Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelous debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mothers side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity." - James Baldwin
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375507892
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Hardcover
The Complete Poetry
By Angelou, Maya
Throughout her illustrious career in letters, Maya Angelou gifted, healed, and inspired the world with her words. Now the beauty and spirit of those words live on in this new and complete collection of poetry that reflects and honors the writer's remarkable life. Every poetic phrase, every poignant verse can be found within the pages of this sure-to-be-treasured volume - from her reflections on African American life and hardship in the compilation Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie ("Though there's one thing that I cry for / I believe enough to die for / That is every man's responsibility to man") to her revolutionary celebrations of womanhood in the poem "Still I Rise" ("Out of the huts of history's shame / I rise / Up from a past that's rooted in pain / I rise") to her "On the Pulse of Morning" tribute at President William Jefferson Clinton's inauguration ("Lift up your eyes upon / The day breaking for you.
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812997875
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Hardcover
Go Tell It on the Mountain
By Baldwin, James
This haunting coming-of-age story, based in part on James Baldwin's childhood in Harlem, is an American classic. Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was Baldwin's first major work. With a potent combination of lyrical compassion and resonant rage, he portrays a fourteen-year-old boy questioning the terms of his identity. John Grimes is the stepson of a fire-breathing and abusive Pentecostal preacher in Harlem during the Depression. The action of this short novel spans a single day in John's life, and yet manages to encompass on an epic scale his family's troubled past and his own inchoate longings for the future, set against a shining vision of a city where he both does and does not belong. Baldwin's story illuminates the racism his characters face as well as the double-edged role religion plays in their lives, both oppressive and inspirational.
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9781101907610
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Print book
Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems
By Baldwin, James
All of the published poetry of James Baldwin, including six significant poems previously only available in a limited edition During his lifetime (1924–1987), James Baldwin authored seven novels, as well as several plays and essay collections, which were published to wide-spread praise. These books, among them Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room, and Go Tell It on the Mountain, brought him well-deserved acclaim as a public intellectual and admiration as a writer. However, Baldwin’s earliest writing was in poetic form, and Baldwin considered himself a poet throughout his lifetime. Nonetheless, his single book of poetry, Jimmy’s Blues, never achieved the popularity of his novels and nonfiction, and is the one and only book to fall out of print.
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807084867
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Fledgling
By Butler, Octavia E.
Fledgling, Octavia Butler's last novel, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly un-human needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted - and still wants - to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human.
Publisher: n/a
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1583226907
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Print book
Kindred
By Butler, Octavia E
Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. With more than 100,000 copies in print, Kindred is a classic timetravel novel by an acclaime
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9780807083055
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Paperback
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime
By Cooper, J California
Whether through her stories or her legendary readings, J. California Cooper has an uncanny ability to reach out to readers like an old and dear friend. Her characters are plain-spoken and direct: simple people for whom life, despite its ever-present struggles, is always worth the
Publisher: n/a
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385467885
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Countee Cullen
By Cullen, Countee
A major and sometimes controversial figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Countee Cullen fused a mastery of the formal lyric with a passionate engagement with themes social, religious, racial, and personal in such books as Color, Copper Sun, and The Black Christ. Certain of his poems—“Heritage,” “Yet Do I Marvel”—are widely celebrated, but much of Cullen’s work remains to be discovered. This volume restores to print a body of work of singular intensity and beauty. This is volume #32 in The Library of America’s American Poets Project series.
Publisher: n/a
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9781598530834
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Book
A, B, C
By Delany, Samuel R.
A, B, C: Three Short Novels contains the first three novels of Samuel R. Delany's long and illustrious career. The Jewels of Aptor is a science-fantasy story about a seafaring quest that sets out to find powerful magic jewels on a mystical, forbidden island where unimaginable danger lies. The Ballad of Beta-2 is about a future academic searching for the true story behind an interstellar voyage, a journey over multiple generations that ended in tragedy. They Fly at iron is a fantasy about the clash between a marauding army and a peaceful village at the foot of a mountain from which a race of winged people oversees both sides. Presenting these three novels in this omnibus volume for the first time, along with a new foreword and afterword by the author, A, B, C showcases Delany's masterful storytelling ability and deep devotion to his craft.
Publisher: n/a
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9781101911426
|
Paperback
Finding Gideon
By Dickey, Eric Jerome
A professional job turns personal for jet-setting contract killer Gideon in this sexy, thrilling page-turner by New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey. As a hit man from the time he was very young, money, women, and danger have always ruled Gideon's life; but for the first time, the job is taking its toll. Neither Gideon nor the city of Buenos Aires has recovered from the mayhem caused during Gideon's last job. But before the dust has settled and the bodies have been buried, Gideon calls in backup - including the lovely Hawks, with whom Gideon has heated memories - to launch his biggest act of revenge yet...one he believes will destroy his adversary, Midnight, once and for all.Yet Midnight and his second-in-command, the beautiful and ruthless Seorita Raven, are launching their own revenge, assembling a team of mercenaries the likes of which the world has never seen ... and Gideon isn't their only target. Gideon will need all of his skills if he is to save not only his team, but his family as well.Dickey's new novel stirs up a whirlwind of sex and violence that spans the globe...and leaves no moral boundary uncrossed.
Publisher: n/a
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9781101985496
|
Hardcover
One Night
By Dickey, Eric Jerome
The New York Times bestselling author checks in to the hotel of readers' dreams for an ardent romantic adventure that lasts just One Night. For one night, a couple checks in to an upscale hotel. The pair seem unlikely companions, from opposing strata of society, but their attraction is palpable to all who observe them - or overhear their cries of passion. In the course of twelve hours, con games, erotic interludes, jealousy, violence, and murder swirl around them. Will they part ways in bliss, in sorrow, or in death?Filled with all the hallmarks of an Eric Jerome Dickey bestseller - erotic situations, edge-of-your-seat twists and turns, and fun, believable relationships - One Night will delight Dickey's existing fans and lure countless new ones.
