title: Can Anything Beat White?: A Black Family's Letters (Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies)
author: Elisabeth Petry
description: Petry offers a mesmerizing look at the everyday lives of a middle-class African American family in the nineteenth century through a glimpse of the 400 cards and letters saved by the James family between 1891 and 1910. The family, who settled in Hartford, Connecticut, just after the Civil War, demonstrated enterprise and determination, giving rise to several entrepreneurs, adventurers, and the critically acclaimed novelist Ann Petry (1908-97). The family of former slave Willis Samuel James and his second wife kept up a steady correspondence around the nation and the world, as the five children ventured out to become farmers, drug-store owners, educators, and soldiers. They chronicle the race riots in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898 and in Atlanta in 1906, as well as the service of black soldiers in the Philippines following the Spanish---American War, and the rise of the Niagara Movement as the emerging black middle class asserted its rights to full citizenship. The reader is treated to a rare look at life for ordinary black middle-class family members and their perspectives on history. <i>Vanessa Bush</i><br /><i>Copyright  American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
zlib_text: The Strickland Sisters Series: Book 1
  By Alexandria House
  
  Copyright © 2017 by Alexandria House
  Cover art from istockphoto.com (Sjale)
   
  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
  whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief
  quotations in a book review.
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the
  products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual
  persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
   
  Printed in the United States of America
  First Printing 2017
   
   
   
  Pink Cashmere Publishing, LLC
  pinkcashmerepub@gmail.com
  http://pinkcashmerepublishing.webs.com/
  
   
  A special thank you to #TheLoveKing, the incomparable Raheem DeVaughn, whose music inspired
  me and motivated me to write this book in a short span of time.
   
  To the readers, wow! I don’t know what to say except 