Cultural Literature

When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no 'white' people there; nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. Historical debate about the origin of racial slavery has focused on the status of the...

Kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of ten, Olaudah Equiano's memoir caused a sensation when it was first published in 1789. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano is the true story of his life, from his ten years of service as a...

In Homegrown, cultural critics bell hooks and Amalia Mesa-Bains reflect on the innate solidarity between Black and Latino culture. Riffing on everything from home and family to multiculturalism and the mass media, hooks and Mesa-Bains invite readers to...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a "groundbreaking" (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society--and in ourselves. "The most courageous...

Find out what the words in your favorite blues songs really mean! In The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John), rock musician Debra Devi defines 170 blues terms like mojo, hoodoo, buffet flat and killing floor with wild...

From 1959-1964, Prince Edward County, Virginia, closed its public schools rather than desegregate them, as ordered by the Supreme Court in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision. Alfred L. Cobbs, a rising tenth grader at the time, was one of the...

THROUGH MY EYES: A LOOK AT THE HISTORY OF LANCASTER FROM A BLACK PERSPECTIVE by Hollie Saunders offers an engaging chronicle of the author's southeastern Ohio hometown. She takes her readers on an enlightening journey that moves beyond a family history,...

"The most powerful spiritual healer, fixer, teacher on the planet." --Oprah Winfrey What is the lesson in abuse, neglect, abandonment, rejection? What is the lesson when you lose someone you really love? Just what are the lessons of life's hard times? ...

What are the conditions needed for our nation to bridge cultural and racial divides? By writing beyond race, noted cultural critic bell hooks models the constructive ways scholars, activists, and readers can challenge and change systems of domination.In...

The classic, definitive title on the great Black figures in world history, beginning in antiquity and reaching into the modern age. World's Great Men of Color is the comprehensive guide to the most noteworthy Black personalities in world history and...

The classic, definitive title on the great Black figures in world history, beginning in antiquity and reaching into the modern age. World's Great Men of Color is the comprehensive guide to the most noteworthy Black personalities in world history and...

A collection of speeches and writings by political activist Angela Davis which address the political and social changes of the past decade as they are concerned with the struggle for racial, sexual, and economic equality.