Publisher: n/a
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525954856
|
Print book
Frederick Douglass
By Douglass, Frederick
Frederick Douglass, born a slave, educated himself, escaped, and made himself one of the greatest leaders in American history. His brilliant anti-slavery speeches were so fiercely intelligent, and so startlingly eloquent, that many people didn't believe he had been a slave. To prove them wrong, Douglass decided to write his own story. His autobiographical narratives stunned the world, and have shocked, moved, and inspired readers ever since. Here, complete for the first time in one authoritative volume, are the three powerful and gripping stories, now recognized as classics of American writing. Fascinating firsthand accounts of slavery and abolitionism, John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the emerging struggle for civil rights, they are above all the inspiring story of a self-made American: a slave who became adviser to the President, minister to Haiti, and the most influential black American of the nineteenth century.
Publisher: n/a
|
940450798
|
Hardcover
Collected poems
By Dove, Rita
Three decades of powerful lyric poetry from a virtuoso of the English language in one unabridged volume.Rita Dove's Collected Poems 1974-2004 showcases the wide-ranging diversity that earned her a Pulitzer Prize, the position of U.S. poet laureate, a National Humanities Medal, and a National Medal of Art. Gathering thirty years and seven books, this volume compiles Dove's fresh reflections on adolescence in The Yellow House on the Corner and her irreverent musings in Museum. She sets the moving love story of Thomas and Beulah against the backdrop of war, industrialization, and the civil right struggles. The multifaceted gems of Grace Notes, the exquisite reinvention of Greek myth in the sonnets of Mother Love, the troubling rapids of recent history in On the Bus with Rosa Parks, and the homage to America's kaleidoscopic cultural heritage in American Smooth all celebrate Dove's mastery of narrative context with lyrical finesse. With the "precise, singing lines" for which the Washington Post praised her, Dove "has created fresh configurations of the traditional and the experimental" (Poetry magazine) .
Publisher: n/a
|
393285944
|
Print book
Sonata Mulattica
By Dove, Rita
In a book-length lyric narrative inspired by history and imagination, a much celebrated poet re-creates the life of a nineteenth-century virtuoso violinist. The son of a white woman and an "African Prince," George Polgreen Bridgetower (1780-1860) travels to Vienn
Publisher: n/a
|
393070085
|
The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
By Bois, W.e.b. Du
This volume assembles essential essays some published only posthumously, others obscure, another only recently translated by W. E. B. Du Bois from 1894 to early 1906. They show the first formulations of some of his most famous ideas, namely, "the veil," "double-consciousness," and the "problem of the color line." Moreover, the deep historical sense of the formation of the modern world that informs Du Bois's thought and gave rise to his understanding of "the problem of the color line" is on display here. Indeed, the essays constitute an essential companion to Du Bois's masterpiece published in 1903 as The Souls of Black Folk.The collection is based on two editorial principles: presenting the essays in their entirety and in strict chronological order.
Publisher: n/a
|
823254550
|
W.E.B. Du Bois
By Lewis, David L
The essential writings of Du Bois have been selected and edited by David Levering Lewis, his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.
Publisher: n/a
|
805032630
|
I Greet the Dawn
By Dunbar, Paul Laurence
A brief biography of the poet precedes a collection of his works, most in standard English rather than dialect, with such themes as love, hate, death, nature, and religion.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780689306136
|
Book
Tears We Cannot Stop
By Anonymous.,
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE | NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2017 BY: The Washington Post * Bustle * Men's Journal * The Chicago Reader * StarTribune * Blavity "One of the most frank and searing discussions on race ... a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and King's Why We Can't Wait." -- The New York Times Book ReviewToni Morrison hails Tears We Cannot Stop as "Elegantly written and powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish." Stephen King says: "Here's a sermon that's as fierce as it is lucid ... If you're black, you'll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you're white, Dyson tells you what you need to know?what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen."Short, emotional, literary, powerful -- Tears We Cannot Stop is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice soars above the rest with conviction and compassion. In his 2016 New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop -- a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted. "The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future. If we don't act now, if you don't address race immediately, there very well may be no future."
Publisher: n/a
|
9781250135995
|
Print book
Invisible Man
By Ellison, Ralph
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
Publisher: n/a
|
679732764
|
Paperback
Finding Fish
By Fisher, Antwone Quenton
Soon to be a major motion picture starring and directed by Denzel Washington, Finding Fish is the memoir of Antwone Fisher's miraculous journey from abandonment and abuse to liberation, manhood, and extraordinary success -- a modern-day Oliver Twist.Baby Boy Fisher -- as he was documented in his child welfare caseworkers' reports -- was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. After beginning his life in an orphanage, Antwone was placed in a temporary foster home until, around age two, he was transferred to a second foster home. It was there, over the next thirteen years, that he endured emotional abandonment and physical abuse. Removed from this foster home not long before his sixteenth birthday, Antwone found fleeting refuge in a boys' reform school but was soon thrust into the nightmare of homelessness.
Publisher: n/a
|
688176992
|
Print book
A Lesson Before Dying
By Gaines, Ernest J
From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
Publisher: n/a
|
679414770
|
Print book
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
By Gaines, Ernest J.
Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s now-classic novel—written as an autobiography—spans one hundred years of Miss Jane’s remarkable life, from her childhood as a slave on a Louisiana plantation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. It is a story of courage and survival, history, bigotry, and hope—as seen through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all. A historical tour de force, a triumph of fiction, Miss Jane’s eloquent narrative brings to life an important story of race in America—and stands as a landmark work for our time.
