African American Women Studies

From the editor of the best-selling anthology The Meaning of Michelle, a celebration of one of the greatest stars of our time, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.

Economist and award-winning author Sylvia Ann Hewlett blends vivid stories with powerful new data in assessing the impact of the #MeToo movement in corporate America and provides concrete action to help executives and companies create more inclusive and safe work environments for women, people of color, and LGBTQ employees. While the #MeToo movement has exposed the enormous harm done by sexual misconduct in the workplace, the movement’s full promise has not been fulfilled, Sylvia Ann Hewlett argues.

Former Washington Post columnist Donna Britt’s memoir presents an honest and thoughtful look at a life spent giving to others. In 1977, Britt lost one of her brothers in a senseless police shooting. Plagued by her grief, she spent the next three decades putting her own needs aside to care for the men in her life.

Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women, Dorothy Height is a heroine of the Civil Rights movement. At age 91 she takes listeners back through 70 explosive years in search of equality as a Black and as a woman.

Black women are heading to college in record numbers, and more and more Black women are teaching in higher education. But these statistics don’t guarantee our safety there. Willpower and grit may improve achievement for Black people in school, but they don’t secure our belonging. In fact, the very structure of higher education ensures that we’re treated as guests, outsiders to the institutional family—outnumbered and unwelcome.

African American women have always played an important role in molding our country's history, and this book aims to highlight their contributions. A pair of award-winning historians are attempting to both inspire African American women and convince their allies that Black women's unique capacity to construct their own communities while battling centuries of oppression is a crucial component in our ongoing resistance to systemic racism and sexism. For those who want to learn more about Black women's history, this book serves as a beginning point.

Black women are beautiful, intelligent, and capable - but mostly they embrace strong. Esteemed clinical psychologist Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler praises the strength of women while exploring how trauma and adversity have led to deep emotional pain and shaped how they walk through the world.

Jacqueline Jackson promised her son, Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., that she would write him every day during his incarceration in federal prison to serve his 30-month sentence. This book is an inspiring and moving selection of the letters she wrote him. Together, they comprise a powerful act of love - nurturing and ministering to her son's heart, health, and mind and maintaining his essential connection with home.

The Essence of Liberty blends social, political, and economic history to analyze black women’s experience in both the North and the South, from the colonial period through emancipation. Focusing on class and familial relationships, King examines the myriad sources of freedom for black women to show the many factors that, along with time spent in slavery before emancipation, shaped the meaning of freedom. Her book also raises questions about whether free women were bound to or liberated from gender conventions of their day.

Black Women and Public Health creates an urgently needed interdisciplinary dialogue about issues of race, gender, and health. An enduring history of racism, sexism, and dehumanization of Black women's bodies has largely rendered the health needs of the Black community inaudible and invisible. Grounded in the lived experiences and expertise of Black women, this collection bridges gaps between researchers, practitioners, educators, and advocates.

A powerful account of violence against Black women and girls in the United States and their fight for liberation, America, Goddam explores the combined force of anti-Blackness, misogyny, patriarchy, and capitalism in the lives of Black women and girls in the United States today. Through personal accounts and hard-hitting analysis, Black feminist historian Treva B. Lindsey starkly assesses the forms and legacies of violence against Black women and girls, as well as their demands for justice for themselves and their communities.

In 1964, Nina Simone sat at a piano in New York's Carnegie Hall to play what she called a "show tune". Simone, and her song, became icons of the civil rights movement. But her confrontational style was not the only path taken by black women entertainers. In How It Feels to Be Free, Ruth Feldstein examines celebrated black women performers, illuminating the risks they took, their roles at home and abroad, and the ways that they raised the issue of gender amid their demands for black liberation.

This is the unflinching memoir of a female African American advertising executive’s unprecedented and unlikely success, which began in the Mad Men era. It follows her journey from the projects of Motown-era Michigan to the skyscrapers of Madison Avenue and beyond.

Now is the time for women of color to step into their distinct power and be the transformative force for good at work. With the emergence of the #MeToo, #TimesUp, and #BlackLivesMatter movements, as well as the election of the most diverse and female Congress in history, America is experiencing a referendum on what power and leadership looks like. Women of color are the answer to that referendum and uniquely positioned to assume powerful roles in the country. But first, we have to be honest about the misogyny and racism that women of color experience at work and in their lives.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which ignited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, has always been vitally important in American history. This is the autobiographical account of the creation of the boycott by one of its principal organizers. With the publication of this book, the boycott becomes a milestone in the history of American women as well.

Camouflaged Sisters chronicles the courageous path of 14 women who overcame various internal and external struggles during their military careers. These veterans give open accounts of how they adapted, achieved work-life balance, relied on their faith, and used mentorship as a vital tool in their success pre- and post-military career. Expect to be inspired by Black women who fight for our homeland while simultaneously battling to protect and preserve the assets most important to them.

According to renowned sociology scholar Donna L. Franklin, relationships between American black men and women are in a state of crisis. The schism between black men and women is the result of complex, large-scale societal, economic, and cultural trends, and the African-American legacy of slavery. Franklin asserts that black men and women need to learn how to work to together for the health and maintenance of the family.

Pearl K. Ford Dowe argues that ambition for Black women cannot be measured only by political candidacies and ascents of the political chain of power. Black women are uniquely positioned within their communities to influence politics and public policy, which stems from unique variables of socialization, gender and racial identity, and marginalization that shape the political attitudes of Black women. Thus, Dowe asserts that Black women's political ambition often manifests outside formal politics, in activism and community building, a process that is linked to a wider radical vision.

Black women continuously navigate systems that were never intended for them while playing by a set of rules they never agreed to or were ever trained for. In this book, Francine Parham shares her knowledge as a Black woman and a former global executive of two major corporations on how to move up in the workplace while maintaining a sense of sanity. The key skill—one that Black women are rarely taught—is understanding the power dynamics within your organization and learning how to “shift the power” to your advantage.

Meet Shirley, a little girl who asks way too many questions! After spending her early years on her grandparents' farm in Barbados, she returns home to Brooklyn and immediately makes herself known. Shirley kicks butt in school; she breaks her mother's curfew; she plays jazz piano instead of classical. And as a young adult, she fights against the injustice she sees around her, against women and Black people. Soon she is running for state assembly...and winning in a landslide. Three years later, she is on the campaign trail again, as the first Black woman to run for Congress.