Cultural Literature

A passionate and illuminating account of soul, the hard-won wisdom shepherded by Black people throughout generationsHow did enslaved Africans turn America's infamous failure into the greatest moral occasion of modern Western life? In this book,...

A powerful, intergenerational memoir that traces one family's journey through war, exile, faith, and resilience, Roots of Grace is a story about the identity we inherit and what we choose to carry forward. Roots of Grace is a powerful, intergenerational...

In Racist by Design, award-winning historian Kelly Lytle Hern?ndez reveals how generations of lawmakers and law enforcers built the American immigration system to encourage white immigrants while targeting nonwhite migrants for exclusion, punishment, and...

Originally published in 2020, Jim Crow Sociology is a lauded history of how "Black sociology" came into existence. Diving into the history of four historically Black colleges and universities and their roles in pioneering a new intellectual field, Earl...

Originally published in 2020, Jim Crow Sociology is a lauded history of how "Black sociology" came into existence. Diving into the history of four historically Black colleges and universities and their roles in pioneering a new intellectual field, Earl...

Step into the vibrant streets of the 1970s Bronx and witness the exact moment a global movement began. Birth of a Culture gives you a front-row seat to the origins of hip-hop, told through the firsthand experiences of Grandmaster Flash--one of the...

The first biography of the celebrated ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell and the iconic dance company he founded, from a renowned dance historianArthur Mitchell (1934-2018) was one of the first Black principal dancers at the New York City Ballet and a...

Deference is often required of the politically vulnerable: the powers and institutions who have control over their lives often come to expect deference, demand it, reward people who give it, and penalize people who don't. Aptly marshalled deference is a...

A richly illustrated book focused on Black designers, how they shaped the history of modern design, and how their designs in turn influenced modern Black life. In twentieth-century Chicago, generations of Black artisans, craftspeople, art educators,...

Even before they were recognized as citizens of the United States, Black women understood that the fights for civil and human rights were inseparable. Over the course of two hundred years, they were at the forefront of national and international...

A groundbreaking analysis of Frederick Douglass as constitutional theorist, showing how his vision, which prefigured today's originalism, melded history and natural rights to address the evil of slavery. In his celebrated address "What to the Slave is...