African American Studies

.Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle investigates of the notorious Dozier Boys School--the true story behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys--and the contentious process to exhume the graves of the boys buried there in order to reunite...

Black Panther and Cuban exile Assata Shakur has inspired generations of radical protest, including the contemporary movement for Black lives. Drawing its title from one of America's foremost revolutionaries, this collection of thought-provoking essays by...

After a speech at UMass Amherst on February 28, 1984, James Baldwin was asked by a student: You said that the liberal façade and being a liberal is not enough. Well, what is? What is necessary? Baldwin responded, Commitment. That is what is...

An edgy and insightful look at Barack Obama, Keanu Reeves, and the mixed-race experience in our divided world. At once personally revealing and politically astute, author Will Harris reflects on the lives of two very different supermen: Barack Obama and...

A call to action--inspiring citizens to stand up and fight for social justice in our nation. In the last few years we have seen a wave of activism wash across our nation and inspire unprecedented protest and civic engagement. People came together in...

A Plague on Your Houses is a scorching indictment of the decision to close fire companies in New York in the 1970s and a frightening study of the way misguided and malevolent social policy can spark a chain reaction of enormous and unforeseen urban...

Spirituals, songs of abiding faith passed down by African Americans through the centuries, offer a remarkable view of resilience, courage, and love. Formed in the crucible of fire, these songs express the suffering and horror of slavery as well as the...

Towards the Abolition of Whiteness collects David Roediger's recent essays, many published here for the first time, and counts the costs of whiteness in the past and present of the US. It finds those costs insupportable. At a time when prevailing liberal...

Black Panther and Cuban exile, Assata Shakur, has inspired multiple generations of radical protest, including our contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. Drawing its title from one of America's foremost revolutionaries, this collection of...

In the tradition of The Other Wes Moore and Just Mercy, a searing memoir and clarion call to save our at-risk youth by a young black man who himself was a lost cause--until he landed in a rehabilitation program that saved his life and gave him purpose...

"To some a book on the origins of sexual inequality is absurd. Male dominance seems to them a universal, if not inevitable, phenomenon that has been with us since the dawn of our species. The essays in this volume offer differing perspectives on the...

A gripping and unforgettable true story of bravery and patriotism in the face of bitter hatred. Abraham Bolden was a young African American Secret Service agent in Chicago when he was asked by John F. Kennedy himself to join the White House Secret...

The essential account of R. Kelly's actions and their consequences, a reckoning two decades in the making. Updated and expanded to include Kelly's 2021 trial and conviction. In 2000, Chicago journalist and music critic Jim DeRogatis received an anonymous...

Stetson Kennedy collected folklore and oral histories throughout Florida for the WPA between 1937 and 1942. The result was this classic Florida book, back in print for the first time in more than twenty years with an Afterword update and dozens of...

Mechanic Accents is a widely acclaimed study of American popular fiction and working-class culture. Combining Marxist literary theory with American labor history, Michael Denning explores what happened when, in the nineteenth century, working people...

Reporting from the front lines of gentrification in San Francisco, Rebecca Solnit and Susan Schwartzenberg sound a warning bell to all urban residents. Wealth is just as capable of ravaging cities as poverty.