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Black History Reading List |
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The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration
by Isabel Wilkerson
In an epic history covering the period from the end of World War I through the 1970s, a Pulitzer Prize winner chronicles the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West through the stories of three individuals and their families.
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Overground Railroad : The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America
by Candacy Taylor
Published from 1936 to 1966, the Green Book was hailed as the “black travel guide to America.” At that time, it was very dangerous and difficult for African-Americans to travel because black travelers couldn’t eat, sleep, or buy gas at most white-owned businesses. The Green Book listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses that were safe for black travelers. It was a resourceful and innovative solution to a horrific problem. It took courage to be listed in the Green Book, and Overground Railroad celebrates the stories of those who put their names in the book and stood up against segregation. It shows the history of the Green Book, how we arrived at our present historical moment, and how far we still have to go when it comes to race relations in America.
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Barracoon : the story of the last "black cargo"
by Zora Neale Hurston
Presents a previously unpublished work that illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery in the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade, Cudjo Lewis, who was abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States
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They were her property : white women as slave owners in the American South
by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
"Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often their primary source of wealth. Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave-owning men. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used itfor economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave-owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America"
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The Hemingses of Monticello : an American family
by Annette Gordon-Reed
Traces the history of the Hemings family from its origins in early eighteenth-century Virginia to its dispersal after Jefferson's death in 1826, in an account that describes their family ties to the third president. Reprint. A best-selling National Book Award winner and New York Times and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
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Ida : a sword among lions : Ida B. Wells and the campaign against lynching
by Paula Giddings
Traces the life and legacy of the nineteenth-century activist and pioneer, documenting her birth into slavery and upbringing in the Victorian-era South, where she became a journalist and pioneer for civil rights and suffrage, in an account that also describes her determination to counter lynching activities.
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A black women's history of the United States
by Daina Ramey Berry
Two award-winning history professors and authors focus on the stories of African-American women slaves, civilians, religious leaders, artists, queer icons, activists and criminals in a celebration of black womanhood that demonstrates its indelible role in shaping America. (general history).
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Harlem nocturne : women artists & progressive politics during World War II
by Farah Jasmine Griffin
"As World War II raged overseas, Harlem witnessed a battle of its own. Brimming with creative and political energy, Harlem's diverse array of artists and activists launched a bold cultural offensive aimed at winning democracy for all Americans, regardless of race or gender. In Harlem Nocturne, esteemed scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin tells the stories of three black female artists whose creative and political efforts fueled this movement for change: novelist Ann Petry, a major new literary voice; choreographer and dancer Pearl Primus, a pioneer in her field; and composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, a prominent figure in the emergence of Be-Bop. As Griffin shows, these women made enormous strides for social justice during the war, laying the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement before the Cold War temporarily froze their democratic dreams. A rich account of three distinguished artists and the city that inspired them, Harlem Nocturne captures a period of unprecedented vitality and progress for African Americans and women in the United States. "
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Black Wall Street : From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District
by Hannibal B. Johnson
Early in the twentieth century, the black community in Tulsa- the "Greenwood District"- became a nationally renowned entrepreneurial center. Frequently referred to as "The Black Wall Street of America," the Greenwood District attracted pioneers from all over America who sought new opportunities and fresh challenges. Legal segregation forced blacks to do business among themselves. The Greenwood district prospered as dollars circulated within the black community. But fear and jealousy swelled in the greater Tulsa community. The alleged assault of a white woman by a black man triggered unprecedented civil unrest. The worst riot in American history, the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 destroyed people, property, hopes, and dreams. Hundreds of people died or were injured. Property damage ran into the millions. The Greenwood District burned to the ground. Ever courageous, the Greenwood District pioneers rebuilt and better than ever. By 1942, some 242 businesses called the Greenwood district home. Having experienced decline in the '60s, '70s, and early '80s, the area is now poised for yet another renaissance. Black Wall Street speaks to the triumph of the human spirit.
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Just mercy : a story of justice and redemption
by Bryan Stevenson
The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.
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How to be an antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi
A best-selling author, National Book Award-winner and professor combines ethics, history, law and science with a personal narrative to describe how to move beyond the awareness of racism and contribute to making society just and equitable.
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Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? : and other conversations about race
by Beverly Daniel Tatum
"The classic, bestselling book on the psychology of racism-now fully revised and updated Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America. "An unusually sensitive work about theracial barriers that still divide us in so many areas of life."-Jonathan Kozol"
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Caste : the origins of our discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns identifies the qualifying characteristics of historical caste systems to reveal how a rigid hierarchy of human rankings, enforced by religious views, heritage and stigma, impact everyday American lives
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Conversations in Black : On Power, Politics, and Leadership
by Ed Gordon
A collection of conversations with such notables as Stacey Abrams, Harry Belafonte, Charlamagne tha God, Michael Eric Dyson, Jemele Hill, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters and others offers sage wisdom for navigating race in a radically divisive America.
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Uncomfortable conversations with a black man
by Emmanuel Acho
"In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are afraid to ask--yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than ever. With the same open-heartedgenerosity that has made his video series a phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and 'reverse racism.' In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both. He asks only for the reader's curiosity--but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight"
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Minority leader : how to lead from the outside and make real change
by Stacey Abrams
A guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider by the political activist slated to become America's first black woman governor shares the story of her own humble origins and rise through educational and political arenas, counseling women of color on how to overcome self-sabotaging beliefs while highlighting the strengths of their differences to gain a competitive edge in the real world.
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The Fire Next Time
by James Baldwin
The powerful evocation of a childhood in Harlem that helped to galvanize the early days of the civil rights movement examines the deep consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic.
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The fire this time : a new generation speaks about race
by Jesmyn Ward
The National Book Award-winning author of Salvage the Bones presents a continuation of James Baldwin's 1963 The Fire Next Time that examines race issues from the past half century through essays, poems and memoir pieces by some of her generation's most original thinkers and writers.
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Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race
by Reni Eddo-Lodge
"Examining everything from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, from whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge, and counter racism. Including a new afterword by the author, this is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of color in Britain today, and an essential handbook for anyone looking to understand how structural racism works."
