Illustrated Black History

By Mccalman, George

From an award-winning graphic designer comes this gorgeous collection that celebrates African Americans and their contributions - many little known - to politics, science, literature, music, and other fields, complemented by stunning illustrations.Illustrated Black History is a comprehensive chronicle that spans many decades and fields, from activism, business, and medicine to technology, food, and entertainment. Each entry includes a stunning line drawing rendition of these extraordinary black men and women, and most notably the "hidden figures" who have contributed invaluably to American culture, along with an insightful essay summarizing each of their life stories.In addition to towering figures, including Nina Simone, Frederick Douglass, Ava Duvernay, Martin Luther King, Jr, Ben Carson, Nat King Cole, Hattie McDaniel, Colin Kaepernick, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, bell hooks, and Audre Lorde, Illustrated Black History honors heroes such as:Documentarian Madeline Anderson, who produced I Am Somebody, a film about the 1969 strike of mostly women hospital workersVirginia Allen, of the Black Angels, a group of 300 nurses who risked their lives to care for patients with tuberculosisJames and Eloyce Gist, whose traveling ministry crisscrossed America in the early 1900s Renaissance man, Paul RobesonDr.

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9780062913234

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Hardcover

HBCU Made

By Rascoe, Ayesha

In this joyous collection of essays about historically Black colleges and universities, alumni both famous and up-and-coming write testimonials about the schools and experiences that shaped their lives and made them who they are today.. Edited by the host of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, Ayesha Rascoe - with a distinguished and diverse set of contributors including Oprah Winfrey, Stacey Abrams, and Branford Marsalis, HBCU Made illuminates and celebrates the experience of going to a historically Black college or university. This book is for proud alumni, their loved ones, current students, and anyone considering an HBCU.. The first book featuring famous alumni sharing personal accounts of the Black college experience, HBCU Made offers a series of warm, moving, and candid personal essays about the schools that nurtured and educated them.

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9781643753867

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Hardcover

Music Is History

By Questlove,

In Music Is History, bestselling author and Sundance award-winning director Questlove harnesses his encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and his deep curiosity about history to examine America over the past fifty years. Choosing one essential track from each year, Questlove unpacks each song's significance, revealing the pivotal role that American music plays around issues of race, gender, politics, and identity.Music Is History focuses on the years 1971 to the present, not only the country's most complex and rewarding half-century when it comes to the ways that pop culture and culturally diverse history intersect and interact, but also the years that overlap with Questlove's own life. Music Is History moves fluidly from the personal to the political, examining events closely and critically, to unpeel and uncover previously unseen dimensions, and encouraging readers to do the same.

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9781419751431

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Hardcover

Black TV

By Butler, Bethonie

With iconic imagery and engrossing text, Black TV is the first book of its kind to celebrate the groundbreaking, influential, and often under-appreciated shows centered on Black people and their experiences from the last fifty years. Over the past decade, television has seen an explosion of acclaimed and influential debut storytellers including Issa Rae (Insecure) , Donald Glover (Atlanta) , and Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You) . This golden age of Black television would not be possible without the actors, showrunners, and writers that worked for decades to give voice to the Black experience in America. Written by veteran TV reporter Bethonie Butler, Black TV tells the stories behind the pioneering series that led to this moment, celebrating the laughs, the drama, and the performances we've loved over the last fifty years.

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9780762481514

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Hardcover

Misty Copeland

By Corman, Richard

Power and grace define Misty Copeland -- an influential ballet dancer who has broken through difficult barriers to become the first female African-American to be promoted to principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. Misty has proven adversity can be conquered by reaching higher and working harder to define what is humanly possible, regardless of the path one chooses to follow their dreams. In Misty's own words, "Finding your power doesn't have to be scary. Instead, it makes you feel in control, strong, and proud." Through the stunning black-and-white photography of Richard Corman and Misty's own words, her inspiring message of hope, strength, and focus speaks to young girls and women. In the introduction, Cindy Bradley, Misty's ballet teacher who discovered and encouraged Misty to develop her talent and follow her heart, gives context to the obstacles and challenges that helped Misty find her power and achieve success.

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9780692506776

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Hardcover

The Black Box

By Jr., Henry Louis Gates

A magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with each other, over the course of the country's history. Distilled over many years from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s legendary Harvard introductory course in African American Studies, THE BLACK BOX: Writing the Race, is the story of Black self-definition in America through the prism of the writers who have led the way. From Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, to Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison - these writers used words to create a livable world - a "home" - for Black people destined to live out their lives in a bitterly racist society.

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9780593299784

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Hardcover

Supreme Actresses

By Reynolds, Marcellas

From the author of Supreme Models comes the first-ever art book dedicated to celebrating Black actresses and exploring their experiences in acting. Through stunning photographs, personal interviews, short biographies, and career milestones, Supreme Actresses chronicles the most influential Black actresses who have worked in film, television, and theater. From Hattie McDaniel, the first actress of color to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1939, to Dorothy Dandridge, the first actress of color to be nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards in 1954. And from Ethel Waters, the first African American actress to be featured on an American sitcom in 1950, to Cicely Tyson, the first African American star of a TV drama in 1963. The performances by these talented actresses are ingrained into our memories.

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9781419756276

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Hardcover

Jubilee

By Tipton-martin, Toni

Adapted from historical texts and rare African-American cookbooks, the 125 recipes of Jubilee paint a rich, varied picture of the true history of African-American cooking: a cuisine far beyond soul food.Toni Tipton-Martin, the first African-American food editor of a daily American newspaper, is the author of the James Beard Award-winning The Jemima Code, a history of African-American cooking found in--and between--the lines of three centuries' worth of African-American cookbooks. Tipton-Martin builds on that research in Jubilee, adapting recipes from those historic texts for the modern kitchen. What we find is a world of African-American cuisine--made by enslaved master chefs, free caterers, and black entrepreneurs and culinary stars--that goes far beyond soul food. It's a cuisine that was developed in the homes of the elite and middle class; that takes inspiration from around the globe; that is a diverse, varied style of cooking that has created much of what we know of as American cuisine.

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9781524761738

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Hardcover

What Have We Here?

By Williams, Billy Dee

A film legend recalls his remarkable life of nearly eight decades - a heralded actor who's played the roles he wanted, from Brian's Song to Lando in the Star Wars universe - unchecked by the racism and typecasting so rife in the mostly all-white industry in which he triumphed.Billy Dee Williams was born in Harlem in 1937 and grew up in a household of love and sophistication. As a young boy, he made his stage debut working with Lotte Lenya in an Ira Gershwin/Kurt Weill production where Williams ended up feeding Lenya her lines. He studied painting, first at the High School of Music and Art, with fellow student Diahann Carroll, and then at the National Academy of Fine Art, before setting out to pursue acting with Herbert Berghoff, Stella Adler, and Sidney Poitier.

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9780593318607

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Book

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald

By Tick, Judith

A landmark biography that reclaims Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist and modernist innovator.Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist.Becoming Ella Fitzgerald clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer's difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls' reformatory school -- where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald's tense experiences of racial discrimination and her struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury.

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9780393241051

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Hardcover

Dapper Dan

By Day, Daniel R.

With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time. Decade after decade, Dapper Dan discovered creative ways to flourish in a country designed to privilege certain Americans over others. He witnessed, profited from, and despised the rise of two drug epidemics. He invented stunningly bold credit card frauds that took him around the world.

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9780525510536

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Vintage Black Glamour

By Gainer, Nichelle

Using rarely accessed photographic archives and private collections, inspired by her family history, Nichelle Gainer has unearthed a revealing treasure trove of historic photographs of famous actors, dancers, writers and entertainers who worked in the 20th-century entertainment business, but who rarely appeared in the same publications as their white counterparts. Alongside the familiar images and stories of renowned performers such as Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne and Aretha Franklin are those of less well-remembered figures such as Bricktop, Pearl Primus, Diana Sands and many, many more. Vintage Black Glamour is a unique, sumptuous and revealing celebration of the lives and indomitable spirit of Black women of a previous era. Although talented, successful and ground-breaking, many of the women in these pages were ignored by mainstream media, but their life's work and attitude stand as inspiration for us still, today.

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9781906615901

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Print book

Black AF History

By Harriot, Michael

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.America's backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington's cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln's log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story.It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights - after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront.

