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Black AF History
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ISBN: 9780358439165Publication Date: 2023-09-19In Black AF History, acclaimed columnist Michael Harriot offers a smart and hilarious retelling of American history from the perspective of Black Americans. Harriot challenges the whitewashed mythology of America's past, using meticulous research and the work of pioneering Black historians to present a more accurate narrative. With incisive wit, he highlights little-known stories and places Black people at the center of the nation's history, from pre-1619 arrivals to figures who inspired America's first police force. This book provides a necessary and urgent corrective to traditional historical narratives. -
Black Writers of the Founding Era
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ISBN: 9781598537345Publication Date: 2023-11-14A radical new vision of the nation's founding era and a major act of historical recovery. Featuring more than 120 writers, this groundbreaking anthology reveals the astonishing richness and diversity of Black experience in the turbulent decades of the American Revolution Black Writers of the Founding Era is the most comprehensive anthology ever published of Black writing from the turbulent decades surrounding the birth of the United States. -
A Different Mirror
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ISBN: 9780316499071Publication Date: 2023-03-07Ronald Takaki's beloved revisionist history of America, praised by Howard Zinn as "a bold and refreshing new approach to our national history." -
The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts
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ISBN: 9780062334732Publication Date: 2023-10-17A groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a forward by Henry Louis Gates Jr. In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. At once a detective story, a literary chase, and a cultural history, The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts discovers a tale of love, friendship, betrayal, and violence set against the backdrop of America's slide into Civil War. -
Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America
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ISBN: 9781469672694Publication Date: 2023-03-28This social and cultural history of Civil War medicine and science sheds important light on the question of why and how anti-Black racism survived the destruction of slavery. During the war, white Northerners promoted ideas about Black inferiority under the guise of medical and scientific authority. Drawing on archives of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, recollections of Civil War soldiers and medical workers, and testimonies from Black Americans, Leslie A. Schwalm exposes the racist ideas and practices that shaped wartime medicine and science. -
Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State
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ISBN: 9780813197111Publication Date: 2023-02-21Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home" has been designated as the official state song and performed at the Kentucky Derby for decades. In light of the ongoing social justice movement to end racial inequality, many have questioned whether the song should be played at public events, given its inaccurate depiction of slavery in the state. In Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State, editor Gerald L. Smith presents a collection of powerful essays that uncover the long-forgotten stories of pain, protest, and perseverance of African Americans in Kentucky. -
Stamped from the Beginning
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ISBN: 9781984859433Publication Date: 2023-06-06A striking graphic novel edition of the National Book Award-winning history of how racist ideas have shaped American life--from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist. Racism has persisted throughout history--but so have antiracist efforts to dismantle it. Through deep research and a gripping narrative that illuminates the lives of five key American figures, preeminent historian Ibram X. Kendi reveals how understanding and improving the world cannot happen without identifying and facing the racist forces that shape it. -
Symbols of Freedom
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ISBN: 9781479823246Publication Date: 2023-06-13For enslaved people and their allies, the language and symbols that served as national touchstones made a mockery of freedom. Deriding the ideas that infused the republic's founding, they encouraged an empty American culture that accepted the abstract notion of equality rather than the concrete idea. Yet, as award-winning author Matthew J. Clavin reveals, it was these powerful expressions of American nationalism that inspired forceful and even violent resistance to slavery. Symbols of Freedom is the surprising story of how enslaved people and their allies drew inspiration from the language and symbols of American freedom. -
We Will Be Free
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ISBN: 9780802872470Publication Date: 2023-02-01Sojourner Truth's powerful voice calls to us through this evocative narrative of faith in action--and her words are more relevant than ever. Though born into slavery, Sojourner Truth would defy the limits placed upon her as a Black woman to become one of the nineteenth century's most renowned female preachers and civil rights advocates. In We Will Be Free, Nancy Koester chronicles her spiritual journey as an enslaved woman, a working mother, and an itinerant preacher and activist. -
Combee
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ISBN: 9780197552797Publication Date: 2024-02-09Explore the untold story of Harriet Tubman's daring Civil War raid in The Combahee River Raid, acclaimed by Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, and named a Booklist Top Ten History Book of 2024. While Tubman is known for leading over 60 people to freedom via the Underground Railroad, her Civil War efforts are often overlooked. Hired by the Union Army, Tubman ventured into Confederate territory in Beaufort, South Carolina, gathering intelligence for a raid up the Combahee River. On June 2, 1863, she led two regiments of Black soldiers, liberating 730 enslaved people and torching eight plantations. Historian Edda L. Fields-Black, a descendant of a raid participant, uses original documents to illuminate this crucial chapter, revealing how Tubman's actions contributed to the creation of the Gullah Geechee culture and identity. -
