Catalog Search Results
1) Becoming
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"An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. When she was a little girl, Michelle Robinson's world was the South Side of Chicago, where she and her brother, Craig, shared a bedroom in their family's upstairs apartment and played catch in the park, and where her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, raised her to be outspoken and unafraid. But life soon took her much further afield, from the halls of Princeton,...
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This memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women, Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people-and the times-that touched her life.
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Pub. Date
2021.
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"We're Going to Need More Wine... plus a few shots-acclaimed activist, actress, and New York Times bestselling author Gabrielle Union is back with an even more intimate, revealing, and powerful collection of essays"--
Right, you and I left off in October 2017, when my first book came out. The weeks before were filled with dreams of loss. Pets dying. My husband leaving me. Babies not being born. My therapist told me it was my soul preparing for my...
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"Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is a novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern black woman in the 1930s whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to seventy years." "This story, rooted in black folk traditions and steeped in mythic realism, celebrates, boldly and brilliantly, African-American culture and heritage. And in a powerful, mesmerizing narrative,...
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"Born a free man in New York State in 1808, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841. He spent the next twelve harrowing years of his life as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. During this time he was frequently abused and often afraid for his life. After regaining his freedom in 1853, Northup decided to publish this gripping autobiographical account of his captivity. As an educated man, Northup was able to present an exceptionally...
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This dramatic autobiography of the early life of an American slave was first published in 1845, when its young author had just achieved his freedom. Douglass' eloquence gives a clear indication of the powerful principles that led him to become the first great African-American leader in the United States. The personal account of a fugitive slave's privation and sufferings and his campaigns for Negro emancipation. This dramatic autobiography of the...
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As Heard on NPR's This American Life: The New York Times bestselling book that celebrates ordinary delights in the world around us by one of America's most original and observant writers and the author of Inciting Joy, award-winning poet Ross Gay. Pre-order The Book of (More) Delights now, too!
“Ross Gay’s eye lands upon wonder at every turn, bolstering my belief in the...
“Ross Gay’s eye lands upon wonder at every turn, bolstering my belief in the...
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Pub. Date
[2021]
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Chronicling her remarkable journey to definitively understand her heritage and reclaim it, a black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings' family offers a compelling portrait to ensure the nation lives up to the ideals advocated by her legendary ancestor.
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Born into slavery, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (ca. 1824-1907) rose to a position of respect as a talented dressmaker and designer to the political elite of Washington, D.C., and a confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. In this unusual memoir, Keckley offers a rare, behind-the-scenes view of the formal and informal networks that African Americans established among themselves, as well as an insider's perspective of the men who made Civil War politics...
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"For more than thirty years, Michael Eric Dyson has played a prominent role in the nation as a public intellectual, university professor, cultural critic, social activist and ordained Baptist minister. He has presented a rich and resourceful set of ideas about American history and culture. Now for the first time he brings together the various components of his multihued identity and eclectic pursuits. Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson's consistent...
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Perhaps the most powerful and influential black American of his time, Frederick Douglass, cmbodied the tumultuous social changes that transfored the united States during the nineteenth century. In a career of unprecedented breadth, Douglass rose from the oppression of his slave's birth to fame for Abolitionist
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Pub. Date
[2018]
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"In the style of New York Times bestsellers You Can't Touch My Hair, Bad Feminist, and I'm Judging You, a timely collection of alternately hysterical and soul-searching essays about what it is like to grow up as a creative, sensitive black man in a world that constantly tries to deride and diminish your humanity. It hasn't been easy being Michael Arceneaux. Equality for LGBT people has come a long way and all, but voices of persons of color within...
15) Black boy
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An autobirography of Richard Wright's journey from innocence to experience in the Him Crow South.
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2020
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"Thompson-Hernández's portrayal of Compton's black cowboys broadens our perception of Compton's young black residents, and connects the Compton Cowboys to the historical legacy of African Americans in the west. An eye-opening, moving book."-Margot Lee Shetterly, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Figures
"Walter Thompson-Hernández has written a book for the ages: a profound and moving account of what it means to be black in America that...
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Pub. Date
2023
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Built on years of interviews with friends, family, teachers, coaches, and teammates, the first biography of Alphonso Davies, the new face of Canadian men's soccer.
Arguably the most famous Canadian athlete on the planet, Alphonso Davies has been the subject of global attention after bursting onto the scene as a 15-year-old soccer sensation. Since then, he's won every trophy imaginable with German giant FC Bayern Munich and helped Canada reach the...
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2014
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A New York Times Notable Book Lambda Literary Award Winner Long-listed for the PEN Open Book Award
"Charles Blow is the James Baldwin of our age." - Washington Blade
"[An] exquisite memoir . . . Delicately wrought and arresting." - New York Times
Universally praised on its publication, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a pioneering journalist's indelible coming-of-age tale.
Charles M. Blow's mother was a fiercely driven woman with...
19) Trombone Shorty
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Hailing from the Trem©Øe neighborhood in New Orleans, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews got his nickname by wielding a trombone twice as long as he was high. A prodigy, he was leading his own band by age six, and today this Grammy-nominated artist headlines the legendary New Orleans Jazz Fest.