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Black Literature February 2026 |
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Joy goddess : A'Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance
by A'Lelia Perry Bundles
"Dubbed the "joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s" by poet Langston Hughes, A'Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author's great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. After inheriting her mother's hair care enterprise, A'Lelia would become America's first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her three New York homes -- a mansion, a townhouse, and a pied-a-terre -- where she entertained Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, W.E.B. DuBois, and other cultural, social and intellectual luminaries of the Roaring Twenties. Now, based on extensive research and Walker's personal correspondence, her great-granddaughter creates a meticulous, nuanced portrait of a charismatic woman struggling to define herself as a wife, mother, and businesswoman outside her famous mother's sphere. In Joy Goddess, A'Lelia's radiant personality and impresario instincts -- at the center of a vast, artistic social world where she flourished as a fashion trendsetter and international traveler -- are brought to vivid and unforgettable life"
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Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship
by Dana A. Williams
NPR SPRING PICKAn insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon's profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation's most prestigious publishing houses. While Toni Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest, and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms.Toni Morrison herself had great enthusiasm about Dana Williams's work on this story, generously sharing memories and thoughts with the author over the years, even giving her the book's title. From the manuscripts she molded, the authors she nurtured, and the readers she inspired, Toni at Random demonstrates how Toni Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published. Morrison's contribution as an editor transformed the broader literary landscape and deepened the cultural conversation. With unparalleled insight and sensitivity, Toni at Random charts this editorial odyssey.
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Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur
by Dean Van Nguyen
From Pitchfork and Guardian contributor Dean Van Nguyen comes a revelatory history of Tupac beyond his musical legend, as a radical son of the Black Panther Party whose political legacy still resonates today. In a time in which having a rich relationship with the truth is especially vital, here comes Dean Van Nguyen. History is either a tool of the state or an outside screaming for freedom. Words for My Comrades is about freedom--it is freedom at work. --Saeed Jones, award-winning author of How We Fight For Our Lives In Words For My Comrades, Dean Van Nguyen deftly ties Tupac's brilliant career with his anti-capitalist upbringing. A richly researched biography that honors his subject's bold, deeply textured life and art. --Walter Thompson-Hern ndez, author of The Compton Cowboys Before his murder at age twenty-five, Tupac Shakur rose to staggering artistic heights as the preeminent storyteller of the 1990s, building, in the process, one of the most iconic public personas of the last half century. He recorded no fewer than ten platinum albums, starred in major films, and became an activist and political hero known the world over. In this cultural history, journalist Van Nguyen reckons with Tupac's coming of age, fame, and cultural capital, and how the political machinations that shaped him as a boy have since buoyed his legacy as a revolutionary following the George Floyd uprisings. Words for My Comrades engages--crucially--with the influence of Tupac's mother, Afeni, whose role in the Black Panther Party and dedication to dismantling American imperialism and combating police brutality informed Tupac's art. Tupac's childhood as a son of the Panthers, coupled with the influence of his stepfather's Marxist beliefs, informed his own riveting code of ethics that helped audiences grapple with America's inherent injustices. Using oral histories from conversations with the people who directly witnessed Tupac's life and career, many of whom were interviewed for the first time here--from Panther elder Aaron Dixon, to music video director Stephen Ashley Blake, to friends and contemporaries of Tupac's mother--Van Nguyen demonstrates how Tupac became one of the most enduring musical legends in hip-hop history, and how intimately his name is threaded with the legacy of Black Panther politics. Van Nguyen reveals how Tupac and Afeni each championed the disenfranchised in distinct ways, and how their mother-son bond charts a narrative of the last fifty years of revolutionary Black American politics. Words for My Comrades is the story of how the energy of the Black political movement was subsumed by culture, and how America produced two of its most iconic, enduring revolutionaries.
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Lovely One: A Memoir
by Ketanji Brown Jackson
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - In her vulnerable, tender, and infinitely inspirational (Oprah Daily) memoir, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States chronicles her extraordinary life story. A billowingly triumphant American tale.--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEARWith this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family's ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America's highest court within the span of one generation. Named Ketanji Onyika, meaning Lovely One, based on a suggestion from her aunt, a Peace Corps worker stationed in West Africa, Justice Jackson learned from her educator parents to take pride in her heritage since birth. She describes her resolve as a young girl to honor this legacy and realize her dreams: from hearing stories of her grandparents and parents breaking barriers in the segregated South, to honing her voice in high school as an oratory champion and student body president, to graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where she performed in musical theater and improv and participated in pivotal student organizations. Here, Justice Jackson pulls back the curtain, marrying the public record of her life with what is less known. She reveals what it takes to advance in the legal profession when most people in power don't look like you, and to reconcile a demanding career with the joys and sacrifices of marriage and motherhood. Through trials and triumphs, Justice Jackson's journey will resonate with dreamers everywhere, especially those who nourish outsized ambitions and refuse to be turned aside. This moving, openhearted tale will spread hope for a more just world, for generations to come.
