General African American Studies

** LONGLISTED FOR THE JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE LONGLIST 2022 **"Will open the minds of even the most ardent denier of climate change and/or systemic racism. If there's one book that will help you to be an effective activist for climate justice,...

"Troublemaker" Memories of the Freedom Movement is the personal, boots-on-the-ground story of Bruce Hartford's service in the American Civil Rights Movement. One of the many Jews who allied themselves with the African-American struggle for justice and...

Our best friends, Twitter followers, gal-pals, bromances, Facebook friends, and long distance buddies define us in ways we rarely openly acknowledge. But as a society, we are simultaneously terrified of being alone and already desperately lonely. We move...

In 1967, when Jo Ivester was ten years old, her father transplanted his young family from a suburb of Boston to a small town in the heart of the Mississippi cotton fields, where he became the medical director of a clinic that served the poor population...

Since the founding of St. Louis in 1764, Downtown St. Louis has been a center of black cultural, economic, political, and legal achievements that have shaped not only the city of St. Louis, but the nation as well. From James Beckworth, one of the...

Weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis, Same Family, Different Colors explores the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States. Colorism and color bias--the preference for or presumed superiority of...

In her debut poetry collection, What Had Happened Was, Ther? Alyce Pickens investigates the complex structures of Black storytelling. Addressing topics ranging from Black life, popular culture, and history to individual encounters with emotion, love, and...

A searing tribute of sisterhood and family, profound love and loss from the acclaimed author of The World According to Fannie Davis.In Love, Rita Bridgett M. Davis tells the story of her beloved older sister Rita, who knew Bridgett before she knew...

For fans of Kerry Washington and Bassey Ikpi, a gripping memoir about overcoming addiction and trauma--a powerful journey of healing and redemption. At age 30, Maya Golden was living a charmed life. She was an award-winning sports reporter, a loyal wife,...

Why don't our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they're actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America's classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to...

In 1959, Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel wrote and performed "Ne me quitte pas" (Don't leave me), a visceral and haunting plea for his lover to come back. As a teenager, Maya Angela Smith was so captivated by Nina Simone's powerful 1965 cover of...

A Black feminist take on exploitation and care in America's favorite game. Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous...

From hip-hop moguls and political candidates to talk radio and critically acclaimed films, society communicates that Black girls don't matter and their girlhood is not safe. Alarming statistics on physical and sexual abuse, for instance, reveal the harm...

A poignant, unflinching study of black grief as a form of elegy found in visual art, music, literature--everywhere, if you know how to see it. In Black Elegies, Kimberly Juanita Brown examines the form of the elegy and its unique capacity to convey the...

Winner of the 2023 Horowitz Prize by the Bard Graduate CenterShortlisted for the 2024 Charles C. Eldredge Prize by the Smithsonian American Art MuseumA meditation on suffering, resilience, creativity, and graceIn 1942 Missouri Pettway, newly suffering...

Illuminating two hundred years of lost Black History through the lens of an iconic abolitionist settlementIn the Light of Dawn shares the compelling story of how the iconic Dawn Settlement--now largely within the boundaries of Dresden, Ontario-- shaped...