African American Studies

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...

An important book of epic scope on America's first racially integrated, religiously-inspired political movement for change--The Underground Railroad, a movement peopled by daring heroes and heroines, and everyday folk For most, the mention of the...

A "brutal, beautifully rendered" (The New York Times Book Review) collection of essays that offers poignant reflections on living between society's most charged, politicized, and intractable polar spaces--between black and white, rich and poor, thin and...

"Courageous, achingly honest. --Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness "A compelling, incisive and thoughtful examination of race, origin and what it means to be called...

Published in time for the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Killing King uncovers previously unknown FBI files and sources, as well as new forensics to convincingly make the case that King was assassinated by a...

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. Perhaps no moment was more opportune than the...

A call for the separation of race and state, backed by a deep dive into the surreal world of racial classification in America. Americans are understandably squeamish about official racial and ethnic classifications. Nevertheless, they are ubiquitous in...

How does it feel when your heritage isn't listed as an option on an identification form?What is it like to grow up as the only person in your family who looks like you?Where do you belong if you are simultaneously seen as being 'too much' of one race and...

'A powerful - even startling - book that challenges the shibboleths of 'white' anarchism'. Its analysis of police violence and the threat of fascism are as important now as they were at the end of the 1970s. Perhaps more so' - Peter James Hudson, Black...

Spanning from the nation's earliest years through the New Deal to the Covid pandemic, a groundbreaking work that interrogates how pivotal decisions have established and continued discriminatory practices in the United States, even as the rise of...

Poetry. African & African American Studies. Back in the day when KRS-One intoned--The Bridge is over!--he did not prefigure a poet from Queens of the fierce attitude and intellectual magnitude of Enzo Silon Surin. WHEN MY BODY WAS A CLINCHED FIST gives...