Even though there were relatively few people of color in postrevolutionary France, images of and discussions about black women in particular appeared repeatedly in a variety of French cultural sectors and social milieus. In Vénus Noire, Robin Mitchell shows how these literary and visual depictions of black women helped to shape the country’s postrevolutionary national identity, particularly in response to the trauma of the French defeat in the Haitian Revolution.

Vénus Noire explores the ramifications of this defeat in examining visual and literary representations of three black women who achieved fame in the years that followed. Sarah Baartmann, popularly known as the Hottentot Venus, represented distorted memories of Haiti in the French imagination, and Mitchell shows how her display, treatment, and representation embodied residual anger harbored by the French. Ourika, a young Senegalese girl brought to live in France by the Maréchal Prince de Beauvau, inspired plays, poems, and clothing and jewelry fads, and Mitchell examines how the French appropriated black female identity through these representations while at the same time perpetuating stereotypes of the hypersexual black woman.

Finally, Mitchell shows how demonization of Jeanne Duval, longtime lover of the poet Charles Baudelaire, expressed France’s need to rid itself of black bodies even as images and discourses about these bodies proliferated. The stories of these women, carefully contextualized by Mitchell and put into dialogue with one another, reveal a blind spot about race in French national identity that persists in the postcolonial present.

Passed On is a portrait of death and dying in twentieth-century African America. Through poignant reflection and thorough investigation of the myths, rituals, economics, and politics of African American mourning and burial practices, Karla FC Holloway finds that ways of dying are just as much a part of black identity as ways of living. Gracefully interweaving interviews, archival research, and analyses of literature, film, and music, Holloway shows how the vulnerability of African Americans to untimely death is inextricably linked to how black culture represents itself and is represented.

With a focus on the “death-care” industry—black funeral homes and morticians, the history of the profession and its practices—Holloway examines all facets of the burial business, from physicians, hospital chaplains, and hospice administrators, to embalming- chemical salesmen, casket makers, and funeral directors, to grieving relatives. She uses narrative, photographs, and images to summon a painful history of lynchings, white rage and riot, medical malpractice and neglect, executions, and neighborhood violence. Specialized caskets sold to African Americans, formal burial photos of infants, and deathbed stories, unveil a glimpse of the graveyards and burial sites of African America, along with burial rituals and funeral ceremonies.
Revealing both unexpected humor and anticipated tragedy, Holloway tells a story of the experiences of black folk in the funeral profession and its clientele. She also reluctantly shares the story of her son and the way his death moved her research from page to person.
In the conclusion, which follows a sermon delivered by Maurice O. Wallace at the funeral for the author’s son, Bem, Holloway strives to commemorate—through observation, ceremony, and the calling of others to remembrance and celebration.

Library of America presents the definitive edition of an essential figure in Black and American theater, spanning from the 1960s to the 2010s and including several works published for the first time

Adrienne Kennedy has been a force on the American stage since the premiere of her groundbreaking, Obie Award–winning Funnyhouse of a Negro in 1964. Politically engaged, formally daring, and making provocative use of material from contemporary history and popular culture, Kennedy’s haunting stage works dramatize and project interior realities that are often marked by disappointment and trauma, madness and terror. Her understanding of the inner lives of African American women expresses a powerfully insightful feminism that has come to influence generations of playwrights and writers.

Now, the Library of America presents, for the first time, a collected edition of Kennedy’s extraordinary and wide-ranging writings, spanning six decades and including ten unpublished works. Here are the early surrealistic one-acts A Lesson in Dead Language and A Rat’s Mass; works like A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White and Film Festival: The Day Jean Seberg Died that reveal Kennedy’s longstanding fascination with Hollywood and film culture; and Ohio State Murders, one of several plays featuring her protagonist Suzanne Alexander and the first of her plays to be staged—belatedly, in 2022—on Broadway. Sleep Deprivation Chamber is a searing indictment of racially motivated police violence based on real-life incidents involving her son, who co-wrote the play. Also included here are Kennedy’s adaptations of works by Euripides, Flaubert, and John Lennon, all brilliantly reimagined.

