Cultural Literature

Writer Ted Fox and artist James Otis Smith bring to life Harlem's legendary theater in this graphic novel adaptation of Fox's definitive, critically acclaimed history of the Apollo. Since its inception as an African-American theater in 1934, the Apollo,...

Hendrix is the definitive, illustrated biography of the man widely considered the greatest rock guitarist of all time. Jimi Hendrix's music still lives on today. This (incredibly) is the first full-blown illustrated gift book exploring the life and...

Frederick Douglass--famed author, orator and former slave--spent twenty-five years with his family in Rochester, New York, beginning in 1848. Despite living through one of our nation's most bitter and terrifying times, Frederick and his wife, Anna,...

A Finalist for The Governor General's Award for Nonfiction in CanadaIn this indelible memoir that recalls the life of her remarkable ninety-five-year old grandmother, Guardian journalist Aida Edemariam tells the story of modern Ethiopia--a nation that...

The ten works collected in this volume demonstrate how a diverse group of writers challenged the conscience of a nation and laid the foundations of the African American literary tradition by expressing their in anger, pain, sorrow, and courage. Included...

Nelson Mandela's memoir, Long Road to Freedom, electrified the world in 1994 with the story of a solitary man who, despite unbelievable hardships, brought down one of the most-despised regimes in the world. Fifteen years after the publication of that...

How design can transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism: a framework, theoretical grounding, and practical principles. The designed things, experiences, and symbols that we use to perceive, understand, and perform our everyday...

The master of contemporary sidewalk chalk shares his latest creations in this collection of impossible-seeming, brilliantly imagined illustrations that leap off the page in all their original joyful exuberance. David Zinn's amazing street drawings are...

McMickle's Encyclopedia blends biography, story, and commentary on a host of prominent and lesser-known people in African American religious history. With entries ranging from the abolitionist movement to Malcolm X and from Andrew Young to Ralph...

Aptly named for the area's rich land, Lower Richland County encompasses approximately 360 miles in the heart of South Carolina's geographic center.Discovered by Virginia settlers over 250 years ago, this fertile swath of land, with the Wateree River in...

For generations, African Americans have enriched South Carolina's history, and the black families of Chesterfield County are no different.During slavery, many African Americans in Chesterfield County were forced to provide domestic services and labor to...

A remarkable work of reportage by Nobel Prize Laureate V. S. Naipaul that surveys belief and religion among the disparate peoples of Africa. Like all of Naipaul's "travel" books, The Masque of Africa encompasses a much larger narrative and purpose: to...

Squatting offers a radical but simple solution to the crises of housing, homelessness and the lack of social space that mark contemporary society: occupying empty buildings and rebuilding lives and communities in the process. Squatting has a long and...

Paul Robeson, despite being one of the greatest Renaissance figures in American history, still remains in relative anonymity. An exceptional scholar, lawyer, athlete, stage and screen actor, linguist, singer, civil rights and political activist, he...

"Sixtus's father had only one request of Sixtus--'give back.' And give back he did." --Edward C. Benzel, MD, emeritus chairman of Neurosurgery, Cleveland Clinic Born into a poor West African family in the disease-stricken town of Fontem, John N. Atabong...

Celebrated scholar Carla Kaplan's cultural biography, Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance, focuses on white women, collectively called "Miss Anne," who became Harlem Renaissance insiders. The 1920s in New York City was a time of...