Book Reviews
‘The Book of Obsidian: A Manual for the 21st Century Black American Gentleman’
The 450-page reader focuses on Black dating and male and female relationships, a subject that has been a large focus for his weekly podcasts over the past four years. He believes the situation between Black men and women is dire.

Based on everything he puts to paper, the prolific novelist and essayist Ishmael Reed has been called a writing pugilist. Social media personality and DJ Mumia Obsidian Ali can be viewed in that same light. Ali is a fighter for the everyday Black man in his radio shows and on his YouTube platform.
The 52-year-old Philadelphia native is one of the most influential voices online as one of the co-founders of Black Manosphere, the African American section on YouTube, which deals with helping uplift Black men. The Black Manosphere has content creators who deal with self-improvement, popular culture, family development, hip-hop culture, history and mating and dating.
The first manifesto of the Black Manosphere is Ali’s recently released book, the ‘Book of Obsidian: A Manual for the 21st Century Black American Gentleman.’
The 450-page reader focuses on Black dating and male and female relationships, a subject that has been a large focus for his weekly podcasts over the past four years. He believes the situation between Black men and women is dire.
“Successful Black men and women just can’t get along, especially when you consider that when Black Americans were under the heel of Jim Crow itself, more were married then whites,” writes Ali.
Ali’s book is comprised of new essays and others written for the Negromanosphere, an online web publication started by Oshay Duke Jackson, another founder of the Black Manosphere.
Like Ali’s witty and combative talking style on the microphone, in his writing Ali paints a complicated picture of how Black relationships are marred by the old paradigm of the negative Black male image.
This image dates back to the 1980s and 1990s when Black men were portrayed in the media and in song as irresponsible, in prison, on drugs, unemployed or unambitious. This has led to many Black women asking, “where are the Black men at?” One of the first things he does in the book is to dispel this myth.
“Not only do more Black men attend and graduate from college today,” writes Ali. “There are actually more of them doing so than at any other point in American history.”
He writes that the negative perception of Black men makes Black women feel they do not have suitable mates when this is far from the truth. More than 52% of Black men have never been married and are childless. Of those that are married, 85% have Black wives and that Black men are more likely to be married then Black women.
The book has two parts. The ‘Macro’ takes a newspaper story or contemporary look at dating topics with Ali’s commentary on the issues and news article. The book then takes a ‘Micro’ examination of issues in which Ali deals with mating and dating.
At times the book drags on as it’s probably 100 pages too long, but you get the point that Ali has a lot to say and get off his chest. So much so, he has stated, the ‘Book of Obsidian,’ will be the first in a trilogy of books.
Ali’s ‘Book of Obsidian’ will give you an overview on how we got to where we are and where things are going to go. He said there needs to be re-examination of how Black men and women relate to each other as we move on with the rest of the 21st century.
The Book of Obsidian can be purchased online at Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, Booksamillion.com, Bookbaby.com and various other online and book stores across the country.
Arts and Culture
BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy
When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages
Take care.
Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.
It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’
Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.
Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.
She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”
When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.
First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”
After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.
“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.
“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”
Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.
Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.
But don’t. Not quite yet.
In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.
This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.
Activism
Book Review: Slavery after Slavery
In the years after the end of the Civil War, some Southern former slave owners refused to accept that slavery was over, and the courts often sided with them. In particular, under habeas corpus, Black children were sometimes taken from their parents and placed into an “apprenticeship,” which was another word for “slavery” then. Berry estimates that more than two million 10-to-19-year-olds were trapped in this way for years.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Author: Mary Frances Berry, c.2024, Beacon Press, $27.95
Your kids will have a better life than you had.
You’ll make sure of it, saving for their education, demanding excellence from them, requiring discipline, and offering support for their dreams and desires. Their success is your dream and, as parents did in the new book “Slavery after Slavery” by Mary Frances Berry, you’ll fight to see that it happens.
In the years after the end of the Civil War, some Southern former slave owners refused to accept that slavery was over, and the courts often sided with them. In particular, under habeas corpus, Black children were sometimes taken from their parents and placed into an “apprenticeship,” which was another word for “slavery” then. Berry estimates that more than two million 10-to-19-year-olds were trapped in this way for years.
Here, she shares the stories of many of them.