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9780358439165

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Hardcover

The Mother of Black Hollywood

By Lewis, Jenifer

The "Mega Diva" and legendary star of Black-ish looks back on her memorable journey to fame and the unforgettable life lessons she learned along the way.Jenifer Lewis keeps it real in this provocative and touching memoir by a mid-western girl with a dream whose journey from poverty to Hollywood will move, shock, and inspire readers.Told in the audacious voice her fans adore, Jenifer describes a road to fame made treacherous by dysfunction and undiagnosed mental illness, including a sex addiction. Yet, supported by loving friends and strengthened by "inner soldiers," Jenifer never stopped entertaining and creating.We watch as Jenifer develops icon status stemming from a series of legendary screen roles as the sassy, yet loveable, mama or auntie. And we watch as her emotional disturbances, culminating in a breakdown while filming The Temptations movie, launch her on a continuing search for answers, love, and healing.Written with no-holds-barred honesty and illustrated with sixteen-pages of color photos, this gripping memoir is filled with insights gained through a unique life that offers a universal message: "Love yourself so that love will not be a stranger when it comes."From her first taste of applause at five years old to landing on Broadway within eleven days of graduation and ultimately achieving success in movies, television and global concert halls, Jenifer reveals her outrageous life story with lots of humor, a few regrets and most importantly, unbridled joy. Candid, warm and wonderfully inspiring, The Mother of Black Hollywood intimately reveals the heart of a woman who lives life to the fullest.

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9780062410405

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Hardcover

Kwame Brathwaite

By Brathwaite, Kwame

In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used his photography to popularize the political slogan "Black Is Beautiful." This monograph -- the first ever dedicated to Brathwaite's remarkable career -- tells the story of a key, but under-recognized, figure of the second Harlem Renaissance. Inspired by the writings of activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, Brathwaite, along with his older brother, Elombe Brath, founded the African Jazz Arts Society and Studios (AJASS) and the Grandassa Models (1962) . AJASS was a collective of artists, playwrights, designers, and dancers; Grandassa Models was a modeling agency for black women, founded to challenge white beauty standards. From stunning studio portraits of the Grandassa Models to behind-the-scenes images of Harlem's artistic community, including Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and Miles Davis, this book offers a long-overdue exploration of Brathwaite's life and work

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9781597114431

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Hardcover

I Put A Spell On You

By Simone, Nina

A gorgeous, inimitable singer and songwriter, Nina Simone (1933-2003) changed the face of both music and race relations in America. She struck a chord with bluesy jazz ballads like "Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl" and powerful protest songs such as "Mississippi Goddam" and "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, " the anthem of the American Civil Rights movement. Coinciding with the re-release of her famous Philips Recordings, here are the reflections of the "High Priestess of Soul" on her own life. This item is Non-Returnable.

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9780306813276

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Paperback

Black Food

By Terry, Bryant

In this stunning and deeply heartfelt tribute to Black culinary ingenuity, Bryant Terry captures the broad and divergent voices of the African Diaspora through the prism of food. With contributions from more than 100 Black cultural luminaires from around the globe, the book moves through chapters exploring parts of the Black experience, from Homeland to Migration, Spirituality to Black Future, offering delicious recipes, moving essays, and arresting artwork. As much a joyful celebration of Black culture as a cookbook, Black Food explores the interweaving of food, experience, and community through original poetry and essays, including "Jollofing with Toni Morrison" by Sarah Ladipo Manyika, "Queer Intelligence" by Zoe Adjonyoh, "The Spiritual Ecology of Black Food" by Leah Penniman, and "Foodsteps in Motion" by Michael W.

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9781984859723

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Hardcover

Will

By Smith, Will

Will Smith's transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it's only half the story. Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn't see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn't signed up for. It turned out Will Smith's education wasn't nearly over. This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind.

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9781984877925

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Hardcover

Gullah Geechee Home Cooking

By Meggett, Emily

The first major Gullah Geechee cookbook from "the matriarch of Edisto Island," who provides delicious recipes and the history of an overlooked American communityThe history of the Gullah and Geechee people stretches back centuries, when enslaved members of this community were historically isolated from the rest of the South because of their location on the Sea Islands of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Today, this Lowcountry community represents the most direct living link to the traditional culture, language, and foodways of their West African ancestors.Gullah Geechee Home Cooking, written by Emily Meggett, the matriarch of Edisto Island, is the preeminent Gullah cookbook. At 87 years old, and with more than 50 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Meggett is a respected elder in the Gullah community of South Carolina.

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9781419758782

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Hardcover

Tupac Shakur

By Robinson, Staci

The first and only estate-authorized biography of the legendary artist, Tupac Shakur, a moving exploration of his life and powerful legacy, fully illustrated with photos, mementos, handwritten poetry, musings, and more. Artist, poet, actor, revolutionary, legendTupac Shakur is one of the greatest and most controversial artists of all time. More than a quarter of a century after his tragic death in 1996 at the age of just twenty-five, he continues to be one of the most misunderstood, complicated, and prolific figures in modern history. Drawing on exclusive access to Tupac's private notebooks, letters, and uncensored conversations with those who loved and knew him best, this estate-authorized biography paints the fullest and most intimate picture to date of the young man who became a legend for generations to come.

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9781524761042

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Hardcover

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

By Damon, Young,

A Finalist for the NAACP Image Award

A Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction

A Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor

Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

An NPR Best Book of the Year

A Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the Year

From the host of podcast "Stuck with Damon Young," cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America

For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.

It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits: creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; provoking the angst that made him question if “being straight” was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble; and generating the surreal experience of watching his Pittsburgh neighborhood getrify from predominantly Black to “Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies.”

And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white.

From one of our most respected cultural observers, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.

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9780062684318

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Book

The 1619 Project

By Hannah-jones, Nikole

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country's original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593230572

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Hardcover

You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays

By Hurston, Zora Neale

Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Henry Louis Gates Jr. Spanning more than 35 years of work, the first comprehensive collection of essays, criticism, and articles by the legendary author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, showcasing the evolution of her distinctive style as an archivist and author."One of the greatest writers of our time." - Toni MorrisonYou Don't Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world's most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston's writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could.

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9780063043855

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Hardcover

African American Poetry

By Young, Kevin

Only now, in the 21st century, can we fully grasp the breadth and range of African American poetry: a magnificent chorus of voices, some familiar, others recently rescued from neglect. Here, in this unprecedented anthology expertly selected by poet and scholar Kevin Young, this precious living heritage is revealed in all its power, beauty, and multiplicity. Discover, in these pages, how an enslaved person like Phillis Wheatley confronted her legal status in verse and how an antebellum activist like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper voiced her own passionate resistance to slavery. Read nuanced, provocative poetic meditations on identity and self-assertion stretching from Paul Laurence Dunbar to Amiri Baraka to Lucille Clifton and beyond. Experience the transformation of poetic modernism in the works of figures such as Langston Hughes, Fenton Johnson, and Jean Toomer.

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9781598536669

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Hardcover

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

By Laymon, Kiese

Brilliant and uncompromising, piercing and funny, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is essential reading. This newedition of award-winning author Kiese Laymon's first work of nonfiction looks inward, drawing heavily on the author and his family's experiences, while simultaneously examining the world - Mississippi, the South, the United States - that has shaped their lives. With subjects that range from an interview with his mother to reflections on Ole Miss football, Outkast, and the labor of Black women, these thirteen insightful essays highlight Laymon's profound love of language and his artful rendering of experience, trumpeting why he is "simply one of the most talented writers in America" (New York magazine) .

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9781982170820

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Paperback

The Most Defining Moments in Black History According to Dick Gregory

By Gregory, Dick

With his trademark acerbic wit, incisive humor, and infectious paranoia, one of our foremost comedians and most politically engaged civil rights activists looks back at 100 key events from the complicated history of black America. A friend of luminaries including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Medgar Evers, and the forebear of today's popular black comics, including Larry Wilmore, W. Kamau Bell, Damon Young, and Trevor Noah, Dick Gregory was a provocative and incisive cultural force for more than fifty years. As an entertainer, he always kept it indisputably real about race issues in America, fearlessly lacing laughter with hard truths. As a leading activist against injustice, he marched at Selma during the Civil Rights movement, organized student rallies to protest the Vietnam War; sat in at rallies for Native American and feminist rights; fought apartheid in South Africa; and participated in hunger strikes in support of Black Lives Matter. In this collection of thoughtful, provocative essays, Gregory charts the complex and often obscured history of the African American experience. In his unapologetically candid voice, he moves from African ancestry and surviving the Middle Passage to the creation of the Jheri Curl, the enjoyment of bacon and everything pig, the headline-making shootings of black men, and the Black Lives Matter movement. A captivating journey through time, Defining Moments in Black History explores historical movements such as The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance, as well as cultural touchstones such as Sidney Poitier winning the Best Actor Oscar for Lilies in the Field and Billie Holiday releasing Strange Fruit. An engaging look at black life that offers insightful commentary on the intricate history of the African American people, Defining Moments in Black History is an essential, no-holds-bar history lesson that will provoke, enlighten, and entertain.

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9780062448699

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Book

Black Firsts

By Ph.d., Jessie Carney Smith

The first African American president, U.S. senator, and the first black lawyer in the Department of Education. The first black chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first African American commissioned officer in the Marine Corps. The first black professors in a variety of fields. The first African American advertising agency. The first African American Olympian. The first black pilot for a scheduled commercial airline. The first recorded slave revolt in North America. The first African American cookbook writer. Revel and rejoice in the renowned and lesser-known, barrier-breaking trailblazers in all fields -- arts, entertainment, business, civil rights, education, government, invention, journalism, religion, science, sports, music, and more.

