Biography

Nelson Mandela is well-known throughout the world as a heroic leader who symbolizes freedom and moral authority. He is fixed in the public mind as the world's elder statesman -- the gray-haired man with a kindly smile who spent 27 years in prison before...

Probing, entertaining and agitating.--Essence By the acclaimed and controversial author of Why Black People Tend to Shout, this is an unblinking look at African-American life, including explosive essays on education, Rodney King, multiculturalism, and...

Apartheid isn't over--so Malaika Wa Azania boldly argues in Memoirs of a Born Free, her account of growing up black in modern-day South Africa. Malaika was born in late 1991, as the white minority government was on its way out, making her a Born...

Life is never easy, but there are times when it feels like everything is against you. Tyra Hodge grew up feeling the world's weight pressing down on her. A nagging feeling awakened, whispering how she would never amount to anything the older she got...

Life is never easy, but there are times when it feels like everything is against you. Tyra Hodge grew up feeling the world's weight pressing down on her. A nagging feeling awakened, whispering how she would never amount to anything the older she got...

The American mental health system is in crisis, and those affected by its shortcomings are drowning without the tools and resources they deserve and need to thrive. In Born Into Crisis, author Kenneth Nixon shares his story of growing up with a mother...

The astounding, never-before-told story of how an audacious Ghanaian con artist pulled off one of the 20th century's longest-running and most spectacular frauds.When Ghana won its independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for...

The American mental health system is in crisis, and those affected by its shortcomings are drowning without the tools and resources they deserve and need to thrive. In Born Into Crisis, author Kenneth Nixon shares his story of growing up with a mother...

Virtuosic in his use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual, and a Southerner, Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction. Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays,...

When I navigate the currents of the soul, I find myself within my ancestral pool. I find myself swimming in their grief, and the longing during the great event and initiation called the Middle Passage. I find myself in their collective soul journey from...

The remarkable stories of nine US Representatives who helped shape America. Courage in the People's House tells the gripping stories of nine individuals who served in the US House of Representatives--the "People's House"--during a span of over one...

Marriage is hard work. Two independent lives are merging. Two different mindsets are colliding. Two different people are learning. But marriage can also be one of life's greatest gifts--just take it from David and Tamela Mann.The Manns have delighted and...

A seminal work that expands how we talk about the natural world and the environment as National Book Critics Circle Criticism finalist Camille T. Dungy diversifies her garden to reflect her heritage.In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, poet and...

This absorbing collection of letters spans a decade in the lifelong friendship of two remarkable writers who engaged the subjects of literature, race, and identity with deep clarity and passion. The correspondence begins in 1950 when Ellison is living in...

In 1935, at the height of his powers, Howard Thurman, one of the most influential African American religious thinkers of the twentieth century, took a pivotal trip to India that would forever change him--and that would ultimately shape the course of the...