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You can't touch my hair : and other things I still have to explain
by Phoebe Robinson
The stand-up comedian and WNYC podcaster offers humorous, poignant essays describing her experience as a black woman in modern America on topics such as how she’s been questioned on her love of Billy Joel and U2 and why you can’t touch her hair.
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The misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
by Issa Rae
Essays on the challenges of being black and introverted in a world that glorifies "cool" behavior, drawn from the author's award-winning social media series, share self-deprecating perspectives on such topics as cybersexing, weight, and self-acceptance.
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Breathe : a letter to my sons
by Imani Perry
A Princeton University professor of African-American studies explores the terror, grace and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America, sharing insights into what it means to parent children in a persistently unjust world.
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So you want to talk about race
by Ijeoma Oluo
Examines the sensitive, hyper-charged racial landscape in current America, discussing the issues of privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word.
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When they call you a terrorist : a story of Black Lives Matter and the power to change the world
by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
"This is the story of how the movement that started with a hashtag--#BlackLivesMatter--spread across the nation and then across the world and the journey that led one of its co-founders, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, to this moment. Patrisse Khan-Cullors grew up in an over-policed United States where incarceration of Black people runs rampant. Surrounded by police brutality, she gathered the tools and lessons that would lead her on to found one of the most powerful movements in the world. This is her story. Necessary and timely, 'When They Call You a Terrorist' reminds us that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love: that love is the push to search for justice for those victimized by the powerful. With journal entries, photos and notes that show the formation of an activist from a very young age, this meaningful, empowering account of survival, strength, and resilience seeks to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable"
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The new Negro : the life of Alain Locke
by Jeffrey C. Stewart
A biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance describes him becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD at Harvard University and promoting the work of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Jacob Lawrence.
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Chester B. Himes : a biography
by Lawrence Patrick Jackson
An account of the improbable life of the controversial writer explores Himes' middle-class origins, imprisonment, creative experiences during World War II and eventual escape to Europe, where he became famous for his Harlem detective series and its themes of sexuality, racism and social injustice.
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Twelve years a slave
by Solomon Northup
First published in 1853, “Twelve Years a Slave” is Solomon Northup’s harrowing memoir of being tricked into slavery. Northup, who was a free African American living in Saratoga, New York, had no idea what was in store for him when he was approached by two circus promoters with an offer of a brief high paying job as a musician with their traveling circus. A skilled violinist, Solomon gladly accepted the offer and traveled with the two men to Washington, D.C. When he awoke one morning drugged and bound in a cell for slaves he discovered the men’s true intentions of selling him into slavery. What followed was twelve years of bondage during which Northup experienced the gamut of both kindness and cruelty afforded to slaves in the Southern United States just prior to the American Civil War. While the book was originally a bestseller, having sold over 30,000 copies it languished in relative obscurity for nearly a hundred years until the work was resurrected during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Having secured the Academy Award for Best Picture for its 2013 motion picture adaptation, “Twelve Years a Slave” now finds itself firmly placed within the canon of the great slave narratives.
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My Bondage and My Freedom
by Frederick Douglass
My Bondage and My Freedom is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1855. It is the second of three autobiographies written by Douglass, and is mainly an expansion of his first (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass), discussing in greater detail his transition from bondage to liberty. Following his liberation, Douglass, a former slave, went on to become a prominent abolitionist, speaker, author, and publisher.
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The autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X
The black leader discusses his political philosophy and reveals details of his life, shedding light on the ideas that enabled him to gain the allegiance of a still growing percentage of the black population.
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The dead are arising : the life of Malcolm X
by Les Payne
A revisionary portrait of the iconic civil rights leader draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with surviving family members, intelligence officers and political leaders to offer new insights into Malcolm X’s Depression-era youth, religious conversion and 1965 assassination.
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Wrapped in Rainbows : The Life of Zora Neale Hurston
by Valerie Boyd
Traces previously unexplored aspects of the career of the influential African-American writer, citing the historical backdrop of her life and work while considering her relationships with and influences on top literary, intellectual, and artistic figures. 60,000 first printing.
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Walking with the wind : a memoir of the movement
by John Lewis
The African American congressman looks back on his life, from his childhood on a Alabama cotton farm to his fight for civil rights, to his enduring commitment to the ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Martin Luther King
Drawing on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s unpublished writings and other materials housed in Stanford University's archives, a civil rights scholar assembles a continuous first-person narrative of King's life.
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My life, my love, my legacy : My Life, My Love, My Legacy
by Coretta Scott King
The wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change and singular 20th-century American civil rights activist presents her full life story, as told before her death to one of her closest confidants.
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I know why the caged bird sings
by Maya Angelou
The critically acclaimed author and poet recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums.
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Odetta : a life in music and protest
by Ian Zack
A portrait of the music artist credited as the “Voice of the Civil Rights Movement” traces Odetta’s early life in deeply segregated Alabama through her famed performances in major cities, demonstrating how she combated racism through her powerful lyrics.
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Contemporary Biographies, Autobiographies & Memoirs:
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Between the world and me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Told through the author's own evolving understanding of the subject over the course of his life comes a bold and personal investigation into America's racial history and its contemporary echoes.
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The awkward thoughts of W. Kamau Bell : tales of a 6' 4", African-American, heterosexual, cisgender, left-leaning, asthmatic, Black and proud blerd, mama's boy, dad, and stand-up comedian
by W. Kamau Bell
A memoir and manifesto by the comedian, podcast host, and star of "United Shades of America" shares progressive views on issues ranging from race relations and law enforcement to right-wing politics and parenthood.
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How we fight for our lives : a memoir
by Saeed Jones
"Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir. Jones tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence--into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another--and to one another--as we fight to become ourselves. An award-winning poet, Jones has developed a style that's as beautiful as it is powerful--a voice that's by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one-of-a-kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time"
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Becoming
by Michelle Obama
An intimate and uplifting memoir by the former First Lady chronicles the experiences that have shaped her remarkable life, from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago through her setbacks and achievements in the White House.
