African category: 8440 books
by John Keene
Language: English
Release Date: October 17, 1995
Language: English
Release Date: October 17, 1995
"Genius—brilliant, polished and of considerable depth." —Ishmael Reed
An experimental first novel of poem-like compression, Annotations has a great deal to say about growing up Black in St. Louis. Reminiscent of Jean Toomer’s Cane, the book is in part a meditation on African-American...
Richard Potter
America's First Black Celebrity
Language: English
Release Date: February 13, 2018
Apart from a handful of exotic--and almost completely unreliable--tales surrounding his life, Richard Potter is almost unknown today. Two hundred years ago, however, he was the most popular entertainer in America--the first showman, in fact, to win truly nationwide fame. Working as a magician and...
by Irene Marques
Language: English
Release Date: January 16, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: January 16, 2012
This exploration of class, feminism, and cultural identity (including issues of race, nation, colonialism, and economic imperialism) focuses on the work of four writers: the Mozambican Mia Couto, the Portuguese José Saramago, the Brazilian Clarice Lispector, and the South African J. M. Coetzee. In...
Neo-Passing
Performing Identity after Jim Crow
Language: English
Release Date: February 21, 2018
African Americans once passed as whites to escape the pains of racism. Today's neo-passing has pushed the old idea of passing in extraordinary new directions. A white author uses an Asian pen name; heterosexuals live "out" as gay; and, irony of ironies, whites try to pass as black. Mollie...
Song of My Life
A Biography of Margaret Walker
Language: English
Release Date: October 24, 2014
Margaret Walker (1915–1998) has been described as “the most famous person nobody knows.” This is a shocking oversight of an award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, educator, and activist as well as friend and mentor to many prominent African American writers. Song of My Life reintroduces Margaret...
Jam on the Vine
A Novel
Language: English
Release Date: February 3, 2015
In this “captivating saga” of the post-Reconstruction era, a black female journalist blazes her own trail—“unforgettable; gripping; an instant classic” (Elle).
Ivoe Williams, the precocious daughter of a Muslim cook and a metalsmith from central-east Texas, discovers a lifelong obsession...
by Mary Prince, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs
Language: English
Release Date: September 11, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: September 11, 2012
Straightforward, yet often poetic accounts of the battle for freedom, three memoirs by courageous black women vividly chronicle their struggles in the bonds of slavery, their rebellion against degrading injustice, and their determination to attain racial equality. In Narrative of Sojourner Truth,...
Osage and Settler
Reconstructing Shared History through an Oklahoma Family Archive
Language: English
Release Date: June 8, 2015
Drawing on a rare family archive and archival material from the Osage Nation, this book documents a unique relationship among white settlers, the Osage and African Americans in Oklahoma. The history of white settlement and colonization is often discussed in the context of the cultural erasure of,...
It Is Well with My Soul
The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year-Old Woman
Language: English
Release Date: March 31, 2010
An African American centenarian who saw W. E. B. Du Bois speak in 1924 and attended President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 shares wisdom from a life well lived during a crucial period in American history
Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson was an inspirational, dynamic, and one-of-a-kind woman,...
by Leola Clement Robinson-Simpson
Language: English
Release Date: January 31, 2007
Language: English
Release Date: January 31, 2007
Cradled at the foothills of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and once known as the �Textile Center of the South,� Greenville has evolved into a prosperous hub for corporate development and global commerce. Greenville County�s African American community, proud and resourceful, has strong roots...
Keeping the Faith
Stories of Love, Courgae, Healing, and Hope from Black America
Language: English
Release Date: December 23, 2009
In Keeping the Faith, nationally acclaimed author and commentator Tavis Smiley, host of NPR’s The Tavis Smiley Show, weaves stories of over one hundred African Americans into a rich tapestry of intimate testimonies about life, love, and inner strength. In Smiley’s affirming collection, black Americans...
The People's Place
Soul Food Restaurants and Reminiscences from the Civil Rights Era to Today
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2015
Celebrated former Chicago Sun-Times columnist Dave Hoekstra unearths stories as he travels, tastes, and talks his way through 20 of America’s soul food restaurants
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. loved the fried catfish and lemon icebox pie at Memphis’s Four Way restaurant. In New Orleans, beloved...
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Language: English
Release Date: March 30, 2004
Language: English
Release Date: March 30, 2004
Dialect poems by one of the nineteenth century's most talented African American lyricists
Paul Laurence Dunbar was “the most promising young colored man” in nineteenth-century America, according to Frederick Douglass, and subsequently one of the most controversial. His plantation lyrics,...
by Bill Harris
Language: English
Release Date: February 15, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: February 15, 2012
A poetic reimagining of the life of Booker T. Washington that explores issues of being an African American male of note at the beginning of the twentieth century.