Publisher: n/a
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9781578596881

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Paperback

The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health

By Rheeda, Walker,

Publisher: n/a
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9781684034147

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Official Guide to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

By Kendrick, Kathleen M

This fully illustrated guide to the Smithsonian's newest museum takes visitors on a journey through the richness and diversity of African American culture and the history of a people whose struggles, aspirations, and achievements have shaped the nation. Opened in September 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture welcomes all visitors who seek to understand, remember, and celebrate this history. The guidebook provides a comprehensive tour of the museum, including its magnificent building and grounds and eleven permanent exhibition galleries dedicated to themes of history, community, and culture. Highlights from the museum's collection of artifacts and works of art are presented in full-color photographs, accompanied by evocative stories and voices that illuminate the American experience through the African American lens.

Publisher: n/a
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9781588345936

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Print book

Black Cake

By Wilkerson, Charmaine

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking journey Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child, challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their family, and themselves. Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor's true history, and fulfill her final request to "share the black cake when the time is right?" Will their mother's revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever? Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593358337

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Hardcover

Take My Hand

By Perkins-valdez, Dolen

"Deeply empathetic yet unflinching in its gaze ... an unforgettable exploration of responsibility and redemption." - Celeste NgA searing and compassionate new novel about a young Black nurse's shocking discovery and burning quest for justice in post-segregation Alabama, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench.Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.But when her first week on the job takes her along a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, Civil is shocked to learn that her new patients, Erica and India, are children - just eleven and thirteen years old.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593337691

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Hardcover

Let Us Descend

By Ward, Jesmyn

From Jesmyn Ward - the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow - comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.. "'Let us descend,' the poet now began, 'and enter this blind world.'" - Inferno, Dante Alighieri Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape.

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9781982104498

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Hardcover

The Color Purple

By Walker, Alice

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker's iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book.A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery.

Publisher: n/a
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9780143135692

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Paperback

The Coldest Winter Ever

By Souljah, Sister

A New York Times Bestseller
A USA TODAY Bestseller

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

'50 Most Impactful Black Books Of The Last 50 Years' 'Essence

Renowned hip-hop artist, political activist, and bestselling author of Life After Death brings the streets of New York to life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable first novel.

I came busting into the world during one of New York's worst snowstorms, so my mother named me Winter. Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Quick-witted, sexy, and business-minded, she knows and loves the streets like the curves of her own body. But when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a direction she doesn't want to go, her street smarts and seductive skills are put to the test of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl will do anything to stay on top.

Featuring a Special Collector's Edition Reader's Guide'including an author Q&A, detailed character analyses, and the author's own remarks about the meaning of her story.

Publisher: n/a
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9780743270106

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Paperback

Yonder

By Asim, Jabari

They call themselves the Stolen. Their owners call them captives. They are taught their captors' tongues and their beliefs but they have a language and rituals all their own. In a world that would be allegorical if it weren't saturated in harsh truths, Cato and William meet at Placid Hall, a plantation in an unspecified part of the American South. Subject to the whims of their tyrannical and eccentric captor, Cannonball Greene, they never know what harm may befall them: inhumane physical toil in the plantation's quarry by day, a beating by night, or the sale of a loved one at any moment. It's that cruel practice - the wanton destruction of love, the belief that Black people aren't even capable of loving - that hurts the most. It hurts the reserved and stubborn William, who finds himself falling for Margaret, a small but mighty woman with self-possession beyond her years.

Publisher: n/a
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9781982163167

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Hardcover

Perish

By Watkins, Latoya

From a stunning new voice, comes a powerful debut novel, Perish, about a Black Texan family, exploring the effects of inherited trauma and intergenerational violence as the family comes together to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed.Bear it or perish. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateful night in her cousin's outhouse that change the trajectory of her life.Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean - the matriarch of the Turner family - makes and the ways those choices have rippled across generations, from her children to hergrandchildren and beyond.Told in alternating chapters that follow four members of the Turner family: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth and the time spent under Helen Jean's thumb; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark and twisted past; Jan, a mother of two, who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem, Texas, and all of its trauma behind for good; and Lydia, a woman whose marriage is falling apart because her body can't seem to stay pregnant, as they're called home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593185919

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Hardcover

The American Queen

By Miller, Vanessa

In 1869 a kingdom rose in the South. And Louella was its queen.Over the twenty-four years she was enslaved on the Montgomery Plantation, Louella learned to feel one thing: hate. Hate for the man who sold her mother. Hate for the overseer who left her daddy to hang from a noose. Hate so powerful there's no room in her heart for love, not even for the honorable Reverend William, whom she likes and respects enough to marry.But when William finally listens to Louella's pleas and leads the formerly enslaved people off the plantation, Louella begins to replace her hate with hope. Hope that they will find a place where they can live free from fear. Hope that despite her many unanswered prayers, she can learn to trust for new miracles.Soon, William and Louella become the appointed king and queen of their self-proclaimed Kingdom of the Happy Land.

Publisher: n/a
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9780840708908

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Hardcover

The New Naturals

By Bump, Gabriel

For readers of Paul Beatty's The Sellout and Percival Everett's The Trees, a moving and darkly funny novel about an attempt to found a Black Utopia, from the award-winning author of Everywhere You Don't Belong, one of the most exciting new voices on the literary landscape.. Drive by the abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts, and it doesn't look like much. Definitely not a destination. But that's exactly what it becomes, after a young Black Boston woman sees the country - in fact, the whole world - as an increasingly dangerous place. After losing their child and looking hard for a safe place, she and her husband begin to construct a separate society: somewhere nurturing, where everyone can feel loved and wanted, where all the Spike Lee movies play, where the children learn actual history - and somewhere underground, where they won't need anything or anyone from the world above ground to make it work.

Publisher: n/a
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9781616208806

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Hardcover

Hell of a Book

By Mott, Jason

A work of fiction goes to the heart of racism, police violence, and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans, and America as a whole.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593330968

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Book

Time's Undoing

By Head, Cheryl A.

A searing and tender novel about a young Black journalist's search for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, decades ago - inspired by the author's own family history Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, known as the "Magic City" for its booming steel industry, and while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city's busy markets and vibrant nightlife, it's also a stronghold for the Klan. And with his beautiful, light-skinned wife and snazzy car, Robert begins to worry that he might be drawing the wrong kind of attention. 2019: Meghan McKenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather's murder - but no one knows the full story of what really happened back then, and his body was never found.

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9780593471821

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Hardcover

The Violin Conspiracy

By Slocumb, Brendan

Ray McMillian loves playing the violin more than anything, and nothing will stop him from pursuing his dream of becoming a professional musician. Not his mother, who thinks he should get a real job, not the fact that he can't afford a high-caliber violin, not the racism inherent in the classical music world. And when he makes the startling discovery that his great-grandfather's fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, his star begins to rise. Then with the international Tchaikovsky Competition - the Olympics of classical music - fast approaching, his prized family heirloom is stolen. Ray is determined to get it back. But now his family and the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray's great-grandfather are each claiming that the violin belongs to them.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593315415

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Hardcover

Symphony of Secrets

By Slocumb, Brendan

From the celebrated author of book club favorite The Violin Conspiracy: A gripping page-turner about a professor who uncovers a shocking secret about the most famous American composer of all time - that his music was stolen from a young Black composer named Josephine Reed. Determined to uncover the truth and right history's wrongs, Bern Hendricks will stop at nothing to finally give Josephine the recognition she deserves.Bern Hendricks has just received the call of a lifetime. As one of the world's preeminent experts on the famed twentieth-century composer Frederick Delaney, Bern knows everything there is to know about the man behind the music. When Mallory Roberts, a board member of the distinguished Delaney Foundation and direct descendant of the man himself, asks for Bern's help authenticating a newly discovered piece, which may be his famous lost opera, RED, he jumps at the chance.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593315446

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Hardcover

My Monticello

By Johnson, Jocelyn Nicole

Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson's precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, "My Monticello," tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da'Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson's historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.In "Control Negro," hailed by Roxane Gay as "one hell of story," a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to "painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.

Publisher: n/a
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9781250807151

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Hardcover

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

By Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne

The 2020 National Book Award-nominated poet makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic - an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer - that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era. The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called "Double Consciousness," a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois's words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans - the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers - Ailey carries Du Bois's Problem on her shoulders.

