Showing results by author "Ann Petry" in All Categories

Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad was praised by the New Yorker as “an evocative portrait,” and by the Chicago Tribune as “superb.” It is a gripping and accessible portrait of the heroic woman who guided more than 300 slaves to freedom and who is expected to be the face of the new $20 bill. Harriet Tubman was born a slave and dreamed of being free. She was willing to risk everything - including her own life - to see that dream come true. After her daring escape, Harriet became a conductor on the secret Underground Railroad.

The classic urban tale of a young Black woman's struggle to raise her son alone amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of 1940s Harlem. 

On a snowy Christmas Eve in an unnamed American city, the archangel Michael wanders the streets. He is alone and hungry, his clothes tattered, and when he sees his face reflected in a store window, it is that of a young African American boy. Who will offer him food and shelter and who will turn him away? And when he becomes a blonde, freckle-faced child, is his fate different?

Sapphire ( Push), Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts ( Harlem Is Nowhere), and actress Sonia Manzano ( The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano) discuss the gritty, emotional 1946 classic set in Harlem. Actress Roslyn Ruff ( The Piano Lesson; The Help) will read an excerpt.

New York City, 1940s. In a crumbling tenement in Harlem, Lutie Johnson is determined to build a new life for herself and her eight-year-old boy, Bub - a life that she can be proud of. Having left her unreliable husband, Lutie believes that with hard work and resolve, she can begin again; she has faith in the American dream. But in her struggle to earn money and raise her son amid the violence, poverty and racial dissonance of her surroundings, Lutie is soon trapped: she is a woman alone, 'too good-looking to be decent', with predators at every turn. 

New York, vierziger Jahre. Lutie Johnson zieht mit ihrem Sohn in eine schäbige Mietwohnung in Harlem. Ein übergriffiger Hausmeister, ein Bordell im Erdgeschoss und flüchtige Schatten, die die dunklen Flure bevölkern. Luties Leben wird bestimmt von täglichen Kämpfen. Gegen die Zweifel, ob sie ihrem Sohn eine gute Mutter sein kann, gegen Armut und Rassismus, gegen die Eintönigkeit des Alltags und die Perspektivlosigkeit ihrer Lage. Doch Lutie ist entschlossen, den Sprung in ein besseres Leben zu schaffen.

Link Williams is a handsome and brilliant Dartmouth graduate who tends bar due to the lack of better opportunities for an African American man in a mid-century Connecticut town. The routine of Link's life is interrupted when he intervenes to save a woman from a late-night attack. Due to the thick fog rolling in from the river, they cannot easily discern each other, so it is only when they enter a bar for a drink that Camillo sees her rescuer is black and Link learns that the woman is white.