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I Am Nobody's Slave: How Uncovering My Family's History Set Me Free

Lee Hawkins - Amistad
Format: Hardcover

A 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer exhaustively examines his family's legacy of post-enslavement trauma and resilience, in this riveting memoir - a soulful, shocking, and spellbinding read that blends the raw power of Natasha Tretheway's Memorial...
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Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes - Legacy Lit
Format: Hardcover

Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Fall 2024 Poetry Books. From Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works written from 1921-1927 and curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith. Before Langston Hughes and his literary prowess...
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The Message

Ta-Nehisi Coates - One World
Format: Hardcover

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell - and the ones we don't - shape our realities.. Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell's...
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Growing Up Urkel

Jaleel White - Simon & Schuster Audio
Format: Book

An incisive and insightful memoir by one of the most beloved icons of nineties television Jaleel White, the actor who portrayed Steve Urkel on the hit sitcom Family Matters. At the tender age of twelve, Jaleel White auditioned for the role of Steve Urkel, the socially inept genius, who was in love...

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Bloody Tuesday: The Untold Story of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa

John M. Giggie - Oxford University Press
Format: Hardcover

The dramatic story of one of the most violent episodes of the civil rights movement and its role in the ongoing reckoning with racial injustice in the United States.. On Bloody Sunday, activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and faced...
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Lovely One: A Memoir

Ketanji Brown Jackson - Random House
Format: Hardcover

In her inspiring, intimate memoir, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States chronicles her extraordinary life story. With this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji BrownJackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family's...
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The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America

Larry Tye - HarperAudio
Format: Hardcover

From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping group portrait of the pioneers and longtime kings of jazz - Duke Ellington, Satchmo Armstrong, and Count Basie - who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist exclusion and violence to become...
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The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History

Karen Valby - Pantheon
Format: Hardcover

The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history - until now.. At the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lydia Abarca was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company - the Dance Theatre...
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Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity

Michele Norris - Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardcover

Peabody Award-winning journalist Michele Norris offers a transformative dialogue on race and identity in America, unearthed through her decade-long work at The Race Card Project.. The prompt seemed simple: Race. Your Story. Six Words. Please Send. The answers, though, have been challenging...
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3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

James Kaplan - Penguin Audio
Format: Hardcover

From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists - Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans - who came together to create the most iconic jazz album...
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John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community (Black Lives)

Raymond Arsenault - Yale University Press
Format: Hardcover

The first full-length biography of civil rights hero and congressman John Lewis For six decades John Robert Lewis (1940-2020) was a towering figure in the U.S. struggle for civil rights. As an activist and progressive congressman, he was renowned for his unshakable integrity, indomitable...
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Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition

Calvin John Smiley - University of California Press
Format: First Edition

Reentry after release from incarceration is often presented as a story of redemption. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. Those being released must navigate the reentry process with diminished legal rights and amplified social stigmas, in a journey that is often confusing, complex,...
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This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets

Kwame Alexander - Little, Brown & Company
Format: Book

A breathtaking poetry collection on hope, heart, and heritage from the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time, edited by Why Fathers Cry at Night author and #1 New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander.In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology,...

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Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine

Uché Blackstock MD - Viking
Format: Hardcover

"Legacy is both a compelling memoir and an edifying analysis of the inequities in the way we deliver healthcare in America. Uché Blackstock is a force of nature." - Abraham Verghese, MD, New York Times-bestselling author of The Covenant of Water and Cutting for Stone. The rousing,...
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The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir

RuPaul - HarperAudio
Format: Hardcover

From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date - a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance, found family,...
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Black Meme: The History of the Images that Make Us

Legacy Russell

A history of Black imagery that rewrites the history of visual culture and technology now. Representations of Blackness have always been integral to our understanding of of the modern world. In Black Meme, Legacy Russell, award-winning author of the groundbreaking Glitch Feminism,
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The Book of Ziwe: Iconic Commentary and

Ziwe Fumudoh - Abrams Image
Format: Book

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From the writer crowned one of the smartest, funniest voices in modern America, this hotly anticipated debut collection of essays offers “a precious glimpse into how Ziwe’s uniquely fearless mind functions” (New York...

