Books
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Magically Black and Other Essays
*** Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay****In this engaging follow up to How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, the recipient of PEN New England Award for nonfiction and finalist for the National Book Award sharply examines and explains Black life and culture with equal parts candor and humor.In Magically Black and Other Essays Jerald Walker elegantly blends personal revelation and cultural critique to create a bracing and often humorous examination of Black American life. He thoughtfully addresses the inherent complexities of topics as eclectic as incarceration, home renovations, gentrification, the crip walk, pimping, and the rise of the MAGA movement, approaching them through various Black perspectives, including husband, father, teacher, and writer. The collection's overarching theme is captured in the titular essay, which examines the culture of heroic action African Americans created in response to their enslavement and oppression, giving proof to Albert Murray's observation that the "fire in the forging process . . . for all its violence, does not destroy the metal that becomes the sword."
$29.99 $24.99
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Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies
Known worldwide as Lead Belly, Huddie Ledbetter (1889-1949) is an American icon whose influence on modern music was tremendous - as was, according to legend, the temper that landed him in two of the South's most brutal prisons, while his immense talent twice won him pardons. But, as this deeply researched book shows, these stories were shaped by the white folklorists who 'discovered' Lead Belly and, along with reporters, recording executives, and radio and film producers, introduced him to audiences beyond the South. Through a revelatory examination of arrest, trial, and prison records; sharecropping reports; oral histories; newspaper articles; and more, author Sheila Curran Bernard replaces myth with fact, offering a stunning indictment of systemic racism in the Jim Crow era of the United States and the power of narrative to erase and distort the past.
$32.95 $27.95
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Efficient Womanhood: Women and the Making of the Universal Negro Improvement Association
From its Kingston, Jamaica, inception in 1914, women helped define and shape the Black Nationalist and Pan-Africanist aims of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Their efforts, made possible in part by UNIA cofounder Amy Ashwood Garvey, helped sustain the largest social justice organization of the twentieth century. In this deeply researched collective biography, Natanya Duncan documents the complexities of UNIA women as active participants in Black nation-building. Women from both sides of the Atlantic joined the UNIA in pursuit of gender and racial equality, developing a three-tiered activist strategy that Duncan calls "efficient womanhood" seek equitable partnerships with like-minded persons and organizations, work as peer and intergenerational mentors, and serve as bridge builders between the organization and resources and people in service to their immediate communities and the race at large.Through an impressive and original archive of their self-determination, Duncan presents the stories of Henrietta Vinton Davis, Maymie de Mena, and Laura Kofey, as well as groups of UNIA women like the Black Cross Nurses, the Universal African Motor Corp, and the Lucy 9 Club, who circumvented the ideals of their era and created a brand of independent female leadership. The book demonstrates how UNIA women orchestrated and activated the organization from the bottom up while influencing and informing men and each other. By focusing on how women of the UNIA created an activist framework, Duncan reveals a model of organizing that has endured into the present day.
$34.95 $29.95
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Foundational Black American Race Baiter: My Journey Into Understanding Systematic Racism
Racism is the most powerful system on the planet, yet it is often perceived as the most taboo subject to discuss.In this book, Foundational Black American Race Baiter, world-renowned influencer Tariq Nasheed gives his honest and sometimes controversial perspective on race relations. Nasheed, was born in Detroit Michigan, and raised as a youth in Birmingham Alabama. But he spent much of his life, including his "truly formative years" in Los Angeles. Foundational Black American Race Baiter chronicles his experiences growing up in these different environments, and how these experiences shaped Nasheed's understanding of systematic racism.
$34.95 $29.95
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Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics
2024 Outstanding Academic Title, given by Choice Reviews Celebrates the life and legacy of Bayard Rustin, the civil rights leader behind the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom While we can all recall images of Martin Luther King Jr. giving his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of a massive crowd at Lincoln Memorial, few of us remember the man who organized this watershed nonviolent protest in eight short weeks: Bayard Rustin. This was far from Rustin's first foray into the fight for civil rights. As a world-traveling pacifist, he brought Gandhi's protest techniques to the forefront of US civil rights demonstrations, helped build the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led the fight for economic justice, and played a deeply influential role in the life of Dr. King by helping to mold him into an international symbol of nonviolent resistance. Rustin's legacy touches many areas of contemporary life--from civil resistance to violent uprisings, democracy to socialism, and criminal justice reform to war resistance. Despite these achievements, Rustin was often relegated to the background. He was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. With expansive, searching, and sometimes critical essays from a range of esteemed writers--including Rustin's own partner, Walter Naegle--this volume draws a full picture of Bayard Rustin: a gay, pacifist, socialist political radical who changed the course of US history and set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from LGBTQ+ Pride to Black Lives Matter.
$35.00 $30.00
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We Now Belong to Ourselves: J.L. Edmonds, the Black Press, and Black Citizenship in America
Weaving together poetry, personal narrative, and never-before-seen documents from the Jefferson Lewis Edmonds' family archive, Arianne Edmonds provides a wide-ranging look at how the Black Press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries defined Black citizenship after Reconstruction, fostered networks of resistance, and set in motion critical social justice narratives that are still relevant today. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Black press provided a blueprint to help Black Americans transition from slavery and find opportunities to advance and define African American citizenship. Among the vanguard of the Black press was Jefferson Lewis Edmonds, founder and editor of The Liberator newspaper. His Los Angeles-based newspaper championed for women's rights, land and business ownership, education, and civic engagement, while condemning lynchings and other violent acts against African Americans. It encouraged readers to move westward and build new communities, and it printed stories about weddings and graduations as a testament to the lives and moments not chronicled in the White-owned press. Edmonds took this fierce perspective in his career as a journalist, for he himself was born into slavery and dedicated his life to creating pathways of liberation for those who came after him. Across the pages of his newspaper, Edmonds painted a different perspective on Black life in America and championed for his community--from highlighting the important work of his contemporaries, including Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, to helping local readers find love in the personal ads section. The Liberator, along with a chorus of Black newspapers at the turn of the century, educated an entire generation on how to guard their rights and take claim of their new American citizenship. Written by Jefferson Lewis Edmonds' great-great granddaughter, We Now Belong to Ourselves chronicles how Edmonds and other pioneering Black publishers documented the shifting tides in the advancement of Black liberation. Arianne Edmonds argues that the Black press was central in transforming Black Americans' communication patterns, constructing national resistance networks, and defining Black citizenship after Reconstruction--a vision, mission, and spirit that persists today through Black online social movements. Weaving together poetry, personal narrative, newspaper clips, and documents from the Edmonds family archive, We Now Belong to Ourselves illustrates how Edmonds used his platform to center Black joy, Black triumph, and radical Black acceptance.
