Africa

The powerful life story and photography of an esteemed Black photojournalist Cecil Williams is one of the few Southern Black photojournalists of the civil rights movement. Born and raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Williams worked at the center of...

In grocery store aisles and kitchens across the country, smiling images of "Aunt Jemima" and other historical and fictional black cooks can be found on various food products and in advertising. Although these images are sanitized and romanticized in...

A major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of...

Black Americans have arguably arrived at the height of their cultural prominence. In politics, entertainment, academics, and nearly every sphere of influence, "black issues" dominate the discussion. Yet many black Americans are suffering worse than ever...

The Punitive Turn explores the historical, political, economic, and sociocultural roots of mass incarceration, as well as its collateral costs and consequences. Giving significant attention to the exacting toll that incarceration takes on inmates, their...

Apart from a handful of exotic--and almost completely unreliable--tales surrounding his life, Richard Potter is almost unknown today. Two hundred years ago, however, he was the most popular entertainer in America--the first showman, in fact, to win truly...

In collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, this stylish, illustrated set of twelve note cards celebrates the life and work of Mae Reeves, one of Philadelphia's first Black female business owners. Mae...

Would there have been a Frederick Douglass if it were not for Betsy Bailey, the grandmother who raised him? Would Harriet Jacobs have written her renowned autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, if her grandmother, a free black woman named...