Outside of playwriting Kennedy has made her mark as a fiction writer and memoirist, providing a rich portrait of her life and experience especially in her book People Who Led to My Plays but also in works from her later life such as the essay “Almost Eighty.” Taken together, the work gathered in Collected Plays & Other Writings is a celebration of Kennedy’s indispensable achievement on the stage and on the page alike.

Deciphers the history of “Black capitalist” rhetoric— and how it serves to enrich a minuscule few at the expense of the many

In his 1970 book The Myth of Black Capitalism, Earl Ofari Hutchinson laid out a rigorous challenge to the presumption that capitalism, in any shape or form, has the potential to rectify the stark injustices endured by Black people in America. Ofari engaged in a diligent historical review of the participation of African Americans in commercial activity in this capitalist country, demonstrating conclusively that the creation of a class of Black capitalists failed to ameliorate the extreme inequity faced by African Americans. Even “Buy Black” campaigns which aimed to “keep resources in the community,” he showed, reinforced a Black bourgeoisie which often enough exploited the Black underclass to increase their own wealth. Whether Black capitalists dared to go up against, or merely tried to find their place amongst, giant monopoly corporations, Ofari argued they would make little substantive progress in the lives of Black people. And whether calls for “Black capitalism” came from within the Black Power movement for Black economic autonomy, or were appropriated by the old-line Black elite, in the end the promotion of the myth of “Black capitalism” was a project of the Black elite which solely served the interests of the capitalist managerial class.

It was Richard Nixon who first introduced the notion of “Black capitalism” into mainstream American discourse, coopting the term at a time when African Americans comprised only 3% of the nation’s employers. That number dwindled thereafter, and yet the term only gained cachet following the election of Barack Obama and the increased visibility of the Black elite. Thankfully, just as the rhetoric of ‘Black capitalism” is being resuscitated, it is being confronted once more. In this second edition of Earl Ofari’s pathbreaking book, a Monthly Review Press classic, the author adds a new Introduction, which shows both the enduring strength of the ideology of Black capitalism and its continued inability to change the nature of what has always been a racialized system of production and distribution. Ofari reveals “Black capitalism" for what it really is: a diversion from the struggle for liberation that works at cross purposes with the fight against exploitation, and a fantasy which enriches a minuscule few at the expense of the many. The Myth of Black Capitalism argues definitively that only a direct assault on the oppression of Black people and the capitalist system itself can bring this exploitation to an end.

Growing up in dive bars up and down the East Coast, Toni Bennette's guitar was her only companion...until she met Sebastian Quick. Seb was a little older, a lot wiser, and before long he was Toni's way out, promising they'd escape their stifling small town together. Then Seb turned eighteen and split without looking back.

Now, Toni's all grown up and making a name for herself in Philadelphia's indie scene. When a friend suggests she try out for a hot new up-and-coming band, Toni decides to take a chance. Strong, feminist, and fierce as fire, Toni B. and the Lillys are the perfect match…except Seb's now moonlighting as their manager. Whatever. Toni can handle it. No problem. Or it wouldn't be if Seb didn't still hold a piece of her heart…not to mention the key to her future.

Self captures the community vibes of the New York City bodega in exuberantly chromatic paintings, sculptures and installations

Working across a range of mediums, including large-scale painting, printmaking, sculpture, collage and installation, Tschabalala Self’s (born 1990) exuberant and visually seductive artworks often focus on stories of urban life, the body and humanity to explore cultural attitudes toward race and gender.
Taking its title from the celebrated series of installations which culminated in a 2019 exhibition at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, Bodega Run documents Self’s multiyear-long exploration of the bodega—corner-store fixtures of New York City neighborhoods—as both a gathering place for community and a microcosm of the shifting political and economic forces that impact the lives of city dwellers, particularly of Black and Latin descent.
In vibrant paintings, sculptures and dizzying immersive installations, Self captures the densely stocked shelves, neon signs and intermingling characters of the New York City bodega. This lavishly designed monograph reproduces works and photographs from throughout the Bodega Run series, alongside significant new texts that expand on the project and Self’s practice and a sewn-in zine insert with photographs of New York bodegas. Tschabalala Self: Bodega Run is an essential look at a defining series of artworks by one of the most exciting young artists working today.

