Destiny's Child: Memoirs of a Preacher's Daughter delivers a powerful and compelling story about an African American family who survives centuries of racial and social struggles to succeed and achieve upward mobility despite numerous obstacles. Part family history, part memoir, Destiny's Child is a thoroughly researched presentation of author Jewelle Taylor Gibbs's roots, both in terms of her mixed-racial heritage and the other prominent figures that helped her develop her identity over the years. It chronicles more than two hundred years of her paternal family's strides and highlights their contributions to the civil rights movement in the United States, often motivated by such well-known pioneers as Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dorothy Height, who were family friends, role models, and mentors. Gibbs attributes her own success to her family's legacy and values, which were anchored in religion, education, economic resources, and political activism.
An intelligent, informative, and insightful account, Destiny's Child is sure to appeal to students of US history, African American studies, women's studies, and the social sciences at large. It will inevitably inspire and encourage younger people of color in their efforts to advance equal rights.
About the Author: Jewelle Taylor Gibbs is the proud daughter of a Baptist minister. Reared in Connecticut, she was later educated at Radcliffe College and the University of California at Berkeley and holds degrees in social work and psychology.
After enjoying a successful career as a college professor, Gibbs is now retired. She is the author of four books, including Young, Black, and Male in America: An Endangered Species (1988) and Race and Justice: Rodney King and O.J. Simpson in a House Divided (1996). She has also served on numerous boards over the years and has been recognized with many local, state, and national awards for her research and advocacy for at-risk minority youth.
Gibbs and her husband, who live in Oakland, California, have two sons and two grandsons.
