General History

Speeches from the last year and a half of Malcolm X's life tracing the evolution of his views on racism, capitalism, socialism, political action, and more.

In August 1965 the predominantly black neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles erupted in flames and violence following an incident of police brutality. The official death toll was thirty-four; property losses reached hundreds of millions of dollars; but...

The Haitian Revolution, the product of the first successful slave revolt, was truly world-historic in its impact. When Haiti declared independence in 1804, the leading powers--France, Great Britain, and Spain--suffered an ignominious defeat and the New...

"Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other black renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it...It's thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally...

The long-hidden stories of America's black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for the heart of the nation When black settlers Keziah and Charles Grier started clearing their frontier land in 1818, they couldn't know that they were part...

Convicted of the rape of a white woman in Mississippi, Willie McGee was executed in 1951, and the mysteries surrounding his case live on in this provocative tale about justice in the deep South. A gripping saga of race and retribution in the Deep South...

Since its original publication in 1984, Manning Marable's Race, Reform, and Rebellion has become widely known as the most crucial political and social history of African Americans since World War II. Aimed at students of contemporary American politics...

Revealing a history that is deep, broad, and infuriating, The Black Tax casts a bold light on the racist practices long hidden in the shadows of America's tax regimes. American taxation is unfair, and it is most unfair to the very people who critically...

No book more vividly explains the horror of American slavery and the emotional impetus behind the antislavery movement than Frederick Douglass's Narrative. In an introductory essay, Robert B. Stepto reexamines the extraordinary life and achievement of a...

An inside look at the music born, bred, and perfected in Chicago.Chicago house music originated in the city's Black, gay underground in the late seventies and became one of the most popular musical genres in the world by the end of the century. In...

Meet the Black Brooklynites who defined New York City's most populous borough through their search for social justice Before it was a borough, Brooklyn was our nation's third largest city. Its free Black community attracted people from all walks of...