African Art

An action-packed superhero story from New York Times bestselling author Tracey Baptiste Win “Coal” Keegan has just landed in his latest foster home, with a big, noisy, slightly nosy family named the McKays. They seem eager to welcome Coal, but he’s wary of trusting them. So, he doesn’t...

Black education was a subversive act from its inception. African Americans pursued education through clandestine means, often in defiance of law and custom, even under threat of violence. They developed what Jarvis Givens calls a tradition of "fugitive pedagogy"—a theory and practice of Black education in America. The enslaved learned to read in spite of widespread prohibitions; newly emancipated people braved the dangers of integrating all-White schools and the hardships of building Black schools.

The film, television, and comedy legend tells the hilarious and moving story of how tough love, and a sense of humor made him the man he is today By the tender age of five, Bernie Mac had found his calling: making others laugh. He has since become the star and cocreator of Fox’s hit sitcom The...

According to Thomas Moore, people today have lost the deep, direct, and vivid sense of what it means to live with passion and originality. Moore believes that beneath the many thick layers of indoctrination about who we are and who we should be lies an original self, a person who came into this...

Read by the author. When you breathe in all the grace available to you and release everything that is outside of your control, you'll discover peace that surpasses your circumstances. All it takes is practice. If you feel overwhelmed with anxiety about the future, you're far from alone. For many...

Encourage kids to find their unique voice and share it confidently with this inspirational story from Pentatonix (PTX) musical performer Kevin Olusola. A self-proclaimed "misfit," Kevin knows what it's like to be different, to have a talent others don't understand, and to find the courage to...

Longlisted for the 2026 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction “An awe-striking masterpiece of love.” —Jason Reynolds, #1 New York Times bestselling author “The sentences alone in In Open Contempt make it one of the most memorable books of the decade. But it’s the unexpected...

A new offering from the author of the hugely successful Mother of Black Hollywood. Walking in My Joy is a collection of electric stories by the one and only, super hilarious Jenifer Lewis. Her commentary on what’s happening in the world today, told through her outrageous real-life adventures...

Trouble comes in threes... One doomed love affair after another has made lovely Alex Walton swear off men. Now, she's determined to try something that maybe she can succeed at: a writing career. Little does she know that a chance meeting with a strikingly handsome stranger, a mysterious obelisk...

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award A New York Times ""Editor's Pick"" and ""Notable Book of the Year"" * An Essence ""Most Anticipated"" * A Lit Hub's ""Most Anticipated"" * An Oprah Daily ""Best Book of Fall"" * An Esquire ""Best Memoir of the Year"" * A San Francisco Chronicle ""New Book for...

In January 1959, Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and founded the Detroit-based record company that in less than a decade was to become the largest Black-owned business in the United States. It also became one of the most productive and influential producers of popular music anywhere in the world. The Story of Motown is the story of Berry Gordy's triumph over powerful, established financial interests, entrenched popular taste, bigotry, and racism.

Winner of the 2024 American Legacy Book Award in Autobiography/Memoir The heartwarming sequel to Same Kind of Different As Me! After Miss Debbie's death in 2000, her husband, Ron formed an even stronger bond with Denver, a homeless ex-con. Ron's touching memoir chronicles how their shared...

The late Grammy-winning founder of the legendary pop/R&B/soul/funk/disco group tells his story and charts the rise of his legendary band in this sincere memoir that captures the heart and soul of an artist whose groundbreaking sound continues to influence music today. With a foreword by David...

Read by the author. Do you feel like you live life looking in from the outside? From the way you speak, to the color of your skin, to the way you vote, or the way you pray, you don't fit the mold. And yet you find yourself still trying to prove yourself to others. In Set Me Free, New York Times...

From T. J. English, the New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne, comes the epic, scintillating narrative of the interconnected worlds of jazz and organized crime in 20th century America. ""[A] brilliant and courageous book."" —Dr. Cornel West Dangerous Rhythms tells the symbiotic...

At once the most lucrative, popular, and culturally oppositional musical force in the United States, hip-hop demands the kind of interpretation Imani Perry provides here: criticism engaged with this vibrant musical form on its own terms. A scholar and a fan, Perry considers the art, politics, and culture of hip-hop through an analysis of song lyrics, the words of the prophets of the hood.

On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America's most influential conservative intellectual. The topic was "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro", and no one who has seen the debate can soon forget it. Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is upon Us is the first book to tell the full story of the event.

This historical novel about a Black orphan girl grappling for a solid place in Civil War–era New York City will inspire tweens to dream big, rise above society's limitations, and find their way by being a place for others to belong. Against her wishes, Florence finds herself at the Colored...

What elevates teaching my mother how to give birth, what gives the poems their disturbing brilliance, is Warsan Shire's ability to give simple, beautiful eloquence to the veiled world where sensuality lives in the dominant narrative of Islam; reclaiming the more nuanced truths of earlier times -...

One of the world’s greatest bassists lays down the heart of Black music, revealing how its rhythmic structures and the long history of the African diaspora made it the world’s most popular form. “An insightful, revelatory, and informative read.” —Meshell Ndegeocello, singer-songwriter...