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9780062942937

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Hardcover

Lot

By Washington, Bryan

One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year" "Phenomenal" --Justin Torres, author of We the Animals"Brilliant" --Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun"A profound exploration of the true meaning of borders." - The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2019 in the New York Times by Dwight GarnerA New York Times Notable Book of 2019In the city of Houston - a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America - the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He's working at his family's restaurant, weathering his brother's blows, resenting his older sister's absence. And discovering he likes boys.Around him, others live and thrive and die in Houston's myriad neighborhoods: a young woman whose affair detonates across an apartment complex, a ragtag baseball team, a group of young hustlers, hurricane survivors, a local drug dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, a reluctant chupacabra.

Publisher: n/a
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9780525533689

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Paperback

Lakewood

By Giddings, Megan

A startling debut about class and race, Lakewood evokes a terrifying world of medical experimentation - part The Handmaid's Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.When Lena Johnson's beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan. On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program - and lie to her friends and family about the research being done in Lakewood. An eye drop that makes brown eyes blue, a medication that could be a cure for dementia, golden pills promised to make all bad thoughts go away.The discoveries made in Lakewood, Lena is told, will change the world - but the consequences for the subjects involved could be devastating. As the truths of the program reveal themselves, Lena learns how much she's willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family. Provocative and thrilling, Lakewood is a breathtaking novel that takes an unflinching look at the moral dilemmas many working-class families face, and the horror that has been forced on black bodies in the name of science.

Publisher: n/a
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9780062913197

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Hardcover

Harlem Shuffle

By Whitehead, Colson

"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked . . ."To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his faade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from.

Publisher: n/a
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9780385545136

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Hardcover

Big

By Harrison, Vashti

Filled with truth, beauty, joy, and acceptance, this is a tour de force from bestselling and award-winning creator Vashti Harrison. . The first picture book written and illustrated by award-winning and creator Vashti Harrison traces a child's journey to self-love and shows the power of words to both hurt and heal. With spare text and exquisite illustrations, this emotional exploration of being big in a world that prizes small is a tender portrayal of how you can stand out and feel invisible at the same time.

Publisher: n/a
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9780316353229

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Hardcover

Young, Gifted and Black Too

By Wilson, Jamia

In this timely follow-up to the best-selling, genre-defining Young, Gifted and Black, you can meet 52 more Black icons from around the world - this time spanning even more countries and including inspiring figures from as far back as the 1500s right up to present-day heroes. Featuring the stories of recent changemakers such as Amanda Gorman and Naomi Osaka, as well as historic talents such as Juan Latino and Yaa Asantewaa, Jamia Wilson has curated a new selection of inspiring black icons illustrated by Andrea Pippins' colorful and celebratory artwork. Covering 52 figures, the book is ideal for educators and homeschoolers studying Black excellence, with a new figure to explore every week of the year. Biographies are ordered chronologically, and the range of figures showcases an even more global selection in line with the movement towards decolonizing our history and curricula.

Publisher: n/a
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9780711277021

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Hardcover

Curlfriends

By Miller, Sharee

New Kid meets The Baby-sitters Club in this graphic novel series opener about the Curlfriends, four inseparable Black girls who show us the meaning of true friendship - and being your true self.. Charlie has a foolproof plan for the first day at her new middle school. Even though she's used to starting over as the new kid - thanks to her military family's constant moving - making friends has never been easy for her. But this time, her first impression needs to last, since this is where her family plans to settle for good.. So she's hiding any interests that may seem "babyish," updating her look, and doing her best to leave her shyness behind her...but is erasing the real Charlie the best way to make friends?. When not everything goes exactly to plan - like, AT ALL - Charlie is ready to give up on making new friendships.

Publisher: n/a
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9780316591478

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Book

There Was a Party for Langston

By Reynolds, Jason

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds's debut picture book is a snappy, joyous ode to Word King, literary genius, and glass-ceiling smasher Langston Hughes and the luminaries he inspired.. Back in the day, there was a heckuva party, a jam, for a word-making man. The King of Letters. Langston Hughes. His ABCs became drums, bumping jumping thumping like a heart the size of the whole country. They sent some people yelling and others, his word-children, to write their own glory. Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, and more came be-bopping to recite poems at their hero's feet at that heckuva party at the Schomberg Library, dancing boom da boom, stepping and stomping, all in praise and love for Langston, world-mending word man. Oh, yeah, there was hoopla in Harlem, for its Renaissance man.

Publisher: n/a
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9781534439443

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Hardcover

Who Was Langston Hughes?

By Merrell, Billy

Find out how a young boy from the Midwest became one of the most important writers and activists of the Harlem Renaissance in this addition to the #1 New York Times bestselling series!. Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, and was raised by his grandmother, who told him many stories of the Black American experience and taught him to be proud of his race from a young age. With her guidance, Langston went on to become a talented writer in high school, creating dramatic plays, poetry, and articles for the school paper. His career as a writer would continue to blossom. Langston pioneered Jazz Poetry and published nearly twenty poetry books during his lifetime as well as novels, books for children, nonfiction books, and plays. He was an activist and a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance period, alongside Zora Neale Hurston and Countee Cullen.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593658550

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Paperback

The ABCs of Black History

By Cortez, Rio

Brimming with passion, beauty, flow, and style, here is an ABC book like no other - a celebration of Black history and culture in lively verse, matched with illustrations that are each like a folk painting. Written by the poet Rio Cortez and illustrated by Lauren Semmer, the book teaches the ABCs in a far more interesting and meaningful way than the usual "A is for apple, B is for ball." Letters represent history - G is for the Great Migration. Culture - K for Kwanzaa. People and places - H is for Harlem and Zora Neale Hurston. And big ideas - like B for beautiful, bold, brave, brotherhood. R is for rise, to reach for the top. Relentlessly striving, refusing to stop Like ballplayers, boxers, and gymnasts who fly. Like presidents and justices who dared to ask why? In addition to the rhyming text, the book includes back matter with a timeline plus more information on the events, places, and people mentioned in the poem, from Mae Jemison to W.

Publisher: n/a
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9781523507498

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Hardcover

We Could Fly

By Giddens, Rhiannon

In a companion to Build a House, Rhiannon Giddens - Grammy Award winner and cofounder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops - gives wing to a moving tale of grace and transcendence, with acclaimed artist Briana Mukodiri Uchendu.. At a sparrow's urging, a young girl feels a mysterious trembling in her arms, a lightness in her feet, a longing to be free. Her mother tells her that her Granny Liza experienced the same, as did many of their people before her. Perhaps it's time, Mama says, to slip the bonds of earth and join the journey started long ago. To hold each other tight and rise. Drawing on lyrics from the song "We Could Fly" by Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell, which in turn draw on a heritage of African folklore, this incantatory dialogue between a mother and daughter paired with startlingly beautiful illustrations celebrates love, resilience, and the spiritual power of the"old-time ways" - tradition and shared cultural memory - to sustain and uplift.

Publisher: n/a
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9781536222548

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Hardcover

Freewater

By Luqman-dawson, Amina

Debut author Amina Luqman-Dawson pens a lyrical, accessible historical middle-grade novel about two enslaved children's escape from a plantation and themany ways they find freedom.Under the cover of night, twelve-year-old Homer flees Southerland Plantation with his little sister Ada, unwillingly leaving their beloved mother behind. Much as he adores her and fears for her life, Homer knows there's no turning back, not with the overseer on their trail. Through tangled vines, secret doorways, and over a sky bridge, the two find asecret community calledFreewater,deep in the swamp.In this society created by formerly enslaved people and some freeborn children, Homer finds new friends, almost forgetting where he came from.But when he learns of a threat that could destroyFreewater, he crafts a plan to find his mother and help his new home.

Publisher: n/a
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9780316056618

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Hardcover

My Little Golden Book About Misty Copeland

By Smith, Sherri L.

Help your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography all about Misty Copeland, the American Ballet Theatre's first Black principal dancer! The perfect introduction to nonfiction for preschoolers!This Little Golden Book introduces ballet prodigy Misty Copeland to the youngest readers. The first Black principal dancer in the history of the American Ballet Theatre - who didn't start dancing until she was almost thirteen - continues to impress the world and pave the way for young Black girls to chase their dreams. Look for Little Golden Book biographies about these other inspiring people: * Joe Biden * Kamala Harris * Betty White * Frida Kahlo * Dolly Parton * Ruth Bader Ginsburg * Jackie Robinson * Martin Luther King Jr. * George Washington * Abraham Lincoln * Johnny Appleseed .

Publisher: n/a
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9780593380673

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Hardcover

Ordinary Days

By Joy, Angela

A rhythmic, striking picture book biography of legendary singer/songwriter/performer Prince.Before he became a legend, he was just a boy ... . On an ordinary day, you could see him. A young boy named Prince Rogers Nelson, who had parents who fought, nowhere to call home, and a collection of memories turned into sound: the shouts of anger, the purr of pigeons, the roar of cars down a busy Minneapolis street, and the whisper of cold wind on budding lilac bushes.. Other sounds joined in as he taught himself to play the guitar, piano, drums, and much more, leading to the day this ordinary boy began to make music -- and became extraordinary.. Black Is a Rainbow Color and Choosing Brave author Angela Joy's exquisite words harmonize with acclaimed illustrator Jacqueline Alcántara's sweeping art to create a tender, profound look into music icon Prince's early life and the moments that shaped him.

