Cultural Literature

These are the books you should read. This is the canon. Upending our traditionally white-dominated 'to be read' piles, Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne and Kadija Sesay push to the fore the voices and cultural perspectives that demand a place on...

Greene County, Georgia, follows the lives of a people once burdened by the yoke of slavery through their struggles and important accomplishments of today. Located 80 miles east of Atlanta, Greene County is a place with a history rooted in faith. It was a...

A memoir of hard lessons learned in the racially segregated and sometimes outright racist NBA of the early '60s by celebrated NBA player and the first Black Coach of the Year, Ray Scott. Introduced by Earl the Pearl Monroe. "There's a basic insecurity...

Follow the life lessons of 30 remarkable women of colour who are making their mark on society and culture. "When you are struggling and you start thinking about giving up, I want you to remember something ... and that is the power of hope." --Michelle...

Harry Belafonte is not just one of the greatest entertainers of our time; he has led one of the great American lives of the last century. Now, this extraordinary icon tells us the story of that life, giving us its full breadth, letting us share in the...

In this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the...

A story most Americans don't know. *Slaves built the Capitol, White House, and other important Washington structures *The National Mall sits on the site of the city's once-bustling slave market *The grounds that are now Arlington National Cemetery were...

The forgotten story of a criminal trial that brought national attention to a young defendant named Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as told by Fred D. Gray, Dr. King's lawyer and friend, along with New York Times bestselling authors Dan Abrams and David...

From a Harvard scholar and former Obama official, a powerful proposal for curtailing violent crime in America Urban violence is one of the most divisive and allegedly intractable issues of our time. But as Harvard scholar Thomas Abt shows in Bleeding...

The first book to focus exclusively on women as subjects in street art, this study, part travelogue and part dialogue, examines these depictions of women artistically, politically, and culturally across continents. Interviews with artists peel back the...

A formative coming-of-age graphic memoir by the creator of Afro-punk: a young man's immersive reckoning with identity, racism, clumsy teen love and belonging in an isolated California desert, and a search for salvation and community through punk. Apple...

Dear White Woman, Please Come Home is Kimberlee Yolanda Williams' invitation to white women longing for authentic friendship with Black and brown women, the kind of friendship with no place for secrets, the kind of relationship where truth-telling is...

If you let a black girl loose in a library, you may not recognize the woman who emerges. --from Miss ChloeToni Morrison, born Chloe A Wofford, was a towering figure in the world of literature when she entered A.J. Verdelle's life. Their literary...

DC Represent!There's a party over here, there's a party over there! In go-go the party never stops, and neither does the beat. The bands, the stars, the clubs, the spots, the sweat, the late nights and the passion are the sound of the city--all...

A riveting exploration of how the power of visual media over the last few years has shifted the narrative on race and reignited the push towards justice by the author of the "worthy and necessary" (The New York Times) Nobody Marc Lamont Hill and the...

The inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation's first HBCUs In The Devil's Half Acre, New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of...