Congratulations to Saundra Murray Nettles, PhD on the publication of her groundbreaking work Necessary Spaces: Exploring the Richness of African-American Childhood in the South. Dr. Nettles intertwines “the personal stories with social scientific theory and research and practical accounts of community-based initiatives to illuminate how local communities contributed human, built, and natural resources to support children’s achievement in schools.¹” Her work outlines the inherent strengths that were prevalent in the African-American community in the not so distant past. If one were to believe the media and lore of the majority culture, one would believe that these strengths were centered around and emanated from the Black Church. In fact, these strengths were a composite of the institutions, the environment, the people, and the African-American community’s collective belief that subsequent generations would do better than those that preceded them.
Necessary Spaces should be necessary reading for anyone who cares about or has an interest in the African-American community.
Dr. Nettles is currently a clinical professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Past affiliations include the University of Illinois at Chicago, Georgia Southern University, University of Maryland at College Park, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.²
For a complete biography see Psychology’s Feminist Voices.
http://www.feministvoices.com/saundra-murray-nettles/
For information regarding Dr. Nettles book:
http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Necessary-Spaces
¹”Necessary Spaces || Information Age Publishing.” Information Age Publishing – Academic and research book series, monographs and journals. Information Age Publishing, n.d. Web. 29 July 2013. <http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Necessary-Spaces>.
²George, M. (2012). Profile of Saundra Murray Nettles. In A. Rutherford (Ed.). Psychology’s Feminist Voices Multimedia Internet Archive.
Retrieved from http://www.feministvoices.com/saundra-murray-nettles/