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I'm still here : Black dignity in a world made for whiteness
by Austin Channing Brown
The author shares her experiences of growing up black, Christian, and female in white America, exploring the country's racial divide at all levels of society and how overcoming apathy and focusing on God's work in the world can heal persistent divisions.
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Heavy : an American memoir
by Kiese Laymon
An essayist and novelist explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse
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A promised land
by Barack Obama
A deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy.
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Memorial Drive : a daughter's memoir
by Natasha D. Trethewey
The former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Native Guard shares a chillingly personal memoir about the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather. 150,000 first printing.
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Negroland : a memoir
by Margo Jefferson
A highly personal meditation on race, sex and American culture by the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic traces her upbringing and education in upper-class African-American circles against a backdrop of the Civil Rights era and its contradictory aftermath.
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Redefining realness : my path to womanhood, identity, love & so much more
by Janet Mock
A journalist and activist who was profiled in a 2011 Marie Claire feature outlines bold perspectives on the realities of being young, multi-racial, economically challenged and transgender in today's America, recounting her disadvantaged youth and decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery at the age of 18 before pursuing a career and falling in love.
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Bad feminist : essays
by Roxane Gay
A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes whowe are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better
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Hood feminism : notes from the women that a movement forgot
by Mikki Kendall
An award-winning writer and frequent guest speaker presents a compelling critique of today’s black feminist movement that argues that modern activism needs to refocus on health care, education and safety for all women instead of a privileged few.
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Ain't I a woman : Black women and feminism
by bell hooks
"A classic work of feminist scholarship, Ain't I a Woman has become a must-read for all those interested in the nature of Black womanhood. Examining the impact of sexism on Black women during slavery, the devaluation of Back womanhood, Black male sexism,racism among feminists, and the Black woman's involvement with feminism, hooks attempts to move us beyond racist and sexist assumptions. The result is nothing short of groundbreaking, giving this book a critical place on every feminist scholar's bookshelf. "
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We should all be feminists
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Offers an updated definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness
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Eloquent rage : a black feminist discovers her superpower
by Brittney C. Cooper
A leading young black feminist illuminates how organized anger, friendship and faith can be powerful sources of positive feminist change, explaining how targeted rage has shaped the careers of such African-American notables as Serena Williams, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama.
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Sister outsider
by Audre Lorde
"At once a searing indictment of a racist, patriarchal society and a manual for claiming an intersectional identity, Sister Outsider is a comprehensive collection of the lauded poet and writer Audre Lorde's most famous and influential works of nonfictionprose. Sister Outsider depicts the idea of "difference"--whether through race, gender, or sexuality--as a powerful tool for empowerment that can be used as a catalyst for change. Throughout the fifteen essays and speeches that comprise the volume, Lorde asserts that because she is a black, queer woman, she is considered an outsider, but that it is precisely her outsider perspective that allows her to see the various layers of identity-based oppression. A pioneer of intersectional feminism, Sister Outsider encourages the reader to embrace their difference and weaponize it for change, a once-radical 20th-century idea that has become a full-blown movement today. Penguin Classics launches a new hardcover series with five American classics that are relevant and timeless in their power, and part of a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from almost seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality"
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Women, race & class
by Angela Y. Davis
An in-depth study of women and race explores the complex relationship between racism and sexism, analyzes the role of women and race, and traces the historical connection between sexism, racism, and class consciousness.
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Thick : and other essays
by Tressie McMillan Cottom
A collection of essays from the author of Lower Ed sheds light on the trait of being "thick," both in form and in substance, while dissecting society and culture from beauty to Obama to pumpkin-spice lattes. (social science).
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Don't call us dead : poems
by Danez Smith
An awarding-poet presents a collection of works that opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police—a place where suspicion, violence and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love and longevity they deserved here on earth. Original.
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The collected poems of Langston Hughes
by Langston Hughes
A comprehensive collection of the verse of Langston Huges contains 860 poems, including three hundred that have never appeared in book form, is arranged chronologically, and features commentary by Hughes's biographer..
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The book of delights
by Ross Gay
"The winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry offers up a spirited collection of short lyric essays, written daily over a tumultuous year, reminding us of the purpose and pleasure of praising, extolling, and celebrating ordinary wonders.
In The Book of Delights, one of today’s most original literary voices offers up a genre-defying volume of lyric essays written over one tumultuous year. The first nonfiction book from award-winning poet Ross Gay is a record of the small joys we often overlook in our busy lives. Among Gay’s funny, poetic, philosophical delights: a friend’s unabashed use of air quotes, cradling a tomato seedling aboard an airplane, the silent nod of acknowledgment between the only two black people in a room. But Gay never dismisses the complexities, even the terrors, of living in America as a black man or the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture or the loss of those he loves. More than anything other subject, though, Gay celebrates the beauty of the natural world--his garden, the flowers peeking out of the sidewalk, the hypnotic movements of a praying mantis.
The Book of Delights is about our shared bonds, and the rewards that come from a life closely observed. These remarkable pieces serve as a powerful and necessary reminder that we can, and should, stake out a space in our lives for delight.
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American sonnets for my past and future assassin
by Terrance Hayes
One of America’s most acclaimed poets presents 70 poems bearing the same title that, written during the first 200 days of the Trump presidency, are haunted by the country’s past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Original.
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Prelude to bruise : Poetry
by Saeed Jones
Offers a collection of poems that explore questions of masculinity, sexuality, race, and shifting identity.
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Brown : poems
by Kevin Young
Uses poetry to meditate on how brownness and blackness in the United States tells an ongoing story, drawing on the poet's own childhood, Emmet Till's lynching, and De La Soul.
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Brutal imagination : poems
by Cornelius Eady
A poet struggles to understand the role of the black man in America by evoking slave images to show the African-American family in crisis across three centuries. Simultaneous.
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What doesn't kill you makes you blacker : a memoir in essays
by Damon Young
The co-founder of VerySmartBrothas.com presents a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the direct impact of racism on his life, the shifting definition of black-male identity and the ongoing realities of white supremacy.
