Cultural Literature

Crystal Simone Smith's new poetry collection, Runagate, reimagines the experiences of enslaved and formerly enslaved persons in a stark and chilling response to the archives of chattel slavery: bills of sale, interviews, narratives, and fugitive runaway...

The first monograph on the internationally celebrated Nigerian American painter who blends her personal history and African diasporic identity in layered compositions "Critics have often (and rightly) marveled at the care and finesse with which Akunyili...

Built on the grounds of a former cotton plantation, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, offered agricultural and industrial education as a strategy for Black self-determination. There--and in many other communities in the U.S. South,...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping and spellbinding portrait of the longtime kings of jazz--Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie--who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist...

A transformative memoir that reimagines the conventions of love and posits a radical vision for healing. In Another Word for Love, Carvell Wallace excavates layers of his own history, situated in the struggles and beauty of growing up Black and queer in...

A queer Black feminist debunks the myth of rainbow solidarity, repositioning Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ people at the forefront of queer pasts, presents, and futures Your favorite Black queer studies professor Kaila Adia Story says the rainbow ain't never...

In this moving work, part clear-eyed assessment, part memoir, the son of iconic African American Congressman John Conyers Jr. shines a spotlight on his father and his political legacy, and reveals how, as his son, he eventually learned to leverage his...

A powerful personal investigation of the insidious ways white supremacy compromises criminal justice reform, from the award-winning, formerly incarcerated activist and Soros Justice Fellow Despite reform efforts that have grown in scope and intensity...

A kaleidoscopic narrative history of 1963, the pivotal moment in America's long civil rights movement--the year of the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and the assassinations of Medgar Evers and John F. Kennedy...

Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X's influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights. Malcolm X has become as...

A new edition of a major work of literary and cultural criticism restores C. L. R. James's reflections about Moby Dick and political persecution. Political theorist and cultural critic, novelist, and cricket enthusiast, C. L. R. James (1901-89) was a...

The inspiring story of a Black doctor who was deeply affected by the violence that plagued his Brooklyn childhood and later dedicated himself to addressing trauma and violence as public health issues Rob Gore first encountered violence when he was beaten...

Mal Goode (1908-1995) became network news's first African American correspondent when ABC News hired him in 1962. Raised in Homestead and Pittsburgh, he worked in the mills, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, and went on to become a journalist...

The life and legacy of Serafim "Joe" Fortes, a trailblazing Black lifeguard, who became a cultural icon in a racist societySearching for Serafim is a layered exploration of the life of Serafim "Joe" Fortes. A Trinidad native who arrived on the shores of...