Cultural Literature

An ambitious, honest portrait of the Black experience in flyover country. One of The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2020.Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have...

Known worldwide as Lead Belly, Huddie Ledbetter (1889-1949) is an American icon whose influence on modern music was tremendous - as was, according to legend, the temper that landed him in two of the South's most brutal prisons, while his immense talent...

With over a hundred photos collected by G. Faye Dant, and with an introduction by renowned Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin.When Mark Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885, he turned Hannibal, Missouri, into one of the most famous...

Martha's Vineyard has always been a unique island and vacation destination, made even more diverse with the arrival of Black homeowners in the 19 th century. Early landowners included the formerly enslaved Charles Shearer, who along with his wife...

"An absolutely essential addition to the history of the Catholic Church, whose involvement in New World slavery sustained the Church and, thereby, helped to entrench enslavement in American society."--Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of...

The story every mother in America needs to read. As featured on NPR and the TODAY Show. All moms have to deal with choosing baby names, potty training, finding your village, and answering your kid's tough questions, but if you are raising a Black child,...

Randy Cunningham, founding member of the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, details one of the greatest examples of mass civic and democratic education in Cleveland's history.Democratizing Cleveland: The Rise and Fall of Community Organizing in...

More than 500 years of history are brought to life in this illustrated encyclopedia, whose panoramic scope offers a vivid, definitive chronology of the African-American experience. Black Saga is a remarkably comprehensive reference book that highlights...

"African Uhuru: the fight for African freedom in the rise of the Global South" - Roger McKenzie's latest writing - addresses several distinct but complementary audiences.In focussing on the radical tradition of African self-liberation he draws attention...

From Entertainment Weekly writer and former Out magazine editor Lester Fabian Brathwaite, Rage is a darkly comedic exploration of the meaning of Blackness, queerness, and the American Dream when creative anger seems to be the best response to inequality...

What does it mean to be in a place and out of place at the same time? Gabrielle Civil explores this question by making black feminist performance art in Mexico. She asks unsuspecting Mexicans if they have good hair, visits legendary black expatriate...

Solomon Northup's 12 Years A Slave: A True Story is a memoir of gripping intensity that recounts his kidnapping and enslavement in 19th-century America. Northup's candid account of the unspeakable horrors he was made to endure during his 12 years in...