History

A timely and significant examination of how Black athletes have used their influence to create meaningful change and reform for Black Americans. In the age of social media, athletes have a powerful influence like never before. Many Black athletes have...

The intimate and heartbreaking story of a Black undercover police officer who famously kneeled by the assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr--and a daughter's quest for the truth about her father In the famous photograph of the assassination of...

A family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present. In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey...

A breakdown of the economic and social injustices facing Black people and other marginalized citizens, inspired by political activist Kimberly Jones's viral video "How Can We Win" "So if I played four hundred rounds of Monopoly with you and I had to play...

A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose extraordinary poetry set African American literature at the heart of the American Revolution. Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and...

It's one of the last overlooked parts of American military history: the significant role African Americans played in the wars of America. Their story is more than just the 54th Massachusetts in the Civil War, more than just a tank battalion in World War...

Sarah and Angelina Grimke--the Grimke sisters--are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Their antislavery pamphlets, among the most...

Journalist and author Mark Whitaker explores the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity expressed in the slogan "Black Power" challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis...

If the 1619 Project illuminated the ways in which life in the United States has been shaped by the existence of slavery, this "historical, literary masterpiece" (Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy) focuses on emancipation and how its afterlife further...

The triumphant story of how an all-Black Broadway cast and crew changed musical theatre--and the world--forever. This musical introduced Black excellence to the Great White Way. Broadway was forever changed and we, who stand on the shoulders of our...

A tremendously impressive book.--Washington PostHer motto and title of her autobiography--Unbought and Unbossed--illustrates her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.--National Women's...

From Barack Obama's chief speechwriter Cody Keenan, a spellbinding account of the ten most dramatic days of the presidency, when a hate-fueled massacre and looming Supreme Court decisions put the character of our country on the line, and a president's...

A new history of Black Liberation, told through the intertwined story of two grassroots organizers  ​ The Black Power movement, often associated with its iconic spokesmen, derived much of its energy from the work of people whose...

The "enlightening" (The Guardian) true story of the last ship to carry enslaved people to America, the remarkable town its survivors' founded after emancipation, and the complicated legacy their descendants carry with them to this day--by the journalist...

Since the earliest days of colonial America, the relationship between cotton and the African-American experience has been central to the history of the republic. America's most serious social tragedy, slavery and its legacy, spread only where cotton...

The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave. In 1848, a year of international democratic...