Our History Has Always Been Contraband
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ISBN: 9798888900574Publication Date: 2023-07-04Since its founding as a discipline, Black Studies has been under relentless attack by social and political forces seeking to discredit and neutralize it. Our History Has Always Been Contraband was born out of an urgent need to respond to the latest threat: efforts to remove content from an AP African American Studies course being piloted in high schools across the United States. Edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Our History Has Always Been Contraband brings together canonical texts and authors in Black Studies, including those excised from or not included in the AP curriculum. -
The Freedom Movement's Lost Legacy
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ISBN: 9780813197289Publication Date: 2023-06-06Despite emancipation, African Americans remained far from true freedom, trapped by sharecropping, debt peonage, and new forms of slavery under European colonialism. Leaders like Ida B. Wells and W. E. B. Du Bois warned that racial slavery anywhere endangered Black freedom globally, predicting issues central to the Black Lives Matter movement, such as the rise of the prison industrial complex. In The Freedom Movement's Lost Legacy, Keith P. Griffler examines how the international antislavery movement betrayed Black and brown people through racist laws, while Black activists tirelessly fought for global human freedom. This book connects today's Black freedom movements to the legacy of early Black abolitionists. -
Like Men of War
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ISBN: 9780700635580Publication Date: 2023-08-25Originally published in 1998, Like Men of War was a groundbreaking early study of Black troops in the Civil War that is still considered a major contribution to the literature on the United States Colored Troops (USCT). In this chronological operational history, Trudeau covers every major engagement--and a few minor ones--that the USCT participated in. By quoting generously from primary documents, including Black soldiers' letters, Trudeau tells the combat history of African American troops in the Civil War largely through the voices of the soldiers themselves. This fresh, expanded second edition adds material on additional engagements and other aspects of Black soldiers' experiences, and features a new selection of photographs. The updated bibliography is extensive, providing a rich selection of source materials for further study and exploration. Like Men of War is essential reading for anyone seeking a thorough understanding of the US Civil War.
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James
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ISBN: 9780385550369Publication Date: 2024-03-19AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view "Genius"--The Atlantic * "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."--Chicago Tribune * "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."--The Boston Globe * "Everett's most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."--The New York Times When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river's banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin...), Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a "literary icon" (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature. -
Let Us Descend
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ISBN: 9781982104498Publication Date: 2023-10-24Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation. From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land--the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward's most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages. -
W. E. B. du Bois Souls of Black Folk (A graphic novel)
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ISBN: 9781978824669Publication Date: 2023-04-14"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." These were the prescient words of W. E. B. Du Bois's influential 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk. The preeminent Black intellectual of his generation, Du Bois wrote about the trauma of seeing the Reconstruction era's promise of racial equality cruelly dashed by the rise of white supremacist terror and Jim Crow laws. Yet he also argued for the value of African American cultural traditions and provided inspiration for countless civil rights leaders who followed him. Now artist Paul Peart-Smith offers the first graphic adaptation of Du Bois's seminal work. Peart-Smith's graphic adaptation provides historical and cultural contexts that bring to life the world behind Du Bois's words. Readers will get a deeper understanding of the cultural debates The Souls of Black Folk engaged in, with more background on figures like Booker T. Washington, the advocate of black economic uplift, and the Pan-Africanist minister Alexander Crummell. This beautifully illustrated book vividly conveys the continuing legacy of The Souls of Black Folk, effectively updating it for the era of the 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter. -
Time's Undoing
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ISBN: 9780593471821Publication Date: 2023-02-28A searing and tender novel about a young Black journalist's search for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, decades ago--inspired by the author's own family history Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, known as the "Magic City" for its booming steel industry, and while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city's busy markets and vibrant nightlife, it's also a stronghold for the Klan. And with his beautiful, light-skinned wife and snazzy car, Robert begins to worry that he might be drawing the wrong kind of attention. 2019: Meghan McKenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather's murder--but no one knows the full story of what really happened back then, and his body was never found. Determined to find answers to her family's long-buried tragedy and spurred by the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, Meghan travels to Birmingham. But as her investigation begins to uncover dark secrets that spider across both the city and time, her life may be in danger. Inspired by true events, Time's Undoing is both a passionate tale of one woman's quest for the truth behind the racially motivated trauma that has haunted her family for generations and, as newfound friends and supporters in Birmingham rally around Meghan's search, the uplifting story of a community coming together to fight for change. -
