Cultural Literature

"The claim of The Black Poets to being... an anthology is that it presents the full range of Black-American poetry, from the slave songs to the present day. It is important that folk poetry be included because it is the root and inspiration of later,...

The Black Notebooks is one of the most extraordinary and courageous accounts of race in this country, seen through the eyes of a light-skinned black woman and a respected American poet. It challenges all our preconceived notions of what it means to be...

The artists featured in The Black Index--Dennis Delgado, Alicia Henry, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell, and Lava Thomas--build upon the tradition of Black self-representation as an antidote to colonialist images. Their translations...

Crispus Attucks is known as the escaped slave whose freedom ended when he died in the Boston Massacre, but there are many other lesser-known black men and women who made enormous contributions to U.S. independence. Readers will discover Edward Hector,...

I wish my father had been present in my life, so I would not have accepted a lot of crap from men... Growing up, I didn't feel loved by my mother which caused.... It is hard to find and maintain a solid group of trustworthy girlfriends to do life with...

In the fifteen chapters that comprise this comprehensive look at the Black family today, contributors deal with an aspect of family life that pertains especially to the Black community. The topics include the extended family, single female parenting,...

Large numbers of slaves worked for the Confederate war effort as wagon drivers, munitions factory workers, and officers' body servants. But contrary to popular wisdom, the number that actually bore arms for the Confederacy was negligible.The Black...

Four pieces in this text by writer Judy Juanita - a poem, drama, short story and essay - bring themes of adolescence self-determination & ethnic pride grief and regret, and the gun as romantic symbol or literal destruction, to college and high school...

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. "Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work." --Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again "Engaging. . . . In Gates's telling, the Black church shines bright even...

Some members of the minority have personally risen above the fray and been assisted over the wall and through the maze to a better life, but some individuals have been hindered in their personal and social progress. Some of the roadblocks have been...

Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction "A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO UNDERSTAND THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND POLICE BRUTALITY IN AMERICA."-CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS During his 28-year career, Matthew Horace rose through...

Not so long ago the world resisted change, often using religious-reasoning. Small wonder--the printing press, a sixteenth century disruptive device, split Christianity. Now the globe welcomes digital disruption, even praising it as a solution for...

Drawing on a wealth of contemporary source material, a fascinating social history of how commercial sex has been bought and sold in London for more than 1,000 years. The Bankside Brothels, or "stewes," were a celebrated feature of London life since Roman...

The 1903 Group Plan for Cleveland's downtown laid out a vision of Neoclassical splendor, an open civic area filled with grand fountains, graceful sculptures and formal gardens. Like most projects of its kind, it was supposed to take only one generation...

An amazing recap of the life of a plain country girl with a 7th grade education who dared to dream. Clara (Morale) Broussard accomplished many things in her lifetime that women back in those days would not even think of doing. She is a strong woman who...

"Narrative, celebratory history at its purest" (Publishers Weekly)--the real story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a vivid account of political strategy, big egos, and the partisan interests that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the...