.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780385342780
|
Paperback
A Raisin in the Sun
By Hansberry, Lorraine
This groundbreaking play starred Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeill, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands in the Broadway production which opened in 1959. Set on Chicagos South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena, called Mama. When her deceased husbands insurance money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans, however buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. Sacrifice, trust and love among the Younger family and their heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780679755333
|
Paperback
THE COMPLETE STORIES.
By Hurston, Zora Neale
This landmark gathering of Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction - most of which appeared only in literary magazines during her lifetime - reveals the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. Spanning her career from 1921 to 1955, these stories attest to Hu
Publisher: n/a
|
9780060167325
|
Book
Their Eyes Were Watching God
By Hurston, Zora Neale
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Publisher: n/a
|
252017781
|
To Be A Slave
By Lester, Julius
What was it like to be a slave? Listen to the words and learn about the lives of countless slaves and ex-slaves, telling about their forced journey from Africa to the United States, their work in the fields and houses of their owners, and their passion for freedom. You will never look at life the same way again.
Publisher: n/a
|
142403865
|
Paperback
The Big Sea
By Hughes, Langston
Introduction by Arnold Rampersad.Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew
Publisher: n/a
|
809015498
|
Book
The Weary Blues
By Hughes, Langston
Nearly ninety years after its first publication, this celebratory edition of The Weary Blues reminds us of the stunning achievement of Langston Hughes, who was just twenty-four at its first appearance. Beginning with the opening "Proem" (prologue poem) - "I am a Negro: / Black as the night is black, / Black like the depths of my Africa" - Hughes spoke directly, intimately, and powerfully of the experiences of African Americans at a time when their voices were newly being heard in our literature. As the legendary Carl Van Vechten wrote in a brief introduction to the original 1926 edition, "His cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race .
Publisher: n/a
|
385352972
|
Hardcover
Who Asked You?
By Mcmillan, Terry
Family ties are tested and transformed in the new novel from 1 New York Times bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove BackWith her wise, wry, and poignant novels of families and friendshipsWaiting to Exhale, Getting to Happy, and A Day Late and a Dollar Short among themTerry McMillan has touched millions of readers. Now, in her eighth novel, McMillan gives exuberant voice to characters who reveal how we live nowat least as lived in a racially diverse Los Angeles neighborhood.Kaleidoscopic, fast-paced, and filled with McMillans inimitable humor, Who Asked You opens as Trinetta leaves her two young sons with her mother, Betty Jean, and promptly disappears. BJ, a trademark McMillan heroine, already has her hands full dealing with her other adult children, two opinionated sisters, an ill husband, and her own postponed dreamsall while holding down a job delivering room service at a hotel.
Publisher: n/a
|
670785695
|
Hardcover
Beloved
By Morrison, Toni
Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend and imagination.It is the story--set in post-Civil War Ohio--of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in order to wrench herself from a living death; who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad: a woman of "iron eyes and backbone to match." Sethe lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved.
Publisher: n/a
|
394535979
|
Print book
I Almost Forgot About You
By Mcmillan, Terry
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting To Exhale is back with the inspiring story of a woman who shakes things up in her life to find greater meaningIn I Almost Forgot About You, Dr. Georgia Young's wonderful life--great friends, family, and successful career--aren't enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her life, including quitting her job as an optometrist and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Georgia's bravery reminds us that it's never too late to become the person you want to be, and that taking chances, with your life and your heart, are always worthwhile. Big-hearted, genuine, and universal, I Almost Forgot About You shows what can happen when you face your fears, take a chance, and open yourself up to life, love, and the possibility of a new direction.It's everything you've always loved about Terry McMillan.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781101902578
|
Print book
The Bluest Eye
By Morrison, Toni
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove -- a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate
Publisher: n/a
|
679433732
|
Inside a Silver Box
By Mosley, Walter
Walter Mosley's talent knows no bounds. Inside a Silver Box continues to explore the cosmic questions entertainingly discussed in his Crosstown to Oblivion. From life's meaning to the nature of good and evil, Mosley takes readers on a speculative journey beyond reality.In Inside a Silver Box, two people brought together by a horrific act are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box. The two join to protect humanity from destruction by an alien race, the Laz, hell-bent on regaining control over the Silver Box, the most destructive and powerful tool in the universe. The Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means finishing the earth itself.
Publisher: n/a
|
765375214
|
Hardcover
And Sometimes I Wonder About You
By Mosley, Walter
The welcome return of Leonid McGill, Walter Mosley's NYC-based private eye, his East Coast foil to his immortal L.A.-based detective Easy Rawlins. As the Boston Globe raved, "A poignantly real character, [McGill is] not only the newest of the great fictional detectives, but also an incisive and insightful commentator on the American scene." In the fifth Leonid McGill novel, Leonid finds himself in an unusual pickle of trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. Leonid's father is still out there somewhere, and his wife is in an uptown sanitarium trying to recover from the deep depression that led to her attempted suicide in the previous novel. His wife's condition has put a damper on his affair with Aura Ullman, his girlfriend.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780385539180
|
Hardcover
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
By Shange, Ntozake
From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and on Broadway, the Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975 when it was praised by The New Yorker for "encompassing...every feeling and experience a woman has ever had," for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.
Publisher: n/a
|
684843269
|
Paperback
What I Know for Sure
By Smiley, Tavis
“I Have a Dream,” Dr. King intoned. In English class, we were just starting to learn about similes and metaphors and figures of speech. Those concepts weren’t immediately clear to me as Dr. King talked about “symbolic shadow,” but …I understood the power of symbolic language.Over the next several weeks, I spent hours studying that one speech…King’s speeches touched me so deeply and profoundly that, for reasons I couldn’t explain, I found myself crying. I wasn’t sure what those tears represented: maybe his words touched the pain and hurt and humiliation I was still feeling; maybe my tears stemmed from the new confidence and purpose his words gave me. Maybe I felt an empathy with my people whose history of suffering and survival was coming alive to me for the first time.