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Shot Ready
by Stephen Curry
Shot Ready is a ... distillation of Stephen Curry's transformative philosophy of success--centered on preparation, constant improvement, creativity, connection, mindfulness, and joy--delivered in his incomparable voice and style--
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Full of Myself: Black Womanhood and the Journey to Self-Possession
by Austin Channing Brown
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - In a time of rising authoritarianism and attacks on personal freedoms, the New York Times bestselling author of I'm Still Here chronicles her efforts to live as her full self in a society that wants women--and Black women in particular--to do anything but that. A book that resonates and asks us to dig deep--not with judgment, but so that we better understand ourselves and the world around us.--Phoebe Robinson, bestselling author, founder of Tiny Reparations Books In these pages, Austin Channing Brown shows us how to survive and thrive even now.--Glennon Doyle, bestselling author of We Can Do Hard Things As an antiracism educator and writer leading through America's cycles of racial unrest, Austin Channing Brown reached a crossroads. I love my work, she writes, and I am tired. We are tired. Tired of protesting. Tired of 'saving democracy.' Tired of educating and explaining. She began to ask, What do I deserve, not just as a citizen but as a human? Full of Myself answers that question. Weaving personal narrative with perceptive social commentary, Brown offers a look at the mechanisms that limit who Black women are allowed to be--at work, at home, in community--and the defining moments when she decided that self-possession is the justice work she had been made to undervalue. From skinny-dipping in the ocean to becoming a mom, she delves into the drama of life and invites readers to begin defining themselves not as empty vessels to improve the world, but as a people born free in spirit, in hope, in joy. For Black women seeking to understand the true roots of their burnout, or for anyone wondering what it means to live joyfully in a hostile world, Full of Myself is a breath of fresh air and an invitation to full humanity.
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Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh
by Robin Givhan
An illuminating . . . biography and cultural history (The New York Times) of Virgil Abloh's iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry, which embodied a groundbreaking transformation of the relationship between who we are and what we wear. Robin Givhan] captures that shift with the kind of clarity and nuance that honors the late designers' many layers. There's never been a book like this.--Essence BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Elle Virgil Abloh's appointment as head of menswear for Louis Vuitton in 2018 shocked the fashion industry, as he became the first Black designer to serve as artistic director in the brand's 164-year history. But as Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic Robin Givhan reveals, Abloh's story encompasses so much more than his own journey. Using Abloh's surprising path to the top of the luxury establishment, Givhan unfolds the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below in the form of streetwear and designers unafraid to storm the gates--how their notions of what was luxury simultaneously anticipated and upended consumer preferences, and how a simple T-shirt held as much cultural power as a haute couture gown. As Givhan relays, Abloh rose during a time of existential angst for a fashion industry trying to make sense of its responsibilities to a diverse audience and the challenges of selling status to a generation of consumers who fetishized sneakers and prioritized comfort. The story of how that moment came to be, and how someone like Abloh--who had no formal training in pattern-making or tailoring--could come to symbolize and embody the industry's way forward, is the story at the heart of this book. Make It Ours is at once a remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury. With access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries, and featuring a cast of fascinating characters ranging from visionary Black designers like Ozwald Boateng to Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding tale of a young man's rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste.
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The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters
by Sasha Bonét
- One of NPR's Nonfiction Books We Love from 2025 - One of Kirkus's Best Nonfiction Books of 2025 - A powerful new voice, telling the American story through three generations of Black mothers. This searing, poetic memoir covers generations of powerful Black women who raise their children singly and transmit strength by showing up. . . . Bon t writes her own mothering story with brute honesty. --NPR A] profound story about all Black women, and about the effects of racism in all Black lives. . . . O]bservant, thoughtful and poetic, in the best sense. Bon t's] account of both her family history and the lives of her tributaries show off her gifts to the fullest. --The New York Times Sasha Bon t grew up in 1990s Houston, worlds removed from the Louisiana cotton plantation that raised her grandmother, Betty Jean, and the Texas bayous that shaped Sasha's mother, Connie. And though each generation did better, materially, than the last, all of them carried the complex legacy of Black American motherhood with its origins in slavery. All of them knew that the hands used to comb and braid hair, shell pecans, and massage weary muscles were the very hands used to whip children into submission. When she had her own daughter, Sofia, Bon t was determined to interrupt this tradition. She brought Sofia to New York and set off on a journey--not only up and down the tributaries of her bloodline but also into the lives of Black women in history and literature--Betty Davis, Recy Taylor, and Iberia Hampton among them--to understand both the love and pain they passed on to their children and to create a way of mothering that honors the legacy but abandons the violence that shaped it. The Waterbearers is a dazzling and transformative work of American storytelling that reimagines not just how we think of Black women, but how we think of ourselves--as individuals, parents, communities, and a country.