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Fences
by August Wilson
The protagonist of Fences (part of Wilsons ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle plays), Troy Maxson, is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less
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Teenie Harris, photographer : image, memory, history
by Cheryl Finley
"Charles "Teenie" Harris (1908-1998) photographed the events and daily life of African Americans for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's most influential Black newspapers. From the 1930s to 1970s, Harris created a richly detailed record of publicpersonalities, historic events, and the lives of average people. In 2001, Carnegie Museum of Art purchased Harris's archive of nearly 80,000 photographic negatives, few of which are titled and dated; the archive is considered one of the most important documentations of 20th century African American life (www.cmoa.org/teenie). The book will serve as the definitive publication on the life and work of Teenie Harris, consisting of three significant essays: Cheryl Finley, assistant professor in the history ofart at Cornell University, offers the first thorough analysis of Harris as an artist, situating him within the history of 20th?century African American art as well as American documentary and vernacular photography; Larry Glasco, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, draws on new research to present a detailed biography of the photographer; and Joe Trotter, professor of history and social justice at Carnegie Mellon University, explores the social and historical context of Harris's photographs. The book will also include a foreword by Deborah Willis, professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. In addition to comparative illustrations within the essays, the book includes 100 plates of Harris's signature work and a complete bibliography and chronology"
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The secret lives of church ladies
by Deesha Philyaw
"The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions"
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Hemming the water
by Yona Harvey
Channeling the collection’s muse, jazz composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, Hemming the Water speaks to the futility of trying to mend or straighten a life that is constantly changing. Here the spiritual and the secular comingle in a “Fierce fragmentation, lonely tune.” Harvey inhabits, challenges, and explores the many facets of the female self―as daughter, mother, sister, wife, and artist. Every page is rich with Harvey’s rapturous music.
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The homewood books
by John Edgar Wideman
A collection of three books portraying life in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, recounts the pains, passions, dreams, and memories of living in a ghetto
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Race and renaissance : African Americans in Pittsburgh since World War II
by Joe William Trotter
African Americans from Pittsburgh have a long and distinctive history of contributions to the cultural, political, and social evolution of the United States. From jazz legend Earl Fatha Hines to playwright August Wilson, from labor protests in the 1950s to the Black Power movement of the late 1960s, Pittsburgh has been a force for change in American race and class relations.
Race and Renaissance presents the first history of African American life in Pittsburgh after World War II. It examines the origins and significance of the second Great Migration, the persistence of Jim Crow into the postwar years, the second ghetto, the contemporary urban crisis, the civil rights and Black Power movements, and the Million Man and Million Woman marches, among other topics.
In recreating this period, Trotter and Day draw not only from newspaper articles and other primary and secondary sources, but also from oral histories. These include interviews with African Americans who lived in Pittsburgh during the postwar era, uncovering firsthand accounts of what life was truly like during this transformative epoch in urban history.
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The black notebooks : an interior journey
by Toi Derricotte
Spanning twenty years, from the time the author, a light-skinned black woman, moved into an all-white neighborhood, a journal ponders the meaning of being black in a racially divided country, and the price of denying it.
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Cookbooks and Food Writing:
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Jubilee : recipes from two centuries of African American cooking
by Toni Tipton-Martin
Drawing from historical texts and rare African-American cookbooks, a collection of 125 recipes takes readers into the world of African-American cuisine made by enslaved master chefs, free caterers and black entrepreneurs and culinary stars that goes far beyond soul food. Illustrations.
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Notes from a young Black chef : a memoir
by Kwame Onwuachi
The Top Chef star and "30 Under 30" Forbes honoree traces his culinary coming-of-age in both the Bronx and Nigeria, discussing his eclectic training in acclaimed restaurants while sharing insights into the racial barriers that have challenged his career. Illustrations
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Black girl baking : wholesome recipes inspired by a soulful upbringing
by Jerrelle Guy
The creator of Chocolate For Basil—a vegetarian blog that has been featured on Vogue.com, Food52 and in the Boston Globe—shares her story through recipes for soul-inspired baked goods, including Honey Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread, Bruleed Buttermilk Pie, Sea Salt Butterscotch Tart, Papaya Pastries, Sweet Potato Pie, Cajun Flatbread and more. Original.
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The rise : black cooks and the soul of American food
by Marcus Samuelsson
Celebrates the culinary contributions of black chefs and cooks to American cuisine including recipes such as chilled corn and tomato soup, saffron tapioca pudding, and steak frites with plantain chips and green vinaigrette.
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The cooking gene : a journey through African-American culinary history in the Old South
by Michael Twitty
A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together.
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Vegetable kingdom : the abundant world of vegan recipes
by Bryant Terry
A guide to the fundamentals of plant-based cooking features over 100 recipes for such dishes as Dirty Cauliflower, Barbecued Carrots With Slow-Cooked White Beans and Millet Roux Mushroom Gumbo, as well as tips on vegan cooking. Illustrations.
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Carla Hall's soul food : everyday and celebration
by Carla Hall
A co-host of the Emmy Award-winning lifestyle show The Chew offers 145 recipes for classic soul food, including Black-Eyed Pea Salad With Hot Sauce Vinaigrette, Cracked Shrimp With Comeback Sauce and Sweet Potato Pudding With Clementines.
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Native son
by Richard Wright
Traces the fall of a young black man in 1930s Chicago as his life loses all hope of redemption after he kills a white woman.
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Go tell it on the mountain
by James Baldwin
"The haunting coming-of-age story that has become a major American classic, now in an Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics hardcover edition. Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity asthe stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle toward self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understood themselves. Introduction by Edwidge Danticat"
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The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
A new edition of the first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author relates the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old Black girl growing up in an America that values blue-eyed blondes, and the tragedy that results because of her longing to be accepted. Reprint.
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Invisible man
by Ralph Ellison
An African-American man's search for success and the American dream leads him out of college to Harlem and a growing sense of personal rejection and social invisibility.
