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A Tarzan moviewithout ‘racistbaggage’ See page B5

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A summer cookout with a protein punch See page B6SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

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BY JENEE OSTERHELDTKANSAS CITY STAR/TNS

In high school, my friends and I secretly passed around her books.

In the 1990s, educated, suc-cessful Black women were not exactly common in fiction. But because Terry McMillan’s nov-els never ran away from sensu-ality and the complex dynam-ics of love, divorce and mar-riage, we weren’t supposed to be reading them.

Still, “Waiting to Exhale,” “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and “Disappearing Acts” made their way into our

backpacks before we saw them made into movies.

We loved reading these books just as much as we loved watching “Martin” and “Living Single” because we as-pired to be Black profession-als. We wanted courage and exciting adventures like Stella. We wanted strength and per-severance like Bernadine.

‘You still have time’In her new book, “I Almost

Forgot About You” (Crown), we meet Georgia Young, a 54-year-old optometrist. Mc-Millan crafted this character to

teach us the art of reinvention, introspection and never giving up on yourself.

She’s been touring the country spreading the book’s message: The party ain’t over when your 30s end.

Speaking to her is almost like talking to your favorite auntie. And Auntie Terry is a proud 64-year-old, vibrant and fun and willing to share what she’s learned.

“There are so many women, and men, who have thrown in the towel,” McMillan tells me from her New York ho-tel room. “They are in their late 40s or 50s and maybe a little past that, and they have reached a plateau in their ca-reers or love lives.

“They have almost flat-lined. They are bored with

their chosen profession, may-be they are divorced or have never been married. This is my way of saying you still have time to slide into home.”

Unhappy, scaredGeorgia Young runs her own

practice in the Bay Area. But it’s not her passion. She loves interior design and rehabbing furniture. She’s twice divorced and holding a grudge. Her children are grown. She wants to sell her practice and her big house and travel. But she’s scared.

“First and foremost is ad-mitting you are unhappy,” Mc-Millan says. “It’s hard to do be-cause it means you have to do something about it rather than accept it. Otherwise you are a passive contributor in your own inertia or angst.”

So Georgia not only starts making plans to rediscover herself, she puts herself in check. How have her bitter-ness and fear played into her unhappiness? And from there, she goes on a journey of for-giving her exes and taking ac-countability for some of her own choices.

Terry’s testimony“Going through a very con-

tentious divorce, I learned forgiveness is liberating,” she reflects. “I was angry for three years. That’s a long time to be apoplectic. People get com-fortable with anger. It be-comes a safety net. You don’t think about forgiveness be-cause you are so wrapped up in your anger because your heart has been bruised and stomped on.

“After a while it becomes a way of life, and it permeates all other facets of your life and the people around you. The only person you are hurting is yourself. It’s important to let go of that anger and forgive so you can live.”

Honest relationshipsHealthy friendships play a

part in holding that mirror to your face and telling you the truth. Georgia and her friends are in constant and brash con-versation to keep one another honest.

“It’s a given with Black women: We see ourselves as sisters, not just friends. We don’t B.S. each other. We are very honest. We get angry with each other. Sometimes we don’t speak for months,

BY DR. GLENN ALTSCHULERSPEICAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

Located in central Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant was a shell of its former self by the 1950s. Tree-lined streets, beautiful brownstones, and an air of gen-tility had given way to crowded dilapidated dwellings or govern-ment constructed housing proj-ects.

“It is general knowledge,” a 1953 study concluded, “that Bedford-Stuyvesant is an under-privileged area with a large Ne-gro population that is on the in-crease” – a tinderbox where frus-trations were mounting.

In the 1960s, Bed-Stuyvesant, which had been labeled “Amer-ica’s largest ghetto,” became a staging ground for President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Pov-erty – and its controversial com-munity action program.

In Battle for Bed-Stuy, Michael Woodsworth, who teaches his-tory at Bard High School Early College in Queens, New York, provides an informative account of the origins of anti-poverty pol-icies and assesses the impact of the War on Poverty on the neigh-borhood.