In late 1865, Nathan and Jenny Cox lost their five children to their former “master,” who also took seven other children by persuading a local magistrate to let him apprentice the kids. As time passed, some of the children took their former owner’s last name as their own which, in effect, erased their family’s history.
When six-year-old Mary Cannon was in danger of being apprenticed, a White woman came to her defense. Ultimately, the courts sided with Mary’s benefactor and the girl was returned to her parents to live on their former enslaver’s plantation.
Hepsey Saunders tried to leave her former owner’s plantation, but he “refused to let her take the children” that were born when she was enslaved. Though the theft of her children happened in 1865, the story lingered over a span of decades.
In most of the cases Berry cites, the families – with or without the return of their children – remained uneducated, unhealthy, and under discrimination. Imagine, she says, that these former slaves had had a chance to control their own lives. Imagine, she says, “if these Black people were permitted to pursue the American Dream.”
While it may seem that “Slavery after Slavery” is a historical narrative, that’s not all you’ll get if you tackle this skinny book.
When reading the stories inside, readers may struggle to keep track of what’s told. The accounts are a bit repetitious and each one packs a lot of names, legal decisions, court rulings, and places, some of which nearly require a law degree and all of which demand full attention. That can be overwhelming, unless you shut the door and avoid any distraction.
Berry uses these stories to point out lasting damage done to many Black families, which is essential info for readers to ponder. She goes further to argue that what happened to the two million children is reason enough for reparations, which makes a good argument, but it’s sometimes misplaced inside the flow of this book.
Still, readers will agree that the accounts Berry uncovered have been hidden too long, and shedding light on them is essential. “Slavery after Slavery” educates and could help enrichen conversations – and arguments – about the injustices and ongoing legacy of slavery.
Activism
Book Review: Author Juan Williams Makes Case for Second Civil Rights Movement in ‘New Eyes for This Prize’
History disagrees on the exact catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. However, Williams says that “the second Civil Rights Movement” sparked at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and it took less than 20 minutes.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez
You’re not letting go that easily.
No, you’re on the right side of justice and you’re not letting go of the issue. Your heels are dug in, your back is straight, and your resolve is steely. You have a plan, and you’ll keep it, and see it to the end no matter what happens. As in the new book “New Prize for These Eyes” by Juan Williams, there are some who’ve gone before you, but your effort is what matters now.
History disagrees on the exact catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. However, Williams says that “the second Civil Rights Movement” sparked at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and it took less than 20 minutes.
Not long after young Senator Barack Obama, whose presence was meant to attract Black voters, began his speech at that convention, he had the audience cheering. He was positive, energetic, and energizing, and spoke of “a new sense of common purpose,” which spurred a Second Civil Rights Movement and a mandate to “deal with … cultural issues that the first Movement had left unresolved …”
The speech thrust Obama onto the national stage and, with the endorsement of many old guard Civil Rights Movement figures, ultimately put him in the White House. His presence there wasn’t without issues, both politically and racially, however: the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Philando Castile, and others, absolutely affected Obama’s terms, in part because “he acted only as a referee” and didn’t “take any special level of response as a Black man.” Still, early civil rights leaders agreed with him that America was “better” than it was 60 years ago.
Before Obama’s second term was over, a “right-wing backlash” that was “fueled by grievance” ushered Donald Trump into office but by then, young Black Americans had flocked to social media and gave root to the Black Lives Matter movement. “COVID-19 would also transform” the situation.
By the summer of 2024, “the Second Civil Rights Movement was far from completing its agenda,” says Williams, but “it had still achieved remarkable success.”
Pay very close attention while you’re reading this book. It’s filled with politics, but there’s a pay-off in it: Williams does a little forecasting toward the end of “New Prize for These Eyes,” promising readers a new movement, a third one, to come.
Even if you’re not particularly a politics-watcher, Williams draws your attention to the last 20 years and how they keenly shaped racism and racial issues in America. Sometimes, he seems to invite argument, using Obama as a singular catalyst for this “second” movement and its current continuation, fairly or unfairly.
He also credits other people and events that will make readers want to find someone to discuss his theories with. The tantalizing idea of a third movement will only underscore that desire.
As a sequel to Williams’ “Eyes on the Prize,” this is a must-read for anyone who knows where we’ve been or wonders where we’re going. Find “New Prize for These Eyes.”
You will not want to let it go.
“New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement,” Author: Juan Williams c.2025, Simon & Schuster, $28.99.
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