{"product_id":"9780826273086","title":"They Raised Me Up: A Black Single Mother and the Women Who Inspired Her","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt the height of the cocaine-fueled 1980s, Carolyn Wilkins left a disastrous marriage in Seattle and, hoping to make it in the music business, moved with her four-year-old daughter to a gritty working-class town on the edge of Boston. \u003ci\u003eThey Raised Me Up\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of her battle to succeed in the world of jam sessions and jazz clubs—a man’s world where women were seen as either sex objects or doormats. To survive, she had to find a way to pay the bills, overcome a crippling case of stage fright, fend off a series of unsuitable men, and most important, find a reliable babysitter.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAlternating with Carolyn’s story are the stories of her ancestors and mentors—five musically gifted women who struggled to realize their dreams at the turn of the twentieth century:\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePhilippa Schuyler, whose efforts to “pass” for white inspired Carolyn to embrace her own black identity despite her “damn near white” appearance and biracial child;\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMarjory Jackson, the musician and single mother whose dark complexion and flamboyant lifestyle raised eyebrows among her contemporaries in the snobby, color-conscious world of the African American elite;\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLilly Pruett, the daughter of an illiterate sharecropper whose stunning beauty might have been her only ticket out of the “Jim Crow” South;\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRuth Lipscomb, the country girl who dreamed, against all odds, of becoming a concert pianist and realized her improbable ambition in 1941;\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAlberta Sweeney, who survived a devastating personal tragedy by relying on the musical talent and spiritual stamina she had acquired growing up in a rough-and-tumble Kansas mining town.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThey Raised Me Up\u003c\/i\u003e interweaves memoir with family history to create an entertaining, informative, and engrossing read that will appeal to anyone with an interest in African American or women’s history or to readers simply looking for an intriguing story about music and family.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Missouri Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081483075824,"sku":"9780826273086","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780826273086_p0.jpg?v=1763755952","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780826273086","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}