Biography

Never one to mince words, Effa Manley once wrote a letter to sportswriter Art Carter, saying that she hoped they could meet soon because "I would like to tell you a lot of things you should know about baseball." From 1936 to 1948, Manley ran the Negro...

He was a son of Africa who became father to a nation and, for billions of people around the world, a beacon of hope, courage, and perseverance in the face of opposition. Now, acclaimed poet Maya Angelou honors the life and remarkable soul of Nelson...

American pop music is arguably this country's greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country's founding. This is their surprising,...

Born a slave in Maryland circa 1817, Frederick Douglass went on to become the most influential and distinguished African American of the nineteenth century. As an abolitionist, newspaper publisher, orator and statesman, Douglass dedicated his life to the...

From National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and edited by critic and writer Valerie Boyd, comes an unprecedented compilation of Walker's fifty years of journals drawing an intimate portrait of her development over five decades...

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presents the only authoritative edition of all three autobiographies by the escaped slave who became a great American leader.   Here in this Library of America volume are collected Frederick Douglass's three autobiographical...

In the spirit of Piri Thomas's Down These Mean Streets and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, writer and activist Kevin Powell's memoir--"illuminating...an education for us all" (USA TODAY)--vividly recounts the horrific poverty of his youth...

Packaged in handsome, affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. It features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the...

"Thompson-Hernández's portrayal of Compton's black cowboys broadens our perception of Compton's young black residents, and connects the Compton Cowboys to the historical legacy of African Americans in the west. An eye-opening, moving book."-- Margot Lee...

An exploration of the vegan diet with a focus on African diaspora communities. Green Soul Rising encourages readers to transition into a plant-based, animal-free diet. In her quest to uncover a higher sense of spirituality and being, Nathalie Etienne...

"An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South--and thus of America--by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. An inspiration." --Isabel Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of The...

A riveting biography of Walter F. White, a little-known Black civil rights leader who passed for white in order to investigate racist murders, help put the NAACP on the map, and change the racial identity of America forever Walter F. White led two...