Great Expectations
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ISBN: 9780593448236Publication Date: 2024-03-12NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man's life in the highly anticipated debut novel from one of The New Yorker's rising stars. "Brilliantly written, piercingly smart, quietly subversive, Great Expectations will be one of the talked-about novels of the year."--Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award "Vinson Cunningham's novel is a coming-of-age story that captures the soul of America."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post I'd seen the Senator speak a few times before my life got caught up, however distantly, with his, but the first time I can remember paying real attention was when he delivered the speech announcing his run for the Presidency. When David first hears the Senator from Illinois speak, he feels deep ambivalence. Intrigued by the Senator's idealistic rhetoric, David also wonders how he'll balance the fervent belief and inevitable compromises it will take to become the United States' first Black president. Great Expectations is about David's eighteen months working for the Senator's presidential campaign. Along the way David meets a myriad of people who raise a set of questions--questions of history, art, race, religion, and fatherhood--that force David to look at his own life anew and come to terms with his identity as a young Black man and father in America. Meditating on politics and politicians, religion and preachers, fathers and family, Great Expectations is both an emotionally resonant coming-of-age story and a rich novel of ideas, marking the arrival of a major new writer. -
Night Wherever We Go
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ISBN: 9780063249875Publication Date: 2023-01-03A RECOMMENDED READ FROM: The Washington Post * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * CrimeReads * Library Journal A gripping, radically intimate debut novel about a group of enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys--as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself--have decided to turn around the farm's bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a "stockman" to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves. Now each of the six faces a choice. Nan, the doctoring woman, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings that can stave off children when chewed daily. If they all take part, the Lucys may give up and send the stockman away. But a pregnancy for any of them will only encourage the Lucys further. And should their plan be discovered, the consequences will be severe. Visceral and arresting, Night Wherever We Go illuminates each woman's individual trials and desires while painting a subversive portrait of collective defiance. Unflinching in her portrayal of America's gravest injustices, while also deeply attentive to the transcendence, love, and solidarity of women whose interior lives have been underexplored, Tracey Rose Peyton creates a story of unforgettable power. -
The Blueprint
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ISBN: 9780063330092Publication Date: 2024-02-13"The Blueprint is an astounding work, an unflinching portrait of misogyny and racism in a speculative world terrifyingly close to our own. Rae Giana Rashad chronicles the generational ghosts of womanhood, and how we understand ourselves through the stories of those we come from, in a way I've never read before. A remarkable new talent, and a timeless literary voice."--Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States--a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences. Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman's occupation, spouse, and residence. Solenne finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who'd been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official. Solenne finds the psychological bond unbearable, so she considers alternatives. With Henriette as her guide, she must decide whether and how to leave behind all she knows. Inspired by the lives of enslaved concubines to U.S. politicians and planters, The Blueprint unfolds over dual timelines to explore bodily autonomy, hypocrisy, and power imbalances through the lens of the nation's most unprotected: a Black girl.
Poetry
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Room Swept Home
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ISBN: 9780819500984Publication Date: 2024-02-06Intimate and sweeping poetry that examines race and lineage Room Swept Home serves as a gloriously rendered magnifying glass into all that is held in the line between the private and public, the investigative and generative, the self and those who came before us. In a strange twist of kismet, two of Bingham-Risher's ancestors intersect in Petersburg, Virginia, forty years before she herself is born: her paternal great-great-great grandmother, Minnie Lee Fowlkes, is interviewed for the Works Progress Administration Slave Narratives in Petersburg in 1937, and her maternal grandmother, Mary Knight, is sent to Petersburg in 1941, diagnosed with "water on the brain"?postpartum depression being an ongoing mystery?nine days after birthing her first child. Marrying meticulous archival research with Womanist scholarship and her hallmark lyrical precision, Bingham-Risher's latest collection treads the murky waters of race, lineage, faith, mental health, women's rights, and the violent reckoning that inhabits the discrepancy between lived versus textbook history, asking: What do we inherit when trauma is at the core of our fractured living? [sample poem] XI. the more ground covered, the more liberated you became I am scared my mind will turn on me. I am scared I will be naked in a burning house. I am scared my children won't outpace me. I am scared my children (who aren't made by me) believe I am a sad imitation of the others. I am scared I will gather in a room where everyone will ask me to remember and when I don't lie they'll say I'd hate to be you. I've lived long enough to be scared my kidneys will give out on me. I've lived long enough to know just when they should. I have never shared my fears with anyone; I am scared they will map the land and take liberties. Will the women be ashamed? I'm scared to ask. What will live again? What will die with me?
