History

In this first comparative history of race relations in the United States and South Africa, George M. Fredrickson uncovers parallels and differences in the origin and expression of white supremacy in the two countries.

Historian, journalist, educator, and civil rights advocate W. E. B. Du Bois was perhaps most accomplished as a sociologist of race relations and of the black community in the United States. This volume collects his most important sociological writings...

This absorbing book is a systematic analysis of the litigation in "Brown v. Mississippi," in which the Supreme Court made a pathbreaking decision in 1936 showing the unconstitutionality of coerced confessions. The case exonerated Ed Brown, Henry Shields,...

The nineteenth century in the United States witnessed the end of slavery and the expansion of another form of confinement: the asylum. How did enslaved and free Black people encounter psychiatric institutions? How were notions of mental disability used...

A fierce and inspirational guide to Black resistance, resilience, and healing, using the principles of Afro-Indigenous spiritual practices Understanding where you came from is crucial to understand where you are going. The Five Blessings of Ifá explores...

A deeply personal exploration of the generational impact of guns on the Black experience in America   A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her daddy...

The remarkable story of Edward McCabe, a Black man who tried to establish a Black state within the United States. In this paradigm-shattering work of American history, Caleb Gayle recounts the extraordinary tale of Edward McCabe, a Black man who...

The story of settlers in the American West, with its tales of cowboys, prospectors, and frontiersmen, is often overwhelmingly white. Black Wests brings to light the pivotal and largely overlooked contributions of Black Americans to the western narrative...

A vibrant, deeply researched biography of A'Lelia Walker--daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and herself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance--written by her great-granddaughter.   Dubbed the "joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s" by poet Langston...

An authoritative exploration of how Black Americans have shaped baseball from its emergence after the Civil War to the Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier, up to today's game--by award-winning author Gerald Early in...

Why don't our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they're actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America's classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to...

A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue--and its fascinating role in Black history and culture--from National Book Award winner Imani Perry Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color:...