Cultural Literature

An incisive and insightful memoir by one of the most beloved icons of nineties television Jaleel White, the actor who portrayed Steve Urkel on the hit sitcom Family Matters. At the tender age of twelve, Jaleel White auditioned for the role of Steve...

Originally published in 1916, this innovative peanut recipe book by prominent Black scientist George Washington Carver is just as delicious today. How many ways can you possibly prepare the peanut? At least 105, according to George Washington Carver. In...

From bestselling author of The Book of Delights and award-winning poet, a book of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us. The author of the New York Times bestselling The Book...

Now in its first American edition, Dionne Brand's groundbreaking A Map to the Door of No Return has emerged as a modern classic, a highly influential exploration of "being" in the Black Diaspora.Since its first publication in 2001, Dionne Brand's...

In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts...

Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a "lively, engaging, and often wise" (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of...

A dazzling hybrid of personal memoir and criticism, considering the work of Black visual artists as a means to explore loss, legacy, and the reclamation of life through art.At the age of twenty-one, Erica Cardwell finds herself in New York City, reeling...

A comprehensive and inspiring collection of essays by Larry Neal, a founder of the seminal Black Arts Movement "The Black Arts Movement is radically opposed to any concept of the artist that alienates him from his community. Black Art is the aesthetic...

From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date--a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering...

An award-winning journalist, TV political analyst, and creator of theGrio documentary, Afro-Latinx Revolution: Puerto Rico, recounts her experiences as an African American and Puerto Rican woman, reflecting on her improbable journey from Syracuse to...

Peabody Award-winning journalist Michele Norris offers a transformative dialogue on race and identity in America, unearthed through her decade-long work at The Race Card Project. The prompt seemed simple: Race. Your Story. Six Words. Please Send. The...

Find wisdom, inspiration, and new insight in this definitive volume of empowering quotes from the Pan African world. With over 60 quotations--carefully researched by National Black Cultural Information Trust founder, Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor--Black...