Biography

John W. Fountain grew up on some of the meanest streets in Chicago, where drugs, crime, decay, and broken homes consigned so many black children to a life of despair and self-destruction. A father at seventeen, a college dropout at nineteen, a welfare...

Triumphs in Adversity is the compelling biography of a man who accepted fate's challenges, but also believed in his strength and determination to influence his destiny. Experiencing an accident resulting in amputation, watching history unfold during...

A jazz legend shares his life in a story as lyrical as his music A legend on both the clarinet and the soprano saxophone, one of the most brilliant exponents of New Orleans jazz, Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) played with such fellow jazz legends as Louis...

On October 8, 1930, Charles "Cap" Sauers, general superintendent of the Cook County Forest Preserve District, wrote a letter to Alfred M. Bailey, director of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, about an idea he had. He proposed developing several nature...

TRAILBLAZERS by Gabrielle David is a six-volume series that examines the lives and careers of over four hundred brilliant women from the eighteenth century to the present who blazed uncharted paths in every conceivable way. The lives profiled here...

Dorothy Butler Gilliam, whose 50-year-career as a journalist put her in the forefront of the fight for social justice, offers a comprehensive view of racial relations and the media in the U.S. Most civil rights victories are achieved behind the scenes,...

Dorothy Butler Gilliam, whose 50-year-career as a journalist put her in the forefront of the fight for social justice, offers a comprehensive view of racial relations and the media in the U.S. Most civil rights victories are achieved behind the scenes,...

"Tracks Along the Left Coast more than accomplishes its self-appointed task of celebrating de Angulo's legacy." --Rain Taxi "Schelling's biography of Jaime de Angulo--'cattle puncher, medical doctor, bohemian, buckeroo, ' among other things--presents a...

Dr. Bobby Jones, host of BET's Bobby Jones Gospel and Video Gospel, joins nineteen acclaimed gospel performers who share personal stories celebrating God's glory. Includes stories from superstars Kirk Franklin, John P. Kee, Shirley Caesar, Rev. James...

Like most kids, teachers asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. That question was hard to answer as a black girl growing up in Harlem in the 1950s. When I tried to look back beyond my grandmother to understand my family's past, there was an ugly...

Tonight at Noon is a story of love between American opposites: she, a product of privilege, a Smith College graduate who worked as a journalist in Europe and in New York; he, an authentic jazz master, a brilliant, eccentric, difficult artist, a scion of...

West Africa, 1971. Two old friends rendezvous in Black Star Square, the heart of Accra, the Ghanaian capital, to see Ike and Tina Turner, the Staples Singers, Roberta Flack, Wilson Picket, Santana and other black American performers at the mammoth Soul...

Living in a world of darkness caused Dionna to tailspin into self-harming behavior. Cutting became Dionna's go-to behavior. The self-harming behavior eventually got her court-ordered to the Arizona State Hospital, where drugs and takedowns were a...

Best known as Mr. Sulu, helmsman of the Starship Enterprise(TM) and captain of the Starship Excelsior, George Takei is beloved by millions as part of the command team that has taken audiences to new vistas of adventure in Star Trek(R)--the unprecedented...

In 1859, at age fourteen, Florence Szász stood before a room full of men and waited to be auctioned to the highest bidder. But slavery and submission were not to be her destiny: Sam Baker, a wealthy English gentleman and eminent adventurer, was moved by...

Born to slaves in 1862, Ida B. Wells became a fearless antilynching crusader, women's rights advocate, and journalist. Wells's refusal to accept any compromise on racial inequality caused her to be labeled a dangerous radical in her day but made her a...