General History

Boston is one of America's most historic cities, but it has quite a bit of unseen past.Riotous mobs celebrated their hatred of the pope in an annual celebration called Pope's Night during the colonial era. A centuries-long turf war pl

In Hidden Heroism, Robert Edgerton investigates the history of Afro-American participation in American wars, from the French and Indian War to the present. He argues that blacks in American society have long-suffered from a natural coward stereotype that...

Many of the unsung heroes of the Underground Railroad lived and worked in Washington, D.C.Men and women, black and white, operatives and freedom seekers - all demonstrated courage, resourcefulness and initiative. Leonard Grimes, a fre

Heritage of Power is the first book to establish the civil-rights legacy of Mary Ellen Pleasant, called "The Mother of Civil Rights in California." Did this daring woman of mystery really aid the abolitionist John Brown and study with New Orleans' most...

NATIONAL BESTSELLEREdgar Award NomineeOne of the Best Books of the Year: O, The Oprah Magazine, Time, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, San Francisco ChronicleWith a New AfterwordOn April 4, 1968, James Earl...

Winner of the Zócalo Public Square Book PrizeBenjamin L. Hooks Award Finalist "An insightful, powerful, and moving book."--Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice "Sturkey's clear-eyed and meticulous book pulls off a delicate balancing act. While depicting...

Winner of the 2020 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize A rich, multigenerational saga of race and family in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, that tells the story of how Jim Crow was built, how it changed, and how the most powerful social movement in American...

A great many books have been written about Harlem, but for social history by product has surpassed Gilbert Osofsky's account of how a pleasant, pastoral upper-middle-class suburb of Manhattan turned into an appalling black slum within forty years. Mr...

Harlem is one of the best-known neighborhoods in the U.S., and it's also one of the nation's most vibrant cultural hubs. Though its reputation has been tarnished at times by economic depressions and crime, its loyal community has created a unique history...

On a frosty day in February 1862, hundreds gathered to watch the execution of Nathaniel Gordon. Two years earlier, Gordon had taken Africans in chains from the Congo -- a hanging offense for more than forty years that no one had ever enforced. But with...

The African-American community of Gwinnett County boasts a rich heritage brought to life in scenes captured by early photography. These residents faced challenges and hardships both during and after slavery and entered into the turbulent 20th century...

The Golden Isles are home to a long and proud African American and Gullah Geechee heritage.Ibo Landing was the site of a mass suicide in protest of slavery, the slave ship Wanderer landed on Jekyll Island and, thanks to preservation e

In this revealing social history, one remarkable White House dinner shines a powerful light on race, politics, and the lives and legacies of Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington. In this revealing social history, one remarkable White Hou

One year before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball in 1947, four black players joined the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Rams to become the first professional football players of African-American descent in the modern era...

Good Trouble is the helpful antidote to all the pessimism and name-calling that is permeating today's political and social dialogues. Revisiting episodes from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, it highlights the essential lessons that...

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...