African American Politics

Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen - first black reporters, then liberal Southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media - revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act.

In Same Blood, Different Boats, the author explores the psychological and cultural dissonance between Caribbean immigrants and African Americans, who share a common ancestry but often experience profound disconnection. Drawing on history, sociology, and personal narrative, the book exposes the inherited naivety with which many Caribbean immigrants arrive in the United States, often unaware of the deeply rooted racial dynamics, historical trauma, and cultural undercurrents that shape the Black American experience.

As the unprecedented backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion intensifies—with corporations dismantling initiatives and lawmakers passing anti-DEI legislation—this tactical handbook arms advocates with resistance strategies drawn from Black historical movements. Dr. Janice Gassam Asare transforms centuries of Black resistance wisdom into modern resistance plans, wielding ethical AI as a force multiplier to create sustainable change that outlasts corporate whims and political cycles.

Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses.

The 48 Laws of Black Empowerment was written to bridge the gap between individual action and a united black community. The 48 Laws of Black Empowerment is about getting ahead in business and life, while also helping your friends, family and community get ahead with us. This is book is by us and for us.

A birder strolling in Central Park. A college student lounging on a university quad. Two men sitting in a coffee shop. Perfectly ordinary actions in ordinary settings—and yet, they sparked jarring and inflammatory responses that involved the police and attracted national media coverage. Why? In essence, Elijah Anderson would argue, because these were Black people existing in white spaces. In this book, Anderson brings his immense knowledge and ethnography to bear in this timely study of the racial barriers that are still firmly entrenched in our society at every class level.

Although many have written about the BPP in memoirs and polemics, Survival Pending Revolution contributes to a new generation of objective, analytical BPP studies that are sorely needed. Alkebulan displays the entire movement's history, drawing a description that both understands the inner workings of the BPP and its role in the greater society.

The powerful legacy of classical education among Black intellectuals and teachers in America is a national treasure with the capacity to bless teachers and students the world over! In The Black Intellectual Tradition, authors Dr. Anika Prather and Dr. Angel Adams Parham introduce us to readers, writers, teachers, artists, and people of action who loved, taught, and put into practice the wisdom and virtue of the great voices who came before.

In African American communities, mental health concerns often simmer silently beneath the surface, eclipsed by societal stigma and historical trauma. The legacy of systemic oppression and racial injustice compounds the challenges, fostering a culture of stoicism where seeking help is viewed as a sign of weakness. Addressing these silent struggles necessitates destigmatizing mental health, fostering open dialogue, and providing culturally competent support systems.

First published in 1934 and revised in 1962, this book gathers journalist and historian Joel Augustus Rogers' columns from the syndicated newspaper feature titled Your History. Patterned after the look of Ripley's popular Believe It or Not the multiple vignettes in each episode recount short items from Rogers's research. The feature began in the Pittsburgh Courier in November 1934 and ran through the 1960s.

Miss America, can we really close a 100,000 dollar gap that has been driven by race? The better question is: How did our country get here? The sad question is: Did you even know this racially fed wealth gap existed? Time has been up; let's talk about it. This book dissects American history and explores biased laws and fundamentals that caused the racial wealth gap plaguing the economy and Black America.

In Before the Streetlights Come On, climate activist Heather McTeer Toney insists that those most affected by climate change are best suited to lead the movement for climate justice. McTeer Toney brings her background in politics, community advocacy, and leadership in environmental justice to this revolutionary exploration of why and how Black Americans are uniquely qualified to lead national and global conversations around systems of racial disparity and solutions to the climate crisis.

From Harriet Tubman to Assata Shakur, Ida B. Wells to Sandra Bland and Black Lives Matter, black women freedom fighters have braved violence, scorn, despair and isolation in order to lodge their protests. In A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing, DaMaris Hill honours their experiences with at times harrowing, at times hopeful responses to her heroes.

There is, in America, an intangible university of sorts - invisible, self-propagated, and silently teaching Black Americans to disrespect and look down on their own racial kinsmen. This mis-educational institution is built on a foundation of demonstrably false ideas, long lingering myths, and hateful half-truths that have, over the years, legitimized themselves in our minds and decimated our power to effectively respond to our own problems, and, do for the world what we did at the dawn of civilization.

Author and essayist Kiese Laymon is one of the most unique, stirring, and powerful new voices in American social and cultural commentary. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is a collection of Laymon's essays, touching on subjects ranging from family, race, violence, and celebrity to music, writing, and coming of age in the rural Mississippi Gulf Coast. Laymon's writing is unflinchingly honest, while also being smart, lacerating, and unexpectedly funny.

The Names of All the Flowers connects one tragic death to a collective grief for all Black people who die too young. A lyrical recounting of a life lost, Melissa Valentine’s debut memoir is an intimate portrait of a family fractured by the school-to-prison pipeline and an enduring love letter to an adored older brother. It is a call for justice amid endless cycles of violence, grief, and trauma, declaring: “We are all witness and therefore no one is spared from this loss.”

There is a saying: knowledge is power. The secret is this. Knowledge, applied at the right time and place, is more than power. It’s magic. That’s what the Black Panther Party did. They called up this magic and launched a revolution. In the beginning, it was a story like any other. It could have been yours and it could have been mine. But once it got going, it became more than any one person could have imagined.

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.

How does a white kid from the New York suburbs, harmonica in hand, end up earning himself a busker's spot on the Harlem sidewalks next to Mr. Satan, a Mississippi-born legend? How did an interracial blues duo fare on the streets of New York during a turbulent, fractious time marked by racially-motivated murders in Howard Beach, Bensonhurst, and Crown Heights?

Globally, Black people are among the most affected by the climate crisis, despite contributing very little to it. For a long time, the crisis was portrayed as yet another injustice for Black people to care about, on top of the day-to-day oppression they face. In Black Climates, Selina Nwulu reframes the crisis to encompass our disconnection from each other and the world around us. She argues that the root of climate change lies in historical colonial violence and ongoing exploitation, making it inherently racist.