History

In 1941, a real estate developer in northwest Detroit faced a dilemma. He needed federal financing for white clients purchasing lots in a new subdivision abutting a community of mostly African Americans. When the banks deemed the development too risky bec

In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, David Robertson illuminates the shadowy figure who planned a slave rebellion so daring that, if successful, it might have changed the face of the antebellum South. This is the story of a man who, like...

AWARD-WINNING CREATIVE NONFICTION BIOGRAPHYO, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE "10 TITLES TO PICK UP NOW" 20181885-1914. Mary Fields, a fifty-three-year-old second-generation slave, emancipated and residing in Toledo, receives news of her friend's impending death...

African-American life in Delaware from the late 1800s to the 1960s was characterized by a struggle for equity in a time when there was by product. This vigorous community set about developing its own institutions and activities, and what emerged was a...

The civil rights movement that looms over the 1950s and 1960s was the tip of an iceberg, the legal and political remnant of a broad, raucous, deeply American movement for social justice that flourished from the 1920s through the 1940s. This rich history...

President Barack Obama is a unique U.S. president. His heritage redefines diversity for American politicians. His abilities as a politician and leader often transcend description. He has become a uniquely-appealing political icon over a very short period...

The book that inspired the documentary A Crime on the Bayou 2021 Chautauqua Prize Finalist The "arresting, astonishing history" of one lawyer and his defendant who together achieved a "civil rights milestone" (Justin Driver). In 1966 in a small town in...

The unforgettable story of one lawyer and his defendant who together changed American law during the height of the Civil Rights eraIn 1966 in a small town in Louisiana, a 19-year-old black man named Gary Duncan pulled his car off the road to stop a fight...

The creation of Africa's newest state, South Sudan, in 2011, involved national and international recognition of "traditional authorities", or chiefs. Chiefship has often been misunderstood to be a timeless or non-state institution, but this book argues...

A fascinating journey into the dark heart of the American gothic that analyzes the ways it relates to race in twenty-first-century America Haunted houses, bitter revenants and muffled heartbeats under floorboards--the American gothic is a macabre tale...

In February, 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur (the western region of Sudan) after years of oppression took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government and allied militias answered the rebellion with mass murder, rape and the...