Inspired but limitedOn occasion, “Battle for Bed-

Stuy’’ gets lost in the weeds, sup-plying – and repeating – long

lists of names of community or-ganizations and leaders.

That said, the book is an il-luminating case study of fre-quent skirmishes and pitched battles (over tactics and strat-egy) between middle-aged, middle-class reformers (includ-ing women like Elsie Richardson and Shirley Chisholm); younger, more radical, and predomi-nantly male grassroots activists seeking to represent a previously disempowered constituency and refusing to work within the con-fines of the White power struc-ture and the welfare state; mu-nicipal officials; and federal gov-ernment bureaucrats.

Woodsworth reveals that the “wide discrepancy” between the soaring rhetoric of the War on Poverty and the “limited re-sources” the federal government actually allocated inspired ac-tivists to “organize, agitate, and dream big;” made it virtually im-possible to change fundamental social and economic conditions (including white flight, the de-industrialization of cities and inferior schools); and split com-munities into rival camps scrap-ping for comparatively small slices of the anti-poverty pie.

Battle to overcome“Battle for Bed-Stuy’’ also ex-

plores the contradictions em-bedded in the philosophy of

“maximum feasible” community participation. On the one hand, ghetto dwellers, who were said to be “crippled” by the legacy of slavery, segregation, and poverty that crushed individual initiative, were deemed incompetent and pathological. On the other, “they were expected to organize them-selves, overcome bureaucratic hurdles and promote self-help.

An equally important para-dox, Woodsworth indicates, was the fact that participatory democracy was designed from above, by presidential task forces and federal agencies: “citizen movements tamed the state, but the state tamed them back.” Radical impulses were softened, Woodsworth writes, but com-munity action groups also got access to resources and “politi-cal spaces” in which they could press for more power.

Sufficient progressWoodsworth acknowledges

that it’s “tempting to conclude” that the War on Poverty did little to alter the fate of places like Bedford-Stuyvesant. And/or that it had been designed by President Johnson, Senator Rob-ert Kennedy and New York City Mayor Robert Wagner “to defuse unrest, to absorb the energies of the civil rights movement,” and to co-opt African-American leaders “into the structures of the Democratic Party.

And yet, Woodsworth points out, even though some critics la-beled community action “politi-cal theater” that sent “grassroots energies in fratricidal direc-tions,” organizations in Bedford-Stuyvesant had made sufficient progress in urban revitalization to stimulate “a flurry of press reports” in the 1970s proclaim-

ing the neighborhood “a minor miracle.”

Divided neighborhoodIn the 1980s, the Reagan ad-

ministration dismantled the last vestiges of federal government support for poor urban neigh-borhoods. By then, Woodsworth concludes, “the grand promises of The Great Society had reced-ed into history.” The gains ghet-toes had achieved “were often dwarfed by the magnitude of need.”

And these days Bed-Stuy has become a divided neighbor-hood. Amidst gentrification, Whites have moved there in droves, with brownstones selling for $2 million and rents as high as $4,500 a month; while rates of concentrated poverty and incar-ceration are among the highest in the United States.

African-American leaders are organizing again, but it is by no means clear whether or how newcomers can be welcomed while preserving the culture, his-tory and legacy of the Bedford-Stuyvesant community.

Dr. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Li-twin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He wrote this review for the Florida Courier.

REVIEW

“Battle for Bed-Stuy: The Long War on Poverty in New York City’’ by Michael Woodsworth. Harvard University Press. 416 pages, $35.

‘Battle for Bed-Stuy’ assesses impact of War on Poverty

Character in new book by Terry McMillan is in her 50s

CINDI CHRISTIE/CONTRA COSTA TIMES/TNS

Author Terry McMillan is photographed in her California home in 2010. She was promoting her book, “Getting to Happy,” which continues the stories of four women who are the main characters of “Waiting to Exhale.”

It’s never too lateAUTHOR’S LATEST MESSAGE:

PHOTO COURTESY OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE/TNS

“I Almost Forgot About You” is the new book by Terry McMillan.