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Not without laughter
by Langston Hughes
A shining star of the Harlem Renaissance movement, Langston Hughes is one of modern literature's most revered African American authors. Although best known for his poetry, Hughes produced in Not Without Laughter a powerful and pioneering classic novel. This stirring coming-of-age tale unfolds in 1930s rural Kansas. A poignant portrait of African American family life in the early twentieth century, it follows the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a man. We meet Sandy's mother, Annjee, who works as a housekeeper for a wealthy white family; his strong-willed grandmother, Hager; Jimboy, Sandy's father, who travels the country looking for work; Aunt Tempy, the social climber; and Aunt Harriet, the blues singer who has turned away from her faith. A fascinating chronicle of a family's joys and hardships, Not Without Laughter is a vivid exploration of growing up and growing strong in a racially divided society. A rich and important work, it masterfully echoes the black American experience.
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Their eyes were watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
When Janie Starks returns to her rural Florida home, her small black community is overwhelmed with curiosity about her relationship with a younger man.
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A gathering of old men
by Ernest J. Gaines
The murder of a white Cajun farmer named Boutan unleashes a fury of buried hatred and defiance, as Sheriff Mapes tries to indentify the killer and prevent revenge.
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Passing
by Nella Larsen
Clare Kendry, a beautiful light-skinned African American woman married to a white man who is unaware of her heritage, long ago cut all ties to her past, but a reunion with a childhood friend forces her to confront her lies
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Cane
by Jean Toomer
"The Harlem Renaissance writer's innovative and groundbreaking novel depicting African American life in the South and North, with a foreword by National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree Zinzi Clemmons Jean Toomer's Cane is one of the most significant works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, and is considered to be a masterpiece in American modernist literature because of its distinct structure and style. First published in 1923 and told through a series of vignettes, Cane uses poetry, prose, and play-like dialogue to create a window into the varied lives of African Americans living in the rural South and urban North during a time when Jim Crow laws pervaded and racism reigned. While critically acclaimed and known today as a pioneering text of the Harlem Renaissance, the book did not gain as much popularity as other works written during the period. Fellow Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes believed Cane's lack of a wider readership was because it didn't reinforce the stereotypes often associated with African Americans during the time, but portrayed them in an accurate and entirely human way, breaking the mold and laying the groundwork for how African Americans are depicted in literature. For the first time in Penguin Classics, this edition ofCane features a new introduction, suggestions for further reading, and notes by scholar George Hutchinson, and National Book Award Foundation 5 Under 35 novelist Zinzi Clemmons contributes a foreword"
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Roots : the saga of an American family
by Alex Haley
The author shares the saga of an African American family that extends from his ancestor Kunta Kinte, an African brought to mid-eighteenth-century America as a slave, to himself.
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An American marriage
by Tayari Jones
When her new husband is imprisoned for a crime she knows he did not commit, a rising artist takes comfort in a longtime friendship, only to see her husband's sentence is suddenly overturned. By the author of Silver Sparrow.r
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Sing, unburied, sing : a novel
by Jesmyn Ward
Living with his grandparents and sister on a Gulf Coast farm, Jojo navigates the challenges of his mother's addictions and his grandmother's cancer before the release of his father from prison prompts a road trip of danger and hope
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On beauty : a novel
by Zadie Smith
Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, long-suffering art professor Howard Belsey finds his family life thrown into turmoil by his son's engagement to the socially prominent daughter of a right-wing icon.
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Such a fun age : a novel
by Kiley Reid
Seeking justice for a young black babysitter who was wrongly accused of kidnapping by a racist security guard, a successful blogger finds her efforts complicated by a video that reveals unexpected connections. A first novel.
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Red at the bone
by Jacqueline Woodson
As Melody celebrates a coming of age ceremony at her grandparents’ house in 2001 Brooklyn, her family remembers 1985, when Melody’s own mother prepared for a similar party that never took place in this novel about different social classes.
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Americanah : a novel
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Separated by differing ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London until the pair is reunited in their homeland fifteen years later
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Friday black
by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
A raw debut story collection from a young writer is a treacherously surreal, and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it’s like to be young and black in America.
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The sellout : a novel
by Paul Beatty
After his down-trodden hometown is removed from the map of California to save the state further embarrassment, a young man undertakes a radical course of action to draw attention to the town, resulting in a racially charged trial that sends him to the Supreme Court.
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Luster
by Raven Leilani
"Sharp, comic, disruptive, tender, Raven Leilani's debut novel, Luster, sees a young black woman fall into art and someone else's open marriage"
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The coldest winter ever : a novel
by Souljah
Winter Santiaga, the daughter of one of Brooklyn's most powerful drug czars, uses her own weapons--including sex and an aggressive attitude--to stay on top, after her father's empire is threatened by a drug war. Reader's Guide included. Reprint.
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The vanishing half
by Brit Bennett
Separated by their embrace of different racial identities, two mixed-race identical twins reevaluate their choices as one raises a black daughter in their southern hometown while the other passes for white with a husband who is unaware of her heritage.
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Heads of the colored people : stories
by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
"Calling to mind the best works of Paul Beatty and Junot Diaz, this collection of moving, timely, and darkly funny stories examines the concept of black identity in this so-called post-racial era. A stunning new talent in literary fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in these compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous--from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids' backpacks, to the young girl contemplating how best to notify her Facebook friends of her impending suicide--while others are devastatingly poignant--a new mother and funeral singer who is driven tomadness with grief for the young black boys who have fallen victim to gun violence, or the teen who struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with black culture. Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship. Her stories are exquisitely rendered, satirical, and captivating in turn, engaging in the ongoing conversations about race and identity politics, as well as the vulnerability of the black body. Boldly resisting categorization and easy answers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires is an original and necessary voice in contemporary fiction"
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The Underground Railroad : a novel
by Colson Whitehead
After Cora, a pre-Civil War Georgia slave, escapes with another slave, Caesar, they seek the help of the Underground Railroad as they flee from state to state and try to evade a slave catcher, Ridgeway, who is determined to return them to the South.
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The Good Lord Bird
by James McBride
Fleeing his violent master at the side of legendary abolitionist John Brown at the height of the slavery debate in mid-19th-century Kansas Territory, Henry pretends to be a girl to hide his identity throughout the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. By the best-selling author of The Color of Water. Reprint. Winner of the National Book Award. Movie tie-in.
