Cultural Literature

Prince Edward County, Virginia closed its public school system in 1959 in massive resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court's historic Brown v. Board decision of 1954. The editorial pages of the local family-owned newspaper, The Farmville Herald, led the...

The Baltimore African-American community, with its well-known personalities and cultural contributions have made the town what it is today.Throughout the years, the city of Baltimore has played host to many well-known figures, including Louis Armstrong,...

The author of the magisterial A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers now approaches the great singers and their greatest work in an innovative and revelatory way: through considering their finest albums, which is the format in which this...

'. . . we need this book. Of course Africa needs it as well, because no other huge area of the planet is treated as such a singular region, and that has to change. But the rest of the planet needs It's a Continent because we miss out by not recognising...

On a chilly December afternoon in 1975, Bernard Whitehurst Jr., a 33-year-old father of four, was mistaken for a robbery suspect by Montgomery, Alabama, police officers. A brief foot chase ensued, and it ended with one of the pursuing officers shooting...

In To a Young Jazz Musician, the renowned jazz musician and Pulitzer Prize--winning composer Wynton Marsalis gives us an invaluable guide to making good music-and to leading a good life.Writing from the road "between the bus ride, the sound check, and...

Toussaint L'Ouverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution in the late eighteenth century, in which slaves rebelled against their masters and established the first black republic. In this collection of his writings and speeches, former Haitian...

The Tuskegee Land Utilization Project is an important part of Macon County's past in the Black Belt of Alabama. African-American sharecroppers and tenant farmers were barely surviving in the poorest of conditions on land so worn out, it could no longer...

In 1961, 16-year-old Brenda Travis was a youth leader of the NAACP branch in her hometown of McComb, Mississippi. She joined in the early stages of voter registration, and when the Freedom Rides and direct action reached McComb, she and two SNCC workers...

The definitive account of exploitation in the Congo, introduced by Adam Hochschild In the early twentieth century, the worldwide rubber boom led British entrepreneur Lord Leverhulme to the Belgian Congo. Warmly welcomed by the murderous regime of King...

In 1957, New York photojournalist Jerry Dantzic spent time with the iconic singer Billie Holiday during a week-long run of performances at the Newark, New Jersey, nightclub Sugar Hill. The resulting images offer a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of Billie...

The book is a tribute to everyone who continues to believe that America is great not because of the urge that some have to close her to foreigners but precisely because she continues to welcome them with open arms. The stories about the author's sojourn...