Cultural Literature

Solomon Northup (1808-c. 1863) was a free man kidnapped and forced into slavery in 1851. The details of his life after the publication of his acclaimed memoir are unknown. Ira Berlin is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland,...

An unprecedented insider's look at one of cinema's landmark works and the lasting effect it still has on our culture, this oral and visual history of "Do the Right Thing"--celebrating the movie's 20th anniversary--is told entirely by those who starred in...

"Never in My Wildest Dreams" is a memoir with a message. Raised in a dysfunctional family in Louisiana and the San Francisco Bay area, Belva Davis rose through the black radio industry, became the first black female reporter west of the Mississippi with...

Publisher Comments: Condoleezza Rice has excelled as a diplomat, political scientist, and concert pianist. Her achievements run the gamut from helping to oversee the collapse of communism in Europe and the decline of the Soviet Union, to working to...

In this timely and provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, William Julius Wilson applies an exciting new analytic framework to three politically fraught social problems: the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, the plight of...

What would it take? That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poor children--not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that...

This biography on reggae legend Bob Marley reflects the growing popularity and legacy that continues to grow more than 27 years after the singer's death from cancer at age 36. Steckles has been writing about the reggae music scene for many years, and he...

What makes a happy person, a happy life? Dawson, who learned how to read when he was 98, tells how as he describes his own remarkable odyssey across the span of the 20th century. In this remarkable book, 103-year-old George Dawson, a slave's grandson who...

Rubio, a former postal worker, brings to life the important but neglected story of African American postal workers and the critical role they played in the U.S. labor and black freedom movements. Having fought their way into postal positions and unions,...

\As the United States championed principles of freedom and equality during World War II, it denied fundamental rights to many non-white citizens. In the wake of President Franklin Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy with Latin America, African American and...

Highlighting certain socioeconomic and cultural trends, this exploration discloses the new dynamics shaping contemporary lives of African Americans. Using information from conversations with mavericks within black communities--such as entrepreneurs,...

Synopsis: The nature of complex relations between Africans and African Americans is the focus of this study. The author looks at the factors which are responsible for this complex nature and which collectively constitute a major obstacle to the...