"For all our sakes, I hope Deborah Roberts continues to stake a claim, through her work, for a more expansive view of Black children." —Dawoud Bey

The definitive look at two decades of work by Austin-based artist Deborah Roberts (born 1962) with newly commissioned texts and a thorough dive into her archive, this monograph offers a comprehensive view of one of today’s most significant social observers. An extensive plate section is accompanied by a heartfelt foreword from Dawoud Bey on "the tragic mischaracterization of Black children"; an insightful essay from Ekow Eshun on the social and political histories of innocence, race and the fractured nature of the contemporary Black experience; a celebratory tribute from author and artist Carolyn Jean Martin on the musicality, humility and generosity of Roberts’ practice; and a free-ranging conversation between Roberts and cultural historian Sarah Elizabeth Lewis.
By using images from American history, Black culture, pop culture and Black history, Roberts critiques perceptions of ideal beauty and challenges stereotypes. She combines found and manipulated images with hand-drawn and painted details to create hybrid figures, often young girls and increasingly Black boys, whose well-being and futures are equally threatened because of the double standard of boyhood and criminality that is projected upon them at such a young age. Each child has character and agency to find their own way amid the complicated narratives of American, African American and art history.
Deborah Roberts (born 1962) is a mixed-media artist whose work challenges the notion of ideal beauty. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the US and Europe, and is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum; The Studio Museum in Harlem; LACMA, Los Angeles; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, among other institutions. Roberts received her MFA from Syracuse University. She lives and works in Austin, Texas, and is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.

"One of the great overlooked luminaries of American picture-making." –The New Yorker

In 1983, Baldwin Lee (born 1951) left his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his 4 × 5 view camera and set out on the first of a series of road trips to photograph the American South. The subjects of his pictures were Black Americans: at home, at work and at play, in the street and in nature. This project would consume Lee—a first-generation Chinese American—for the remainder of that decade, and it would forever transform his perception of his country, its people, and himself. The resulting archive from this seven-year period contains nearly 10,000 black-and-white negatives. This monograph, *Baldwin Lee*, presents a selection of 88 images edited by the photographer Barney Kulok, accompanied by an interview with Lee by the curator Jessica Bell Brown and an essay by the writer Casey Gerald. Arriving almost four decades after Lee began his journey, this publication reveals the artist’s unique commitment to picturing life in America and, in turn, one of the most piercing and poignant bodies of work of its time.

In Peaches, a hopeful multigenerational story of love and healing from author Gabriele Davis and illustrator Kim Holt, a girl holds her mother’s memory close while carrying on an important family tradition: making peach cobbler together.
 
Summer Sundays begin with picking.
Rosy-ripe peaches dipping low to the ground,
Sun-warmed and soft like Grandma’s lap.
 
Side by side with Daddy and Grandma, a young girl is determined to take part in her family’s tradition of baking the perfect peach cobbler—just like her mama used to. From picking fruit to stirring and mixing to kneading the dough, it’s a little bit messy. But with sure hands to guide the girl step-by-step—and her mother’s memory hanging sweet in the air—she has the recipe for making Mama proud.
 
This warmhearted and ultimately hopeful picture book shows that with a house full of love, everything can feel peach-perfect.

Now in paperback, a stunning YA fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Holly Black and Justina Ireland, about a Black girl (and sword expert) fighting a Fae uprising in Shakespearean London

Sixteen-year-old Joan Sands is a gifted craftswoman who creates and upkeeps the stage blades for William Shakespeare’s acting company, The King’s Men. Joan’s skill with her blades comes from a magical ability to control metal—an ability gifted by her Head Orisha, Ogun. Because her whole family is Orisha-blessed, the Sands family have always kept tabs on the Fae presence in London. Usually that doesn’t involve much except noting the faint glow around a Fae’s body as they try to blend in with London society, but lately, there has been an uptick in brutal Fae attacks. After Joan wounds a powerful Fae and saves the son of a cruel Lord, she is drawn into political intrigue in the human and Fae worlds.

Swashbuckling, romantic, and full of the sights and sounds of Shakespeare’s London, this series starter delivers an unforgettable story—and a heroine unlike any other.