Publisher: n/a
|
385505167
|
Hardcover
Pecking Order
By Tyree, Omar
* Bestselling author: One of the most popular and acclaimed African-American novelists of his generation, Omar Tyree has had five New York Times bestsellers, in addition to numerous other national lists over the years. Pecking Order, with its perfect blend of money, sex, and vuln
Publisher: n/a
|
1416541934
|
Book
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
By Walker, Alice
In this, her first collection of nonfiction, Alice Walker speaks out as ablack woman, writer, mother, and feminist in thirty-six pieces rangingfrom the personal to the political. Among the contents are essays aboutother writers, accounts of the civil rights movement of
Publisher: n/a
|
156028646
|
The Color Purple
By Walker, Alice
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of two sisters through their correspondence. With a new Preface by the author.
Publisher: n/a
|
151191549
|
Hardcover
Black Prophetic Fire
By West, Cornel
An unflinching look at nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies In an accessible conversational format Cornel West with distinguished scholar Christa Buschendorf provides a fresh perspective on six revolutionary African American leaders Frederick Douglass W E B Du Bois Martin Luther King Jr Ella Baker Malcolm X and Ida B Wells In dialogue with Buschendorf West examines the impact of these men and women on their own eras and across the decades He not only rediscovers the integrity and commitment within these passionate advocates but also their fault lines West in these illuminating conversations with the German scholar and thinker Christa Buschendorf describes Douglass as a complex man who is both ldquothe towering Black freedom fighter of the nineteenth centuryrdquo and a product of his time who lost sight of the fight for civil rights after the emancipation He calls Du Bois ldquoundeniably the most important Black intellectual of the twentieth centuryrdquo and explores the more radical aspects of his thinking in order to understand his uncompromising critique of the United States which has been omitted from the American collective memory West argues that our selective memory has sanitized and even ldquoSantaclausifiedrdquo Martin Luther King Jr rendering him less radical and has marginalized Ella Baker who embodies the grassroots organizing of the civil rights movement The controversial Malcolm X who is often seen as a proponent of reverse racism hatred and violence has been demonized in a false opposition with King while the appeal of his rhetoric and sincerity to students has been sidelined Ida B Wells West argues shares Malcolm Xrsquos radical spirit and fearless speech but has ldquooften become the victim of public amnesiardquo By providing new insights that humanize all of these well-known figures in the engrossing dialogue with Buschendorf and in his insightful introduction and powerful closing essay Cornel West takes an important step in rekindling the Black prophetic fire so essential in the age of Obama.
Publisher: n/a
|
807003522
|
Hardcover
Hope on a Tightrope
By West, Cornel
“You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people.” The New York Times bestselling author of Race Matters and Democracy Matters offers provocative, open-hearted wisdom for our times. In a world that yearns for unarmed truth and unconditional love, in the midst of cold greed and blind hatred, Hope on a Tightrope offers a new compass. This courageous collection will challenge all those in search of new perspectives and provides deep wells of inspiration that marry the mind to the heart. Whether writing on race and identity, courage and faith, or music and philosophy,Dr. West reveals himself as a brilliant philosopher who loves us enough to make us think.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781401930769
|
Paperback
Writing to Save a Life
By Wideman, John Edgar
An award-winning writer traces the life of the father of iconic Civil Rights martyr Emmett Till - a man who was executed by the Army ten years before Emmett's murder. An evocative and personal exploration of individual and collective memory in America by one of the most formidable Black intellectuals of our time.In 1955, Emmett Till, aged fourteen, traveled from his home in Chicago to visit family in Mississippi. Several weeks later he returned, dead; allegedly he whistled at a white woman. His mother, Mamie, wanted the world to see what had been done to her son. She chose to leave his casket open. Images of her brutalized boy were published widely. While Emmett's story is known, there's a dark side note that's rarely mentioned. Ten years earlier, Emmett's father was executed by the Army for rape and murder. In Writing to Save a Life, John Edgar Wideman searches for Louis Till, a silent victim of American injustice. Wideman's personal interaction with the story began when he learned of Emmett's murder in 1955; Wideman was also fourteen years old. After reading decades later about Louis's execution, he couldn't escape the twin tragedies of father and son, and tells their stories together for the first time. Author of the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Wideman brings extraordinary insight and a haunting intimacy to this devastating story. An amalgam of research, memoir, and imagination, Writing to Save a Life is completely original in its delivery - an engaging and enlightening conversation between generations, the living and the dead, fathers and sons. Wideman turns seventy-five this year, and he brings the force of his substantial intellect and experience to this beautiful, stirring book, his first nonfiction in fifteen years.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781501147289
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Print book
The Piano Lesson
By Wilson, August
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for DramaWinner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best PlayAugust Wilson has already given the American theater such spell-binding plays about the black experience in 20th-century America as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,
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452265347
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Fences
By Wilson, August
From legendary playwright August Wilson comes the powerful, stunning dramatic bestseller that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Now an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Denzel Washington, along with Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis.
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452264014
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Paperback
Richard Wright
By Wright, Richard
The library of America is dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as the "finest-looking, longest-lasting editions ever made" (The New Republic) , Library of America volumes make a fine gift for any occasion. Now, with exactly one hundred volumes to choose from, there is a perfect gift for everyone.
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940450666
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Print book
Sister Outsider
By Lorde, Audre
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9781515925439
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electronic resource
Great African American literary voices
By Hughes, Langston
Hear rare recordings from five of the most-respected African American poets reading their own works: Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers; Arna Bontemps, Nocturne At Bethesda; Countee Cullen, Heritage; Gwendolyn Brooks, The Vacant Lot; and Sonia Sanchez, Black Magic.
