General History

The battle for equality in education during the civil rights era came at a cost to Black Americans on the frontlines. In 1964 when fourteen-year-old June Manning Thomas walked into Orangeburg High School as one of thirteen Black students selected to...

They call it Spanish Harlem or sometimes just El Barrio. But for over a century, East Harlem has been a melting pot of many ethnic groups, including Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, and Mexican immigrants, as well as Italian, Jewish, and African American...

In 1842, Black Rhode Islanders secured a stunning victory, a success rarely seen in antebellum America: they won the right to vote. Amid heightened public discourse around shifting ideas of race, citizenship, and political rights, they methodically...

The autobiography of a local and national leader in education and civil rightsCarver Clark Gayton's story bears witness to Seattle's experience of race and the importance of family, teachers, teamwork, and building bridges in the context of the civil...

New neighborhoods began emerging north of Main Street in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the 1870s as emancipated Black men and women spent their hard-won post-slavery wages to purchase lots and build homes. As the decades rolled by, they and their...

The incredible story of MOVE, the revolutionary Black civil liberties group that Philadelphia police bombed in 1985, killing 11 civilians--by one of the few people born into the organization, raised during the bombing's tumultuous aftermath, and...

IN 1932, A JAMAICAN MAN NAMED LEONARD PERCIVAL HOWELL began leading nonviolent protests in Kingston, Jamaica, against British colonial rule. While history books rightly credit Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. with popularizing nonviolent protest...

The first new translation in over 400 years of one of the great works of the Renaissance: an African diplomat's guide to Africa A Penguin Classic In 1518, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, a Moroccan diplomat, was seized by pirates while travelling in the...

In this down-to-earth memoir, longtime educator and community leader Press L. Robinson Sr. recounts his hardscrabble childhood in South Carolina, his education at Morehouse College and Howard University, his career as a professor and administrator in the...

"Powerful and deeply moving."--Los Angeles Times From a groundbreaking scholar, a heart-wrenching reexamination of the struggle for survival in the Reconstruction-era South, and what it cost. The story of Reconstruction is often told from the...

Big Tequila is the ultimate guide to the rich cultural heritage, history, and makers of this legendary spirit.Immerse yourself in Mexican tradition and learn the essential role that mezcal and tequila have played in this country's history and identity...

From the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of But Where Is the Lamb? comes a grippingly narrated work of history and "edge-of-the-seat reportage" (Chicago Tribune) that tells the story of a case that marked a watershed in American racial justice. To white...

On Israel's seventy-fifth anniversary comes a nuanced examination of the country's past, present, and future, from the two-time National Jewish Book Award-winning author of Israel.In 1948, Israel's founders had much more in mind than the creation of a...

People running from slavery made many hard journeys to find freedom--on steamboats and in carriages, across rivers and in hay-covered wagons. Some were shot at. Many were chased by slave catchers. Others hid in tunnels and secret rooms. But these...

When Claude Lévi-Strauss passed away in 2009 at age 100, France celebrated the life and contributions of not only a preeminent anthropologist, but one of the defining intellectuals of the 20th century. Just as Freud had shaken up the antiquarian...