The Protest Psychosis
How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease
Written by Jonathan M. Metzl

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: April 12, 2011
Price: $22.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0127-1 (0-8070-0127-9)

A powerful account of how cultural anxieties about race shaped American notions of mental illness

The civil rights era is largely remembered as a time of sit-ins, boycotts, and riots. But a very different civil rights history evolved at the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Ionia, Michigan. In... Read more >

Arguing about Slavery
John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress
Written by William Lee Miller

Format: Trade Paperback, 592 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: January 12, 1998
Price: $19.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-76844-9 (0-679-76844-0)

In the 1830s slavery was so deeply entrenched that it could not even be discussed in Congress, which had enacted a "gag rule" to ensure that anti-slavery petitions would be summarily rejected. This stirring book chronicles the parliamentary battle to bring "the peculiar institution" into the national debate, a battle that... Read more >

The Birth of African-American Culture
An Anthropological Perspective
Written by Sidney Wilfred Mintz

Format: Trade Paperback, 144 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: July 1, 1992
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0917-8 (0-8070-0917-2)

This compelling look at the wellsprings of cultural vitality during one of the most dehumanizing experiences in history provides a fresh perspective on the African-American past.

“A classic. The most cogent and detailed attempt to think through what acculturation of Africans in the Americas was like.” -Albert J. Raboteau Read more >

Coming of Age in Mississippi

Written by Anne Moody

Format: Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Dell
On Sale: January 4, 1992
Price: $7.99
ISBN: 978-0-440-31488-2 (0-440-31488-7)

A widely hailed and adopted social and historical commentary, this contemporary classic is the autobiography of a young black girl growing up in the Deep South. Moody details the sights, smells, and suffering of growing up in a racist society and candidly reveals the soul of the black girl who had... Read more >

Snow-Storm in August
The Struggle for American Freedom and Washington's Race Riot of 1835
Written by Jefferson Morley

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: April 9, 2013
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-47748-4 (0-307-47748-7)

In 1835, the city of Washington simmered with racial tension as newly freed African Americans from the South poured in, outnumbering slaves for the first time. Among the enslaved was nineteen-year-old Arthur Bowen, who stumbled home drunkenly one night, picked up an axe, and threatened his owner, respected socialite Anna Thornton... Read more >

Snow-Storm in August
Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835
Written by Jefferson Morley

Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
On Sale: July 3, 2012
Price: $28.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-53337-9 (0-385-53337-3)

How the 19th Century struggle against slavery erupted in Washington DC, thrusting the ambitious District Attorney Francis Scott Key into a uniquely American battle for justice.

In 1835, the city of Washington pulsed with change. As newly freed African Americans from the South poured in, free blacks outnumbered slaves for the first... Read more >

Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power
Essays on Anita Hill,Clarence Thomas & Constru
Written by Toni Morrison

Format: Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: October 6, 1992
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-74145-9 (0-679-74145-3)

Morrison brings together eighteen provocative essays, all but one written especially for this book, by prominent and distinguished academics--black and white, male and female--that discuss the historical, political, cultural, psychological, legal, sexual, and linguistic ramifications of the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill affairs. With an Introduction by Toni Morrison.  

Contents

Introduction by Toni Morrison: Friday... Read more >

Proud Shoes

Written by Pauli Murray

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: August 1, 1999
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-7209-7 (0-8070-7209-5)

Originally published in 1956, Pauli Murray tells the story of her grandparents, delving into the realities of slavery, survival, and miscegenation in the pre-Civil War/Reconstruction era in the South.

“A significant contribution to our understanding of the black experience in America. . . . Fascinating.” - Publishers Weekly Read more >

Scurlock Studio and Black Washington, The
Picturing the Promise
Edited by National Museum African American History

Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: January 7, 2009
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-58834-262-1 (1-58834-262-X)

Nearly a century/s worth of Scurlock photographs combine to form a searing portrait of black Washington in all its guises–its challenges and its victories, its dignity and its determination. Beginning in the early twentieth century and continuing into the 1990s, Addison Scurlock, followed by his sons, Robert and George, used their... Read more >

Barack Obama For Beginners, Updated Edition
An Essential Guide
Written by Bob Neer
Illustrated by Joe Lee

Format: Trade Paperback, 128 pages
Publisher: For Beginners
On Sale: June 9, 2009
Price: $12.95
ISBN: 978-1-934389-44-7 (1-934389-44-7)

Barack Obama For Beginners: An Essential Guide is the most concise and reliable short biography available on the 44th President of the United States – from his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, education at Columbia and Harvard, work as a community organizer, writer, teacher, lawyer, and politician in Illinois, to his... Read more >

The Huey P. Newton Reader

Written by Huey P Newton
Edited by David Hilliard and Donald Weise
Foreword by Fredrika Newton

Format: Trade Paperback, 366 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: May 7, 2002
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-467-0 (1-58322-467-X)

The first comprehensive collection of writings by the Black Panther Party founder and revolutionary icon of the black liberation era, The Huey P. Newton Reader combines now-classic texts ranging in topic from the formation of the Black Panthers, African Americans and armed self-defense, Eldridge Cleaver’s controversial expulsion from the Party, FBI... Read more >

Dreams from My Father
A Story of Race and Inheritance
Written by Barack Obama

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
On Sale: August 10, 2004
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-8277-3 (1-4000-8277-3)

Selected for Common Reading at LaGuardia Community College, Quinnipiac University, Southern Methodist University, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Washington, Xavier University of Louisiana, and others.