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An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America

Edwin Raymond - Viking
Format: Hardcover

From the highest-ranking whistleblower in NYPD history, a gripping insider look at the complexities of modern policing and the urgent need for reform. Over his decade and a half with the New York Police Department, Edwin Raymond consistently exposed the dark underbelly of modern policing,...
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Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song

Judith Tick - W. W. Norton & Company
Format: Hardcover

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...
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To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul

Tracy K. Smith - Knopf
Format: Hardcover

A stunning personal manifesto on memory, family, and history that explores how we in America might - together - come to a new view of our shared past. "A vulnerable, honest look at a life lived in a country still struggling with its evils...Hopeful...Beautiful and haunting." - Eddie...
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Make Your Own History: Timeless Truths from Black American Trailblazers

Joseph Holland - HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Format: Audiobook

Celebrating the vast breadth and scope of Black excellence, Make Your Own History spotlights the principles of success exemplified by the lives of 120 Black role models who have blazed trails throughout American history.Make Your Own History gathers together motivational quotes, historical...
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Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery

Joseph McGill Jr. - Hachette Books
Format: Hardcover

In this enlightening personal account, one man tells the story of his groundbreaking project to sleep overnight in former slave dwellings that still stand across the country - revealing the fascinating history behind these sites and shedding light on larger issues of race in America. Joseph...
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Quietly Hostile: Essays

Samantha Irby - Vintage
Format: Paperback

A much-anticipated, hilarious new essay collection from #1 New York Times bestselling unabashed fan-favorite Samantha Irby invites us to share in the gory particulars of her real life, all that festers behind the glitter and glam.. "America's most talented comic writer." - The New Republic"Stay-up-all-night,...
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Those Who Saw the Sun: African American Oral Histories from the Jim Crow South

Jaha Nailah Avery - Levine Querido
Format: Hardcover

The past is not past. We may think something ancient history, or something that doesn't affect our present day, but we would be wrong. Those Who Saw the Sun is a collection of oral histories told by Black people who grew up in the South during the time of Jim Crow. Jaha Nailah Avery...
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Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century

Jasmine Brown - Beacon Press
Format: Hardcover

Black women physicians' stories have gone untold for far too long, leaving gaping holes in American medical history, in women's history, and in black history. It's time to set the record straight.No real account of black women physicians in the US exists, and what little mention...
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The Kneeling Man: My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Leta McCollough Seletzky - Counterpoint
Format: Hardcover

The intimate and heartbreaking story of a Black undercover police officer who famously kneeled by the assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr - and a daughter's quest for the truth about her father. In the famous photograph of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony...
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Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights

Dylan C. Penningroth - Liveright
Format: Hardcover

A prize-winning scholar draws on astonishing new research to demonstrate how Black people used the law to their advantage long before the Civil Rights Movement.The familiar story of civil rights goes something like this: Once, the American legal system was dominated by racist officials...
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Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

Michael Harriot - ‎Dey Street Books
Format: Hardcover

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...
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Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery's Borderland

Scott Shane - Macmillan Audio
Format: Hardcover

A riveting account of the extraordinary abolitionist, liberator, and writer Thomas Smallwood, who bought his own freedom, led hundreds out of slavery, and named the underground railroad, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, Scott Shane. Flee North tells the story for the first...
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Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics

Anastasia C. Curwood - The University of North Carolina Press
Format: Hardcover

Shaking up New York and national politics by becoming the first African American congresswoman and, later, the first Black major-party presidential candidate, Shirley Chisholm left an indelible mark as an "unbought and unbossed" firebrand and a leader in politics for meaningful...
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History

The Black History Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

DK - DK
Format: Hardcover

With profiles of key people, movements, and events, The Black History Book brings together accounts of the most significant ideas and milestones in Black history and culture. This vital and thought-provoking book presents a bold and accessible overview of the history of the African continent...
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The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Nikole Hannah-Jones - One World
Format: Hardcover

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...
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African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Freedom

David Hackett Fischer - Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardcover

African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal...
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A Black Women's History of the United States

Berry, Daina Ramey - Beacon Press
Format: Hardcover

A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are--and have always been--instrumental in shaping our country In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American...
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Free All Along: The Robert Penn Warren Civil Rights Interviews

Stephen Drury Smith - The New Press
Format: Hardcover

"This is an expression not of people who are suddenly freed of something, but people who have been free all along." -- Ralph Ellison, speaking with Robert Penn WarrenA stunning collection of previously unpublished interviews with key figures of the black freedom struggle by the Pulitzer...
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An African American and Latinx History of the United States

Paul Ortiz - Beacon Press
Format: Hardcover

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rightsSpanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South"...
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African American Voices: A Documentary Reader, 1619-1877