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The known world
by Edward P. Jones
When a plantation proprietor and former slave--now possessing slaves of his own--dies, his household falls apart in the wake of a slave rebellion and corrupt underpaid patrollers who enable free black people to be sold into slavery. Reader's Guide available.
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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
by Ayana Mathis
Traces the story of Great Migration-era mother Hattie Shepherd, who in spite of poverty and a dysfunctional husband uses love and Southern remedies to raise nine children and prepare them for the realities of a harsh world. A first novel.
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Conjure women : a novel
by Afia Atakora
A midwife and conjurer of curses reflects on her life before and after the Civil War, her relationships with the families she serves and the secrets she has learned about a plantation owner’s daughter. A first novel.
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The water dancer : a novel
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A Virginia slave narrowly escapes a drowning death through the intervention of a mysterious force that compels his escape and personal underground war against slavery. By the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me.
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Beloved
by Toni Morrison
Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is haunted persistently by the ghost of the dead baby girl whom she sacrificed, in a new edition of the Nobel Laureate's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Reader's Guide available.
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Real life
by Brandon Taylor
Keeping his head down at a lakeside Midwestern university where the culture is in sharp contrast to his Alabama upbringing, an introverted African-American biochem student endures unexpected encounters that bring his orientation and defenses into question.
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Memorial : a novel
by Bryan Washington
A Japanese-American chef and a Black daycare teacher begin reevaluating their stale relationship in the wake of a father’s death and the arrival of an acerbic mother-in-law who becomes an unconventional roommate. By the award-winning author of Lot.
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Giovanni's room
by James Baldwin
"The groundbreaking novel by one of the most important twentieth-century American writers--now in an Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics hardcover edition. Giovanni's Room is set in the Paris of the 1950s, where a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. David has just proposed marriage to his American girlfriend, but while she is away on a trip he becomes involved in a doomed affair with a bartender named Giovanni. With sharp, probing insight, James Baldwin's classic narrative delves into the mystery of love and tells an impassioned, deeply moving story that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. Introduction by Colm Toibin"
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Speak no evil : a novel
by Uzodinma Iweala
An athlete from a private school in Washington, D.C., and his friend, the daughter of government insiders, struggle with the responses to the young man's sexual orientation before finding themselves speeding toward a violent future.
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The color purple
by Alice Walker
The lives of two sisters--Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a southern woman married to a man she hates--are revealed in a series of letters exchanged over thirty years.
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Black Deutschland
by Darryl Pinckney
In the age of Reagan and AIDS in a city on the verge of tearing down its walls, Jed—a young, gay black man—arrives in Berlin where he, encountering outcasts, expats, intellectuals, artists and misfits on his way to adulthood, hopes to escape what it means to be a black male in America. By the author of High Cotton.
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The women of Brewster Place
by Gloria Naylor
The stories of seven Black women living in an urban ghetto evoke the energy, brutality, compassion, and desolation of modern Black America.
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Patsy
by Nicole Dennis-Benn
"When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, Patsy wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But Patsy's plans don't include her overzealous, evangelical mother--or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru. Beating with the pulseof a long witheld confession, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first--not to give a better life to her family back home. Patsy leaves Tru behind in a defiant act of self-preservation, hoping for a new start where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But when Patsy arrives in Brooklyn, America is not as Cicelys treasured letters described; to survive as an undocumented immigrant, she is forced to work as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Meanwhile,Tru builds a faltering relationship with her father back in Jamaica, grappling with her own questions of identity and sexuality, and trying desperately to empathize with her mother's decision. Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru in vignettes spanning more than a decade as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another. As with her masterful debut, Here Comes the Sun, Nicole Dennis-Benn once again charts the geography of a hidden world--that of a paradise lost, swirling with the echoes of lilting patois, in which one woman fights to discover her sense of self in a world that tries to define her. Passionate, moving, and fiercely urgent, Patsy is a prismatic depiction of immigration and womanhood, and the lasting threads of love stretching across years and oceans"
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Lot : stories
by Bryan Washington
Coming of age in his family's Houston restaurant, a mixed-heritage teen navigates bullying, his newly discovered sexual orientation, and the ripple effects of a disadvantaged community.
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Afrofuturism, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
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Parable of the sower
by Octavia E Butler
"In 2025 California, an eighteen-year-old African American woman, suffering from a hereditary trait that causes her to feel others' pain as well as her own, flees northward from her small community and its desperate savages."
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The fifth season
by N. K Jemisin
A first entry in a new trilogy by the award-winning author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms finds the sole continent of the earth threatened by murder, betrayal, a super-volcano and overlords who use the planet's power as a weapon.
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Black leopard, red wolf
by Marlon James
Hired to find a mysterious boy who disappeared three years before, Tracker joins a search party that is quickly targeted deadly creatures in the first novel of a new trilogy from the author of A Brief History of Seven Killings. (fantasy). Simultaneous
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Elysium, or, The world after : Or, the World After
by Jennifer Marie Brissett
A computer program etched into the atmosphere has a story to tell, the story of two people, of a city lost to chaos, of survival and love. The program's data, however, has been corrupted. As the novel's characters struggle to survive apocalypse, they aresustained and challenged by the demands of love in a shattered world both haunted and dangerous
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The deep
by Rivers Solomon
The historian of the water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slaves thrown overboard by slavers keeps all the memories of her people both painful and miraculous, until she discovers that their future lies in returning to the past.
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The lesson : a novel
by Cadwell Turnbull
The people of the US Virgin Islands coexist with the Ynaa, a race of super-advanced aliens on a research mission they will not fully disclose, until the death of a young boy plunges three families into an inevitable conflict that will touch everyone and teach a terrible lesson.
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The black god's drums
by P. Djèlí Clark
"Creeper, a scrappy young teen, is done living on the streets of New Orleans. Her sights are set on securing passage aboard Captain Ann-Marie's smuggler airship Midnight Robber, earning the captain's trust using a secret about a kidnapped Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls the Black God's Drums. But Creeper keeps another secret close to her heart-- Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, who speaks inside her head and grants her divine powers. And Oya has her own priorities ..."--Page 4 of cover
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Riot baby
by Tochi Onyebuchi
The author of the award-winning young-adult novel Beasts Made of Night tackles youth, race and the carceral state with magical flair, in his adult-science-fiction debut.
