Cultural Literature

This inspirational memoir serves as a call to action from prison reform activist Yusef Salaam, of the Exonerated Five, that will inspire us all to turn our stories into tools for change in the pursuit of racial justice. They didn't know who they had. So...

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America's first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives--ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks...

A richly illustrated celebration of the paintings of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama  From the moment of their unveiling at the National Portrait Gallery in early 2018, the portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama have become two...

NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2018 BY: Chicago Tribune - Time - Publisher's Weekly A stunning follow up to New York Times bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop The Washington Post: "Passionately written."Chris Matthews,...

From critically acclaimed journalist Valerie Boyd comes an eloquent profile of one of the most intriguing cultural figures of the twentieth century--Zora Neale Hurston. A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven...

In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake." Activating multiple registers of "wake"--the path...

A revealing collection that restores Dr. King as being every bit as radical as Malcolm X   "The radical King was a democratic socialist who sided with poor and working people in the class struggle taking place in capitalist societies. . . . The...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History and a New York Times bestseller, the definitive biography of Malcolm X Hailed as a masterpiece (San Francisco Chronicle), Manning Marable's acclaimed biography of Malcolm X finally does justice to one of the most...

A revealing personal life story like no other--enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering--and a testament to the world-making power of Black motherhood "You are Celestine," she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off...

A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo...

This stirring collection of Negro spirituals, edited by the great Negro poet James Weldon Johnson and arranged for voice and piano by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, presents 120 of these melodic -- and intensely moving -- religious folk songs for...

A beautiful, rich, and groundbreaking book exploring Black foodways within America and around the world, curated by food activist and author of Vegetable Kingdom Bryant Terry. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME OUT AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY -...