History

From T. J. English, the New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne, comes the epic, scintillating narrative of the interconnected worlds of jazz and organized crime in 20th century America.Dangerous Rhythms tells the symbiotic story of jazz and...

A profound artistic exploration of African leadership. Be your best. This is the quest that the greatest of heroes model for us. Through their journeys, struggles, and triumphs, these individuals exemplify values that we celebrate in tales of heroic...

The classic reflection of the Protestant roots and ethos behind pluralistic American and its religions today.Martin Marty, in his new introduction for the Wesleyan reissue of H. Richard Niebuhr's The Kingdom of God in America, calls it a classic. First...

The brutal lynching of two young black men in Marion, Indiana, on August 7, 1930, cast a shadow over the town that still lingers. It is only one event in the long and complicated history of race relations in Marion, a history much ignored and considered...

Architecture is often described as the marriage of art and technology, and integral to good design is an in-depth understanding of materials and construction. The complex range of technical and practical factors that need to be considered in the design...

Although Belgium officially withdrew its military forces from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in July 1960, unofficially the former colonial ruler of this central African country maintained a political, economic, and military presence...

In December 1941 the Japanese invaded Burma. For the British, the longest land campaign of the Second World War had begun. 100,000 African soldiers were taken from Britain's colonies to fight the Japanese in the Burmese jungles. They performed heroically...

Although it occurred nearly a century ago, the Elaine Massacre of 1919 remains the subject of intense inquiry as historians try to answer a multitude of questions, such as why authorities in the Arkansas Delta used such overwhelming violence to put down...

Here is the black Chicago family album, of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and "goin' to Chicago" to find the American Dream.The story of black Chicago is so rich that few know it all. It began long before the city itself. Wells, the...

"An astonishingly detailed rendering of the variety and complexity of racial experience in an evolving national culture." -The New York Times Book ReviewIn the Obama era, as Americans confront the enduring significance of race and heritage, this...

Civil rights leader and legislator Lloyd A. Barbee frequently signed his correspondence with "Justice for All," a phrase that embodied his life's work of fighting for equality and fairness. An attorney most remembered for the landmark case that...

Springfield became the capital of Illinois due in large part to Abraham Lincoln--lawyer, politician, and president. Lincoln lived in Springfield from 1837 to 1861, and during the decade after his departure, the African American population in the city...

A dozen years in the making, The Inheritors weaves together the stories of three ordinary South Africans over five tumultuous decades in a sweeping and exquisite look at what really happens when a country resolves to end white supremacy. Dipuo grew up...

In the mid-1980s, Emmanuel Jal was a seven year old Sudanese boy, living in a small village with his parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings. But as Sudan's civil war moved closer--with the Islamic government seizing tribal lands for water, oil, and other...