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Everfair
by Nisi Shawl
A Neo-Victorian alternate-history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier.
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Brown girl in the ring
by Nalo Hopkinson
When the rich and privileged leave the city behind, barricaded behind roadblocks, the people of the inner city must adopt the old ways of farming, barter, and herb lore, but when the monied need a harvest of bodies, one girl bargains with the gods and gives birth to new legends. Original.
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Binti
by Nnedi Okorafor
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between thestars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach. If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and thewisdom enshrined within the University, itself--but first she has to make it there, alive.
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The changeling : a novel
by Victor D. LaValle
"The wildly imaginative story of one man's thrilling odyssey through an enchanted world to find his wife, who has disappeared after having seemingly committed an unforgivable act of violence, from the award-winning author of The Devil in Silver and Big Machine"
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The year of the witching
by Alexis Henderson
Observing a life of strict submission to minimize discrimination for her mixed heritage, Immanuelle discovers dark truths about her community’s church and her late mother’s secret relationship with the spirits of four witches. A first novel.
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Catherine House : a novel
by Elisabeth Thomas
A dangerously curious, rebellious undergraduate uncovers a shocking secret about an exclusive circle of students and the dark truths beneath their school’s promises of prestige. A first novel.
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Fledgling
by Octavia E. Butler
Shori, a seemingly young, amnesiac girl with frightening inhuman abilities and a thirst for blood, wanders the land, unaware that she is really a genetically altered, fifty-three-year-old vampire with a unique ability to walk in the light of day and that she is the only survivor of a brutal attack on her community, searching for who she is and who wants to destroy her.
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We cast a shadow : a novel
by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
In a near-future South where an increasing number of people with dark skin endure cosmetic procedures to pass as white, a father embarks on an obsessive quest to protect his son, who bears a dark, spreading birthmark.
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White is for witching
by Helen Oyeyemi
Suffering from pica, a malady that causes her to eat nonedible items, sixteen-year-old Miranda helps to run the family bed-and-breakfast while witnessing her community's hostilities toward outsiders, a malice that erupts in violent and destructive ways.
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Dread nation
by Justina Ireland
When families go missing in Baltimore County, Jane McKeene, who is studying to become an Attendant, finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy that has her fighting for her life against powerful enemies
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The good house : a novel
by Tananarive Due
Working to rebuild her law practice after her son commits suicide, Angela Toussaint journeys to the family home where the suicide took place, hoping for answers, and discovers an invisible, evil force that is driving locals to acts of violence.
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My sister, the serial killer
by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Realizing that her beautiful, beloved younger sister has murdered yet another boyfriend, an embittered Nigerian woman works to direct suspicion away from the family, until a handsome doctor she fancies asks for her sister's number.
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Devil in a blue dress : an Easy Rawlins mystery
by Walter Mosley
Easy Rawlins, a tough World War II veteran and detective, is hired by a financier and gangster to locate Daphne Monet, a search that leads him from elegant boardrooms to the raucous jazz joints of late 1940s Los Angeles.
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Blacktop wasteland
by S. A. Cosby
Compelled by poverty to agree to a lucrative final heist that will allow him to go straight, a skilled getaway driver finds his efforts complicated by racial dynamics and the ghosts of his past.
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New people
by Danzy Senna
Working on her dissertation while planning her wedding to her college sweetheart as the 20th century draws to a close, Maria, a young woman from Brooklyn being featured in a documentary about mixed-heritage couples, risks the life she has worked so hard to achieve by fantasizing about a poet she barely knows. By the award-winning author of Symptomatic.
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When no one is watching : a thriller
by Alyssa Cole
Finding unexpected support from a new friend while collecting stories from her rapidly vanishing Brooklyn community, Sydney uncovers sinister truths about a regional gentrification project and why her neighbors are moving away.
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Those Bones Are Not My Child
by Toni Cade Bambara
In a novel based on the horrific Atlanta child murders of the early 1980s, the late author of Gorilla, My Love focuses on one poverty-stricken African-American family, whose teenage son vanishes as the child abductions and killings begin to be reported.
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The perfect nanny : a novel
by Leïla Slimani
A U.S. release of an award-winning best-seller from Morocco follows the relationship between a working French-Moroccan couple and their too-good-to-be-true nanny, whose devotion to their children spirals into a psychologically charged cycle of jealousies, resentments and violence. Original.
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Lakewood : a novel
by Megan Giddings
Forced to drop out of school to help support her family, Lena takes a lucrative job as a secret laboratory subject before devastating side effects make her question how much she can sacrifice.
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Bad men and wicked women
by Eric Jerome Dickey
When his pregnant and bitter daughter blackmails him for $50,000, Los Angeles enforcer Ken Swift embarks on a clash of wills that is complicated by a contract that spirals out of control, revealing the vengeful nature of a dangerous adversary. By the best-selling author of Finding Gideon.
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Mycroft and Sherlock : a novel
by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Rising War Office star Mycroft Holmes persuades his brother, Sherlock, to volunteer at a best friend's orphanage, where the suspicious death of a street urchin and a mysterious Chinese woman lead the brothers into the London opium trade's dark underside.
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The cutting season : a novel
by Attica Locke
When the dead body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Belle Vie, the estate's manager, Caren Gray, launches her own investigation into Belle Vie's history, which leads her to a centuries old mystery involving the plantation's slave quarters--and her own past.
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If he hollers let him go : a novel
by Chester B. Himes
A powerful first novel originally published in 1947 follows four days in the life of African-American Bob Jones as he struggles for his life in the face of constant racial attacks that culminate in his being falsely accused of a brutal crime. Reprint.
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The confessions of Frannie Langton : a novel
by Sara Collins
A servant and former slave enduring a sensational trial for her employers' murders reflects on her Jamaican childhood and her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist whose questionable ethics set the stage for a forbidden affair.
