Cultural Literature

A powerful exploration of self-resilience, family, and community from activist and prison abolitionist Keeonna Harris.Keeonna and Jason met as young teens. Only fourteen, Keeonna had never had a boyfriend before, dreamed of attending Spelman to become an...

A long-forgotten Black abolitionist who liberated captive workers by the wagonload, brilliantly satirized slaveholders, and gave the underground railroad its name. Thomas Smallwood was a shoemaker by day and an organizer of mass escapes from slavery by...

An elegant biography of a prescient author whose novels portray Black women's experiences across the African diaspora Growing up in World War II-era Brooklyn among West Indian immigrants, Paule Marshall (1929-2019) was fiercely driven to become a writer,...

A leading sociologist's groundbreaking three-decade study challenges outdated views of crime and character, revealing that traditional risk factors alone poorly predict children's futures. Between 1970 and 2020, the United States experienced a dramatic...

In a country where systemic racism is embedded in every institution, and in a city like Milwaukee-known for its segregation, surveillance, and high incarceration rates of Black men-Craig Brown managed to do the improbable: he never caught a case.Never...

A. J. Cade's Death or Victory offers the first in-depth history of the Louisiana Native Guards, pioneering African American regiments within the Union army. Originating as a division of the New Orleans Home Guards in May 1861, the Native Guards consisted...

A FORGOTTEN EPISODE FROM THE ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION: An extraordinary American hero travels to the nation's capital to tell an unforgettable story of violence, resistance, and social action in the post-Civil War South. For Black History Month, the...

Williams fought a good fight for a better democracy and the collective equal rights of African Americans. He was not just a revolutionary voice and internationalist leader and voice in the Black Power movement, and should not be forgotten or dismissed...

W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the leading figures of Pan-African thought and activism in the twentieth century. As a sociologist, Du Bois wrote much about the historical and social circumstances of African Americans while often acknowledging the African...

This souvenir book showcases some of the most influential and important treasures of the National Museum of African American History and Culture's collections. These include a hymn book owned by Harriet Tubman; ankle shackles used to restrain enslaved...

From the author of the "daring, urgent, and transformative" (Brené Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead) Black Magic, a timely, vulnerable, and cutting-edge exploration of the pressures and pitfalls of writing while Black in America...