Biography

"All my blessings are the blessings of community." --Octavia Spencer Octavia drove to Los Angeles at twenty-six in search of a career in film. What she found was her chosen family. In this captivating memoir, the Oscar-winning actor and producer recounts...

Some may know her as hot, gutsy, gun-totin' Foxy Brown, Friday Foster, Coffy, and Jackie Brown. Others may know her from her role as Kit Porter on The L Word. But that only defines one part of the legend that is Pam Grier. Foxy is Pam's testimony of her...

In The Reckoning, Randall Robinson examines the crime and poverty that grips much of urban America and urges black Americans to speak out and reach back to ensure their social and economic success in this country. With insight, compassion, and...

Barbara Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention. Yet Jordan herself...

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...

The self-made Jamaican-Canadian billionaire shares how to build a more prosperous life One of the most renowned businessmen and philanthropists both in Canada and abroad, Michael Lee-Chin was born in Jamaica. In 1970, he came to Canada to study civil...

Satchel Paige was forty-two years old in 1948 when he became the first black pitcher in the American League. Although the oldest rookie around, he was already a legend. For twenty-two years, beginning in 1926, Paige dazzled throngs with his performance...

A compelling memoir from Elizabeth Pryor, daughter of the late comedic legend Richard Pryor, grapples with her biracial identity, her relationship with the n-word, and the complexities of her father's love. The day of her father's funeral, Elizabeth's...

One of the most famous and popular entertainers of the 20th century, Maurice White left an enduring legacy in his creation of Earth, Wind & Fire, this genre-transcending group who earned multiple Grammy Awards and most recently a Lifetime Achievement...

In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal. "In these fierce yet tender pages, Camonghne Felix reveals how imagination can become a form of governance--an...

Who's Watching Shorty? is a fearless memoir about the 14-year-old-girl in the child pornography video that ultimately led to R.Kelly's trial, and one of the most high-profile cases of a generation. Reshona Landfair--known as "Jane Doe" when she...

The literature of the civil rights movement is replete with stories about the major actors in the movement, including, for example, Martin Luther King, but there is little focus on the MacArthur Cottons of the era: the young Black men and women who at...