Showing titles in Black & African American

Servants of Allah presents a history of African Muslims, following them from West Africa to the Americas. Although many assume that what Muslim faith they brought with them to the Americas was quickly absorbed into the new Christian milieu, as Sylviane A. Diouf demonstrates in this meticulously researched, groundbreaking volume, Islam flourished during slavery on a large scale.

James Baldwin's breakthrough essay collection made him the voice of his generation. Ranging over Harlem in the 1940s, movies, novels, his preacher father and his experiences of Paris, they capture the complexity of black life at the dawn of the civil rights movement with effervescent wit and prophetic wisdom.

During the Great Migration, Black Americans led a mass exodus out of the South. But not all that glittered in the imagination was gold in the real world across the Mason-Dixon line. They contended with dim economic prospects and sparred with white labor unions. They also struggled to assimilate into established Black communities. Nevertheless, these 6 million Black migrants left an indelible mark on life in the United States. How the Great Migration Changed America explores the causes and consequences of the Great Northward Migration in 12 eye-opening lectures.

All heroes have fatal flaws and a moment of defining hubris, but few rise from the ashes to achieve greater heights. In 1884 Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves was arrested for murder and placed among his own prisoners in Hell on the Border, the infamous federal jail in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It was the single greatest setback of his illustrious career, but it wouldn't be his last mistake or trial by fire. In The Forsaken and the Dead we meet Reeves again. In the 1890s, past his prime, Reeves proceeds through the valleys and shadows of Indian and Oklahoma Territories. 

For the first time ever, twenty-four original recordings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from his iconic "I Have A Dream" speech to his stirring sermon "A Knock At Midnight," are collected together in this treasured box set. His landmark speeches that echoed around the world and the more...

In Inhuman Bondage, David Brion Davis sums up a lifetime of insight. He looks at slavery in the American South; the rise of the Cotton Kingdom; the daily life of slaves; the destructive internal long-distance slave trade; the sexual exploitation of slaves; the emergence of an African-American culture; and much more. A definitive history by a writer deeply immersed in the subject, Inhuman Bondage links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism.

Published in 1924 in response to growing racial tensions, W. E. B. Du Bois’ The Gift of Black Folk explores the contributions African Americans have made to American society, detailing the importance of racial diversity to the United States. He chronicles their role in the early exploration of America, their part in developing the country’s agricultural industry, their courage on the battlefields, and their creative genius in virtually every aspect of American culture.

The inspiring story of the 13 courageous Black men who integrated the U.S. Navy during World War II—leading desegregation efforts across America and anticipating the civil rights movement. Featuring previously unpublished material from the U.S. Navy, this little-known history of forgotten...

African American Magick infuses ancient techniques, rituals, and methods from around the world to use each season's inherent energies to supplement the health and well-being of body, mind, and soul.

For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.” He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he had made himself appear to be. Sims’s greatest medical claim was the result of several years of experimental surgeries—without anesthesia—on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha; his so-called cure for obstetric fistula forever altered the path of women’s health.

Fat Off, Fat On: A Big B---h Manifesto is a humorous, at times tragic, memoir that follows Kent on her journey to realizing that her body is a gift to be grown into, that sometimes family doesn’t always mean home, and how even ill-fated bisexual romances could free her from gender essentialism.

Scholars of US and transatlantic slavery have largely ignored or dismissed accusations that Black Americans were cannibalized. Vincent Woodard takes the enslaved person's claims of human consumption seriously, focusing on both the starvation of the slave and the tropes of cannibalism on the part of the slaveholder, and further draws attention to the ways in which Blacks experienced their consumption as a fundamentally homoerotic occurrence.

 Police put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold for selling cigarettes on a New York City street corner. George Floyd was killed by police outside a store in Minneapolis known as "the best place to buy menthols". 

FINALIST, LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN AUDIOBOOK NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY: Time, USA Today, People, AARP, Today.com, BookRiot, Bustle, LitHub, BookPage, Our Culture, and Vulture A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and...

This is a concise history, intended for travellers, but of inestimable value to anyone looking for an overview of the Caribbean and its mainland coastal states, with a focus on the past few centuries. The history of the Caribbean does not make much sense without factoring in the cities - Pensacola, New Orleans, Galveston - and the ambitions of the states on its continental shores, notably the United States. This account is grounded in a look at the currents and channels of the sea, and its constraints, followed by the history of 'pre-contact' civilisations.

Introducing the Martin Luther King Jr Library With a New Foreword written and read by Amanda Gorman. A beautiful audio edition of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s legendary speech at the March on Washington, part of Dr. King’s archives published exclusively by HarperCollins, hear both the...

Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison's instruction: "Dream a little before you think."

Once again, the poet casts her spell as she resumes one of the greatest personal narratives of our time. In this continuation, Angelou relates how she joins a "colony" of Black American expatriates in Ghana--only to discover no one ever goes home again...

In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women's faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery.

In this groundbreaking classic essay collection, Alice Walker speaks out as a Black woman, writer, mother, and feminist on topics ranging from the personal to the political. Originally published forty years ago, Alice Walker’s first collection of nonfiction is a dazzling compendium that...