General African American Studies

The author of the critically acclaimed The Viral Underclass (one of Kirkus Reviews best books of 2022) is back with The Overseer Class, which explores what happens when members of historically minoritized groups are selected for high-visibility positions...

An exploration of how African American innovators and artists--whose impact and financial value in American music, movies, and TV is disproportionately greater than their numbers--have fought for and often won the rights to own and benefit from their own...

The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay. Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair. From the two-time...

The pathbreaking autobiography of America's most influential abolitionist and former slave, now with an introduction from Pulitzer Prize-winning Douglass biographer David W. Blight Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 on a farm on Maryland's...

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - USA TODAY NATIONAL BESTSELLER - SHORTLISTED FOR THE STOWE PRIZE FOR LITERARY ACTIVISM In Erased, Anna Malaika Tubbs, the New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers, returns with an unflinching excavation of...

"This Great Hospital Fight" - Dr. DrakeAt the height of racial and political tensions in early twentieth-century Houston, two unlikely figures became allies. Dr. William M. Drake, a pioneering surgeon and Black community leader, and Joseph Cullinan, a...

A New York Public Library and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025 Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X's influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on...

Avenue Breakdown uncovers the rich yet often overlooked legacy of Black music in Shreveport, Louisiana--a city better known for country tunes and the Louisiana Hayride. This compelling history shines a spotlight on the city's vibrant postwar scene, where...

Upends the "broken systems" myth and reveals how the law deliberately criminalizes and punishes Black women, inflicting lasting harm on Black communities in the process. The United States has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world, and...

Upends the "broken systems" myth and reveals how the law deliberately criminalizes and punishes Black women, inflicting lasting harm on Black communities in the process. The United States has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world, and...

In 2021, the international media descended upon Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the centennial commemoration of the May 31-June 1, 1921, massacre in which a white mob killed more than three hundred African American residents, burned homes and businesses, and...

One of TIME magazine's 2025 WOMEN OF THE YEAR and 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLEWINNER of the LGBTQ+ Nonfiction, 2024 Best Book AwardsA passionate, powerful memoir by a trailblazing Black transgender activist, tracing her life of transformation and her work...