Synopses & Reviews
One by one, phenomenal African American women are breaking through the glass ceiling of race and gender bias. Setting political agendas, heading major institutions, and shaping corporate strategies, they are the newest architects of America's future. Sister Power is packed with groundbreaking insight into their amazing life journeys.
How have they come so far? What defines and sustains them? During in-depth interviews with more than forty-five black female CEOs, legislators, and senior executives, Patricia Reid-Merritt searched for answers. In this illuminating, provocative book, she reveals the essential characteristics she found.
The voices of U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, Ms. magazine editor-in-chief Marcia Gillespie, former PUSH president the Reverend Willie Barrow, and many other courageous and innovative leaders resonate throughout, offering definitive lessons and eye-opening details about their careers and private lives.
Sister Power explores the crucial stages and issues of their lives: how they developed in childhood, their experiences once they left the nurturing black community, their professional rise, challenges to their positions, and their struggle for personal happiness.
We meet women who insisted on their right to self-identity, women who had to create themselves over and over again, women of vision who even now continue to challenge our sense of what is possible.
Incisive and empowering, Sister Power rings with the wisdom, values, and beliefs of inspiring women who accept no barriers. Reid-Merritt's compelling investigation offers encouragement and a model of principled leadership to all who travel once-forbidden roads.
"This book, about the tenacity of black women, reminds me of 'testimony service' in the true gospel tradition. By showing us the lives of sisters in dramatic leadership roles, Patricia Reid-Merritt gives us all courage. These women broke not only the glass ceiling, but also the brick walls of the old-boy network." —Dr. Gwendolyn Goldsby Grant psychologist, inspirational speaker, talk show expert, and advice columnist for Essence magazine
"Sister Power is a powerful book, full of ideas and insights needed to climb to the top then reach down and lift up." —George C. Fraser author of Success Runs in Our Race
Synopsis
"Extensive . . . inspired . . . forty-five of the most recognizable and powerful black women in the country." --USA Today
"This book, about the tenacity of black women, reminds me of 'testimony service' in the true gospel tradition. By showing us the lives of sisters in dramatic leadership roles, Patricia Reid-Merritt gives us all courage. These women broke not only the glass ceiling, but also the brick walls of the old-boy network." --Dr. Gwendolyn Goldsby Grant psychologist and advice columnist for Essence magazine.
One by one, phenomenal African American women are breaking through the glass ceiling of race and gender bias. Setting political agendas, heading major institutions, and shaping corporate strategies, they are the newest architects of America's future. Sister Power is packed with groundbreaking insight into their amazing life journeys.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 215) and index.
About the Author
PATRICIA REID-MERRITT, D.S.W. (Hamilton Township, New Jersey), a well-known African American community and social activist, often speaks before national conferences. She is Professor of Social Work and African American Studies at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Table of Contents
Inspiration.
Sisters in Charge.
"The Child That Be Talkin'." I Can Tell You the Exact Moment.
Coming of Age.
A Hard Road Up.
Leap to the Top.
"Mama Never Said There'd Be Days Like This." We've Come This Far by Faith.
Sister Power.
Coming Full Circle: Messages to Our Sisters.
Selected Bibliography.
Index.