Cultural Literature

A major reappraisal of the life of legendary entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., Gonna Do Great Things is at once an intimate portrait and an exuberant celebration of a wholly American icon. Through his multifaceted talent and personality, Sammy became one of...

Golden Nuggets is a collection of stories of the old South, stories of African American communities of the old South, and stories of successful African American youth of the old South. Golden Nuggets talks about four prominent preachers and their...

The work of one of the most formidable figures in American intellectual life." -- Washington Post Book World The seventeen essays collected in this volume prove that Ralph Ellison was not only one of America's most dazzlingly innovative novelists but...

"The challenges of identity, assimilation, achievement, and politics that were faced by Lahoma and Cindy are the same challenges our youth are facing today." -Jaki Shelton Green, poet and NC Literary Hall of Fame inductee The school careers of two...

Urban decay can sap the determination--not to mention the soul--of anyone who experiences it. But there are forces that can and do reverse it. They are not spectators, or critics, or occasional demonstrators. They are groups of citizens, encouraged and...

Booklist Editors' Choice "Best Books of 2019" An intimate portrait of the joys and hardships of rural life, as one man searches for community, equality, and tradition in Appalachia Charles D. Thompson, Jr. was born in southwestern Virginia into an...

Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic plantation mentality embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation...

As Hip-Hop first exploded throughout New York City's boroughs and surrounding towns, a new generation was emerging--the first to be raised on the genre. At the center of it all was a collective known as the Juice Crew, led by the charismatic radio...

2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award WinnerFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award From an award-winning historian comes a dazzling history of the birth of cultural anthropology and the adventurous scientists who pioneered it--a sweeping chronicle...

In God, I Listened Too, Dr. La-Doris McClaney recounts her life and shares how the power of prayer, determination, and pure grit can transform a simple seed into an abundant harvest worth millions of dollars and countless lives forever changed. From her...

Equal parts cultural history and memoir, God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man recounts a traditional way of life--that of the Geechee Indians of Sapelo Island-- that is threatened by change, with stories that speak to our deepest notions of family,...

""William Myers has produced an outstanding study of the call to ministry among African American clergy. This is the broadest and deepest study of African American call stories and narratives ever written. Moving beyond the ethnographic descriptions,...