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9781593165178
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Audiobook
Great African American literary voices
By Hughes, Langston
n/a
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9789629547226
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Audiobook
Rosa
By Giovanni, Nikki
The story of Rosa Parks and her courageous act of defiance. Provides the story of the young black woman who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in Alabama, setting in motion all the events of the Civil Rights Movements that resulted in the end of the segregated south,
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9780545042598
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Ellington was not a street
By Shange, Ntozake
In this touching memoir, children's poet Ntozake Shange recalls her segregated childhood and reveals how different things were then.
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9780439775816
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Audiobook
Black Boy
By Wright, Richard
Sacred FireBlack Boy is Richard Wright's unforgettable story of growing up in the Jim Crow South. Published in 1945, it is often considered a fictionalized autobiography or an autobiographical novel because of Wright's use of fiction techniques (and possibly fictional events) to tell his story. Nevertheless, the book is a lyrical and skillfully wrought description of Wright's hungry youth in rural Mississippi and Memphis, told from the perspective of the adult Wright, who was still trying to come to grips with the cruel deprivations and humiliations of his childhood.
Life in the pre—civil rights South was intensely alienating for young Richard. At every turn, his desire to communicate was stunted, whether by famiIy members who insisted he "hush!" or by teachers who harassed and mocked him.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
By Angelou, Maya
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelous debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mothers side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity." - James Baldwin
The Complete Poetry
By Angelou, Maya
Throughout her illustrious career in letters, Maya Angelou gifted, healed, and inspired the world with her words. Now the beauty and spirit of those words live on in this new and complete collection of poetry that reflects and honors the writer's remarkable life. Every poetic phrase, every poignant verse can be found within the pages of this sure-to-be-treasured volume - from her reflections on African American life and hardship in the compilation Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie ("Though there's one thing that I cry for / I believe enough to die for / That is every man's responsibility to man") to her revolutionary celebrations of womanhood in the poem "Still I Rise" ("Out of the huts of history's shame / I rise / Up from a past that's rooted in pain / I rise") to her "On the Pulse of Morning" tribute at President William Jefferson Clinton's inauguration ("Lift up your eyes upon / The day breaking for you.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
By Baldwin, James
This haunting coming-of-age story, based in part on James Baldwin's childhood in Harlem, is an American classic. Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was Baldwin's first major work. With a potent combination of lyrical compassion and resonant rage, he portrays a fourteen-year-old boy questioning the terms of his identity. John Grimes is the stepson of a fire-breathing and abusive Pentecostal preacher in Harlem during the Depression. The action of this short novel spans a single day in John's life, and yet manages to encompass on an epic scale his family's troubled past and his own inchoate longings for the future, set against a shining vision of a city where he both does and does not belong. Baldwin's story illuminates the racism his characters face as well as the double-edged role religion plays in their lives, both oppressive and inspirational.
Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems
By Baldwin, James
All of the published poetry of James Baldwin, including six significant poems previously only available in a limited edition During his lifetime (1924–1987), James Baldwin authored seven novels, as well as several plays and essay collections, which were published to wide-spread praise. These books, among them Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room, and Go Tell It on the Mountain, brought him well-deserved acclaim as a public intellectual and admiration as a writer. However, Baldwin’s earliest writing was in poetic form, and Baldwin considered himself a poet throughout his lifetime. Nonetheless, his single book of poetry, Jimmy’s Blues, never achieved the popularity of his novels and nonfiction, and is the one and only book to fall out of print.
Fledgling
By Butler, Octavia E.
Fledgling, Octavia Butler's last novel, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly un-human needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted - and still wants - to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human.
Kindred
By Butler, Octavia E
Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. With more than 100,000 copies in print, Kindred is a classic timetravel novel by an acclaime
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime
By Cooper, J California
Whether through her stories or her legendary readings, J. California Cooper has an uncanny ability to reach out to readers like an old and dear friend. Her characters are plain-spoken and direct: simple people for whom life, despite its ever-present struggles, is always worth the
Countee Cullen
By Cullen, Countee
A major and sometimes controversial figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Countee Cullen fused a mastery of the formal lyric with a passionate engagement with themes social, religious, racial, and personal in such books as Color, Copper Sun, and The Black Christ. Certain of his poems—“Heritage,” “Yet Do I Marvel”—are widely celebrated, but much of Cullen’s work remains to be discovered. This volume restores to print a body of work of singular intensity and beauty. This is volume #32 in The Library of America’s American Poets Project series.
A, B, C
By Delany, Samuel R.
A, B, C: Three Short Novels contains the first three novels of Samuel R. Delany's long and illustrious career. The Jewels of Aptor is a science-fantasy story about a seafaring quest that sets out to find powerful magic jewels on a mystical, forbidden island where unimaginable danger lies. The Ballad of Beta-2 is about a future academic searching for the true story behind an interstellar voyage, a journey over multiple generations that ended in tragedy. They Fly at iron is a fantasy about the clash between a marauding army and a peaceful village at the foot of a mountain from which a race of winged people oversees both sides. Presenting these three novels in this omnibus volume for the first time, along with a new foreword and afterword by the author, A, B, C showcases Delany's masterful storytelling ability and deep devotion to his craft.
Finding Gideon
By Dickey, Eric Jerome
A professional job turns personal for jet-setting contract killer Gideon in this sexy, thrilling page-turner by New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey. As a hit man from the time he was very young, money, women, and danger have always ruled Gideon's life; but for the first time, the job is taking its toll. Neither Gideon nor the city of Buenos Aires has recovered from the mayhem caused during Gideon's last job. But before the dust has settled and the bodies have been buried, Gideon calls in backup - including the lovely Hawks, with whom Gideon has heated memories - to launch his biggest act of revenge yet...one he believes will destroy his adversary, Midnight, once and for all.Yet Midnight and his second-in-command, the beautiful and ruthless Seorita Raven, are launching their own revenge, assembling a team of mercenaries the likes of which the world has never seen ... and Gideon isn't their only target. Gideon will need all of his skills if he is to save not only his team, but his family as well.Dickey's new novel stirs up a whirlwind of sex and violence that spans the globe...and leaves no moral boundary uncrossed.