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Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson
by Tourmaline
Black trans luminary Tourmaline brings to life the first definitive biography of the revolutionary activist Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most important and remarkable figures in LGBTQ+ history, revealing her story, her impact, and her legacy. Through nearly two decades of research, Tourmaline brings this fabulous, scandalous, essential justice warrior to life in full color, for the first time. This book will take readers into Marsha's childhood as she struggled with gender identity in the 1950s, to her dramatic and essential involvement in the Stonewall Riots and her activism for trans rights through the 70s to the AIDS crisis, and finally, it will explore her mysterious and still unresolved death. Marsha's biography will embody the beauty of deviance. Marsha didn't wait to be freed; she declared herself free and told the world to catch up. Marsha was not merely an activist, she was an artist and a performer, a lover and a mentor, a mischievous and transgressive queen. Marsha honors the fullness of her life and will give this remarkable figure her rightful place in history--
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107 Days
by Kamala Harris
Your Secret Service code name is Pioneer. You are the first woman in history to be elected vice president of the United States. On July 21, 2024, your running mate, Joe Biden, announces that he will not be seeking reelection. The presidential election will occur on November 5, 2024. You have 107 days. Written with candor, a unique perspective, and the pace of a page-turning novel, 107 Days takes you inside the race for the presidency as no one has ever done before--
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The Man of Many Fathers: Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir
by Roy Wood
When Roy Wood, Jr., held his baby boy for the first time, he was relieved that his son was happy and healthy, but he felt a strange mix of joy and apprehension. Roy's own father, a voice of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, had passed away when Roy was sixteen. There were gaps in the lessons passed down from father to son and, holding his own child, Roy wondered: have I managed to fill in those blanks, to learn the lessons I will one day need to teach my boy? So Roy looked back to figure out who had taught him lessons throughout his life and which he could pass down to his son. Some of his father figures were clear, like a colorful man from Philadelphia navigating life after prison, who taught Roy the value of having a vision for his life, or his fellow comedians, who showed him what it took to make it as a working stand-up performer--
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Fearless and free : a memoir
by Josephine Baker
This memoir chronicles the life of Josephine Baker, the groundbreaking dancer, singer, spy, and Civil Rights activist, from her rise to fame in 1920s Paris to her daring role in World War II and her activism during the U.S. Civil Rights movement.
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I am nobody's slave : how uncovering my family's history set me free
by Lee Hawkins
This memoir examines a Black family's pursuit of the American Dream, exploring generational trauma from slavery and systemic racism, revealing how racial violence shaped their lives, and uncovering the emotional toll and resilience passed down through generations. 75,000 first printing.
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Trailblazer: Perseverance in Life and Politics
by Carol Moseley Braun
A memoir from Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun detailing her remarkable childhood and political career on the Hill, including her tenure as the first Black female US senator.--Provided by publisher.
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The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir
by Martha S. Jones
A child of the civil rights era, Martha S. Jones grew up feeling her Black identity was obvious to all who saw her. But in Jones's first semester of college, a Black Studies classmate challenged her right to speak. Suspicious of the color of her skin and the texture of her hair, he confronted her with a question that inspired a lifetime of introspection: Who do you think you are? Now a prizewinning scholar of Black history, Jones delves into her own family's past for answers, only to find a story that archives alone can't tell, a story of race in America that takes us beyond slavery, Jim Crow, and civil rights. Ever since her great-great-great-grandmother Nancy emerged from bondage in 1865 determined to raise a free family, skin color has determined Jones's ancestors' lives. But color and race are not the same, and through her family's story, Jones discovers the uneven, unpredictable relationship between the two. Drawing readers along the shifting and jagged path of America's color line, The Trouble of Color is a lyrical, deeply felt meditation on the most fundamental matters of identity, belonging, and family--
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Indianapolis Public Library
P.O. Box 211
Indianapolis, Indiana 46206-0211
317-275-4100www.indypl.org/ |
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