History - African American & Black

2019 Reprint of 1861 Edition. A haunting, evocative recounting of her life as a slave in North Carolina and of her final escape and emancipation, Harriet Jacobs's classic narrative, written between 1853 and 1858 and published in 1861, tells firsthand of the horrors inflicted...

The voice of a black female slave, written in her own hand, as she struggles for identity and freedom. What is it to serve a master? What is it to know you are bought free? Read for yourself.Author: Harriet JacobsPublisher: Chump ChangePublished: 04/04/1861Pages: 110Binding...

"Yet another maddening, frustrating, overwhelming, outrageous, and unbelievable story of corrupt justice in America. This one, though, is handled by Rick Tulsky, a dogged investigator, journalist, lawyer, advocate, and gifted writer."--John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Firm and Framed The...

A new biography revealing the remarkable story of Jackie Robinson as a civil rights crusaderJackie Robinson is one of the most enduring icons of the great American pastime--the man who broke baseball's color line in the twentieth century, opening the door for his fellow...

Invisible Blackness explores the complex lives of Creoles of mixed race born in Louisiana to enslaved women and the white men who enslaved them. Individuals such as Alice Thomasson Grice forged their own identities--and often reinvented themselves--within the increasingly strict racial order of antebellum...

Over the years, I have listened to my parents and numerous family members tell stories about generations of ancestors and friends. Their reflections and vast experiences inspired me to write a book about my family, the Labats. This book would interest my family and...

One of The Boston Globe's Best Books of 2023 * "I'm sitting here, in awe, trying to wrap my head around how Malaika conjured something so vibrant and timely and fun (and even flirty) while also being rigorous, evergreen, and fucking terrifying." --Damon Young...

Lawrence's landmark series on African American migration in contextIn 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just 23 years old, made a series of 60 small tempera paintings on the Great Migration, the decades-long mass movement of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North...

First published in 1963, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time stabbed at the heart of America's so-called "Negro problem." As remarkable for its masterful prose as for its frank and personal account of the black experience in the United States, it is considered one...

The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of...

From The New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery...

A decisive reassessment of Thomas Jefferson's long-debated views on slavery, showing that his chief antislavery strategy was racial exclusion: the removal of emancipated Black people from the United States. Toward the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson made his most famous statement about American...

A gripping biography of a man who escaped slavery to become an influential abolitionist, famously known as the "King of the Underground Railroad" Jermain Wesley Loguen (1813-1872) was a fugitive from slavery, an abolitionist, and a minister, teacher, and political activist. He worked alongside...

"My clothes are different, my face is different, my hair is different, but I am somebody. I am black, brown, white. I speak a different language. But I must be respected, protected, never rejected. I am God's child. ⁣I am somebody." --Jesse Jackson Few...

A vivid firsthand record of the struggle for legal equality and dignity in the face of segregation and racial terror from 1919 to 1976 W.E.B. Du Bois famously identified "the problem of the color-line" as the defining issue in American life. The powerful writings...

The origins and influence of Jim, Mark Twain's beloved yet polarizing literary figure "Astute. . . . Sheds new light on a much-studied character."--Publishers Weekly Mark Twain's Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self-aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man,...

Pulitzer Prize Finalist New York Times Book Review Top 100 Books of 2024 Explore the "comprehensive and compelling" (Jon Meacham) biography of civil rights leader John Lewis, celebrated as "the conscience of Congress," through a narrative that weaves together exclusive interviews, never-before-seen FBI files,...

"A comprehensive, authoritative biography of Civil Rights icon John Lewis, "the conscience of the Congress," drawing on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents. Born into poverty...

New York Times Book Review Top 100 Books of 2024 Explore the "comprehensive and compelling" (Jon Meacham) biography of civil rights leader John Lewis, celebrated as "the conscience of Congress," through a narrative that weaves together exclusive interviews, never-before-seen FBI files, and documents, offering...

A vibrant, deeply researched biography of A'Lelia Walker--daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and herself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance--written by her great-granddaughter. Dubbed the "joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s" by poet Langston Hughes, A'Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker...