General History

A kaleidoscopic account of the crack cocaine era and a community's ultimate resilience, told through a cast of characters whose lives illuminate the dramatic rise and fall of the epidemic   The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the...

The New Yorker, Best Books of 2022 Vanity Fair, Best Books of 2022 Booklist, Best Books of 2022 Singer. Actress. Beauty. Spy. During WWII, Josephine Baker, the world's richest and most glamorous entertainer, was an Allied spy in Occupied France. ...

Cities are nothing without the streets--the arteries through which goods, people, and ideas flow. Neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, the city streets are where politics begins. In Struggle for the Street, Jessica D. Klanderud documents the...

The legacy of the slave family haunts the status of black Americans in modern U.S. society. Stereotypes that first entered the popular imagination in the form of plantation lore have continued to distort the African American social identity. In What...

Families trapped in poverty and systemic injustices. Children denied civil rights because of race. A nation with immense potential for freedom spiraling into prejudice, violence, and hate. The country Frederick Douglass knew over one-hundred years ago...

The word cowboy conjures up vivid images of rugged men on saddled horses-men lassoing cattle, riding bulls, or brandishing guns in a shoot-out. White men, as Hollywood remembers them. What is woefully missing from these scenes is their counterparts: the...

The rediscovery of a pivotal figure in Black history and his importance and influence in the struggle against slavery and discrimination Born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817-c. 1869) escaped enslavement and would become a...

Southern Association for Women Historians Julia Cherry Spruill PrizeFinalist, Hooks National Book AwardHow Black women usedlessons in literacy to crack the foundation of white supremacy This book details how African American women used lessons in basic...

A timely and significant examination of how Black athletes have used their influence to create meaningful change and reform for Black Americans. In the age of social media, athletes have a powerful influence like never before. Many Black athletes have...

The intimate and heartbreaking story of a Black undercover police officer who famously kneeled by the assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr--and a daughter's quest for the truth about her father In the famous photograph of the assassination of...

A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose extraordinary poetry set African American literature at the heart of the American Revolution. Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and...