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Fearless Jones : A Novel
by Walter Mosley
In the debut of a new mystery series set in 1950s Los Angeles, small-time used bookstore owner Paris Minton enlists the aid of his friend, Fearless Jones, to uncover the identity of a mysterious and beautiful woman who seems to be linked to a series of bizarre attacks against Minton.
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The Coyotes of Carthage
by Steven Wright
In a small South Carolina town, a political operative runs a dark-money campaign for his corporate clients. A first novel.
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The Red Queen dies : a mystery
by Frankie Y. Bailey
A first installment in a new series by the Edgar Award-nominated author of You Should Have Died on Monday infuses Alice in Wonderland themes into a police procedural drama of the near future in which a biracial detective struggles to solve crimes involving witnesses whose memories are compromised by a drug for post-traumatic stress disorder.
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They all fall down
by Rachel Howzell Hall
"It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. Delighted by a surprise invitation, Miriam Macy sails off to a luxurious private island off the coast of Mexico, with six strangers--an ex-cop, a chef, a financial advisor, a nurse, a lawyer, a young widow. Surrounded by miles of open water in the gloriously green Sea of Cortez, Miriam is shocked to discover that she and the rest of her companions have been brought to the remote island under false pretenses--and all seven strangers harbor a secret. Danger lurks in the lush forest and in the halls and bedrooms of the lonely mansion. Sporadic cell-phone coverage and miles of ocean keeps the group trapped in paradise. And strange accidents keep them suspicious of each other, as one by one . . . They all fall down For fans of thrilling contemporary suspense like The Woman in Cabin 10, Rachel Howzell Hall's brilliant stand-alone novel modernizes and pays homage to Agatha's Christie's And Then There Were None, bringing a diverse cast of seven sinners to a private island for a reckoning that will leave you breathless"
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Real men knit
by K. M. Jackson
Determined to keep his late adoptive mother’s Harlem knitting shop open, one of four brothers accepts the help of a craft-savvy businesswoman who is hiding her secret crush on him. Original. A first novel.
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Intercepted
by Alexa Martin
After discovering that her NFL boyfriend was cheating, Marlee Harper vows to never date another athlete, but when she becomes involved with Gavin Pope, a star quarterback who wants to prove that he is different, the wives of the other teammates make difficulties for her and Gavin
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Royal holiday
by Jasmine Guillory
"Vivian Forest has been out of the country a grand total of one time, so when she gets the chance to tag along on her daughter Maddie's work trip to England to style a royal family member, she can't refuse. She's excited to spend the holidays taking in the magnificent British sights, but what she doesn't expect is to become instantly attracted to a certain Private Secretary and his charming accent and unyielding formality. Malcolm Hudson has been the Queen's Private Secretary for years and has never given a personal, private tour...until now. He is intrigued by Vivian the moment he meets her and finds himself making excuses just to spend time with her. When flirtatious banter turns into a kiss under the mistletoe, things snowball into a full-on fling. Despite a ticking timer on their holiday romance, they are completely fine with ending their short, steamy fling come New Year's Day...or are they?"
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The boyfriend project
by Farrah Rochon
When a live tweet of a horrific date reveals the unscrupulous dealings of an internet catfisher, three duped women make a pact to invest in themselves for six months, prompting one to pursue a dream career.
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Take a hint, Dani Brown : a novel
by Talia Hibbert
A young woman who agrees to fake-date her friend after a video of him “rescuing” her from their office building goes viral. Original.
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The right swipe : a novel
by Alisha Rai
Cynical dating app creator Rhiannon Hunter must decide whether or not to give former pro-football player Samson Lima, who wooed her during one magical night and then disappeared, a second chance despite the fact that his in league with a business rival. Original.
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Rebel
by Beverly Jenkins
After the Civil War, Captain Drake LeVeq, an architect from an old New Orleans family, is drawn into an irresistible intrigue when he encounters a rebellious young woman who is on a mission to help the newly emancipated community survive and flourish.
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How to Catch a Queen
by Alyssa Cole
After marrying the newly crowned King Sanyu of Njaza, Shanti Mohapi soon discovers that royal life is not what she expected and goes on the run when turmoil erupts in their kingdom and marriage.
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March
by John Lewis
A multi-volume graphic account of the author's lifelong struggle for civil and human rights covers his youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and his involvement in the Freedom rides and the Selma to Montgomery march
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Yummy : the last days of a Southside shorty
by Greg Neri
"A graphic novel based on the true story of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, an eleven-year old African American gang member from Chicago who shot a young girl and was then shot by his own gang members"--Provided by publisher
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Incognegro : renaissance
by Mat Johnson
"A page-turning thriller of racial divide, Incognegro: Renaissance explores segregation, secrets and self-image as our race-bending protagonist penetrates a world where he feels stranger than ever before. When a black writer is found dead at a scandalous interracial party in 1920s' New York, Harlem's cub reporter Zane Pinchback is the only one determined to solve the murder. Zane must go "Incognegro" for the first time, using his light appearance to pass as a white man to find the true killer, in this prequel miniseries to the critically acclaimed Vertigo graphic novel, now available in a special new 10th Anniversary Edition. With a cryptic manuscript as his only clue, and a mysterious and beautiful woman as the murder's only witness, Zane finds himself on the hunt through the dark and dangerous streets of "roaring twenties" Harlem in search for justice. In a time when looks could kill. Zane's skin is the only thing keeping him alive"
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Star Wars : Lando
by Charles Soule
Follows the adventures of Lando before he ran Cloud City, with Lobot at his side Lando has plans to steal a valuable ship, but the heist becomes a fight to survive when one of the galaxy's deadliest trackers picks up his trail.
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Octavia Butler's Kindred : A Graphic Novel Adaptation
by Damian Duffy
Inexplicably pulled back in time to the antebellum South, a contemporary Black woman, raised in the age of Civil Rights and Black Power, must confront the harsh realities of Black history in America.
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Making our way home : the Great Migration and the Black American dream
by Blair Imani
The author of Modern HERstory examines influences ranging from voting rights and segregation to activism and the arts in an illustrated history of the Great Migration that reveals its largely unrecognized impact on Black American identity. (United States history).
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