Showing results for "Civil Racism" in Biographies & Memoirs

Malcolm X. Marcus Garvey. Charles Hamilton Houston. Diane Nash. For every well-known figure of the Civil Rights Movement, there are dozens of lesser-known, yet no less significant, activists who helped advance America’s social views and helped shape race relations in this country. Most listeners have only skimmed the surface of these deeply complex, influential, and world-changing figures. Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries of The Ohio State University delves into their stories, presenting an intimate study of the men and women who led half a century of social change.

Written by Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, this astounding autobiography brings to life a remarkable man changed the world —and still inspires the desires, hopes, and dreams of us all. Martin Luther King: the child and student who rebelled against segregation. The dedicated minister who...

An L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist “Moving, thoughtful, redemptive. The Strangers is an important book. It will become a Black classic.”— Ben Okri, author of The Famished Road “Thrilling and ingenious, propulsive and genre-defying: The Strangers is an outstanding book. Compelling and...

John Barnes spent the first dozen years of his life in Jamaica before moving to the UK with his family in 1975. Six years later, he was a professional footballer, distinguishing himself for Watford, Liverpool and England, and in the process, becoming this country's most prominent Black player. Barnes is now an articulate and captivating social commentator on a broad range of issues, and in The Uncomfortable Truth About Racism, he tackles head-on the issues surrounding prejudice with his trademark intelligence and authority.

In the South of the 1890s, Booker T. Washington stood as the often controversial personification of the aspirations of the Black masses. The Civil War had ended, casting uneducated Blacks adrift or, equally tenuous, creating a class of sharecroppers still dependent on the whims of their former owners. Black Reconstruction, for all its outward trimming, had failed to deliver its promised economic and political empowerment.

A leading advocate for social justice excavates the history of forced migration in the twelve American towns she’s called home, revealing how White supremacy has fundamentally shaped the nation. “At a time when many would rather ban or bury the truth, Ali-Khan bravely faces it in this...

*INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER* *LONGLISTED FOR THE TORONTO BOOK AWARD* “Black Boys Like Me ignited parts of me I honestly didn't believe any book could ever know. . . . Seldom do incredibly titled books earn their titles. Matthew R. Morris earns this classic title with a classic book about our...

“We can no longer see ourselves as minor spectators or weary watchers of history a­fter finishing this astonishing work of nonfiction.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy Connor Towne O’Neill’s journey onto the battlefield of white supremacy began with a visit to Selma, Alabama, in 2015...

A thoughtful investigation into the incredible true story of a Black man convicted and exiled under the Oregon Exclusion Law in 1851—and a contemporary White woman wrestling with racism and faith after learning she’s a descendant of two men who assisted in the exile. “A beautiful rendering...

Mary Jane Seacole (1805­-1881) was a British Jamaican nurse, author, world traveler, and businesswoman renowned for her work with the soldiers of the Crimean War.

Inspired by the Academy Award-nominated Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, an intimate and vivid look at the legendary life of Nina Simone, the classically trained pianist who evolved into a chart-topping chanteuse and committed civil rights activist. From music journalist and...

Ottobah Cugoano’s tumultuous life put him in a unique position to testify to the horrors of slavery on many important levels. Though some of the details of his biography remain obscure (he disappeared from public record in 1791), he provides vivid testimony here about his own kidnapping on the Gold Coast at the age of thirteen; his repeated sale and transport across Africa, and eventually across the Atlantic Ocean; his experiences as part of a chain gang in the West Indies; and the way in which he managed to purchase his freedom.

In January of 1950, Mary Church Terrell, an 86-year-old charter member of the NAACP, headed into Thompson’s Restaurant, just a few blocks from the White House, and requested to be served. She and her companions were informed by the manager that they could not eat in his establishment, because they were “colored.” Terrell, a former suffragette and one of the country’s first college-educated African-American women, took the matter to court. Three years later, the Supreme Court vindicated her outrage: District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc. was decided in 1953.

Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine then to crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a Black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over 15 years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction.

In 1950, before Montgomery, Alabama, knew Martin Luther King Jr., before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a White passenger, before the city's famous bus boycott, a Negro man named Hilliard Brooks was shot and killed by a White police officer in a confrontation after he tried to board a city bus. Thomas Gray, who had played football with Hilliard when they were kids, was outraged by the unjustifiable shooting. Gray protested, eventually staging a major downtown march to register voters and standing up to police brutality.

This first comprehensive biography of Jewish American writer and humorist Harry Golden (1903-1981) - author of the 1958 national best seller Only in America - illuminates a remarkable life intertwined with the rise of the civil rights movement, Jewish popular culture, and the sometimes precarious position of Jews in the South and across America during the 1950s.

A New Statesman ‘most anticipated title of the year’ ‘Compelling.’ David Lammy MP ‘Refreshing,’ Pragya Agarwal A powerful intervention roundly debunking the myth of progress in racial equality — particularly in the workplace — and offering a blueprint for the future. Have you...

Veteran White House reporter April Ryan thought she had seen everything in her two decades as a White House correspondent. And then came the Trump administration. In Under Fire, Ryan takes us inside the confusion and chaos of the Trump White House to understand how she and other reporters adjusted to the new normal. She takes us inside the policy debates, the revolving door of personnel appointments, and what it is like when she, as a reporter asking difficult questions, finds herself in the spotlight, becoming part of the story.

A bold, thought-provoking pathway to the national solidarity that could, finally, address the ills of racism in America “Racism is an existential threat to America,” Theodore R. Johnson declares at the start of his profound and exhilarating book. It is a refutation of the American Promise...

The first Black mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, shares his story of making his way in a world that wasn’t built for him, drawing on his rich heritage as the son of a civil rights leader. As a proud son of a civil rights leader, Steven L. Reed grew up hearing stories about how his father...