One Night
By Dickey, Eric Jerome
The New York Times bestselling author checks in to the hotel of readers' dreams for an ardent romantic adventure that lasts just One Night. For one night, a couple checks in to an upscale hotel. The pair seem unlikely companions, from opposing strata of society, but their attraction is palpable to all who observe them - or overhear their cries of passion. In the course of twelve hours, con games, erotic interludes, jealousy, violence, and murder swirl around them. Will they part ways in bliss, in sorrow, or in death?Filled with all the hallmarks of an Eric Jerome Dickey bestseller - erotic situations, edge-of-your-seat twists and turns, and fun, believable relationships - One Night will delight Dickey's existing fans and lure countless new ones.
Frederick Douglass
By Douglass, Frederick
Frederick Douglass, born a slave, educated himself, escaped, and made himself one of the greatest leaders in American history. His brilliant anti-slavery speeches were so fiercely intelligent, and so startlingly eloquent, that many people didn't believe he had been a slave. To prove them wrong, Douglass decided to write his own story. His autobiographical narratives stunned the world, and have shocked, moved, and inspired readers ever since. Here, complete for the first time in one authoritative volume, are the three powerful and gripping stories, now recognized as classics of American writing. Fascinating firsthand accounts of slavery and abolitionism, John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the emerging struggle for civil rights, they are above all the inspiring story of a self-made American: a slave who became adviser to the President, minister to Haiti, and the most influential black American of the nineteenth century.
Collected poems
By Dove, Rita
Three decades of powerful lyric poetry from a virtuoso of the English language in one unabridged volume.Rita Dove's Collected Poems 1974-2004 showcases the wide-ranging diversity that earned her a Pulitzer Prize, the position of U.S. poet laureate, a National Humanities Medal, and a National Medal of Art. Gathering thirty years and seven books, this volume compiles Dove's fresh reflections on adolescence in The Yellow House on the Corner and her irreverent musings in Museum. She sets the moving love story of Thomas and Beulah against the backdrop of war, industrialization, and the civil right struggles. The multifaceted gems of Grace Notes, the exquisite reinvention of Greek myth in the sonnets of Mother Love, the troubling rapids of recent history in On the Bus with Rosa Parks, and the homage to America's kaleidoscopic cultural heritage in American Smooth all celebrate Dove's mastery of narrative context with lyrical finesse. With the "precise, singing lines" for which the Washington Post praised her, Dove "has created fresh configurations of the traditional and the experimental" (Poetry magazine) .
Sonata Mulattica
By Dove, Rita
In a book-length lyric narrative inspired by history and imagination, a much celebrated poet re-creates the life of a nineteenth-century virtuoso violinist. The son of a white woman and an "African Prince," George Polgreen Bridgetower (1780-1860) travels to Vienn
The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
By Bois, W.e.b. Du
This volume assembles essential essays some published only posthumously, others obscure, another only recently translated by W. E. B. Du Bois from 1894 to early 1906. They show the first formulations of some of his most famous ideas, namely, "the veil," "double-consciousness," and the "problem of the color line." Moreover, the deep historical sense of the formation of the modern world that informs Du Bois's thought and gave rise to his understanding of "the problem of the color line" is on display here. Indeed, the essays constitute an essential companion to Du Bois's masterpiece published in 1903 as The Souls of Black Folk.The collection is based on two editorial principles: presenting the essays in their entirety and in strict chronological order.
W.E.B. Du Bois
By Lewis, David L
The essential writings of Du Bois have been selected and edited by David Levering Lewis, his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.
I Greet the Dawn
By Dunbar, Paul Laurence
A brief biography of the poet precedes a collection of his works, most in standard English rather than dialect, with such themes as love, hate, death, nature, and religion.
Tears We Cannot Stop
By Anonymous.,
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE | NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2017 BY: The Washington Post * Bustle * Men's Journal * The Chicago Reader * StarTribune * Blavity "One of the most frank and searing discussions on race ... a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and King's Why We Can't Wait." -- The New York Times Book ReviewToni Morrison hails Tears We Cannot Stop as "Elegantly written and powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish." Stephen King says: "Here's a sermon that's as fierce as it is lucid ... If you're black, you'll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you're white, Dyson tells you what you need to know?what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen."Short, emotional, literary, powerful -- Tears We Cannot Stop is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice soars above the rest with conviction and compassion. In his 2016 New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop -- a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted. "The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future. If we don't act now, if you don't address race immediately, there very well may be no future."
Invisible Man
By Ellison, Ralph
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
Finding Fish
By Fisher, Antwone Quenton
Soon to be a major motion picture starring and directed by Denzel Washington, Finding Fish is the memoir of Antwone Fisher's miraculous journey from abandonment and abuse to liberation, manhood, and extraordinary success -- a modern-day Oliver Twist.Baby Boy Fisher -- as he was documented in his child welfare caseworkers' reports -- was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. After beginning his life in an orphanage, Antwone was placed in a temporary foster home until, around age two, he was transferred to a second foster home. It was there, over the next thirteen years, that he endured emotional abandonment and physical abuse. Removed from this foster home not long before his sixteenth birthday, Antwone found fleeting refuge in a boys' reform school but was soon thrust into the nightmare of homelessness.
A Lesson Before Dying
By Gaines, Ernest J
From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
By Gaines, Ernest J.
Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s now-classic novel—written as an autobiography—spans one hundred years of Miss Jane’s remarkable life, from her childhood as a slave on a Louisiana plantation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. It is a story of courage and survival, history, bigotry, and hope—as seen through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all. A historical tour de force, a triumph of fiction, Miss Jane’s eloquent narrative brings to life an important story of race in America—and stands as a landmark work for our time. .
