Cultural Literature

A decade in the making, Emily Raboteau's" Searching for Zion" takes readers around the world on an unexpected adventure of faith. Both one woman's quest for a place to call "home" and an investigation into a people's search for the Promised Land, this...

Kidnapped into slavery in 1841, Solomon Northup spent 12 years in captivity. This autobiographical memoir represents an exceptionally detailed and accurate description of slave life and plantation society.The story that inspired the major motion picture,...

Today, black-owned barber shops play a central role in African American public life. The intimacy of commercial grooming encourages both confidentiality and camaraderie, which make the barber shop an important gathering place for African American men to...

A punch-drunk memoir in which everyone's favorite Questlove, member of The Roots and the "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" band leader, tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A moving memoir about the legendary author's relationship with her own mother. Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick!The story of Maya Angelou's extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling...

"Freedom Summer" presents finely rendered portraits of the courageous black citizens--and Northern volunteers--who refused to be intimidated in their struggle for justice, and the white Mississippians who would kill to protect a dying way of life.A...

This powerful collection of articles, essays, and letters spans the period between Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon's landmark manifestos on the psychology of the colonized and the means of empowerment necessary for their...

Born in 1915, John Hope Franklin lived through America's most defining 20th-century transformation, the dismantling of segregation. He has influenced with determination and dignity the nation's racial conscience, earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom...

A timely reexamination of the pioneering artist, activist, and scientist, George Washington Carver. World Without End examines the ongoing impact of the groundbreaking African American scientist and artist George Washington Carver. The book reframes...

Today's Birmingham--led by Mayor Randall Woodfin--is a phoenix rising from the ashes of systemic racism and white flight. This first Southern city to pluck the feathers off Jim Crow, where peaceful protesters endured attacks by police dogs, where...

A beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail," part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins.With an afterword by Reginald Dwayne Betts On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr...

The epic story of Detroit's struggle to integrate schools in its suburbs--and the defeat of desegregation in the North. In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous decision: In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school...

"The Barn is the most brutal, layered and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi, I will ever read...Reporting and reckoning can get no better, or more important, than...

A dynamic kaleidoscope of story that honors the work of women. Kin is a story and a celebration of Black womanhood, of resistance, and of perseverance--while simultaneously an indictment of American history. Kin is a tree--alive in...

Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Fall 2024 Poetry Books From Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works written from 1921-1927 and curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith. Before Langston...

New York Times bestselling author adrienne maree brown transcends binary thinking about "accountability" and shares dignified, holistic ways for individuals and communities to address harmful, destructive patterns.This selection of prescient,...