Customer Reviews

Our Common Ground: Portraits of Blacks Changing the Face of America (Qty & CN$ are ppb)

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What a wonderful collection of photographs and stories. I stumbled upon this photo essay at a book store and had to take it home. For so long the positive role models for and within the African-American community have supposedly been athletes and entertainers. Mr. Caines' vision is broader, deeper and more realistic than that. A female engineer on the Long Island Railroad; a female stonemason creating sculpture for a Harlem cathedral; a fifteen-year-old boy in Oregon chooses not to end up like his mother, killed in a drug deal, stops selling crack in his neighborhood and becomes and honor roll student; one of 11 astrophysicists of African descent in America all are our modern day, next door neighbor role models. The inclusion of a few celebrities in this gorgeous book brought a whole new dimension to personalities like Bryant Gumbel for me.

Beautiful photography, and intimate narrative profiles by this author brought joy to my heart and a tear to my eye. Makes makes me wish =I= were African American!

Our Common Ground is the best kind of inspirational non-fiction, because it's not some famous person TELLING us how to live our lives to the fullest, it's a collection of "regular" people DOING just that!

OCG is the perfect gift for a young person (or any person for that matter) whom you would like to inspire to become all they were created to be.

Not that "I Dream A World" was bad, but in my eyes it clearly lacked something. That "something" was a personal connection with the subjects. Mr. Caines' photographs and text show his obvious appreciation, respect and fascination with his subjects. Unlike "IDAW", the photography in "Our Common Ground" reflects a sensitivity and loyalty to the individuality of the PEOPLE they depict--not the photographic style of the photographer.

Wonderful photographs. Captivating reading. Bravo!