The Cultural Matrix seeks to unravel a uniquely American paradox: the socioeconomic crisis, segregation, and social isolation of disadvantaged black youth, on the one hand, and their extraordinary integration and prominence in popular culture on the other. Despite school dropout rates over 40 percent, a third spending time in prison, chronic unemployment, and endemic violence, black youth are among the most vibrant creators of popular culture in the world. They also espouse several deeply-held American values. To understand this conundrum, the authors bring culture back to the forefront of exp... View More...
An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggle In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; su... View More...
Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves appears as one of "eight notable Oklahomans," the "most feared U.S. marshal in the Indian country." That Reeves was also an African American who had spent his early life as a slave in Arkansas and Texas makes his accomplishments all the more remarkable. Bucking the odds ("I'm sorry, we didn't keep black people's history," a clerk at one of Oklahoma's local historical societies answered a query), Art T. Burton sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late nineteenth-century America--and perhaps the gr... View More...
New York Times Editor's ChoiceRay & Pat Browne Award for Best Work in Popular Culture and American CultureNAACP Image Award FinalistBooks for a Better Life Award FinalistNorthern California Book Award FinalistOver the past half-century, the U.S. has seen profound demographic and cultural change. But racial progress still seems distant. After the faith of the civil rights movement, the fervor of multiculturalism, and even the brief euphoria of a "post-racial" moment, we remain a nation divided. Resegregation is the norm. The culture wars flare as hot as ever. How do Americans see race now? Do w... View More...
New York Times Editor's ChoiceRay & Pat Browne Award for Best Work in Popular Culture and American CultureNAACP Image Award FinalistBooks for a Better Life Award FinalistNorthern California Book Award FinalistOver the past half-century, the U.S. has seen profound demographic and cultural change. But racial progress still seems distant. After the faith of the civil rights movement, the fervor of multiculturalism, and even the brief euphoria of a "post-racial" moment, we remain a nation divided. Resegregation is the norm. The culture wars flare as hot as ever. How do Americans see race now? Do w... View More...
The definitive biography of one of the most courageous women in American history "reveals Harriet Tubman to be even more remarkable than her legend" (Newsday).Celebrated for her exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of nineteenth-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman? To John Brown, leader of the Harper's Ferry slave uprising, she was General Tubman. For the many slaves she led north to freedom, she was Moses. To the slaveholders who sought her capture, she was a thief and a trickst... View More...
NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE 2020 TORONTO BOOK AWARD A bracing, provocative, and perspective-shifting book from one of Canada's most celebrated and uncompromising writers, Desmond Cole. The Skin We're In will spark a national conversation, influence policy, and inspire activists. In his 2015 cover story for Toronto Life magazine, Desmond Cole exposed the racist actions of the Toronto police force, detailing the dozens of times he had been stopped and interrogated under the controversial practice of carding. The story quickly came to national prominence, shaking the country to its core and ... View More...
From the end of postwar Reconstruction in the South to an analysis of the rise and fall of Black Power, acclaimed historian Adam Fairclough presents a straightforward synthesis of the century-long struggle of black Americans to achieve civil rights and equality in the United States. Beginning with Ida B. Wells and the campaign against lynching in the 1890s, Fairclough chronicles the tradition of protest that led to the formation of the NAACP, Booker T. Washington and the strategy of accommodation, Marcus Garvey and the push for black nationalism, through to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civ... View More...
Offering inspirational advice in a down-to-earth style, this unique compilation of letters provides wisdom, guidance, and heartfelt insight to help the reader chart their own path to success. Based on the author's motivational speaking at inner-city schools across the country, the letters deal with the tough issues that face young people today. Bombarded with messages from music and the media, Harper set out to dispel the stereotypical image of success that young people receive today and instead emphasizes alternative views of what it truly means to be a successful male, such as educational a... View More...
One of TIME's 100 Must Read Books of 2020 and one of Good Housekeeping's Best Books of the YearNamed one of the most anticipated books of the year by ELLE, Buzzfeed, Esquire, Bitch Media, Good Housekeeping, Electric Literature, Parade and BookRiot "One of the smartest young writers of her generation."--Book RiotFrom the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing--a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as "a force to be reckoned with"--comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and th... View More...
A groundbreaking, timely history of the largely unknown early days of Black basketball, bringing to life the trailblazing players, teams, and impresarios who made the game From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities on a wide scale in 1904 to the racial integration of the NBA in 1950, dozens of African American teams were founded and flourished. This period, known as the Black Fives Era (teams at the time were often called "fives"), was a time of pioneering players and managers. They battled discrimination and marginalization and created culturally rich, socially mea... View More...
Groundbreaking, controversial, and courageous, here is the story of Rosa Parks and Recy Taylor--a story that reinterprets the history of America's civil rights movement in terms of the sexual violence committed against Black women by white men. An important step to finally facing the terrible legacies of race and gender in this country." --The Washington Post Rosa Parks was often described as a sweet and reticent elderly woman whose tired feet caused her to defy segregation on Montgomery's city buses, and whose supposedly solitary, spontaneous act sparked the 1955 bus boycott that gave birth ... View More...
Acclaimed biographer James McGrath Morris brings into focus the riveting life of one of the most significant yet least known figures of the civil rights era--pioneering journalist Ethel Payne, the "First Lady of the Black Press"--elevating her to her rightful place in history at last.For decades, Ethel Lois Payne has been hidden in the shadows of history. Now, James McGrath Morris skillfully illuminates this ambitious, influential, and groundbreaking woman's life, from her childhood growing up in South Chicago to her career as a journalist and network news commentator, reporting on some of the... View More...
James McGrath Morris's groundbreaking biography illuminates the life and accomplishments of pioneering journalist Ethel Lois Payne, and pays tribute to the critical role of the black press in the civil rights era. A self-proclaimed "instrument for change," Payne publicly prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to support desegregation. From Alabama to Vietnam, from Indonesia to Ghana, her reporting on legislative and judicial civil rights battles enlightened and motivated black readers, for whom she served as an eyewitness on the frontlines of the struggle for freedom. At great personal risk, P... View More...
Winner, American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation, 2012Super Black places the appearance of black superheroes alongside broad and sweeping cultural trends in American politics and pop culture, which reveals how black superheroes are not disposable pop products, but rather a fascinating racial phenomenon through which futuristic expressions and fantastic visions of black racial identity and symbolic political meaning are presented. Adilifu Nama sees the value--and finds new avenues for exploring racial identity--in black superheroes who are often dismissed as sidekicks, imitators of estab... View More...
