History

Booker T. Washington has long held an ambiguous position in the pantheon of black leadership. Lauded by some in his own lifetime as a black George Washington, he was also derided by others as a Benedict Arnold. In "The Education of Booker T. Washington,"...

This book presents the trailblazing political scientist Martin L. Kilson's essays on leading Black intellectuals of the twentieth century. Kilson examines the ideas and careers of several key thinkers, placing their intellectual odysseys in the context...

When nineteen-year-old Prince took the stage to perform "I Wanna Be Your Lover" on American Bandstand, those who watched couldn't reconcile how Prince's funky disco-pop sounds had hailed from a place like Minneapolis. But the Minneapolis Sound, Prince's...

The National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning charts how "great replacement theory" has become a dominant political idea of our time and ushered in an antidemocratic age.  "[Kendi] has a gift for tracing how...

Dream A World Anew is the stunning gift book accompanying the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. It combines informative narratives from leading scholars, curators, and authors with objects from the...

Huey P. Newton was called many things in his time: revolutionary, genius, criminal, even the most surveilled human being in world history. Yet, little is known about him still because of persistent distortions to his name and legacy as co-founder of the...

A look at the efforts of two generations of Black Philadelphians to turn the City of Brotherly Love into a place of promise and opportunity for all, reissued with a new preface that continues the story of civil rights activism in Philadelphia up to the...

A long-forgotten Black abolitionist who liberated captive workers by the wagonload, brilliantly satirized slaveholders, and gave the underground railroad its name. Thomas Smallwood was a shoemaker by day and an organizer of mass escapes from slavery by...

Award-winning author and journalist Wil Haygood explores how the Vietnam War became a mirror for the struggle of Black Americans--fighting for freedom abroad while demanding equality at home--and a powerful lens through which to understand the racial and...

A. J. Cade's Death or Victory offers the first in-depth history of the Louisiana Native Guards, pioneering African American regiments within the Union army. Originating as a division of the New Orleans Home Guards in May 1861, the Native Guards consisted...