A Raisin in the Sun
By Hansberry, Lorraine
This groundbreaking play starred Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeill, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands in the Broadway production which opened in 1959. Set on Chicagos South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena, called Mama. When her deceased husbands insurance money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans, however buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. Sacrifice, trust and love among the Younger family and their heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration.
THE COMPLETE STORIES.
By Hurston, Zora Neale
This landmark gathering of Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction - most of which appeared only in literary magazines during her lifetime - reveals the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. Spanning her career from 1921 to 1955, these stories attest to Hu
Their Eyes Were Watching God
By Hurston, Zora Neale
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
To Be A Slave
By Lester, Julius
What was it like to be a slave? Listen to the words and learn about the lives of countless slaves and ex-slaves, telling about their forced journey from Africa to the United States, their work in the fields and houses of their owners, and their passion for freedom. You will never look at life the same way again.
The Big Sea
By Hughes, Langston
Introduction by Arnold Rampersad.Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew
The Weary Blues
By Hughes, Langston
Nearly ninety years after its first publication, this celebratory edition of The Weary Blues reminds us of the stunning achievement of Langston Hughes, who was just twenty-four at its first appearance. Beginning with the opening "Proem" (prologue poem) - "I am a Negro: / Black as the night is black, / Black like the depths of my Africa" - Hughes spoke directly, intimately, and powerfully of the experiences of African Americans at a time when their voices were newly being heard in our literature. As the legendary Carl Van Vechten wrote in a brief introduction to the original 1926 edition, "His cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race .
Who Asked You?
By Mcmillan, Terry
Family ties are tested and transformed in the new novel from 1 New York Times bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove BackWith her wise, wry, and poignant novels of families and friendshipsWaiting to Exhale, Getting to Happy, and A Day Late and a Dollar Short among themTerry McMillan has touched millions of readers. Now, in her eighth novel, McMillan gives exuberant voice to characters who reveal how we live nowat least as lived in a racially diverse Los Angeles neighborhood.Kaleidoscopic, fast-paced, and filled with McMillans inimitable humor, Who Asked You opens as Trinetta leaves her two young sons with her mother, Betty Jean, and promptly disappears. BJ, a trademark McMillan heroine, already has her hands full dealing with her other adult children, two opinionated sisters, an ill husband, and her own postponed dreamsall while holding down a job delivering room service at a hotel.
Beloved
By Morrison, Toni
Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend and imagination.It is the story--set in post-Civil War Ohio--of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in order to wrench herself from a living death; who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad: a woman of "iron eyes and backbone to match." Sethe lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved.
I Almost Forgot About You
By Mcmillan, Terry
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting To Exhale is back with the inspiring story of a woman who shakes things up in her life to find greater meaningIn I Almost Forgot About You, Dr. Georgia Young's wonderful life--great friends, family, and successful career--aren't enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her life, including quitting her job as an optometrist and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Georgia's bravery reminds us that it's never too late to become the person you want to be, and that taking chances, with your life and your heart, are always worthwhile. Big-hearted, genuine, and universal, I Almost Forgot About You shows what can happen when you face your fears, take a chance, and open yourself up to life, love, and the possibility of a new direction. It's everything you've always loved about Terry McMillan.
The Bluest Eye
By Morrison, Toni
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove -- a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate
Inside a Silver Box
By Mosley, Walter
Walter Mosley's talent knows no bounds. Inside a Silver Box continues to explore the cosmic questions entertainingly discussed in his Crosstown to Oblivion. From life's meaning to the nature of good and evil, Mosley takes readers on a speculative journey beyond reality.In Inside a Silver Box, two people brought together by a horrific act are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box. The two join to protect humanity from destruction by an alien race, the Laz, hell-bent on regaining control over the Silver Box, the most destructive and powerful tool in the universe. The Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means finishing the earth itself.
And Sometimes I Wonder About You
By Mosley, Walter
The welcome return of Leonid McGill, Walter Mosley's NYC-based private eye, his East Coast foil to his immortal L.A.-based detective Easy Rawlins. As the Boston Globe raved, "A poignantly real character, [McGill is] not only the newest of the great fictional detectives, but also an incisive and insightful commentator on the American scene." In the fifth Leonid McGill novel, Leonid finds himself in an unusual pickle of trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. Leonid's father is still out there somewhere, and his wife is in an uptown sanitarium trying to recover from the deep depression that led to her attempted suicide in the previous novel. His wife's condition has put a damper on his affair with Aura Ullman, his girlfriend.
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
By Shange, Ntozake
From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and on Broadway, the Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975 when it was praised by The New Yorker for "encompassing...every feeling and experience a woman has ever had," for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.
What I Know for Sure
By Smiley, Tavis
“I Have a Dream,” Dr. King intoned. In English class, we were just starting to learn about similes and metaphors and figures of speech. Those concepts weren’t immediately clear to me as Dr. King talked about “symbolic shadow,” but …I understood the power of symbolic language.Over the next several weeks, I spent hours studying that one speech…King’s speeches touched me so deeply and profoundly that, for reasons I couldn’t explain, I found myself crying. I wasn’t sure what those tears represented: maybe his words touched the pain and hurt and humiliation I was still feeling; maybe my tears stemmed from the new confidence and purpose his words gave me. Maybe I felt an empathy with my people whose history of suffering and survival was coming alive to me for the first time.
Pecking Order
By Tyree, Omar
* Bestselling author: One of the most popular and acclaimed African-American novelists of his generation, Omar Tyree has had five New York Times bestsellers, in addition to numerous other national lists over the years. Pecking Order, with its perfect blend of money, sex, and vuln
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
By Walker, Alice
In this, her first collection of nonfiction, Alice Walker speaks out as ablack woman, writer, mother, and feminist in thirty-six pieces rangingfrom the personal to the political. Among the contents are essays aboutother writers, accounts of the civil rights movement of
The Color Purple
By Walker, Alice
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of two sisters through their correspondence. With a new Preface by the author.