$34.99 $29.99
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In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose
In this groundbreaking classic essay collection, Alice Walker speaks out as a Black woman, writer, mother, and feminist on topics ranging from the personal to the political.This edition includes a new Letter to the Reader by Alice Walker.Originally published forty years ago, Alice Walker's first collection of nonfiction is a dazzling compendium that remains both timely and relevant. In these thirty-six essays, Walker contemplates her own work and that of other writers, considers the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s, and writes vividly and courageously about a scarring childhood injury. Throughout, Walker explores the theories and practices of feminism, incorporating what she calls the "womanist" tradition of black women--insights that are vital to understanding our lives and society today."When I graduated from college, my father gave me Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. It was a beaten-up paperback in 1999, and it's even more battered now." --Jesmyn Ward
$24.99 $19.99
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Song Below Water
Bethany C. Morrow's A Song Below Water is the story for today's readers -- a captivating modern fantasy about Black sirens, friendship, and self-discovery set against the challenges of today's racism and sexism. In a society determined to keep her under lock and key, Tavia must hide her siren powers. Meanwhile, Effie is fighting her own family struggles, pitted against literal demons from her past. Together, these best friends must navigate through the perils of high school's junior year. But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice at the worst possible moment. Soon, nothing in Portland, Oregon, seems safe. To save themselves from drowning, it's only Tavia and Effie's unbreakable sisterhood that proves to be the strongest magic of all. "It's beautiful and it's brilliant."--Jason Reynolds, #1 New York Times bestselling author and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature "An enthralling tale of Black girl magic and searing social commentary ready to rattle the bones." -- Dhonielle Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Belles
$16.99 $11.99
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Who Knows You by Heart
Part social thriller, part modern love story, Who Knows You by Heart is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering what's real in an age of artificial intelligence.Octavia Crenshaw, a Jamaican-American coder living in Manhattan, is broke, burned out, and haunted by her parents' deaths. Desperate to pay off some debts, she ditches her nonprofit job for a high-paying gig at Eustachian Inc., a Big Tech company that specializes in audio entertainment. Language, communication, human connection--these are the markets Eustachian wants to revolutionize...and dominate.Octavia finds herself swept up in the world of the Tech Titans, with its lure of instant riches and its seemingly limitless future. But as one of Eustachian's very few Black employees, Octavia is uncomfortably aware of things that seem to escape her coworkers: unexplained tech glitches, cryptic remarks, a mysterious secret floor in the corporation's gleaming headquarters. But she sets her suspicions aside when she's recruited by another Black coder--the infuriating but attractive Walcott--to collaborate on a secret project code-named Zion. Zion is a new kind of AI-powered storytelling, one that's programmed to be free from the racist and sexist biases that plague other AI products. Zion could launch Eustachian into a bold new future and make its developers super rich while righting all kinds of injustices. Octavia and Walcott's excitement over their creation sets off romantic sparks between the two of them, until they discover a toxic secret about their employer--something that they can't unlearn, or overlook, but must overcome.
$35.00 $30.00
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People Like Us
One of USA Today's 15 Books You Should Read This SummerOne of Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Hot New Summer ReadsOne of People's Most Anticipated Summer BooksOne of Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 The riveting new novel by the author of the 2021 National Book Award winner and bestseller Hell of a Book People Like Us is Jason Mott's electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason's life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don't let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt. In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds. People Like Us is wickedly funny and achingly sad all at once. It is an utter triumph bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. This book contains characters experiencing deep loss and longing; it also is buoyed by riotous humor and characters who share the deepest love. It is the newest creation of a writer whose work amazes, delivering something utterly new yet instantly recognizable as a Jason Mott novel. Finishing the novel will leave you absolutely breathless and, at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us.
$35.00 $30.00
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Dear Justyce
An NPR Best Book of the Year * The stunning sequel to the critically acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestseller Dear Martin. An incarcerated teen writes letters to his best friend about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system. An unflinching look into the tragically flawed practices and silenced voices in the American juvenile justice system. Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University . . . and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center. Through a series of flashbacks, vignettes, and letters to Justyce--the protagonist of Dear Martin--Quan's story takes form. Troubles at home and misunderstandings at school give rise to police encounters and tough decisions. But then there's a dead cop and a weapon with Quan's prints on it. What leads a bright kid down a road to a murder charge? Not even Quan is sure. "A powerful, raw, must-read told through the lens of a Black boy ensnared by our broken criminal justice system." -Kirkus, Starred Review
$24.99 $19.99
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Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963
Enter the hilarious world of 10-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, Kenny, and Byron, who's 13 and an official "juvenile delinquent." When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. They're heading south. They're going to Birmingham, Alabama, toward one of the darkest moments in American history.
$22.99 $17.99
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