(The Forge & Fracture Saga, Book 1)

In this horror graphic novel from award-winning writer Jazmine Joyner and illustrator Anthony Pugh, American Gods meets Get Out in a dark retelling of the West African legend of Anansi the Spider.
 
In the Deep South, something evil waits in the darkness . . .
 
Devour tells the story of the Turner family, who move to Alabama to care for their ailing matriarch, Vassie, when she begins suffering from dementia. But Vassie isn’t just any old lady; she’s the last of a line of powerful root women who have been caring for the community since her ancestors were first captured and enslaved by white plantation owners. Patsy, the eldest daughter in the family, is immediately suspicious; the locals’ fear and superstition of her grandmother leads Patsy to take a closer look at the Turner family home, and what she finds is beyond her wildest nightmares.
 
In a magical room beneath the house, Patsy discovers the source of her family’s legendary skills: the Ghanaian spider god Anansi. Driven mad by the suffering of the enslaved Africans who worshipped him, Anansi was eventually captured and contained by Patsy’s ancestors. As Patsy learns about her family’s culture and dark past, she also realizes what’s really happening to Vassie; Anansi is eating Vassie’s memories. With their legacy and the god’s imprisonment in the balance, Patsy and her brother, Demetrius, will have to take up their grandmother’s mantle—while she can still remember who they are.
 
Devour is a terrifying new fable that delivers thrills and chills in equal measure.

This groundbreaking body of comics journalism collects Anderson's entire biography of the renowned civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Over a decade in the making, the saga has been praised for its vivid recreation of one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. history and for its accuracy in depicting the personal and public lives of King, from his birth to his assassination. King probes the life story of one of America's greatest public figures with an unflinchingly critical eye, casting King as an ambitious, dichotomous figure deserving of his place in history but not above moral sacrifice to get there. Anderson's expressionistic visual style is wrought with dramatic energy; panels evoke a painterly attention to detail but juxtapose with one another in such a way as to propel King's story with cinematic momentum. Anderson's successful use of the graphic novel to tell a major work of nonfiction has drawn favorable comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale, Joe Sacco's Palestine, and Osamu Tezuka's Adolph.

King not only recreates the major events in King's public life, but chronicles the daily, rough-and-tumble, behind-the-scenes political maneuverings and strategic compromises that were required to mobilize millions of people toward a common goal. His internal debates with Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson and his hardball negotiations with John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson are dramatized. Anderson's achievement is not merely a political biography filled with names and dates, but a fully rounded portrait of a fallible human engaged in a superhuman effort his fears, his doubts, his relationship with his wife Coretta King, and his children are compassionately and truthfully rendered.

Anderson's visual approach includes the use of photographs, realistic portraiture, and expressionistic imagery alternating between stark black and white chiaroscuro and painterly full color. The dialogue is unflinchingly naturalistic and accurately reflects the moral urgency and labyrinthine political and practical complexities that King was navigating, from his deeply felt, personal commitment to a public cause to the wider political eruptions the country was experiencing. This is a respectful, unsparing, truthful biography of a man and his times that captures the moral and political gravitas of the cause as well as its human dimension. A major work of comics, depicting a major work of history.

This much-needed conversational guide to the stock market by a financial expert empowers you to heal money wounds, establish financial literacy, and make your money work for you.
 
Financial educator Linda García breaks down one of the most elusive yet effective financial systems in existence. A single mother at a young age, Linda struggled to survive. As bills and eviction notices flowed in, she felt stuck. After getting advice from a work friend, Linda took the leap and invested two hundred dollars. Soon, two hundred dollars a month grew to seven thousand dollars, then that became a high six-figure investment. Now she owns her home and is making more money than she’d ever imagined, and is ready to help other people of color access stock knowledge and achieve financial success.

As a proud Latina, García understands that building wealth can mean more than stepping into financial arenas historically kept from communities of color. It may first require getting to the root of our money wounds—the factors and experiences that limit our capacity to feel deserving of wealth and capable of building it. In this investing playbook, she guides you on how to establish a budget, create your “opportunity fund,” and pay yourself first.  She shows you how to analyze a company, choose the right stocks for you, and create a plan to multiply your money.
 
