Biography

Now a Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer, Self Made (formerly titled On Her Own Ground) is the first full-scale biography of "one of the great success stories of American history" (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Madam C.J. Walker--the legendary African...

For the first time in a deluxe boxed set, the definitive edition of Richard Wright's landmark works in the form in which he intended them to be read. Here, in authoritative texts based on the author's original typescripts and proofs, is the Library of...

"One of her best collections to date." --EssenceQuilting the Black-Eyed Pea is a tour de force from Nikki Giovanni, one of the most powerful voices in American poetry and African American literature today. From Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black...

An extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies that displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works, and powerfully speaks to contemporary conversations around racism. It contains truth that cannot...

Four-time mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry, Jr. tells his shocking and courageous life story, beginning in the cotton fields in Mississippi to the executive offices of one of the most powerful cities in the world. Marion Barry fought relentlessly...

A biography of Thomas Sowell, one of America's most influential conservative thinkers. Thomas Sowell is one of the great social theorists of our age. In a career spanning more than a half century, he has written over thirty books, covering topics from...

"Any kind of movement for freedom of Black people based solely within the confines of America is absolutely doomed to fail. "Speeches and interviews from the last two years of his life.

BEST BOOKS of 2017 SELECTION by * THE WASHINGTON POST * NEW YORK POST * The harrowing, but triumphant story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, leader of the Liberian women's movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first democratically elected female...

This richly illustrated edition of this classic American autobiography sheds new light on Douglass's famous text for a new generation of readers. Famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass published his third and last autobiography, Life and Times...

*Named a Best Book of 2018 by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly, and The New...

A biography as dramatic as any to come out of the pop field . . . told with sympathy and unflinching candor.--San Francisco Chronicle In this intimate biography of the Prince of Soul, David Ritz provides a candid look at a star and a friend. Ritz had...

The essential, "richly researched"* biography of Harriet Tubman, revealing a complex woman who "led a remarkable life, one that her race, her sex, and her origins make all the more extraordinary" (*The New York Times Book Review). Harriet Tubman is one...