Black Prophetic Fire
By West, Cornel
An unflinching look at nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies In an accessible conversational format Cornel West with distinguished scholar Christa Buschendorf provides a fresh perspective on six revolutionary African American leaders Frederick Douglass W E B Du Bois Martin Luther King Jr Ella Baker Malcolm X and Ida B Wells In dialogue with Buschendorf West examines the impact of these men and women on their own eras and across the decades He not only rediscovers the integrity and commitment within these passionate advocates but also their fault lines West in these illuminating conversations with the German scholar and thinker Christa Buschendorf describes Douglass as a complex man who is both ldquothe towering Black freedom fighter of the nineteenth centuryrdquo and a product of his time who lost sight of the fight for civil rights after the emancipation He calls Du Bois ldquoundeniably the most important Black intellectual of the twentieth centuryrdquo and explores the more radical aspects of his thinking in order to understand his uncompromising critique of the United States which has been omitted from the American collective memory West argues that our selective memory has sanitized and even ldquoSantaclausifiedrdquo Martin Luther King Jr rendering him less radical and has marginalized Ella Baker who embodies the grassroots organizing of the civil rights movement The controversial Malcolm X who is often seen as a proponent of reverse racism hatred and violence has been demonized in a false opposition with King while the appeal of his rhetoric and sincerity to students has been sidelined Ida B Wells West argues shares Malcolm Xrsquos radical spirit and fearless speech but has ldquooften become the victim of public amnesiardquo By providing new insights that humanize all of these well-known figures in the engrossing dialogue with Buschendorf and in his insightful introduction and powerful closing essay Cornel West takes an important step in rekindling the Black prophetic fire so essential in the age of Obama.
Hope on a Tightrope
By West, Cornel
“You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people.” The New York Times bestselling author of Race Matters and Democracy Matters offers provocative, open-hearted wisdom for our times. In a world that yearns for unarmed truth and unconditional love, in the midst of cold greed and blind hatred, Hope on a Tightrope offers a new compass. This courageous collection will challenge all those in search of new perspectives and provides deep wells of inspiration that marry the mind to the heart. Whether writing on race and identity, courage and faith, or music and philosophy,Dr. West reveals himself as a brilliant philosopher who loves us enough to make us think.
Writing to Save a Life
By Wideman, John Edgar
An award-winning writer traces the life of the father of iconic Civil Rights martyr Emmett Till - a man who was executed by the Army ten years before Emmett's murder. An evocative and personal exploration of individual and collective memory in America by one of the most formidable Black intellectuals of our time.In 1955, Emmett Till, aged fourteen, traveled from his home in Chicago to visit family in Mississippi. Several weeks later he returned, dead; allegedly he whistled at a white woman. His mother, Mamie, wanted the world to see what had been done to her son. She chose to leave his casket open. Images of her brutalized boy were published widely. While Emmett's story is known, there's a dark side note that's rarely mentioned. Ten years earlier, Emmett's father was executed by the Army for rape and murder. In Writing to Save a Life, John Edgar Wideman searches for Louis Till, a silent victim of American injustice. Wideman's personal interaction with the story began when he learned of Emmett's murder in 1955; Wideman was also fourteen years old. After reading decades later about Louis's execution, he couldn't escape the twin tragedies of father and son, and tells their stories together for the first time. Author of the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Wideman brings extraordinary insight and a haunting intimacy to this devastating story. An amalgam of research, memoir, and imagination, Writing to Save a Life is completely original in its delivery - an engaging and enlightening conversation between generations, the living and the dead, fathers and sons. Wideman turns seventy-five this year, and he brings the force of his substantial intellect and experience to this beautiful, stirring book, his first nonfiction in fifteen years.
The Piano Lesson
By Wilson, August
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for DramaWinner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best PlayAugust Wilson has already given the American theater such spell-binding plays about the black experience in 20th-century America as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,
Fences
By Wilson, August
From legendary playwright August Wilson comes the powerful, stunning dramatic bestseller that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Now an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Denzel Washington, along with Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis.
Richard Wright
By Wright, Richard
The library of America is dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as the "finest-looking, longest-lasting editions ever made" (The New Republic) , Library of America volumes make a fine gift for any occasion. Now, with exactly one hundred volumes to choose from, there is a perfect gift for everyone.
Sister Outsider
By Lorde, Audre
Great African American literary voices
By Hughes, Langston
Hear rare recordings from five of the most-respected African American poets reading their own works: Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers; Arna Bontemps, Nocturne At Bethesda; Countee Cullen, Heritage; Gwendolyn Brooks, The Vacant Lot; and Sonia Sanchez, Black Magic.
Great African American literary voices
By Hughes, Langston
n/a
Rosa
By Giovanni, Nikki
The story of Rosa Parks and her courageous act of defiance. Provides the story of the young black woman who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in Alabama, setting in motion all the events of the Civil Rights Movements that resulted in the end of the segregated south,
Ellington was not a street
By Shange, Ntozake
In this touching memoir, children's poet Ntozake Shange recalls her segregated childhood and reveals how different things were then.
Black Boy
By Wright, Richard
Sacred FireBlack Boy is Richard Wright's unforgettable story of growing up in the Jim Crow South. Published in 1945, it is often considered a fictionalized autobiography or an autobiographical novel because of Wright's use of fiction techniques (and possibly fictional events) to tell his story. Nevertheless, the book is a lyrical and skillfully wrought description of Wright's hungry youth in rural Mississippi and Memphis, told from the perspective of the adult Wright, who was still trying to come to grips with the cruel deprivations and humiliations of his childhood. Life in the pre—civil rights South was intensely alienating for young Richard. At every turn, his desire to communicate was stunted, whether by famiIy members who insisted he "hush!" or by teachers who harassed and mocked him.