One of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance, The Blacker the Berry ... was the first novel to openly explore prejudice within the Black community. This pioneering novel found a way beyond the bondage of Blackness in American life to a new meaning in truth and beauty. Emma Lou Brown's dark complexion is a source of sorrow and humiliation - not only to herself, but to her lighter-skinned family and friends and to the white community of Boise, Idaho, her hometown. As a young woman, Emma travels to New York's Harlem, hoping to find a safe haven in the Black Mecca of the 1920s. Wallace Thurman re-creates this legendary time and place in rich detail, describing Emma's visits to nightclubs and dance halls and house-rent parties, her sex life and her catastrophic love affairs, her dreams and her disillusions - and the momentous decision she makes in order to survive. A lost classic of Black American literature, The Blacker the Berry ... is a compelling portrai

"The groundbreaking Harlem Renaissance novel about prejudice within the black community Emma Lou Morgan's skin is black. So black that it's a source of shame to her not only among the largely white community of her hometown of Boise, Idaho, but also among her lighter-skinned family and friends. Seeking a community where she will be accepted, she leaves home at age eighteen, traveling first to Los Angeles and then to New York City, where in the Harlem of the 1920s she finds a vibrant scene of nightclubs and dance halls and parties and love affairs ... and, still, rejection by her own race. One of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance, and the first novel to openly address prejudice among black Americans, The Blacker the Berry ... is a book of undiminished power about the invidious role of skin color in American society"--

We are color struck. The way an artist strikes. His canvas with his brush of many hues. Look closely at these mirrors these palettes of skin. Each color is rich, in its own right. Black is dazzling and distinctive, like toasted wheat berry bread; snowberries in the fall; rich, red cranberries; and the bronzed last leaves of summer. In this lyrical and luminous collection, Coretta Scott King honorees Joyce Carol Thomas and Floyd Cooper celebrate these many shades of black beautifully--From the publisher.

"From Playboy to Jay Z, the racial origins of toxic masculinity and its impact on women, especially Black and "insufficiently white" women"--