You’ll learn:

• What it means to invest, where your money goes, and how to read stock charts.
• How to assess companies, pick your first stock, and buy your first shares.
• Tactics to break free from a scarcity mindset and grow your stocks to create life-changing wealth.

A collection of beautiful and inspiring plant-based recipes filled with the flavors of far-reaching influences. Savoring invites you to slow down and immerse yourself in vegan cooking—meal by meal, moment by moment. There is something so satisfying about choosing to consciously slow down and create a dish without distractions: cherishing the time in the kitchen, celebrating the ingredients that give us life, and slowly transforming them into something magical. Murielle Banackissa—recipe developer, food stylist, and photographer—has spent hours, nights, whole weekends in her kitchen cooking for herself and for others. In Savoring, she shares a collection of her unique plant-based recipes that is both a celebration of those special moments found in cooking (grilling flavor into peaches to top weekend waffles, sitting with mushrooms while they caramelize) and an interweaving of her different cultural influences—from her upbringing in the Republic of Congo, to her mother’s Russian and Ukrainian heritage recipes, and her family’s immigration to Montreal. With recipes that range from stuffed savory crepes to lentil-filled dumplings to cassava leaf and spinach stew, inside, you’ll find: * Bountiful Breakfasts: Crispy Chickpea Pancakes with Avocado and Salsa; Rum-Coconut French Toast with Caramelized Bananas; Stewed Blackberries and Lemon Ricotta Toasts * Small Plates and Salads: Pan-Fried Plantains; Pearl Barley Salad with Roasted Bell Peppers and Vegan Feta; Garlicky Miso-Glazed Bok Choy; Fufu * Marvelous Main Dishes: Coconut-Crusted Tofu with Spicy Mango Salsa; Peanut Butter and Sweet Potato Stew; Sesame Ginger Glazed Shiitakes with Sticky Rice; Quebec Meatless Pie * Delectable Desserts: Olive Oil and Rose Polenta Bundt Cake; Spiced Poached Pear Puff Pastry Tart; Date-Sweetened Chocolate Cream Tarts; Fried Banana Beignets With Murielle's stunning, atmospheric photography accompanying every recipe, Savoring is the debut cookbook from a very exciting new food talent. Filled with recipes inspired by her far-reaching family, it is a thoughtful and delicious exploration of all kinds of plant-based dishes sure to introduce new flavors to your table.

The unlikely narrator through this tale of misadventures is one Curt Marder: gambler, drinker, cheat, and would-be womanizer. It's 1871, and he's lost his farm, his wife, and his dog to a band of marauding hooligans. With nothing to live on but a desire to recover what is rightfully his, Marder is forced to enlist the help of the best tracker in the West: a black man named Bubba.

*ships or ready for pick up in 7 - 10 business days*

Celebrate James Baldwin’s one-hundredth birthday anniversary with the first-ever illustrated biography of this legendary writer, orator, activist, and intellectual.

Before he became a writer, James “Jimmy” Baldwin was a young boy from Harlem, New York, who loved stories. He found joy in the rhythm of music, family, and books.

But Jimmy also found the blues, as a Black man living in America.

When he discovered the written word, he discovered true power. Writing gave him a voice. And that voice opened the world to Jimmy. From the publication of the groundbreaking collection of essays The Fire Next Time to his passionate demonstrations during the civil rights movement, Jimmy used his voice fearlessly.

Michelle Meadows, author of Brave Ballerina and Flying High, introduces young readers to the great American novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, orator, and artist James Baldwin, who, with the fire of his pen, dared a nation to dream of a more equitable world filled with love. Brought to life with warm illustrations by Jamiel Law, Jimmy’s Rhythm & Blues chronicles the life of an incredible visionary who left an indelible mark on American literature and history.

In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies… a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming.

Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.

But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Creatures that called sailors to their doom. That dragged them down and drowned them. That feasted on their flesh. The creature that she’s always longed to become: the mermaid.

Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine, the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.

A beautiful and encouraging guide to connecting with the natural world for peace, calm, and clarity.

