Cultural Literature

The Godfather of Soul, Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business--a legend of popular music whose influence and appeal reaches audiences to this day--gets the graphic novel treatment. Born in the South during the height of segregation, James...

In this remarkable book, Douglas Wolk brings to life an October evening in 1962, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem - an evening at the height of Cold War tensions. In great detail, Wolk pieces together what took place (and what was recorded) that night,...

Available in book form for the first time, the FBI's secret dossier on the legendary and controversial writer. Decades before Black Lives Matter returned James Baldwin to prominence, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI considered the Harlem-born author the most...

The 100th-anniversary special edition of Jailed for Freedom, the essential history and first-person account of the courageous and militant suffragists who fought for their right to vote. First published in 1920, Jailed for Freedom is the courageous, true...

In Jailbreak Out of History, revolutionary Amazon theorist Butch Lee shows how the anticolonial struggles of New Afrikan/Black women were central to the unfolding of 19th century amerika, both during and "after" slavery.The book's title essay, "The...

In the spring of 1947, Jackie Robinson played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking down baseball's decades-old color barrier and changing the face of the game forever. In this intimate portrait, Robinson's widow, Rachel, tells her husband's...

Jackie Robinson's story is not only a compelling drama of heroism, but also as a template of the African American freedom struggle. A towering athletic talent, Robinson's greater impact was on preparing the way for the civil rights reform wave following...

The extraordinary life of Jackie Robinson is illuminated as never before in this full-scale biography by Arnold Rampersad, who was chosen by Jack's widow, Rachel, to tell her husband's story, and was given unprecedented access to his private papers. We...

The emergence of Jack Teagarden as an important jazz stylist was a significant feature of the '20s jazz scene. He brought a maturity to the sound of the trombone and until late in his life played with a laconic grace that few, if any, on his instrument...

From a Los Angeles hospital bed, equipped with little more than a laptop and a stack of records, James J Dilla Yancey crafted a set of tracks that would forever change the way beatmakers viewed their artform. The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music as...

Its the Memory of an Old-Fashioned Christmas had been in the works for six years. Every year, around Christmastime, Ms. Swift reminisced about the good days when families, neighbors, and villagers had one thing in commoncelebrate Christmas by going to a...

An exclusive behind-the-scenes look at life in the rap world, from the woman at the heart of the Nas/Jay-Z feud--one of the biggest beefs in hip-hop. Carmen Bryan is no stranger to the rap world. Not only did she work at Def Jam and Capitol Records but...

Dr. Lonnie Woods, Esq. resides in the Dallas- Fort Worth area. Dr. Woods graduated from Texas Christian University with a B.A. in Political Science with honors and later the University of Texas School of Law, where he obtained his law degree. He later...

This star-studded tribute traces the struggles and triumphs of the Afro-American superstars of music and film over the last century. Among the many artists featured are: Whitney Houston, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Cab...

Richard Wesley was witness to a revolution. As both a celebrated participant and eager student of the Black Theater Movement in the late 1960s, he became part of a seismic force in American culture, breaking down barriers and helping to disrupt the...

"My life has been played in symphonic harmony with the Master, by a cluster of circumstances, rhythmically interwoven for good," Dre Williams writes. "You see, I believe my life's events have been divinely arranged."These may seem like unusual words to...