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches... Read more >

Last Man Standing
The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt
Written by Jack Olsen

Format: Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: November 6, 2001
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-49368-0 (0-385-49368-1)

Geronimo Pratt did not commit the murder for which he served twenty-seven nightmarish years. As a UCLA student, though, he had led the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and became a target of the FBI. Here is the spellbinding saga of Pratt, his heroic lawyers, Johnnie Cochran and... Read more >

Storming Caesar's Palace
How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty
Written by Annelise Orleck

Format: Trade Paperback, 376 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: July 1, 2006
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-5031-6 (0-8070-5031-8)

In Storming Caesars Palace, historian Annelise Orleck tells the compelling story of how a group of welfare mothers built one of this country’s most successful antipoverty programs. Declaring “We can do it and do it better,” these women proved that poor mothers are the real experts on poverty. In 1972 they... Read more >

When Harlem Nearly Killed King
The 1958 Stabbing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Written by Hugh Pearson

Format: Trade Paperback, 144 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: January 6, 2004
Price: $11.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-614-8 (1-58322-614-1)

When Harlem Nearly Killed King spins the tale of a little-known episode in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. how, in 1958, King was stabbed by a deranged black woman in Harlem, and then saved by Harlem Hospital’s most acclaimed African-American surgeon, using a little known and difficult procedure.

Pearson... Read more >

Darkest Child
A Novel
Written by Delores Phillips

Format: Trade Paperback, 462 pages
Publisher: Soho Press
On Sale: January 1, 2005
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-1-56947-378-8 (1-56947-378-1)

Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Her ten children are mostly light, too. They constitute the only world she rules and controls. Her power over them is all she has in an otherwise cruel and uncaring universe.

Rozelle favors her light-skinned kids, but Tangy Mae, 13... Read more >

My American Journey

Written by Colin L. Powell and Joseph E. Persico

Format: Trade Paperback, 656 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: March 4, 2003
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-46641-9 (0-345-46641-1)

My American Journey is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own... Read more >

Epic Journeys of Freedom
Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty
Written by Cassandra Pybus

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: February 15, 2007
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-5515-1 (0-8070-5515-8)

During the American Revolution, thousands of slaves fled from their masters to find freedom with the British. Having emancipated themselves--and with rhetoric about the inalienable rights of free men ringing in their ears--these men and women struggled tenaciously to make liberty a reality in their lives.

This alternative narrative includes the stories... Read more >

The Book of Obama
From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt
Written by Ted Rall

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: June 5, 2012
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-60980-450-3 (1-60980-450-3)

How did a charismatic young president elected in an atmosphere of optimism and expectation lead the United States to the brink of revolution? From a chance encounter in the early 1980s to the Democratic primaries of 2007-08, syndicated columnist and political cartoonist Ted Rall was one of the first to size... Read more >

Jackie Robinson
A Biography
Written by Arnold Rampersad

Format: Trade Paperback, 560 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: September 1, 1998
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-42655-0 (0-345-42655-X)

A 1998 Honor Book - Black Caucus-American Library Association
Choice Outstanding Academic Book

The extraordinary life of Jackie Robinson is illuminated as never before in this full-scale biography by Arnold Rampersad. Ramperstad was chosen by Jack's widow, Rachael, and was given unprecedented access to his private papers. We are brought closer than we... Read more >

King of the World
Muhammed Ali and the Rise of an American Hero
Written by David Remnick

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 5, 1999
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-70229-7 (0-375-70229-6)

There were mythic sports figures before him--Jack Johnson, Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio--but when Cassius Clay burst onto the sports scene from his native Louisville in the 1950s, he broke the mold. He changed the world of sports and went on to change the world itself. As Muhammad Ali, he... Read more >

John Brown, Abolitionist
The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
Written by David S. Reynolds

Format: Trade Paperback, 592 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 14, 2006
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-72615-6 (0-375-72615-2)

An authoritative new examination of John Brown and his deep impact on American history.

Bancroft Prize-winning cultural historian David S. Reynolds presents an informative and richly considered new exploration of the paradox of a man steeped in the Bible but more than willing to kill for his abolitionist cause. Reynolds locates Brown... Read more >

Queen Bess
Daredevil Aviator
Written by Doris L. Rich

Format: Trade Paperback, 172 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: May 17, 1995
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-618-8 (1-56098-618-2)

Here is the brief but intense life of Bessie Coleman, America’s first African American woman aviator. Born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, she became known as “Queen Bess,” a barnstormer and flying-circus performer who defied the strictures of race, sex, and society in pursuit of a dream.

“A vivid portrait of a... Read more >

The Race Beat
The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
Written by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff

Format: Trade Paperback, 544 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 4, 2007
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-73565-6 (0-679-73565-8)

This is the story of how America awakened to its race problem, of how a nation that longed for unity after World War II came
instead to see, hear, and learn about the shocking indignities and injustices of racial segregation in the South—and the brutality used to enforce it. It is the... Read more >

Denmark Vesey
The Buried Story of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It
Written by David M. Robertson

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 8, 2000
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-76218-8 (0-679-76218-3)

In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, David Robertson illuminates the shadowy figure who planned a slave rebellion so daring that, if successful, it might have changed the face of the antebellum South. This is the story of a man who, like Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X, is... Read more >