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A primary source–rich account of the founding of the National Council for Black Studies, "Of Our New Day Begun" is both a personal and institutional story. Through a composite of personal recollection and historical research, author William M. King recounts the story of the people, events, and processes involved in the prelude, formation, and initiation of the council through the first five years of its existence. 

In "Of Our New Day Begun" King fuses two separate and distinct stories: the story of the creation and evolution of the Black Studies program at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and the story of how the specific needs of that program—especially accreditation—led to the creation of the NCBS. For the first part of the story, King relies on Bertha Maxwell-Roddey's 1974 doctoral dissertation, supplemented with additional archival documents and conversations. The second part of the story is based primarily on King’s memories, files, and research as one of the founders of NCBS, supplemented by interviews; materials from the NCBS archives; local, regional, and national newspaper accounts; and additional secondary materials.

Part memoir and part institutional history, "Of Our New Day Begun" is also a story about how to build an institution during times of social change. A reconstruction of the sights, sounds, ideas, and birth pangs King witnessed and experienced and the meanings he has come to make of them, this work is a significant contribution to the story of race and race relations in the United States during the mid to late twentieth century.

In 23 Woodcock in 22 Years, Jeff Wilkerson interweaves his twin passions of astrophysics and game hunting. Stories of how we understand the universe mesh with stories of time in the field, and in doing so capture the uncanny phenomenon of the passage of time: everything evolves around us while we expect our world to remain unchanged.
         As Wilkerson’s thoughts soar to the stars that produced the chemical elements that form us and all the land and its creatures, simple reflections on going afield to harvest a woodcock for a special holiday meal ground him. What emerges is a love story about a bird, the land, and all of creation from atomic nuclei to the farthest reaches of the universe, and a reminder to acknowledge the gentle flow of time while cherishing the everyday existence around us.
 

In Águila: The Vision, Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Two-Spirit Shaman in the Ozark Mountains, María Cristina Moroles traces the path of her extraordinary life from the streets of Dallas to the wilderness of the Arkansas Ozarks, where she has resided for fifty years. Hailing from a large Indigenous and Mexican American family in Texas, Moroles apprentices herself to healers and shamans across the Americas as she follows the spiritual vision that leads her to establish a mountaintop sanctuary for women and children of color in a notoriously insular location in the Ozark Mountains. This is a survivor’s tale, and a back-to-the-lander’s tale, unlike any other. From early traumas to countercultural rebellion and profound spiritual awakening, Moroles recounts milestones that earn her the ceremonial names SunHawk and Águila, as she builds a sustainable community off the grid, atop a mountain otherwise uninhabited by human life. Águila tells the truth of one woman’s search for freedom and all women’s quest for dignity as it celebrates the healing powers of nature.