Steven Mintz

A succinct, up-to-date overview of the history of slavery that places American slavery in comparative perspective. Provides students with more than 70 primary documents on the history of slavery in America Includes extensive excerpts from slave narratives, interviews wi
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African American Voices: A Documentary Reader from Emancipation to the Present

Leslie Brown

Compelling and enlightening, this collection of primary source documents allows twenty-first century students to 'direct dial' key figures in African-American history. It includes concise and perceptive commentary along with engaging suggestions for discussion and project work.
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Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave

ZORA NEALE HURSTON - Amistad
Format: Hardcover

New York Times Bestseller"A profound impact on Hurston's literary legacy." - New York Times"One of the greatest writers of our time." - Toni Morrison"Zora Neale Hurston's genius has once again produced a Maestrapiece." - Alice WalkerA major literary event:...
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Unsung: Unheralded Narratives of American Slavery & Abolition

Schomburg Center - Penguin Classics
Format: Paperback

This is the first Penguin Classics anthology published in partnership with the Schomburg Center, a world-renowned cultural institution documenting black life in America and worldwide. A historic branch of NYPL located in Harlem, the Schomburg holds one of the world's premiere collections...
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Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Ibram X. Kendi
Format: Hardcover

The story begins in 1619 - a year before the Mayflower - when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants...
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You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays

Zora Neale Hurston - Amistad
Format: Hardcover

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...
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Race Relations

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow

Henry Louis Gates Jr. - Penguin Press
Format: Hardcover

A profound new rendering of the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counter-revolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind.The abolition of slavery...
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How to Be an Antiracist

Ibram X. Kendi - One World
Format: Hardcover

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a "groundbreaking" (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society...
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On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope

DeRay Mckesson - Penguin Audio
Format: Audiobook

"On the Other Side of Freedom reveals the mind and motivations of a young man who has risen to the fore of millennial activism through study, discipline, and conviction. His belief in a world that can be made better, one act at a time, powers his narratives and opens up a view on the costs,...
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The Lost Education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the Hidden Heroes Who Fought for Justice in Schools

VANESSA SIDDLE WALKER - The New Press
Format: Hardcover

In the epic tradition of Eyes on the Prize and with the cultural significance of John Lewis's March trilogy, an ambitious and harrowing account of the devoted black educators who battled Southern school segregation and inequalityFor two years an aging Dr. Horace Tate - a former teacher,...
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What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON - St. Martin's Press
Format: Hardcover

A stunning follow up to New York Times bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop, a timely exploration of America's tortured racial politicsPresident Barack Obama: "Everybody who speaks after Michael Eric Dyson pales in comparison."In 2015 BLM activist Julius Jones...
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We Can't Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival

JABARI ASIM - Picador
Format: Paperback

Insightful and searing essays that celebrate the vibrancy and strength of black history and culture in America by critically acclaimed writer Jabari AsimIn We Can't Breathe, Jabari Asim disrupts what Toni Morrison has exposed as the "Master Narrative" and replaces it with...
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The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea

Christopher J Lebron - Oxford University Press
Format: Hardcover

Started in the wake of George Zimmerman's 2013 acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has become a powerful and uncompromising campaign demanding redress for the brutal and unjustified treatment of black bodies by law enforcement in the United States....
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Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

ANONYMOUS. - St. Martin's Press
Format: Print book

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...
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From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

Keeanga Taylor - Haymarket Books
Format: Print book

The eruption of mass protests in the wake of the police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City have challenged the impunity with which officers of the law carry out violence against Black people and punctured the illusion of a postracial America....
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Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond

Marc Lamont Hill - Atria Books
Format: Print book

"A thought-provoking and important analysis of oppression" (Library Journal) , Nobody is a powerful and eye-opening examination of the deeper meaning behind the string of deaths of unarmed citizens like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray - "a worthy and necessary...
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Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century (Volume 6) (American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present)

Barbara Ransby - University of California Press
Format: Paperback

"A powerful - and personal - account of the movement and its players." - The Washington Post. "This perceptive resource on radical black liberation movements in the 21st century can inform anyone wanting to better understand . . . how to make social change." - Publishers...
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Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL - City Lights Publishers
Format: Paperback

"This collection of short meditations, written from a prison cell, captures the past two decades of police violence that gave rise to Black Lives Matter while digging deeply into the history of the United States. This is the book we need right now to find our bearings in the chaos."--Roxanne...
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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Richard Rothstein - Liveright
Format: Hardcover

