American Civil Rights

A moving true story for children ages 6 to 9 about growing up in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II—from the iconic Star Trek actor, activist, and author of the New York Times bestselling graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy. February 19, 1942. George Takei is four years...

“A moving and beautifully crafted memoir.”—SCOTT TUROW “A daring act of justified defiance.”—SHAKA SENGHOR “Nothing less than heroic.”—JOHN GRISHAM He was seventeen when an all-white jury sentenced him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now a pioneering lawyer, he...

This “exuberant celebration of Black women’s joy as well as their achievements” (Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author) novelizes the life of real estate magnate Josephine N. Leary in a previously untold story of passion, perseverance, and building a legacy after emancipation in...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A “vivid and frank” (NPR) account of the crack cocaine era and a community’s ultimate resilience, told through a cast of characters whose lives illuminate the dramatic rise and fall of the epidemic “A master class in disrupting a stubborn...

A young reader edition of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist about one of history's most ruthless and shocking crimes, the Reign of Terror against the Osage people. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma...

A queer Black feminist debunks the myth of rainbow solidarity, repositioning Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ people at the forefront of queer pasts, presents, and futures Your favorite Black queer studies professor Kaila Adia Story says the rainbow ain’t never been enough in this introduction to the...

One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer “[A] brave and necessary book . . . Anyone interested in the future of liberal democracy, in the US or anywhere else, should read this book.” —Anne Applebaum “A convincing, humane, and hopeful guide to the present and future by one of...

In this Romeo and Juliet-inspired retelling set during the civil rights era, a Mexican American girl is driven to join a movement for justice after her white classmate and best friend from the barrio are tragically murdered. A Chicago Public Library's Best Books of the Year selection! "Rosa by...

“One of the most important voices of her generation.” —Joy-Ann Reid “A useful roadmap for all of us about how to make a difference.” —David Axelrod “Moving Forward will inspire you.” —Valerie Jarrett An inspiring memoir from Karine Jean-Pierre, Senior Advisor to Presidential...

Exposes the new generation of whiteness thriving at the expense and borrowed ingenuity of black people—and explores how this intensifies racial inequality. American culture loves blackness. From music and fashion to activism and language, black culture constantly achieves worldwide influence...

In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones spans Josephine Baker's early years in servitude and poverty in America to her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt to her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th century comes to stunning life on the page. With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings Josephine Baker into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor.

The Children is David Halberstam's brilliant and moving evocation of the early days of the civil rights movement, as seen through the story of the young people--the Children--who met in the 1960s and went on to lead the revolution. Magisterial in scope, with a strong you-are-there quality...

The culmination of a unique achievement in modern American literature: the six volumes of autobiography that began more than thirty years ago with the appearance of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work...

In this ambitious - even radical - literary collection, first published in 1920, civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois tackled race, gender, art, politics, labor, and economics from the perspective of an African American who, in his own words, had “been in the world, but not of it.” Du Bois took an experimental approach in Darkwater - utilizing essays, poetry, spirituals, sketches, and autobiographical writings - to break new ground on issues of race, class, and prejudice that continue to confound us.

“A beautifully written novel, laced with history and music.” —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven An uplifting novel about the families we create and the places we call home. It is 1904. When Frederick and Jette must flee her disapproving mother, where better to go than America...

Newbery Medalist Christopher Paul Curtis brings his trademark humor and heart to the story of a boy struggling to do right in the face of history's cruelest evils. Twelve-year-old Charlie is down on his luck: His dad just died, the share crops are dry, and Cap'n Buck--the most fearsome man in...

Shows how government created “ghettos” and affluent white space and entrenched a system of American residential caste that is the linchpin of US inequality—and issues a call for abolition. The iconic Black hood, like slavery and Jim Crow, is a peculiar American institution animated by the...

Originally self-published to enormous acclaim and demand, Sacred Pampering Principles is a beautifully written guide with hundreds of easy and innovative ways for on-the-go women to pamper their bodies and nurture their spirits. With her holistic approach to filling your life with comfort...

Today’s National Security Agency is the largest, most costly, and most technologically advanced spy organization the world has ever known. It is also the most intrusive, secretly filtering millions of phone calls and e-mails an hour in the United States and around the world. Half a million...

“What a beautifully imagined and important narrative. Sanders’ clear-eyed and powerful writing made this a hard one to stop reading!” —Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-Winning Author "This is a novel to cherish and share. And this is a history to sing about and affirm -- to...