Publisher: n/a
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9781250797032

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Hardcover

Chef Edna

By Noel, Melvina

A warm and inviting picture-book portrait of African American culinary legend Edna Lewis, who brought Southern cooking to the masses. Edna loved to cook. Growing up on a farm in Freetown, Virginia, she learned the value of fresh, local, seasonal food from her Mama Daisy, how to measure ingredients for biscuits using coins, and to listen closely to her cakes to know when they were done. Edna carried these traditions with her all the way to New York, where she became a celebrated chef, who could even turn traditional French food into her signature Southern style. The author of several cookbooks and the recipient of numerous awards, Chef Edna introduced the world to the flavors of her home.

Publisher: n/a
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9781951836399

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Hardcover

Rock, Rosetta, Rock! Roll, Rosetta, Roll!

By Bolden, Tonya

"A profile as bold and vivacious as the singer herself." - Kirkus (starred review) Perfect for fans of Trombone Shorty and Ada's Violin!Award-winning author Tonya Bolden and acclaimed illustrator R. Gregory Christie deliver an inspiring true story about the life, career, and impact of 20th-century blues and gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who was a trailblazer for rock-and-roll. Includes a timeline of Sister Rosetta Tharpe's life, author's note, and a list of sources.Before there was Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Johnny Cash, there was Sister Rosetta Tharpe.The godmother of rock & roll started as a little girl from Arkansas with music in her air, in her hair, in her bones, wiggling her toes. With a big guitar in hand and a big voice in her soul, she grew into a rock & roll trailblazer in a time when women were rarely seen rocking out.

Publisher: n/a
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9780062994387

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Hardcover

Just Jerry

By Pinkney, Jerry

An inspiring memoir of one of the most acclaimed children's book illustrators of all time, sharing the story of a young artist who finds the courage to follow his passion against all odds. Jerry Pinkney drew everywhere, all the time. It was how he made sense of the world - how he coped with the stress of being a sensitive child growing up in crowded spaces, struggling with a learning disability, in a time when the segregation of Black Americans was the norm. Only drawing could offer him a sense of calm, control, and confidence. When friends and siblings teased him about having the nickname "Jerry" as his only name, his mother always said, "Just 'Jerry' is enough. He'll make something of that name someday." And so he did, eventually becoming one of the most celebrated children's book illustrators of all time and paving the way for countless other Black artists.

Publisher: n/a
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9780316383851

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Hardcover

To Boldly Go

By Dalton, Angela

Perfect for fans of Hidden Figures and Mae Among the Stars! To Boldly Go tells the true story of Nichelle Nichols and how she used her platform on Star Trek to inspire and recruit a new generation of diverse astronauts and many others in the space and STEM fields. As Lieutenant Uhura on the iconic prime-time television show Star Trek, Nichelle Nichols played the first Black female astronaut anyone had ever seen on screen. A smart, strong, independent Black woman aboard the starship Enterprise was revolutionary in the 1960s when only white men had traveled to outer space in real life and most Black characters on TV were servants.Nichelle not only inspired a generation to pursue their dreams, but also opened the door for the real-life pioneering astronaut Sally Ride, Dr.

Publisher: n/a
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9780063073210

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Hardcover

This Is Tap!

By Castrovilla, Selene

A bouncing picture book biography of the tap dancer behind the Happy Feet penguin, illustrated by the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Winner of Hidden Figures.. This is a story about tap dancing, a distinctly American art form that blended English-Scottish-Irish clog dancing with African tribal dancing. And it's about a boy, Savion Glover--who was born to feel the music - to dance and perform and invent. And to delight and awe audiences with the movements of his body. . Soul meets sole.From that day on, Savion danced.All the time. Not practicin'. Livin.'Tippity, tippity, tappity, tappity, TROMP, TROMP, TROMP!Follow Savion's journey as beats crescendos into a love of dancing as self-expression. This picture book biography creates music with words and story, and dance with color and composition.

Publisher: n/a
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9780823438631

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Hardcover

On the Line

By Jones, Jennifer

"Though this tale explores painful emotions, its focus on Jennifer's personal experience and the pleasure she found in dance make it an absolute delight." - Kirkus ReviewsFrom the first Black Radio City Rockette dancer, Jennifer Jones, comes an inspiring picture book autobiography perfect for fans of trailblazers like Misty Copeland, Mae Jemison, and more. Dancing has always made her feel free, like she can do anything. But when Jennifer was a child, some people didn't think that she had a future as a dancer because of the color of her skin.With the support of her family, especially her mother, she proved that anything is possible when you believe you belong.With beautiful watercolor illustrations by artist Robert Paul Jr., On the Line is a captivating true story about manifesting your dreams.

Publisher: n/a
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9780063087064

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Hardcover

The 1619 Project

By Hannah-jones, Nikole

The 1619 Project’s lyrical picture book in verse chronicles the consequences of slavery and the history of Black resistance in the United States, thoughtfully rendered by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and Newbery honor-winning author Renée Watson.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593307359

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Book

An American Story

By Alexander, Kwame

New York Times Bestselling author Kwame Alexander pens a powerful picture book that tells the story of American slavery through the voice of a teacher struggling to help her students understand its harrowing history.From the fireside tales in an African village, through the unspeakable passage across the Atlantic, to the backbreaking work in the fields of the South, this is a story of a people's struggle and strength, horror and hope. This is the story of American slavery, a story that needs to be told and understood by all of us. A testament to the resilience of the African American community, this book honors what has been and envisions what is to be.This is a book for those who want to speak the truth.

Publisher: n/a
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9780316473125

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Hardcover

Timelines from Black History

By Dk,

Erased. Ignored. Hidden. Lost. Underappreciated. No longer. Delve into the unique, inspiring, and world-changing history of Black people. From Frederick Douglass to Oprah Winfrey, and the achievements of ancient African kingdoms to those of the US Civil Rights Movement, Timelines From Black History: Leaders, Legends, Legacies takes kids on an exceptional journey from prehistory to modern times. This DK children's book boasts more than 30 visual timelines, which explore the biographies of the famous and the not-so-famous - from royalty to activists, and writers to scientists, and much, much more. Stunning thematic timelines also explain the development of Black history - from the experiences of black people in the US, to the story of postcolonial Africa.

Publisher: n/a
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9780744039092

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Black Boy Joy

By Mbalia, Kwame

Black boy joy is ... Picking out a fresh first-day-of-school outfit.Saving the universe in an epic intergalactic race.Finding your voice - and your rhymes - during tough times.Flying on your skateboard like nobody's watching. And more! From seventeen acclaimed Black male and non-binary authors comes a vibrant collection of stories, comics, and poems about the power of joy and the wonders of Black boyhood.: B. B. Alston, Dean Atta, P. Djl Clark, Jay Coles, Jerry Craft, Lamar Giles, Don P. Hooper, George M. Johnson, Varian Johnson, Kwame Mbalia, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Tochi Onyebuchi, Julian Randall, Jason Reynolds, Justin Reynolds, DaVaun Sanders, and Julian Winters

Publisher: n/a
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9780593379936

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Hardcover

Poemhood

By Mcbride, Amber

"A rich, thoughtful anthology exploring centuries of Black poetry." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "This deep and complex assemblage of Black poetry culminates in a joyful, painful, and emotionally rich experience." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection pick!Starring thirty-seven poets, with contributions from acclaimed authors, including Kwame Alexander, Ibi Zoboi, and Nikki Giovanni, this breathtaking Black YA poetry anthology edited by National Book Award finalist Amber McBride, Taylor Byas, and Erica Martin celebrates Black poetry, folklore, and culture.Come, claim your wings.Lift your life above the earth,return to the land of your father's birth.What exactly is it to be Black in America?Well, for some, it's learning how to morph the hatred placed by others into love for oneself; for others, it's unearthing the strength it takes to continue to hold one's swagger when multitudinous factors work to make Black lives crumble.

Publisher: n/a
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9780063225282

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Hardcover

Notes from a Young Black Chef

By Onwuachi, Kwame

Food was Kwame Onwuachi's first great love. He connected to cooking via his mother, in the family's modest Bronx apartment. From that spark, he launched his own catering company with twenty thousand dollars he made selling candy on the subway and trained in the kitchens of some of the most acclaimed restaurants in the country. He faced many challenges on the road to success, including breaking free of a dangerous downward spiral due to temptation and easy money, and grappling with just how unwelcoming the world of fine dining can be for people of color.Born on Long Island and raised in New York City, Nigeria, and Louisiana, Kwame Onwuachi's incredible story is one of survival and ingenuity in the face of adversity.

