African American Crime

Carl Weber brings the best of urban street lit authors together, all telling their own dramatic tales of life in the streets in known cities across the USA. The second installment continues with Treasure Hernandez telling the tale of the Dirty South.

It's 1955 and ex-cop Tommy Smith is working as a crime writer for the only daily black newspaper in America when his boss, a prominent publisher with a politically complex past, turns up murdered, a group of corrupt white cops takes the opportunity to make sure Smith is prime suspect. To clear his name, Smith will need to enlist the help of his old boss, the resilient Sergeant McInnis - who has logged seven difficult years as the only white cop in a black precinct.

From the national bestselling and award-winning ReShonda Tate Billingsley comes this gripping and emotional exploration of the complex bond between mother and daughter. From the time Brooke Green was seven years old, she has lived with the pain of losing her mother. Her father has done the best...

The “riveting”* true story of the fiery summer of 1970, which would forever transform the town of Oxford, North Carolina—a classic portrait of the fight for civil rights in the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird *Chicago Tribune On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a twenty-three-year-old...

On the morning of July 16, 1964, a white police officer in New York City shot and killed a black teenager, James Powell. Two nights later, a peaceful demonstration in Harlem degenerated into violent protests. During the next week, thousands of rioters looted stores from Brooklyn to Rochester and pelted police with bottles and rocks. Michael W. Flamm draws on personal interviews and delves into the archives to move briskly from the streets of New York, where black activists like Bayard Rustin tried in vain to restore peace, to the corridors of the White House.

Detective Houser wants nothing more than his retirement, but when a murder case involving the WMM firm lands on his desk, he can’t avoid it. All of law enforcement knows that WMM Advertising, also known as We Make Millionaires, is one of the biggest and hardest-to-penetrate fraudulent telemarketing firms in the state of Georgia. A tape recording of a man’s death may finally help Houser make a case against the firm. Calling in Alexis Greenspan, a.k.a. Nina Coles, the top sales associate in the company, Houser is determined to use her to find out the company’s secrets.

After a reunion with an old friend goes wrong in a Long Island nightclub, Kasheef Williams is forced to protect himself by any means necessary. The only problem is that prying eyes see everything. Those eyes belong to Alija Bell. She runs, but Kasheef sees her face, and he tells her that it's best for her to get temporary amnesia. Afraid for her life and the safety of her daughter, she keeps her mouth shut, but when a tape of the murder surfaces, the only face that is visible is Alija's. Now the police are looking for their eyewitness.

Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America recounts the story of three innocent victims, all of whom suffered violent deaths through no fault of their own: Vaudine Maddox in 1933 in Tuscaloosa, Sergeant Gene Ballard in 1979 in Birmingham, and Michael Donald in 1981 in Mobile. The death of Vaudine Maddox - and the lynchings that followed - serves as a cautionary tale about the violence that occurred in the same region nearly 50 years later.

What else is there for two brothers to inherit but a killer hustle when they come from a long line of hard core hustlers? Jason and Darius Jensen find the answer to this question as they learn to grind hard in the streets at a very young age. By chance, a high-level heroin supplier named George partners up with the brothers and loads of money begin falling into their laps. All seems well until a gruesome murder changes Jason's mind about his future.

Meet the Banks sisters - Simone, Bunny, Tallhya, and Ginger. They feel like they are finally in the clear in connection with the recent bank robberies - until their mother shows up demanding her share at gunpoint. She threatens to snitch them out if they don't come correct. The situation becomes a bloody mess, and now two sisters must band together to cover up the unthinkable actions of one of their own. As if that isn't enough, Pastor Cassius Street hits them with another major blow.

There can be only one: one man with two loyal friends and secrets from the past that will ultimately shake up the entire hood in Chicago; one man on a mission to destroy anyone who doesn't abide by his rules, including tricky bitches who drop to their knees behind closed doors yet stand tall against him when the time comes to collect the almighty dollar; one man with enough swagger in his walk and confidence in his talk and the skills and mindset to build an empire.

Korey Taylor, a.k.a. "Killa Korey" and his ace, Hammer, were sentenced to serve two decades in federal prison, but after an unexpected change in the crack cocaine sentencing laws, Korey is released. Now he's on his way home to Charlotte, North Carolina. Like Hammer, Korey is a thug with a violent nature, nothing to joke around with in the cold streets. However, while serving his time, Korey took classes that he hoped would help him become someone other than a drug dealer. Armed with a new way of thinking and a deep desire to reconnect with his teenage daughter, Korey wants to wave goodbye to the game.

On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer's twin sister Summer walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again - the door to the roof is locked, and no footprints are found. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing woman, Autumn must pursue answers on her own, all while grieving her mother's recent death. With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. She falls into an affair with Summer's boyfriend to cope with the disappearance of a woman they both loved.

Black voters have overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party for the last fifty years - and for their loyalty, black Americans have been rewarded with worsening schools, collapsed families, skyrocketed incarceration rates, disappearing jobs, and rising crime. Crystal Wright, editor of the blog Conservative Black Chick, exposes how the Democratic Party has systematically betrayed black voters.

Lynch mobs, chain gangs, and popular views of black Southern criminals that defined the Jim Crow South are well known. We know less about the role of the urban North in shaping views of race and crime in American society. Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, this fascinating book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree was most famous for her successful defense of an indigent Black man accused of the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a prominent White Washington, DC, socialite, in 1965. Despite her triumph in this high-profile case, Roundtree continued to represent the poor and the underserved. She was the first lawyer to bring a bus-desegregation case before the Interstate Commerce Commission, clinching the ruling that enabled Robert F. Kennedy to enforce bus integration. She was also among the first Black women to enter the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

From an award-winning poet praised for his “rhapsodic, rigorous” work (The New Yorker) comes an immersive meditation on kindship, collectivity, and environmental thought We (The People of The United States) is a book-length poem made to the measure of the modern world. Composed of 55...

JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE A sharply crafted and unflinchingly honest memoir about gangs, drugs, cooking, and living life on the line—both on the streets and in the kitchen—from one of the most exciting stars in the food world today “Beautiful. Moving. Inspiring. Get it.”—Chris...

The reigning Queen of Hip-Hop Lit, Nikki Turner returns with a fresh and fierce tale sure to satisfy longtime fans and create new ones. Desember Day is beautiful, confident, and smart. She has more game in the streets than a basketball player does on the court, and her boyfriend, Fame, loves...

A poetic ethnography that creates and documents the vocabulary of the Southern Black queer experience, chosen as a National Poetry Series winner by Morgan Parker "Willis’ poetic voice is brimming with personality and curiosity, as musical as it is philosophical, and the space between men is a...