From the author of the popular Nature Meditations Deck, this guided journal makes it easy to tap into the restorative power of nature. Within these pages are simple mindfulness practices, reflection prompts, and guided activities organized into four sections:
* Nature meditations
* Walking thoughts
* Messages from the earth
* Strengthening affirmations

Whether you’re in your own backyard, strolling through a local park with a friend, or hiking deep in the woods, this uplifting journal brings the benefits of nature to your fingertips and makes for a lovely companion on any outdoor excursion.

MINDFULNESS MADE EASY: This engaging, interactive journal makes it easy to practice mindfulness. The simple-to-follow prompts and activities are a great tool for individuals curious about tapping into the power of self-care practices such as forest bathing and meditation but aren’t sure where to start.
 
GREAT WELLNESS GIFT: Delivered in a beautifully illustrated, nature-inspired package, this journal is a great gift for nature lovers, meditators, and anyone who wants to experience more joy and peace in everyday life.
 
NATURE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS: This journal makes it easy to engage with the natural world through bite-sized meditations and visualizations. Whether in a backyard, visiting a local park, or deep in the forest, this journal offers simple ways to access the healing energy of the outdoors.
 
VALUABLE CONTENT IN AN AFFORDABLE PACKAGE: Mindfulness and time in nature are scientifically proven to help people release stress and calm anxiety. This beautiful, all-levels journal offers valuable practices in an accessible format that provides everything needed to bring balance, focus, and calm to everyday life.

Perfect for:
* Nature enthusiasts and those seeking gifts for nature lovers
* Anyone looking for accessible mindfulness/therapeutic practices
* Mind/body/spirit practitioners
* Devotees of Kenya Jackson-Saulters's Nature Meditations Deck and Outdoor Journal Tour organization
* Fans of self-care books and tools like Calm the Chaos Journal, Mindfulness Cards, Forest Bathing, and She Explores

With Love, Miss Americanah―the Young Adult contemporary romance debut from Jane Igharo―sees a teenager move from Nigeria to America and navigate her senior year with the help of classic teen movies and a new crush, all while working through grief and the rigid expectations of her mother.

17-year-old Enore Adesuwa doesn’t dive into things, she walks in carefully. So when she, her mother, and her sister move from Nigeria to America shortly after her father’s death, she wants to be extremely prepared before attending an American high school. Her cousin, Adrian, doesn’t have time to explain the ins and outs to her but, luckily, he recommends the perfect research tool: teen movies.

Still dealing with grief but armed with a set of rules of survival gathered from these movies (including the crucial rule of keeping a low profile), Enore is ready for her senior year. But when she meets Davi Santiago, it may be much harder than she thought to keep to her rules. Because not only is he super thoughtful (and okay, very good looking), he constantly encourages her to share her incredible singing talent. Enore prefers the background but it just might be time for her to take center stage, even in spite of her mother’s strict expectations.

Maybe it would be easier to follow all the rules, the ones Enore set for herself and the ones her mom imposes, but as every teen movie has taught her, a coming-of-age is nothing without a little rebellion. And with help from her crush, her sister, and some new friends who don’t quite fit the roles she expects them to play, Enore’s senior year might indeed be cinematic.

In the 1960s and ’70s, a diverse range of storefronts―including head shops, African American bookstores, feminist businesses, and organic grocers―brought the work of the New Left, Black Power, feminism, environmentalism, and other movements into the marketplace. Through shared ownership, limited growth, and democratic workplaces, these activist entrepreneurs offered alternatives to conventional profit-driven corporate business models. By the middle of the 1970s, thousands of these enterprises operated across the United States―but only a handful survive today. Some, such as Whole Foods Market, have abandoned their quest for collective political change in favor of maximizing profits.

Vividly portraying the struggles, successes, and sacrifices of these unlikely entrepreneurs, From Head Shops to Whole Foods writes a new history of social movements and capitalism by showing how activists embraced small businesses in a way few historians have considered. The book challenges the widespread but mistaken idea that activism and political dissent are inherently antithetical to participation in the marketplace. Joshua Clark Davis uncovers the historical roots of contemporary interest in ethical consumption, social enterprise, buying local, and mission-driven business, while also showing how today’s companies have adopted the language―but not often the mission―of liberation and social change.

Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a “lively, engaging, and often wise” (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music.

Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s”. Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity.

