Showing results for "Memoir" in African American

No one could have predicted even two years ago that an African American would take the oath of office as president of the United States in January of 2009. For many, the occasion marks the climax to the civil rights movement and the fulfillment of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that Americans could be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. This collection, with about 400 letters from Americans of all walks of life, is being created to stand as a symbol of this exciting moment in history.

In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake". Activating multiple registers of "wake" - the path behind a ship, keeping watch with the dead, coming to consciousness - Sharpe illustrates how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and she delineates what survives despite such insistent violence and negation.

The distinguished American civil rights leader, W. E. B. DuBois first published these fiery essays, sketches, and poems individually in 1920 in the Atlantic, the Journal of Race Development, and other periodicals. Reflecting the author's ideas as a politician, historian, and artist, this volume has long moved and inspired readers with its militant cry for social, political, and economic reform. It is essential reading for all students of African American history.

In the 1970s, Frank Lucas was the king of the Harlem drug trade, bringing in over a million dollars a day. He lived a glamorous life, hobnobbing with athletes, musicians, and politicians, but Lucas was a ruthless gangster. He was notorious for using the coffins of dead GIs to smuggle heroin into the United States, and, before being sentenced to 70 years in prison, he played a major role in the near death of New York City.

A RECOMMENDED BOOK OF 2019 FROM Vanity Fair * Vogue * The Huffington Post A stunning multi-cast audio collection of fiction, diary entries, screenplays, and scripts by the brilliant African-American artist and filmmaker, featuring the voices of Nina Collins, Mari, Bahni Turpin, Adenrele Ojo...

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a pivotal figure of the twentieth century, an influential author, intellectual, and activist who led a celebrated public life—and whose words and image and persona remain current in our culture. Baldwin's many incarnations have reemerged in the digital age as Baldwin's work becomes a touchstone for a new generation. It is the private, vulnerable, and messier Baldwin—the man behind the prophet and the online meme—who is the focus of this book.

Kendra Allen’s first collection of essays—at its core—is a bunch of mad stories about things she never learned to let go of. Unifying personal narrative and cultural commentary, this collection grapples with the lessons that have been stored between parent and daughter. These parental relationships expose the conditioning that subconsciously informed her ideas on social issues such as colorism, feminism, war-induced PTSD, homophobia, marriage, and “the n-word,” among other things.

Nessuno sa il mio nome è la seconda raccolta di saggi di James Baldwin pubblicata per la prima volta nel 1961 e scritta durante la sua permanenza in Europa, quando la distanza dagli Stati Uniti, fortissimamente voluta, gli aveva permesso di riflettere in modo nuovo sulla condizione delle persone nere in una società dominata dai bianchi. Trascendere la sterile categoria di blackness, sia essa quella imposta dal mondo bianco o quella eretta a scopo difensivo dalla comunità nera, divenne il nucleo dell’opera di Baldwin come scrittore.

Poet, educator, and social activist Gwendolyn Brooks was a singular force in American culture. The first Black woman to be named United States poet laureate, Brook’s poetry, fiction, and social commentary shed light on the beauty of humanity, the distinct qualities of Black life and community, and the destructive effects of racism, sexism, and class inequality. A collection of 30 essays combining critical analysis and personal reflection, The Whiskey of Our Discontent presents essential elements of Brooks' oeuvre - on race, gender, class, community, and poetic craft.

Farah Jasmine Griffin’s beloved father died when she was nine, bequeathing her an unparalleled inheritance in closets full of remarkable books and other records of Black genius. In Read Until You Understand - a line from a note he wrote to her - she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that framed the US Constitution and that inspired Malcolm X’s fervent speeches, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the artistry of Romare Bearden, and many others.

A comprehensive biographical and critical reading of the works of American poet and memoirist Maya Angelou (1928-2014). Linda Wagner-Martin covers all six of Angelou's autobiographies, as well as her essay and poetry collections, while also exploring Angelou's life as an African American in the United States, her career as stage and film performer, her thoughtful participation in the Civil Rights actions of the 1960s, and her travels abroad in Egypt, Africa, and Europe.

A major poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was one of the first African American writers to garner international recognition in the wake of emancipation. In this definitive biography, the first full-scale life of Dunbar in half a century, Gene Andrew Jarrett offers a revelatory account of a writer whose Gilded Age celebrity as the "poet laureate of his race" hid the private struggles of a man who, in the words of his famous poem, felt like a "caged bird" that sings.

A look back at the cultural and political force of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, in celebration of her hundredth birthday Artist–Rebel–Pioneer Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the great American literary icons of the twentieth century, a protégé of...

A large part of Goines' 39 years of life was spent being a successful pimp, a heif, an operator of corn liquor houses, an armed robber, and a small-time dope dealer. He lived the life of the streets, and out of that experience he created Prince, the anti-hero of Black Gangster. It's the story of the shocking underworld of Black organized crime and the fledgling Black "godfather" who goes from teenager ganglord to powerful Detroit mobster. Like the gangsters of the 1920s, he begins with bootlegging and branches out into every known crime.

In this first scholarly biography of Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), the author of A Raisin in the Sun, theater professor Soyica Diggs Colbert considers the playwright's life at the intersection of art and politics, with the theater operating as a "rehearsal room for [her] political and intellectual work". Colbert argues that the success of Raisin overshadows Hansberry's other contributions, including the writer's innovative journalism and lesser-known plays touching on controversial issues such as slavery, interracial communities, and Black freedom movements.

Marcus Heavy is the founder of the Heavy Sinners Motorcycle Club. They specialize in the drug game, prostitution, blackmail, and murder. You cross any member of the club, and that’s the end of your life. Marcus’ son, Darius, was supposed to take up the mantle as leader of the club, but Darius doesn’t want that life.

Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi - a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families. Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit

Raised by a crack addict, Lil' Bert has a chip on his shoulder and murder in his heart. As the leader of Philly's most dangerous drug gang, he is determined to keep the city’s murder rate skyrocketing to unprecedented proportions.

Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington.

The novel centers on Dickie Cornish, a Black streetwise survivor living in a homeless camp near DC's Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Framed for the murder of two of his closest friends and facing life in prison, Dickie crosses paths with wealthy ex-Homeland Security Secretary, Jamie Bracht. Bracht offers him a chance at a new life if Dickie can navigate an underground world to uncover a prize Bracht will stop at nothing to acquire.