Publisher: n/a
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9780593176009

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Hardcover

Can't Stop Won't Stop

By Chang, Jeff

From award-winning author Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop is the story of hip-hop, a generation-defining movement and the music that transformed American politics and culture forever. Hip hop is one of the most dominant and influential cultures in America, giving new voice to the younger generation. It defines a generation's worldview. Exploring hip hop's beginnings up to the present day, Jeff Chang and Dave "Davey D" Cook provide a provocative look into the new world that the hip hop generation has created. Based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, activists, and gang members, with unforgettable portraits of many of hip hop's forebears, founders, mavericks, and present day icons, this book chronicles the epic events, ideas and the music that marked the hip hop generation's rise.

Publisher: n/a
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9781250790514

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Hardcover

Black Internet Effect

By Charles, Shavone

With witty humor and a strong sense of self, musician, model, and technology executive Shavone Charles recounts her journey through Google, Twitter, and more - and outlines her mission to make space for herself and other young women of color both online and IRL.Pocket Change Collective was born out of a need for space. Space to think. Space to connect. Space to be yourself. And this is your invitation to join us. This is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. "The right balance of curiosity and good old nerve has always pushed me toward good directions in my life. During the darkest, most discouraging times, I can lean on those two parts of me." In this installment of the Pocket Change Collective, musician and technology phenom Shavone Charles explores how curiosity and nerve led her from a small college in Merced, California, to some of the most influential spaces in the tech world: from Google to Twitter to eventually landing a spot on the coveted Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

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9780593387535

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Paperback

Augusta Savage

By Nelson, Marilyn

Publisher: n/a
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9780316298025

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Hardcover

The Awakening of Malcolm X

By Shabazz, Ilyasah

The Awakening of Malcolm X is a powerful narrative account of the activist's adolescent years in jail, written by his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz along with 2019 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe award-winning author, Tiffany D. Jackson. No one can be at peace until he has his freedom. In Charlestown Prison, Malcolm Little struggles with the weight of his past. Plagued by nightmares, Malcolm drifts through days, unsure of his future. Slowly, he befriends other prisoners and writes to his family. He reads all the books in the prison library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm grapples with race, politics, religion, and justice in the 1940s. And as his time in jail comes to an end, he begins to awaken -- emerging from prison more than just Malcolm Little: Now, he is Malcolm X. Here is an intimate look at Malcolm X's young adult years. While this book chronologically follows X: A Novel, it can be read as a stand-alone historical novel that invites larger discussions on black power, prison reform, and civil rights.

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9780374313296

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Hardcover

You Are More Than Magic

By Harts, Minda

A guide for girls of color looking to find their voice and claim space as they prepare for high school, college, and their careers, from the bestselling author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table.When you're a girl of color, figuring out how to find your voice and make sure everyone around you can hear it is essential. CEO and bestselling author Minda Harts knows - she's been there. And she's ready to walk you through it all with her own stories of success and the missteps that helped her grow - from running for high school student council when she was barely tall enough to reach the podium, to starting her own company, The Memo LLC, that helps women of color advocate for themselves and their careers. Now she's here to hype you up and be real with you about: * Building your squad: what to look for in a friend, finding mentors, and setting boundaries for healthy relationships * Saying what you mean without saying it mean: prepping yourself for self-advocacy, negotiations, and tough conversations * Leaning into courage: affirming yourself, dealing with no's, and speaking up even when you feel like the "only one"With lots of practical advice and real-life anecdotes, as well as questions for reflection and further resources, this book is all about finding your own unique path to success - at school, at work, at home, and beyond.

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9780593326619

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Book

So Many Beginnings

By Morrow, Bethany C.

. As the American Civil War rages on, the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island is blossoming, a haven for the recently emancipated. Black people have begun building a community of their own, a refuge from the shadow of the "old life." It is where the March family has finally been able to safely put down roots with four young daughters:Meg, a teacher who longs to find love and start a family of her own.Jo, a writer whose words are too powerful to be contained.Beth, a talented seamstress searching for a higher purpose.Amy, a dancer eager to explore life outside her family's home.As the four March sisters come into their own as independent young women, they will face first love, health struggles, heartbreak, and new horizons. But they will face it all together.

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9781250761217

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Hardcover

The Cost of Knowing

By Morris, Brittney

Sixteen-year-old Alex Rufus is trying his best. He tries to be the best employee he can be at the local ice cream shop; the best boyfriend he can be to his amazing girlfriend, Talia; the best protector he can be over his little brother, Isaiah. But as much as Alex tries, he often comes up short. It's hard to for him to be present when every time he touches an object or person, Alex sees into its future. When he touches a scoop, he has a vision of him using it to scoop ice cream. When he touches his car, he sees it years from now, totaled and underwater. When he touches Talia, he sees them at the precipice of breaking up, and that terrifies him. Alex feels these visions are a curse, distracting him, making him anxious and unable to live an ordinary life.

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9781534445451

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Hardcover

Chlorine Sky

By Browne, Mahogany L.

She looks me hard in my eyes& my knees lock into tree trunksMy eyes don't dance like my heartbeat racingThey stare straight back hot daggers.I remember things will never be the same.I remember things.With gritty and heartbreaking honesty, Mahogany L. Browne delivers a novel-in-verse about broken promises, fast rumors, and when growing up means growing apart from your best friend.

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9780593176399

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Hardcover

Black Enough

By Zoboi, Ibi

Edited by National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi, and featuring some of the most acclaimed bestselling Black authors writing for teens today - Black Enough is an essential collection of captivating stories about what it's like to be young and Black in America.Black is...sisters navigating their relationship at summer camp in Portland, Oregon, as written by Rene Watson.Black is ... three friends walking back from the community pool talking about nothing and everything, in a story by Jason Reynolds.Black is ... Nic Stone's high-class beauty dating a boy her momma would never approve of.Black is ... two girls kissing in Justina Ireland's story set in Maryland.Black is urban and rural, wealthy and poor, mixed race, immigrants, and more - because there are countless ways to be Black enough. Contributors:Justina IrelandVarian JohnsonRita Williams-GarciaDhonielle ClaytonKekla MagoonLeah HendersonTochi OnyebuchiJason ReynoldsNic StoneLiara TamaniRene WatsonTracey BaptisteCoe BoothBrandy ColbertJay ColesIbi ZoboiLamar Giles

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9780062698728

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Hardcover

Muted

By Charles, Tami

For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown.So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean "Mercury" Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights -- plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it.Until they're not.Denver begins to realize that she's trapped in Merc's world, struggling to hold on to her own voice. As the dream turns into a nightmare, she must make a choice: lose her big break, or get broken.Inspired by true events, Muted is a fearless exploration of the dark side of the music industry, the business of exploitation, how a girl's dreams can be used against her -- and what it takes to fight back.

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9781338673524

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Hardcover

Punching the Air

By Zoboi, Ibi

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo. The story that I thought was my life didn't start on the day I was born Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. "Boys just being boys" turns out to be true only when those boys are white. The story that I think will be my life starts today Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison.

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9780062996480

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Hardcover

The Black Kids

By Reed, Christina Hammonds

Perfect for fans of The Hate U Give, this unforgettable coming-of-age debut novel explores issues of race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy black teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots.Los Angeles, 1992 Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It's the end of senior year and they're spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer. Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death.

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9781534462724

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Book

Concrete Rose

By Thomas, Angie

International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.If there's one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it's that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad's in prison.Life's not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav's got everything under control.Until, that is, Maverick finds out he's a father.Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it's not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child.

Publisher: n/a
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9780062846716

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Hardcover

Grown

By Jackson, Tiffany D

New York Times bestselling author of The Belles Award-winning author Tiffany D. Jackson delivers another riveting, ripped-from-the-headlines mystery that exposes horrific secrets hiding behind the limelight and embraces the power of a young woman's voice. When legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots Enchanted Jones at an audition, her dreams of being a famous singer take flight. Until Enchanted wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. Who killed Korey Fields? Before there was a dead body, Enchanted's dreams had turned into a nightmare.

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9780062840356

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Book

Dear Justyce

By Stone, Nic

The stunning sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller Dear Martin. Incarcerated teen Quan writes letters to Justyce about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Angie Thomas.In the highly anticipated sequel to her New York Times bestseller, Nic Stone delivers an unflinching look into the flawed practices and silenced voices in the American juvenile justice system.Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University . . . and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center.Through a series of flashbacks, vignettes, and letters to Justyce--the protagonist of Dear Martin--Quan's story takes form.

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9781984829665

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Hardcover

Clap When You Land

By Acevedo, Elizabeth

In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people ... In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.Separated by distance - and Papi's secrets - the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

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9780062882769

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Hardcover

Harlem Stomp!

