Biography

This collection of historical essays on race develops lines of inquiry into race and social studies, such as geography, history, and vocational education. Contributors focus on the ways African Americans were excluded or included in the social education...

One of Oprah.com's "17 Must-Read Books for the New Year" and O Magazine's "10 Titles to Pick up Now.""Exquisite in its honesty and truth and resilience, and a necessary chronicle from one of the greatest writers of our time."--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,...

Booker T. Washington's famous 1901 memoir, Up From Slavery, charts Washington's rise from an enslaved child with a passion for learning to the nation's most prominent Black educator and first president of Tuskegee University. A tireless advocate for...

, 'Truly inspirational' The Sun 'Honest and authentic - I could not put it down' Michelle Griffith Robinson OLY 'Black Sheep is powerful testimony for anyone seeking to deepen their own anti-racist journey. This is passionate, raw writing, with moments...

A motivational memoir by a formerly incarcerated man who transformed from founder and leader of the Dallas Bloods to a practitioner of peace and nonviolence in the neighborhood he once helped destroy As a child of an incarcerated father, Antong Lucky...

The true story of Marshall "Major" Taylor, who overcame racial prejudice to become one of the most dominant cyclists in history. Part of Belt's Revival series and with an introduction by Zito Madu.The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World, which Taylor...

In this disarming and candid memoir, cultural critic Clarkisha Kent unpacks the kind of compounded problems you face when you're a fat, Black, queer woman in a society obsessed with heteronormativity.There was no easy way for Kent to navigate personal...

A grime-theatre mash-upToo black for my white friends, but too white for my Black friends. Growing up mixed race in Newport, I fell into a cloud of grey.Absent Black father, ducking the police, working out what it means to be a man. I was struggling to...

An unforgettable and stirring memoir in the vein of Free Cyntoia, Just Mercy, and The Sum of Us that both inspires and upends our understanding about the future of policing in the United States. In 2012, nineteen-year-old Leon Ford was shot five times by...

Acclaimed journalist and human rights activist Goldie Taylor shares the harrowing yet deeply hopeful story of her troubled childhood in East St. Louis--a memoir of family, faith and the power of booksAt age eleven, Goldie Taylor is out riding her new...

An award-winning journalist tells the story of his quest to reconcile with his white mother and the family he'd never met--and how faith brought them all together. John Blake grew up in a notorious Black neighborhood in inner-city Baltimore that was the...

Award-winning actor, rapper, and producer Ice-T unveils a compelling memoir of his early life robbing jewelry stores until he found fame and fortune--while a handful of bad choices sent his former crime partner down an incredibly different path. Ice-T...

Will Jawando's My Seven Black Fathers tells a deeply affirmative story of hope and respect for men of color at a time when Black men are routinely stigmatized. "Will Jawando's account of mentorship, service, and healing lays waste to the racist...

A family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present.In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time In Up from Slavery, Washington recounts the story of his life--from slave to educator. The early sections deal with his upbringing as a slave and his efforts to get an...