Acclaimed by leading historians and critics when it appeared shortly after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this foundational biography wends through the corridors in which King held court, posing the right questions and providing a keen measure...

NOMINATED FOR AN NAACP IMAGE AWARD • An inspiring collection of essays by black women writers, curated by the founder of the popular book club Well-Read Black Girl, on the importance of recognizing ourselves in literature.“Yes, Well-Read Black Girl is as...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"This is a book that was begging to be written. This is the kind of book that demands a future where we'll no longer need such a book. Essential." --Marlon James“The most important book for me this year.” --Emma WatsonSelected by...

In this “urgently relevant”* collection featuring the landmark essay “The Case for Reparations,” the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me “reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency and its jarring aftermath”*—including the...

The Strangers Book explores how various nineteenth-century African American writers radically reframed the terms of humanism by redefining what it meant to be a stranger. Rejecting the idea that humans have easy access to a common reserve of experiences...

Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s. The bittersweet and often hilarious tales -- which range from longer narratives...

“This is a dangerous book.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams Fifty years ago, a single bullet robbed us of one of the world’s most eloquent voices for human rights and justice. To the Promised Land goes beyond the iconic view of Martin Luther...

A collection of twenty of Frederick Douglass’s most important orationsThis volume brings together twenty of Frederick Douglass’s most historically significant speeches on a range of issues, including slavery, abolitionism, civil rights, sectionalism,...

The dramatic story of Phillis Wheatley, a free, black poet who resisted the pressures of arranged marriage, truly embodying the ideals of the American RevolutionThere is an uncomfortable paradox at the heart of the American Revolution: many of the men...

At the Pan–African Conference in London in 1900, W. E. B. Du Bois famously prophesied that the problem of the twentieth century would be the global color line, the elevation of "whiteness" that created a racially divided world. While Pan-Africanism...

The animal-rights organization PETA asked “Are Animals the New Slaves?” in a controversial 2005 fundraising campaign; that same year, after the Humane Society rescued pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina while black residents were neglected, some...

"I have sat on a little oil drum, rusty and in the midst of garbage, and some black brothers and I have grounded together." - Walter RodneyIn his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of...

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rightsSpanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history,...

Nate Shaw's father was born under slavery. Nate Shaw was born into a bondage that was only a little gentler. At the age of nine, he was picking cotton for thirty-five cents an hour. At the age of forty-seven, he faced down a crowd of white deputies who...

The story of a union organizer who found a second career in community organizing and helped a Jim Crow city become a better place.Ernest Thompson dedicated his life to organizing the powerless. This lively, illustrated personal narrative of his work...

"Taken as a trilogy, consent not to be a single being is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis."—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of...

"Taken as a trilogy, consent not to be a single being is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis."—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of...

THE STORY BEHIND THE DOCUMENTARY MY NAME IS PAULI MURRAY A prophetic memoir by the activist who “articulated the intellectual foundations” (The New Yorker) of the civil rights and women’s rights movements. First published posthumously in 1987, Pauli...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of The Roots' 28 Brilliant Books by Black Authors in 2018"A writer to be reckoned with." —Roxane GayNamed one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2018 by Esquire, Elle, Vogue, Nylon, The Millions, Refinery29, the Huffington...

The first major twenty-first century history of four hundred years of black writing, The Cambridge History of African American Literature presents a comprehensive overview of the literary traditions, oral and print, of African-descended peoples in the...