By Hill, Laban Carrick

Determined to make a new start for themselves at the dawn of the twentieth century, many African Americans joined the Great Migration and headed North. For those who landed in Harlem, New York, it was a time of intellectual, artistic, literary, and political blossoming. Influential African American artists and activists took center stage as they captured the attention of the world.Harlem Stomp! is a breathtaking, in-depth exploration of this fascinating era. Lavishly designed and illustrated, with photographs, historical documents, and full-color paintings, this virtual time capsule is packed with poetry, prose, and political rhetoric that introduce the amazing lives and work of notable figures such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Sargent Johnson, and Marcus Garvey.

Publisher: n/a
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9780316496339

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Paperback

SLAY

By Morris, Brittney

Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give in this dynamite debut novel that follows a fierce teen game developer as she battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther-inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for Black gamers.

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the "downfall of the Black man."

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for "anti-white discrimination."

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

Publisher: n/a
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9781534445420

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Book

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

By Taylor, Mildred D.

The saga of the Logan family--made famous in the Newbery Medal-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry--concludes in a long-awaited and deeply fulfilling story.In her tenth book, Mildred Taylor completes her sweeping saga about the Logan family of Mississippi, which is also the story of the civil rights movement in America of the 20th century. Cassie Logan, first met in Song of the Trees and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, is a young woman now, searching for her place in the world, a journey that takes her from Toledo to California, to law school in Boston, and, ultimately, in the 60s, home to Mississippito participate in voter registration. She is witness to the now-historic events of the century: the Great Migration north, the rise of the civil rights movement, preceded and precipitated by the racist society of America, and the often violent confrontations that brought about change. Rich, compelling storytelling is Ms. Taylor's hallmark, and she fulfills expectations as she brings to a close the stirring family story that has absorbed her for over forty years. It is a story she was born to tell.

Publisher: n/a
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9780399257308

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Hardcover

Tyler Johnson Was Here

By Coles, Jay

The Hate U Give meets All American Boys in this striking and heartbreaking debut novel, commenting on current race relations in America.When Marvin Johnson's twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid.The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it's up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.Tyler Johnson Was Here is a stunning account of police brutality in modern America.

Publisher: n/a
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9780316440776

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Hardcover

On The Come Up

By Thomas, Angie

This is the highly anticipated second novel by Angie Thomas, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning The Hate U Give.Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least win her first battle. As the daughter of an underground hip hop legend who died right before he hit big, Bri's got massive shoes to fill.But it's hard to get your come up when you're labeled a hoodlum at school, and your fridge at home is empty after your mom loses her job. So Bri pours her anger and frustration into her first song, which goes viral ... for all the wrong reasons. Bri soon finds herself at the center of a controversy, portrayed by the media as more menace than MC. But with an eviction notice staring her family down, Bri doesn't just want to make it - she has to. Even if it means becoming the very thing the public has made her out to be. Insightful, unflinching, and full of heart, On the Come Up is an ode to hip hop from one of the most influential literary voices of a generation. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; and about how, especially for young black people, freedom of speech isn't always free.

Publisher: n/a
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9780062498564

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Hardcover

Swing

By Alexander, Kwame

Things usually do not go as planned for seventeen-year-old Noah. He and his best friend Walt (aka Swing) have been cut from the high school baseball team for the third year in a row, and it looks like Noah's love interest since fifth grade, Sam, will never take it past the "best friend" zone. Noah would love to retire his bat and accept the status quo, but Walt has got big plans for them both, which include making the best baseball comeback ever, getting the girl, and finally finding cool.To go from lovelorn to ladies' men, Walt introduces Noah to a relationship guru - his Dairy Queen-employed cousin, Floyd - and the always informative Woohoo Woman Podcast. Noah is reluctant, but decides fate may be intervening when he discovers more than just his mom's birthday gift at the Thrift Shop. Inside the vintage Keepall is a gold mine of love letters from the 1950s. Walt is sure these letters and the podcasts are just what Noah needs to communicate his true feelings to Sam. To Noah, the letters are more: an initiation to the curious rhythms of love and jazz, as well as a way for him and Walt to embrace their own kind of cool. While Walt is hitting balls out of the park and catching the eye of the baseball coach, Noah composes anonymous love letters to Sam in an attempt to write his way into her heart. But as things are looking up, way up, for Noah and Walt, the letters set off a chain of events that change everything Noah knows to be true about love, friendship, sacrifice, and fate. In Swing, bestselling authors Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess (Solo) present a free-verse poetic story that will speak to anyone who's struggled to find their voice, and take a swing at life.

Publisher: n/a
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9780310761914

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Hardcover

Creed III

By Jordan, Michael B.

After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has been thriving in both his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian (Jonathan Majors) , resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face-off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian - a fighter who has nothing to lose.

Publisher: n/a
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883929805532

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DVD

Equalizer 3, The - DVD Digital

By Washington, Denzel

Denzel Washington is Robert McCall, an ex-assassin with a mysterious past, who returns to action to serve vengeance for the exploited and oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends' protector by taking on the mafia.

Publisher: n/a
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43396631205

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DVD

Poetic Justice

By Singleton, John

Director John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood, Rosewood) made an earnest effort in this, his second, film to say a great deal that is true and relevant about living and loving in a violent, difficult time in American history. Janet Jackson plays a beautician and poet who withdraws into herself after her boyfriend is murdered by gangsters. The late Tupac Shakur plays a postman who tries to get through to her, and the two travel on a course through urban America, connecting with family and community. Singleton has so much on his mind that the film comes out a terrible muddle, but there is a certain integrity peeking through the fog. Shakur makes a startlingly good impression in his film debut, and Jackson strips away her star veneer to play something like a real person--and entirely succeeds.

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43396523999

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DVD

Do the Right Thing

By Lee, Spike

Unanimous critical acclaim embraces this inventive and extraordinary film from Spike Lee. Newsweek calls it "astonishing." The Houston Post describes it as "exhilarating, joyous and screamingly funny." USA Today calls it "1989s best film." This powerful visual feast combines humor and drama with memorable characters while tracing the course of a single day on a block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. Its the hottest day of the year, a scorching 24-hour period that will change the lives of its residents forever. Danny Aiello co-stars in this absorbing tale of inner-city life that heats up with vivid images and unforgettable performances. Bonus Content: * Do The Right Thing: 20 Years Later * Deleted and Extended Scenes * 20th Anniversary Edition Feature Commentary by Director Spike Lee * Feature Commentary by Director Spike Lee, Director of Photography Ernest Dickerson, Production Designer Wynn Thomas, and Actor Joie Lee * Trailers ]]>

Publisher: n/a
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25192128615

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DVD

Boyz N The Hood

By Jr., Cuba Gooding

BOYZ N THE HOOD is the critically acclaimed coming-of-age story of growing up in a South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. It is a place where harmony co-exists with adversity, especially for three young men growing up there: Doughboy (Ice Cube) , an unambitious drug dealer; his brother Ricky (Morris Chestnut) , a college-bound teenage father; and Rickys best friend Tre (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) , who aspires to a brighter future beyond "The Hood." In a world where a trip to the store can end in death, the friends have diverse reactions to their bleak surroundings. Tres resolve is strengthened by a strong father (Larry Fishburne) who keeps him on the right track. But the lessons Tre learns are put to the ultimate test when tragedy strikes close to home, and retaliation seems the only recourse.

Publisher: n/a
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43396508194

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DVD

Till

By Chinonye, Chukwu,

Till tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler) , whose pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett Louis Till (Jalyn Hall) became a galvanizing moment that helped lead to the creation of the civil rights movement.

Publisher: n/a
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191329237908

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DVD

Birth Of A Nation

By Hammer, Armie

This historical drama recounts a real-life slave revolt that occurred in 1831 Virginia, led by a black preacher named Nat Turner (Nate Parker) . Turner is ordered by his master (Armie Hammer) to tour a number of local plantations, delivering sermons to the other slaves that will urge them against violence and any thoughts of rebellion. However, he is so appalled and sickened by the horrors he sees during his travels that he is eventually moved to fight back against the evils of slavery. Aja Naomi King and Gabrielle Union co-star. Parker wrote, directed, and stars in The Birth of a Nation, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jack Rodgers

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24543294931

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DVD

Judas and the Black Messiah

By Kaluuya, Daniel

FBI informant William ONeal infiltrates the Illinois Black Panther Party and is tasked with keeping tabs on their charismatic leader, Chairman Fred Hampton. A career thief, ONeal revels in the danger of manipulating both his comrades and his handler, Special Agent Roy Mitchell. Hamptons political prowess grows just as hes falling in love with fellow revolutionary Deborah Johnson. Meanwhile, a battle wages for ONeals soul. Will he align with the forces of good? Or subdue Hampton and The Panthers by any means, as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover commands? Bonus Content: - Fred Hampton for the People ]]>

Publisher: n/a
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883929714865

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DVD

Harlem Nights

By Murphy, Eddie

Eddie Murphy, in addition to starring as Quick, the son of 1930s Harlem gambling-house proprietor Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor) , also wrote and directed the film. The plotline details the combined efforts of Quick and Sugar Ray to prevent white gangster Bugsy Calhoune (Michael Lerner) from muscling in on their operation. The supporting players include Redd Foxx, Danny Aiello and Jasmine Guy.

