Africa

It's one of the last overlooked parts of American military history: the significant role African Americans played in the wars of America. Their story is more than just the 54th Massachusetts in the Civil War, more than just a tank battalion in World War...

Journalist and author Mark Whitaker explores the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity expressed in the slogan "Black Power" challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis...

If the 1619 Project illuminated the ways in which life in the United States has been shaped by the existence of slavery, this "historical, literary masterpiece" (Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy) focuses on emancipation and how its afterlife further...

The triumphant story of how an all-Black Broadway cast and crew changed musical theatre--and the world--forever.This musical introduced Black excellence to the Great White Way. Broadway was forever changed and we, who stand on the shoulders of our...

A tremendously impressive book.--Washington PostHer motto and title of her autobiography--Unbought and Unbossed--illustrates her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.--National Women's...

A new history of Black Liberation, told through the intertwined story of two grassroots organizers  ​ The Black Power movement, often associated with its iconic spokesmen, derived much of its energy from the work of people whose...

The "enlightening" (The Guardian) true story of the last ship to carry enslaved people to America, the remarkable town its survivors' founded after emancipation, and the complicated legacy their descendants carry with them to this day--by the journalist...

The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave. In 1848, a year of international democratic...

Winner of the Bancroft PrizeWinner of the David J. Langum PrizeWinner of the OAH Liberty Legacy Foundation AwardA New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "This extraordinary book is a powerful addition to the history of travel segregation...Mia Bay...

The last surviving witness to the lynching of Emmett Till tells his story, with moving recollections of Emmett as a boy, critical insights into the recent investigation, and powerful lessons for racial reckoning, both then and now. In 1955, Emmett Till...

Journey with the unsung heroes of the Underground Railroad.Maryland was the starting point of many freedom seekers. They embarked on the perilous journey from slavery to freedom in whatever way they could. John Thompson signed onto a whaling ship. James...

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 made slavery illegal in the territory that would later become Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. However, many Black individuals' rights were denied by white enslavers who continued to...

"One of the nation's most prominent civil rights leaders" (Washington Post), a New York Times bestselling author, community organizer, investigative journalist, Ivy League professor, and former head of the NAACP, Ben Jealous draws from a life lived on...

Saidiya Hartman has been praised as "one of our most brilliant contemporary thinkers" (Claudia Rankine, New York Times Book Review) and "a lodestar for a generation of students and, increasingly, for politically engaged people outside the academy"...

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDFINALIST, 2020 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORYBy the late 1960s and early 1970s, reeling from a wave of urban uprisings, politicians finally worked to end the practice of redlining. Reasoning that the turbulence could...

A prize-winning historian chronicles a sinister idea of freedom: white Americans' freedom to oppress others and their fight against the government that got in their way. American freedom is typically associated with the fight of the oppressed for a...