A Publisher's Weekly Top 10 Best Books of 2017 Long-listed for the National Book Award "Rothstein has presented what I consider to be the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation." -- William...
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We Were Eight Years in Power: A Journey Through the Obama Era

TA-NEHISI COATES - One World
Format: Hardcover

In these "urgently relevant essays,"* the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me "reflects on race, Barack Obama's presidency and its jarring aftermath"* - including the election of Donald Trump."We were eight years in power"...
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The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

Tamara Winfrey Harris - Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 1 edition
Format: Print book

Whats wrong with black women Not a damned thing!The Sisters Are Alright exposes antiblack-woman propaganda and shows how real black women are pushing back against distorted cartoon versions of themselves. When African women arrived on American shores, the three-headed hydraservile Mammy,...
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Who Is Black: One Nations Definition

F. James Davis

This volume is the Tenth Anniversary Edition of a book that was honored in 1992 as an "Outstanding Book" by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States. Reprinted many times since its first publication in 1991, Who Is Black? has become
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Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Spiegel & Grau
Format: Print book

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER | NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER | PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST | NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST | NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * O: The Oprah Magazine * The Washington...
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A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

JEANNE THEOHARIS - Beacon Press
Format: Hardcover

Explodes the fables that have been created about the civil rights movementThe civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered...
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Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color

Andrea Ritchie - Beacon Press
Format: Paperback

A timely examination of the ways Black women, Indigenous women, and other women of color are uniquely affected by racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. In recent years there has been increasing awareness of the daily violence at the hands of law enforcement agents...
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Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Angela Davis - Haymarket Books, 2015.
Format: Print book

In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality,...
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Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives of Returning Home

Keesha M. Middlemass
Format: Book

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Poetry

African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song

Kevin Young - Library of America
Format: Hardcover

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...
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Brown: Poems

Kevin Young - Knopf
Format: Audiobook

James Brown. John Browns raid. Brown v. the Topeka Board of Ed. The prizewinning author of Blue Laws meditates on all things "brown" in this powerful new collection."Vital and sophisticated ... sinks hooks into you that cannot be easily removed." - The New York TimesDivided...
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Fearful Beloved

Khadijah Queen

Poetry. African American Studies. The haunting, haunted world revealed in Khadijah Queen's FEARFUL BELOVED stays with the reader in an uncomfortably pleasurable way, and heightens awareness of our own world's deep horrors and ordinary brilliance. Anyone who has been unable to shak
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Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid

Nikki Giovanni - ‎William Morrow; 1st edition
Format: Hardcover

The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred social justice movements and inspired songs, turned hearts and informed generations about the reality of life - especially Black life--in America. One of the foremost African-American writers and activists of her generation,...

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For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf

Ntozake Shange - Scribner
Format: Paperback

From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papps 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....
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The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes - Vintage Books
Format: Paperback

"The ultimate book for both the dabbler and serious scholar--. [Hughes] is sumptuous and sharp, playful and sparse, grounded in an earthy music--. This book is a glorious revelation."--Boston GlobeSpanning five decades and comprising 868 poems (nearly 300 of which have never before...
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Maya Angelou: Poems

Maya Angelou - Bantam
Format: Paperback

Tenderly, joyously, sometimes in sadness, sometimes in pain, Maya Angelou writes from the heart and celebrates life as only she has discovered it. In this moving volume of poetry, we hear the multi-faceted voice of one of the most powerful and vibrant writers of our time.
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Say Her Name

Zetta Elliott - Jump At The Sun
Format: Hardcover

Inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, these poems pay tribute to victims of police brutality as well as the activists insisting that Black Lives Matter. Elliott engages poets from the past two centuries to create a chorus of voices celebrating...
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For Every One

Jason Reynolds - Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Format: Hardcover

Originally performed at the Kennedy Center for the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and later as a tribute to Walter Dean Myers, this stirring and inspirational poem is New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds's rallying cry to the dreamers...
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Biographies, Autobiographies and Memoirs

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City

Andrea Elliott - Random House
Format: Hardcover

Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolize Brooklyn's gentrification...
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Finding Me: A Memoir

Viola Davis - HarperOne
Format: Hardcover

Finding Me is Viola Davis' story, in her own words, and spans her incredible, inspiring life, from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present day. Hers is a story of overcoming, a true hero's journey. Deeply personal, brutally honest, and riveting, Finding Me is a timeless...
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The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