Publisher: n/a
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32429267191

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DVD

Summer of Soul

By Thompson, Ahmir 'questlove'

In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary, part music film, part historical record, created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was largely forgotten, until now. This documentary shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past, and present. The feature includes concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension, and more.

Publisher: n/a
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786936894165

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DVD

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT BLACK EXPERIENCES

By Box, Binge

Titles included: Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland; The Central Park Five; And She Could Be Next; I Am Not Your Negro; The Talk: Race in America; Baltimore Rising.

Publisher: n/a
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1194586332

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DVD

BLACK EXPERIENCES

By

Titles included: Blackkklansman; Dear White People; If Beale Street Could Talk; Fruitvale Station; Do the Right Thing; Get Out.

Publisher: n/a
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1194586330

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DVD

Respect [DVD]

By Hudson, Jennifer

Following the rise of Franklins career from a child singing in her fathers churchs choir to her international superstardom, Respect is the remarkable true story of Aretha Franklins journey to find her voice, in the midst of the turbulent social and political landscape of 1960s America.

Publisher: n/a
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191329127599

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DVD

One Night in Miami

By Regina, King,

A fictional account of one amazing night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered to discuss their roles in the civil rights movement and cultural turmoil of the '60s. PLUS: An essay by critic Gene Seymour

Publisher: n/a
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715515266819

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Book

The Chi

By Mitchell, Jason

The Chi returns for a second riveting season of stories from Chicago's South Side. As Brandon works to make things right with Jerrika, Emmett tries to get custody of his son, with help from Jada. Meanwhile, Ronnie hopes to come to terms with his actions, and Kevin grapples with past traumas, in this richly textured series from creator/executive producer Lena Waithe and executive producer Common.

Publisher: n/a
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24543636564

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DVD

Queen & Slim

By Kaluuya, Daniel

From Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe and Grammy Award-winning director Melina Matsoukas, comes the unflinching new drama, Queen & Slim. On a first date, a black man and woman are stopped by a policeman over a minor traffic infraction. As the situation spirals, the man kills

Publisher: n/a
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6318054936

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Atlanta

By Glover, Donald

In ATLANTA ROBBIN' SEASON, two cousins work through the Atlanta music scene in order to better their lives and the lives of their families. Earn Marks (Donald Glover) is a young manager trying to get his cousin's career off the ground. Alfred Miles (Brian Tyree Henry) is a new hot rapper trying to understand the line between real life and street life. Darius (Lakeith Lee Stanfield) is Alfred's right-hand man and visionary. Van (Zazie Beetz) is Earn's best friend and the mother of Earn's daughter.Donald Glover serves as Executive Producer, along with Paul Simms, Dianne McGunigle and Stephen Glover. ATLANTA is produced by FX Productions. The first season of ATLANTA won two Emmy® Awards as well as two Golden Globe® Awards and AFI, Peabody, PGA, WGA, TCA, NAACP and Critics' Choice Awards.

Publisher: n/a
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24543636526

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DVD

I Am Not Your Negro

By Swennen, Hubert Gendebien, Raoul Peck, Ives

Master documentary filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original words and a flood of rich archival material. A journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.

Publisher: n/a
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876964011891

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DVD

Black History Activators

By Sweet, Kelly

Black History is an integral part of American History. This video highlights some of the most notable events and individuals of Black History and provides an in-depth introduction to key activists including W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, and Maya Angelou while also introducing individuals not often discussed in traditional history classes. Featuring events such as the March on Washington and Loving V. Virginia, this video gives an encompassing overview of over one hundred years of Black History. From Sojourner Truth's famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech in 1851, which launched a career of speaking out against slavery and the mistreatment of women, to Maya Angelou being honored at Bill Clinton's inauguration, these glimpses into some of the most powerful moments and individuals in history will educate and inspire generations to come.

Publisher: n/a
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818506027151

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DVD

African Americans

By Jr., Henry Louis Gates

Explore with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed-forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds.

Publisher: n/a
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9781608839971

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DVD video

Little Mermaid, The

By Marshall, Rob

The Little Mermaid (2023) Remarkable live-action/CGI redo of the '89 Disney musical classic stars Halle Bailey as the mermaid princess Ariel, whose curiosity about the surface world and attraction to the human prince Eric (Jon Hauer-King) leads her to clash with her overprotective ocean king father (Javier Bardem)-and leaves her ripe for exploitation by the calculating sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy). All-ages charmer also features the voices of Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay. 135 min. C/Rtg: PG

Publisher: n/a
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786936898439

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DVD

Spider-Man

By Moore, Shameik

Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar®-winning Spider-Verse saga, (2018, Best Animated Feature Film) , Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse. After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn's full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.

Publisher: n/a
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43396581562

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DVD

Space Jam

By Lee, Malcolm D.

Welcome to the Jam! When NBA champion and cultural icon LeBron James and his young son Dom are trapped in a digital space by a rogue A.I., LeBron must get them home safe by leading Bugs, Lola Bunny and the whole gang of notoriously undisciplined Looney Tunes to victory over the A.I.s digitized champions on the court: a powered‐up roster of NBA and WNBA stars as youve never seen them before. Its Tunes versus Goons in the highest‐stakes challenge of his life, that will redefine LeBrons bond with his son and shine a light on the power of being yourself. The ready‐for‐action Tunes destroy convention, supercharge their unique talents and surprise even "King" James by playing the game their own way. ]]>

Publisher: n/a
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883929726349

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DVD

Soul

By Authors, Pete Docter; dana Murray; mike Jones; kemp Powers; jamie Foxx; all

Joe Gardner is a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. A misstep takes him from New York City to The Great Before, a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities before going to Earth. Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22, who has never understood the appeal of the human life. As Joe tries to show 22 what's great about life, he may discover the answers to the most important questions. Read more...

Publisher: n/a
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786936868388

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DVD

The Princess and the Frog

By Campos, Bruno

Set in the great city of New Orleans, a beautiful girl named Tiana meets a frog prince who desperately wants to be human again, and a fateful kiss leads them both on a hilarious adventure through the mystical bayous of Louisiana.

Publisher: n/a
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786936795332

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DVD

The Karate Kid

By Smith, Jaden

Dre Parker finds himself in China after his mother's latest career move. He and classmate Mei Ying immediately fall for each other, but cultural differences make this friendship impossible. Even worse, his feelings make an enemy of class bully Cheng, who is quite adept at kung fu. Dre turns to maintenance man Mr. Han, who is secretly a kung fu master, and learns that kung fu is not about punches and parries, but maturity and calm. However, Dre realizes that this may be the fight of his life.

Publisher: n/a
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43396359130

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DVD

Annie

By Wallis, Quvenzhané

Annie is a young, happy foster kid who's also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they'd be back for her someday, it's been a hard-knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan. But everything's about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks, advised by his brilliant VP, Grace and Guy, makes a thinly veiled campaign move and takes her in.

Publisher: n/a
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43396440036

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DVD

African American History Month (Feb)

Norfolk Public Library

June, 15 2024 17:41:01

Illustrated Black History

HBCU Made

Music Is History

Black TV

Misty Copeland

The Black Box

Supreme Actresses

Jubilee

What Have We Here?

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald

Dapper Dan

Vintage Black Glamour

Black AF History

The Mother of Black Hollywood

Kwame Brathwaite

I Put A Spell On You

Black Food

Will

Gullah Geechee Home Cooking

Tupac Shakur

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

The 1619 Project

You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays

African American Poetry

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

The Most Defining Moments in Black History According to Dick Gregory

Black Firsts

The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health

Official Guide to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Black Cake

Take My Hand

Let Us Descend

The Color Purple

The Coldest Winter Ever

Yonder

Perish

The American Queen

The New Naturals

Hell of a Book

Time's Undoing

The Violin Conspiracy

Symphony of Secrets

My Monticello

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

Lot

Lakewood

Harlem Shuffle

Big

Young, Gifted and Black Too

Curlfriends

There Was a Party for Langston

Who Was Langston Hughes?

The ABCs of Black History

We Could Fly

Freewater

My Little Golden Book About Misty Copeland

Ordinary Days

Chef Edna

Rock, Rosetta, Rock! Roll, Rosetta, Roll!

Just Jerry

To Boldly Go

This Is Tap!

On the Line

The 1619 Project

An American Story

Timelines from Black History

Black Boy Joy

Poemhood

Notes from a Young Black Chef

Can't Stop Won't Stop

Black Internet Effect

Augusta Savage

The Awakening of Malcolm X

You Are More Than Magic

So Many Beginnings

The Cost of Knowing

Chlorine Sky