Simple Not Easy: Reflections on community social responsibility and tolerance (Our National Conversation) - Hardcover

Roberts Ph.D., Dr. Terrence J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1935166166 ISBN 13: 9781935166160

Publisher: Parkhurst Brothers Publishers Inc, 2010

Synopsis

HE MADE  HISTORY. HE TELLS THE TRUTHS HE  KNOWS.
 LEAD TITLE/Our  National Conversation Series

"Terrence Roberts is in the truest sense an upstander - an individual whose voice and actions compel us to explore difficult topics and challenge us to face our shared history, honestly. His words and reflections celebrate the notion of difference, model socially responsible behavior and promote tolerance in our daily lives. Reading this book, you will be inspired, in Dr. Roberts's words, to 'think  beyond the ordinary."
----Margot  Stern Strom, Executive  Director, Facing History and Ourselves, Inc.

"Terrence  Roberts  challenges  all of  us to make the world  more inclusive  by adjusting  our 'mental maps.'  He reminds  us that we will not achieve that long-sought  beloved  community  until we  recognize   the  value  of  each  individual-until  we  affirm  each  other.  Simple,  NotEasy is one trailblazer's  mingling  of  history  and  contemporary  mattersto engage a new conversations on community, social responsibility and tolerance. A powerful  book  by  a civil rights  legend."
--- Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Jr., Ed.D.,

About this title

About the Author

Terrence J. Roberts is one of the "Little Rock Nine" who integrated Little Rock Central High School when President Eisenhower called out the 81st Airborne Division of the US Army to protect him and eight other black students as they exercised their constitutional right to attend the smae public high school as white students.  Roberts later earned a Ph.D. in Psychology (Southern IL University), and taught in California universities until he became a dean at California State University.  He has also maintained a clinical practice in psychology for many years.  Now he heads a management consulting firm that counsels institutions and corporations on race relations and other matters.  Dr. Roberts is a much sought-after public speaker, making fifty or more public addresses each year to audiences nationwide.

From the Back Cover

 LEAD TITLE/Our  National Conversation Series

"Terrence Roberts is in the truest sense an upstander - an individual whose voice and actions compel us to explore difficult topics and challenge us to face our shared history, honestly. His words and reflections celebrate the notion of difference, model socially responsible behavior and promote tolerance in our daily lives. Reading this book, you will be inspired, in Dr. Roberts's words, to 'think  beyond the ordinary."
---Margot  Stern Strom, Executive  Director, Facing History and Ourselves, Inc.

"Terrence  Roberts  challenges  all of  us to make the world  more inclusive  by adjusting  our 'mental maps.'  He reminds  us that we will not achieve that long-sought  beloved  community  until we  recognize   the  value  of  each  individual-until  we  affirm  each  other.  Simple,  NotEasy is one trailblazer's  mingling  of  history  and  contemporary  mattersto engage a new conversations on community, social responsibility and tolerance. A powerful  book  by  a civil rights  legend."
--- Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Jr., Ed.D.,

 

Reviews

In his new collection of essays and speeches, psychologist and civil rights activist Roberts provides cultural perspective propelled by hope, strength, loss, and redemption. Roberts found fame at a young age, as one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African American students who were the first to be integrated into a "whites only" school, an experience Roberts returns to often; the physical and mental harassment he endured, not only from peers, but from certain Little Rock adults, contains relevant lessons continually in need of unpacking. Including addresses at libraries, graduations, and Civil Rights conventions, Roberts' collection emphases personal responsibility-for one's highest values, as well as one's less noble biases-and connects with fatherly charm, a common-sense approach to justice and community, and a contagious belief in mankind's better nature. Vivid accounts from the days of segregation immerse readers in a divided world, but Roberts's charismatic voice and keen eye for topical developments keep his work fresh, focused, and inspirational. END

Roberts was one of the Little Rock Nine, the group of African American teenagers who were the first to integrate Central High School in the Arkansas capital in 1957. Kept from entering the school by the Arkansas National Guard, the students were finally escorted into the building by U.S. Army soldiers deployed by President Eisenhower. Since that traumatic experience, Roberts went on to successful careers in education, as a professor of psychology, and business, as the CEO of a management-consulting firm. This volume brings together his collected speeches, many of which were given as commencement addresses or as part of Martin Luther King Day celebrations. The commencement-address style is typically fraught with high seriousness and a stentorian tone; fortunately, Roberts avoids both, discoursing on predictable topics—education, ethics, racism, community, and family—but doing so with humor and grace. Along the way, too, there is plenty of autobiography, not only about Little Rock but also about his life both before and after those history-changing days in 1957. The volume concludes, appropriately, with reflections on the election of President Obama. Thought-provoking and inspiring commentary. --Ilene Cooper

Edition details

• Publisher: Parkhurst Brothers Publishers Inc
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1935166166
• ISBN 13: 9781935166160
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192