ONE OF A KIND AWARD GIVEN ON HUMAN RIGHTS
DAY TO WRITERS AND ACTIVISTS

(AANEWSWIRE)BOSTON (Dec. 13, 2004) - A tiny Boston-based center and national network announced its 20th annual list of award winning books and authors, recognizing contributions to advancing understanding of the multifaceted complexities of, and possibilities for building communities and a world that works for all of us equitably.

The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights, established in 1984, announced on December 11, 2004, on the occasion of world-wide commemorations of Human Rights Day, winners of the Myers Outstanding Book Awards in Buffalo, Chicago, Greenville (NC), Miami, Oakland, Tampa, Washington (DC) and Boston.

The books speaking both to erased history and today's history-making were selected by a diverse panel of reviewers from across the country. Some are written by journalists and professors, some by individual authors, and some by "engaged collaborations of organizers," said Dr. Loretta J. Williams, the Center's Director. "All speak to complexities and to possibilities, giving insight useful for the present moment." The winners of the yearlong national competition are:

Martha Biondi, professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University in Chicago, has won for "To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City," published by Harvard University Press. She recounts a grassroots radical history that challenges conventional assumptions of the start of the "civil rights movement" as in the south, mid 50s.

Eunice Hyunhe Cho; Francisco Arguelles Paz y Puente,; Miriam Ching Yoon Louie; and Sasha Khokha won for BRIDGE: Building a Race and Immigration Dialogue in the Global Economy: A Popular Educational Resource for Immigrant & Refugee Community Organizers, published by the Oakland-based National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. BRIDGE is a resource workbook taking on ways to generate productive dialogue on issues of racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, language barriers, the anti-immigrant backlash, and more.

Alexis De Veaux, SUNY at Buffalo Women's Studies director, won for Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, Norton 2004, a ground-breaking biography of the late poet, essayist and activist Audre Lorde, a cultural icon for many women.

Pansie Hart Flood, a school teacher in Greenville (NC) and Amy Wummer, an illustrator in Reading (PA) won for It's Test Day, Tiger Turcotte, Carolrhoda/Lerner Books 2004. The children's book was selected for its creative approach to validating the feelings of anxiety about testing, and an unanticipated challenge to the child's racial identity.

M. Evelina Galang, University of Miami English professor and editor, won for Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images, Coffee House Press 2003. The collaboration with Eileen Tabios, Sumaina Maira, Jordan Isip, Anida Yoeu Esguerra and others came about as a response to a disparaging restaurant review printed in "Milwaukee Magazine" that referred to the Filipino owner's child as a "rambunctious little monkey."

Elaine C. Hagopian, Simmons College Professor Emeritus and editor, won for Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims, Haymarket Books/Pluto Press 2004. Hagopian and essayists Susan M. Akram, Naseer Aruri, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Samih Farsoun, Kevin R. Johnson, Robert Morlino, Nancy Murray and Will Youmans for their cogent analyses of the relationship between accelerated repression of Muslims and Arabs domestically, and U.S. empire building abroad.

David K. Johnson, visiting professor of history at the University of South Florida at Tampa, won for The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays in the Federal Government, Univ. of Chicago Press 2004, telling of the homophobic purges in the 1950s as US security agents portrayed gays and lesbians as vulnerable to "communist" influence and manipulation.

Yuri Nakahara Kochiyama, life-long activist now residing in Oakland (CA), won for Passing It On - A Memoir, UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press 2004 for telling of her life from pre-internment camp days through to the present day including her grassroots activism while living in Harlem for civil rights for all, political empowerment, justice for political prisoners, Puerto Rican independence, Native sovereignty, ethnic studies, reparations and more. She was at Malcolm X's side the fateful day that he was assassinated.

Amanda Lewis, sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, won for Race in the Schoolyard: Classrooms and Communities, Rutgers Univ Press 2004 for her ethnographic study of three public elementary schools in California examining how racial hierarchies are reproduced in day-to-day interactions. Lewis provides examples of how race and racial inequality are taught in myriad ways, contrary to colorblind narratives.

David K. Shipler, noted journalist residing in Chevy Chase (MD), won for The Working Poor: Invisible in America, Knopf 2004 for his multi-angled description of the faces, lives and issues of the unemployed, the underemployed, and those exploited by multiple jobs. Shipler analyzes how the globalized economy has modified the Horatio Alger myth.
This is the 20th year of the Myers Outstanding Book Awards Advancing Human Rights, a unique honor. The Myers Center, established in 1984 and now based in Boston at Simmons College, works to promote analyses and ideas that can help ordinary people become more active in creating a more just and equitable multiracial and multicultural society. For more info, please go to www.myerscenter.org

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