Biography

This is the first comprehensive selection from the correspondence of the iconic and beloved Langston Hughes. It offers a life in letters that showcases his many struggles as well as his memorable achievements. Arranged by decade and linked by expert...

Reggie Love is a unique witness to history, whose introduction to Washington was working in Junior Senator Barack Obama's mailroom. As "body man" to Obama during his first presidential campaign, Love's job was to stay one step behind the candidate, but...

In 2003, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Johnson and five fellow soldiers were captured and taken as prisoners of war. Johnson, America's first black female prisoner of war, shares the story of her capture and imprisonment in Iraq and her rescue. In...

Picture a ballerina in a tutu and toe shoes. What does she look like?" As the only African American soloist dancing with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland has made history. But when she first placed her hands on the barre at an...

Dr. Yvonne Thornton, author of the heartwarming memoir The Ditchdigger's Daughters (which has been translated into 19 languages and adapted as an award-winning movie), knows what it's like to overcome steep odds. Born into a family with great ambition...

Andrea Stuart was born and raised in the Caribbean. She studied English at the University of East Anglia and French at the Sorbonne. Her book "The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine" was published in the United States in 2004, has been...

"[Stanton] takes us into her survival mode on the streets, and adjustments she had to make in her home life. The author shares experiences of her teen years, growing up in Buffalo, NY. She leads us on a short stay as a young girl in Greensboro, NC. The...

Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time.Praise for Decoded "Compelling . . ...

Available 10/15/2009New York Times­ best-selling author Cornel West is one of America’s most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Whether in the classroom, the streets, the prisons, or the church, Dr. West’s uncluttered brilliance has been a...

No one was closer to Michael Jackson at the height of his creative powers than Bruce Swedien, the five-time Grammy winner who, with Jackson and producer Quincy Jones, formed the trio responsible for the sound of Jackson's records - records that topped...

He is one of the great voices in African-American history: Booker T. Washington rose from a boyhood in shackles in West Virginia-he was eight when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution freed all slaves in 1865-to the status of national hero. In...

One of the most influential public intellectuals in the world and the architect of the two biggest ideas to reshape the American conversation about fairness offers the intimate story of how her life gave birth to these ideas. It is not very often that...