This story is set in St. Louis in the 1970s. The 100th year anniversary celebration of Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church is approaching and the pastor has died. How will the church pull itself back together and find a new pastor in time to prepare for the church centennial, let alone survive one more day? It seems as though everyone in the church has an idea about who the new pastor needs to be and what direction he should be going. In the tradition of Gloria Naylor's Women of Brewster Place, Bowen weaves the hilarious stories of several church members as they plan, plot, and connive to have their choice installed as the next pastor before the anniversary celebration. Second Sunday refers to one of the main worship Sundays in small traditional Baptist churches. In the book, it is the day of the scheduled centennial celebration.

1955 through 1962 The people with whom we have contact are the chisels and hammers that craft what we will become. Our lifes journey is an ever-unfolding work of art that tells the story of where we have been and with whom we have traveled. Iyanla Vanzant

Presents a biography of the Baptist minister and civil rights leader whose philosophy and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience helped African Americans win many battles for equal rights.

“The most comprehensive, the most thoroughly researched and documented, the most scholarly of the biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr.” —Henry Steele Commanger, Philadelphia Inquirer Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award * A New York Times Notable Book of the Year By the acclaimed biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Nat Turner, and John Brown, Stephen B. Oates's prizewinning Let the Trumpet Sound is the definitive one-volume life of Martin Luther King, Jr. This brilliant examination of the great civil rights icon and the movement he led provides a lasting portrait of a man whose dream shaped American history. “Drawing on interviews with those who knew King, previously unutilized material at Presidential libraries, and the holdings of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, Mr. Oates has written the most comprehensive account of King’s life yet published. . . . He displays a remarkable understanding of King’s individual role in the civil rights movement. . . . Oates’s biography helps us appreciate how sorely King is missed.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review

Detailing the domestic violence suffered by the first author during her 16 year marriage, this moving volume details the background and events leading up to and immediately following Beth Sipe's tragic act of desperation: ending the life of the perpetrator. Encouraged to publish her story by her therapist and co-author, Evelyn Hall, Sipe relates how her case was mishandled by the police, the military, a mental health professional and the welfare system, illustrating how women like herself are further victimized and neglected by the very systems that are expected to provide assistance. Her story is followed by seven commentaries by experts in the field. They discuss the causes and process of spousal abuse, reasons why battered women stay, and the dynamic consequences of domestic violence.