What emerges in My Black Country is a celebration of the most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.

*ships or ready for pick up in 7 - 10 business days*

Black figuration and portraiture as realized in the works of Amy Sherald, Jordan Casteel and other contemporary artists

“There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now,” wrote James Baldwin. Published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, The Time is Always Now is edited by curator Ekow Eshun, former director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The book brings together 22 contemporary African diasporic artists working primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States, whose practices―whether through painting, drawing or sculpture―foreground the Black figure. Acknowledging the paradox of race as both a “socially constructed fiction” and a “lived reality,” as Eshun writes, The Time is Always Now celebrates these Black figurative artworks against a background of heightened cultural visibility. Through a three-part structure, this book examines Black figuration as a means to address the absence and distortion of Black presence within Western art history. Each artist receives a detailed biographical profile alongside reproductions of their included works. The catalog is also supplemented by three original essays from Dorothy Price, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Critical Race Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art; Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize–winning author of Girl, Woman, Other; and Esi Edugyan, two-time Giller Prize winner for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black.

Artists include: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Noah Davis, Godfried Donkor, Kimathi Donkor, Denzil Forrester, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Chris Ofili, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jennifer Packer, Thomas J. Price, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, Henry Taylor, Barbara Walker.

The long-awaited monograph on Barkley L. Hendricks’ powerful portraits of contemporary Black subjects

Barkley L. Hendricks is rightly known as one of the foremost American painters of the late 20th century. His six-decade artistic oeuvre encompasses not only portraits but also includes evocative landscapes, hard-edged geometric abstractions, lush watercolors on paper and singular photographs informed by his studies with Walker Evans. This final publication of a five-volume set dedicated to the artist is a 300-page monograph that captures his full evolution as a portraitist.
Solid! is a compilation of Hendricks’ acclaimed figurative paintings: large-scale canvases of distinctively dressed (or undressed) individuals, including several self-portraits, against solid-color backgrounds. Critical essays from curators and fellow artists provide further, often personal, insight into all aspects of Hendricks’ practice: probing his photographic experimentation as a forbear to contemporary street photography; celebrating his sensitivity as a colorist whose unique expertise seamlessly combines oil-based and water-based pigments; and highlighting the observational genuineness in his provocative and personal interpretations of women, of unapologetically visible queer identities and of his own beloved Black communities across the African Diaspora. The book closes with a conversation between Trevor Schoonmaker and Barkley’s widow, Susan Hendricks, in which she recounts their trips to Jamaica and Barkley’s process for creating landscape and fruit paintings outdoors.
Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) was born in Philadelphia and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Yale. His life-size paintings of everyday Black Americans have inspired generations of artists. Hendricks gave up painting in favor of photography, but returned to oil portraits later in life. He taught at Connecticut College from 1972 until 2010.

A comprehensive look at the early career of a rising star in contemporary Black portraiture

This is the first monograph on the practice of young American painter Khalif Tahir Thompson (born 1995), who will receive an MFA from the Yale School of Art in the spring of 2024. With several solo exhibitions and artwork in museum permanent collections, Thompson is already prolific. His paintings are populated by Black figures set in colorful, shimmering environments that sometimes resemble patchworks verging on abstraction. They incorporate multiple materials apart from oil and acrylic, including handmade paper, pearls, fabric, velvet, newspaper and leather. Whether isolated or in a group, candid or posed, each figure is imbued with an innate identity. Says Thompson of his work: "I believe painting can be a tool in considering the emotional, psychological complexity of an individual's story and identity ... I alter perception and invoke empathy towards my subjects, depicting their reality across a visceral lens."

An ode to the family, friendship, and the beautiful tradition of Hoodoo practice, this book celebrates the magic and symbolism to be found in every day, written by bestselling author Nyasha Williams.

Dayo practices Hoodoo with her family. One Saturday, she wakes from an interesting dream about a yellow bird. What could it mean? She knows that it’s up to her to figure it out. Over the course of the day, as Dayo and her family move through their daily rituals (mantras and affirmations included), the message sent from her Ancestors through her dream reveals itself. This celebration of spirituality (and heritage) highlights the rich history of Hoodoo and the beauty we can find in everyday magic.