African American Biography

Meet. Love. Break. Recover. That’s been the routine of Staceyann Chin’s romantic life. But at 35, after yet another devasting breakup and overcome by an urgent and all-consuming desire to have a child, Chin realizes she’s running out of time. So she sets her sights on a single target: motherhood.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet, her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race...

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. This seemingly small act triggered civil rights protests across America and earned Rosa Parks the title "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement...

At a time when Booker T. Washington is being rediscovered by African Americans today, the author offers a compelling look at the man and the qualities of leadership he embodied in his life and work. The result is a timeless message of hope, empowerment, and responsibility, which Washington himself characterized as the training of head, heart, and hand.

This heartfelt picture book biography, adapted for audio, tells the story of MaVynee Betsch, an African American opera singer turned environmentalist and the legacy she preserved. MaVynee loved going to the beach. But in the days of Jim Crow, she couldn't just go to any beach--most of the...

Starting with Lucy Terry of the early 18th century and finishing with poet laureate Rita Dove, this inspiring anthology edited by Catherine Clinton captures the enormous talent and passion of black poets. Powerful and diverse, I, Too, Sing America is a forum for voices baring their souls, speaking their minds, tracing their roots, and proclaiming their dreams.

Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here was more than a bestseller; it was a national event. His beautifully narrated, heartbreaking nonfiction account of two black boys struggling to grow up in a Chicago public housing complex spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, was a...

A moving essay collection promoting freedom, self-love, and divine wholeness for Black women and opening new levels of understanding and ideological transformation for non-Black women and allies “Candice Marie Benbow is a once-in-a-generation theologian, the kind who, having ground dogma into...

Officer Clemmons: A Memoir details the incredible life story of François Clemmons, beginning with his early years in Alabama and Ohio, marked by family trauma and loss, through his studies as a music major at Oberlin College, where Clemmons began to investigate and embrace his homosexuality, to a chance encounter with Fred Rogers which changed the whole course of both men's lives, leading to a deep, spiritual friendship and mentorship spanning nearly forty years.

In her senior year of college, asha bandele and a group of other writers went to a prison to read their works for a Black History Month program. There, she met Rashid, a man who was serving 20 to life for murder, a man who spoke softly and wisely, a man who would become asha’s soul mate. This is her account of a relationship that has thrived despite terrific odds.

“An absolutely essential addition to the history of the Catholic Church, whose involvement in New World slavery sustained the Church and, thereby, helped to entrench enslavement in American society.”—Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and On...

The posthumous memoir of Rev. James Lawson Jr., peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mentor to Congressman John Lewis and the Freedom Riders, and a principal architect of a nonviolent resistance movement that changed the world. “This book is a gift to be treasured, from a man who has already...

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.

Discover more about Stevie Wonder, the music prodigy whose awards include 25 Grammy Awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Stevie Wonder is one of the most successful singer-songwriter-musicians of our time. Signing his first record deal when he was only eleven, he had his first No.1 hit...

In 1983 Chicago elected Harold Washington as the city's first black mayor. This is the story of Washington's improbable victory over Jane Byrne, heir to the late Richard J. Daley's political empire, and over Daley's eldest son. It's the story of a coalition outside the party's mainstream coming to power and ruling in the country's most political of cities. In Fire on the Prairie, Gary Rivlin reveals the personalities and philosophies of those who were at the center of events, from black separatists such as Lu Palmer to community organizers such as Jesse Jackson....

As groundbreaking as Code Girls and Hidden Figures, this is the shocking true story of two segregated codebreaking units racing to unlock Stalin’s atomic secrets in the face of a rapidly expanding Soviet nuclear threat at the dawn of the Cold War. Facing the global threat of a rising Communist...

You can sparkle, shimmer, shine – just like Marsha did. This vibrant and joyful audiobook celebrates the legacy of Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman and activist who played an instrumental role during the Stonewall Riots that lead to PRIDE month, written by award-winning filmmaker and...

Inspired by the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger, a chapter book series about women who spoke up and rose up against the odds--including Simone Biles! Simone Biles was raised by her grandparents and had to overcome many hardships as a child...

The dramatic and heartrending true story of one remarkable young man's account of love in the time of war, by a celebrated historian of untold Black stories On the eve of World War II, a handsome young scholar arrived in Paris. The queer, Black son of a housecleaner, who had nevertheless been...

The New York Times bestselling memoir now adapted for young adults! Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, chronicles her life story and her extraordinary path to becoming a jurist on America's highest court in this inspiring, intimate memoir...