RANDOM HOUSE. - Crown
Format: Book

In an inspiring follow-up to her critically acclaimed, #1 bestselling memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today's highly uncertain world. There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers...
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Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah - Spiegel & Grau
Format: Paperback

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followedNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, New York Times...
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The Truths We Hold: An American Journey

KAMALA HARRIS - Penguin Press
Format: Hardcover

From one of America's most inspiring political leaders, a book about the core truths that unite us, and the long struggle to discern what those truths are and how best to act upon them, in her own life and across the life of our country.Senator Kamala Harris's commitment to speaking truth...
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Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

DAVID W BLIGHT - Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardcover

The definitive, dramatic biography of the most important African-American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era.As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)...
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The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age

PATRICK PARR - Chicago Review Press
Format: Hardcover

Martin Luther King Jr. was a cautious 19-year-old rookie preacher when he left Atlanta, Georgia, to attend seminary up north. At Crozer Theological Seminary, King, or "ML" back then, immediately found himself surrounded by a white staff and white professors. Even his dorm room...
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Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward

Valerie Jarrett - Viking
Format: Hardcover

"The ultimate Obama insider" (The New York Times) and longest-serving senior advisor in the Obama White House shares her journey as a daughter, mother, lawyer, business leader, public servant, and leader in government at a historic moment in American history.When Valerie...
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Living in Color: What's Funny About Me

Tommy Davidson - Kensington
Format: Hardcover

In 1990, Tommy Davidson burst onto the scene in the Emmy Award-winning show In Living Color, a pioneering sketch comedy show, featuring a multi-racial cast of actors and dancers who spoke to an underrepresented new generation created by Hip Hop Nation. In this revealing memoir, Tommy shares...
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Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing, and Hope

Karamo Brown - Gallery Books
Format: Hardcover

An insightful, candid, and inspiring memoir from Karamo Brown - Queer Eye's beloved culture expert - as he shares his story for the first time, exploring how the challenges in his own life have allowed him to forever transform the lives of those in need.When Karamo Brown first auditioned...
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There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir

Casey Gerald - Riverhead Books
Format: Hardcover

The testament of a boy and a generation who came of age as the world came apart--a generation searching for a new way to live.Casey Gerald's story begins at the end of the world: Dallas, New Year's Eve 1999, when he gathers with the congregation of his grandfather's black evangelical church...
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The Last Black Unicorn

TIFFANY HADDISH - Gallery Books
Format: Hardcover

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From stand-up comedian, actress, and breakout star of Girls Trip, Tiffany Haddish, comes The Last Black Unicorn, a sidesplitting, hysterical, edgy, and unflinching collection of (extremely) personal...
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Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances

LELAND MELVIN - Amistad
Format: Hardcover

In this moving, inspirational memoir, a former NASA astronaut and NFL wide receiver shares his personal journey from the gridiron to the stars, examining the intersecting roles of community, perseverance and grace that align to create the opportunities for success.Leland Melvin is the only...
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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Barack Obama - Random House Audio
Format: Audiobook

Now available unabridged on audio for the first timeNumber one New York Times best sellerOne of Essences 50 Most Impactful Black Books of the Past 50 YearsIn this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama "guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity,...
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Becoming

MICHELLE OBAMA - Random House Large Print
Format: Large Print

An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America - the first African-American...
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Just As I Am

Cicely Tyson - HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Hardcover

At last, the Academy, Tony, and three-time Emmy Award-winning actor and trailblazer, Cicely Tyson, tells her stunning story, looking back at her six-decade career and life.
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The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

Anna Malaika Tubbs
Format: Hardcover

Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary women who raised them, who were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced...
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All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

Tiya Miles - Random House
Format: Hardcover

In a display case in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture sits a rough cotton bag, called Ashley's Sack, embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love, passed down through generations. In 1850s...
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Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir

Kwame Onwuachi - Knopf
Format: Hardcover

A groundbreaking memoir about the intersection of race, fame, and food, from the Top Chef star and Forbes and Zagat 30 Under 30 honoreeBy the time he was twenty-seven, Kwame Onwuachi had competed on Top Chef, cooked at the White House, and opened and closed one of the most...
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She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman

Erica Armstrong Dunbar - 37 Ink
Format: Hardcover

In the bestselling tradition of The Notorious RBG comes a lively, informative, and illustrated tribute to one of the most exceptional women in American history - Harriet Tubman - a heroine whose fearlessness and activism still resonates today.. Harriet Tubman is best known as one of the most...
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