and community organizers, leaders, and activists." — Valerie Grim, Indiana University Bloomington

From the Publisher