In Triangular Road, famed novelist Paule Marshall tells the story of her years as a fledgling young writer in the 1960s. A memoir of self-discovery, it also offers an affectionate tribute to the inim
In 1773, the slave Phillis Wheatley literally wrote her way to freedom. The first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in English, she was emancipated by her owners in recognition of
In the 1920s, Southern record companies ventured to cities like Dallas, Atlanta, and New Orleans, where they set up primitive recording equipment in makeshift studios. They brought in street singers,
Over the last 20 years, Michael Eric Dyson has become one of America’s most visible—and quotable—public intellectuals. Whether in his sixteen books, or in countless newspapers, tele
Living in South Central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict, still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Now freed after serving twenty-seven years in prison, he is filled
It is not hard to argue that every black performer in show business owes something to Bert Williams. Discovered in California in 1890 by a minstrel troupe manager, Williams swiftly became a regular pl
Whether chronicling the class conflict in the African-American community or exposing the failings of the government response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Michael Eric Dyson has never shied away
When Manthia Diawara was in high school, he would pray to Allah to let him get out of Mali, study in Europe, and live happily at least until age fifty. To ask for anything more, he thought, would be
For many years Orlando Patterson has been a major contributor to the public discussion of race in America. In this eagerly anticipated new volume, the author of the National Book Award?winner Freedom
If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting develop
Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for Black Power” during a speech one Mississippi night in 1966. A firebrand who s
Educator, writer, critic, intellectual, film-maker?Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has been widely praised as being one of America’s most prominent and prolific scholars. In what will be an essential volume,
Essays examine the challenges faced by African Americans in preserving and shaping African-American history, exposing the myth and conflict surrounding such figures as Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, and Bo
"Henry Louis Gates, Jr. s Tradition and the Black Atlantic is both a vibrant romp down the rabbit hole of cultural studies and an examination of the disciplines roots and role in contemporary thought.
In this courageous book, John L. Jackson, Jr. draws on current events as well as everyday interactions to demonstrate the culture of race-based paranoia and its profound effects on our lives. He expl
The Civil Rights Movement is now remembered as a long-lost era, which came to an end along with the idealism of the 1960s. In Dark Days, Bright Nights, acclaimed scholar Peniel E. Joseph puts this pa
Living in south central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Filled with profound guilt about his own crimes and disheartened by
On May 2, 1964, Klansman James Ford Seale picked up two black hitchhikers and drowned both young men in the Mississippi River. Seale spent more than forty years a free man, before finally facing tria
The night broke open in a storm of explosions and fire. The sound of shells whizzing overhead, screeching through the night like wounded pheasants, was terrifying. When the shells exploded prematurely
In 1965, Paule Marshall was a fledgling novelist and a new mother, endeavoring to make her career as a writer. Without any warning, she received an invitation to join the poet Langston Hughes on a wh
If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting develo
On May 3, 1946, in St. Martinsville, Louisiana, a seventeen-year-old black boy was scheduled for execution by electric chair. Willie Francis had been charged with murder; his trial had been brief; hi
Hip-hop is in crisis. For the past dozen years, the most commercially successful hip-hop has become increasingly saturated with caricatures of black gangstas, thugs, pimps, and ’hos. The contro
For the last forty years the label ?black voter” has been virtually synonymous with ?Democrat” but a new generation of voters is changing that. In her provocative new book Party Crashing, political co
And in this corner, hailing from Black Bottom, Detroit by way of Harlem, with more victories than Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali combined, the greatest fighter-pound for pound-of all time: Sugar Ray Robi
Stanley Crouch-MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient, co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center, National Book Award nominee, and perennial bull in the china shop of black intelligentsia-has been
The author of the award-winning Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop assembles the most innovative and provocative voices in hip-hop to assess the future of the most important cultural movement of our
Starting from a photograph and writings left by her grandmother, acclaimed African-American novelist Thulani Davis goes looking for the “white folk” in her family, a Scots-Irish family of
With a new preface by the author. Ten years after his murder, Tupac Shakur is even more loved, contested, and celebrated than he was in life. His posthumously released albums, poetry, and motion pict
Our national conversation about race is ludicrously out of date. Hip hop is the key to understanding how things are changing. In a provocative book that will appeal to hip-hoppers both black and whit
Are the stars of the Civil Rights firmament yesterday’s news? In Living Black History scholar and activist Manning Marable offers a resounding “No!” with a fresh and personal look a
Provides a detailed study of the life of the nineteenth-century writer, covering her life under slavery, as a fugitive slave, and in the post-Civil War years, and her writing of the slave narrative "I
A stirring collection of civil rights speeches includes a never-before-published speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., in a volume that captures the civil rights movements of African Americans, gays, Asi
The many facets of black family life have not always been fully visible in American literature. Black families have often been portrayed as chaotic, fractured, and emotionally devastated, and historia
In this open love letter to black women everywhere, Michael Eric Dyson celebrates the strength and beauty of African-American women. From Miss James, his grammar school teacher, to Linda Johnson Rice
A primer for twenty-first century racial politics in America by the author of Black Leadership proposes a new kind of inclusive democracy that encompasses such positions as the re-enfranchisement of f
Shattered Bonds is a stirring account of a worsening American social crisis--the disproportionate representation of black children in the U.S. foster care system and its effects on black communities
Darryl Pinckney, the acclaimed author of the novel High Cotton and iconoclast known for his writings in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and elsewhere, affirms the literary power of the A
The acclaimed poet reveals the childhood of a gifted daughter whose immigrant parents must struggle in order to provide her with the educational and social opportunities not available to them. Reprint
In the first essay, Patterson analyzes the very latest survey data to delineate the different attitudes, behaviors, and circumstances of Afro-American men and women, dissecting both the external and
