It’s the early 1960s, and as the Civil Rights movement begins to reach segregated Tallahassee, the young, deeply principled Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to heart: he is “as good as anyone.”

He is about to enroll in the local black college, but for a black boy in the Jim Crow South, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear “out back.” Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr. King’s ringing assertion: “Throw us in jail and we will still love you.” His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive—that the world is crooked and the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.

Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys’ fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.

The New York Times best-selling author’s time-travel classic that makes us feel the horrors of American slavery and indicts our country’s lack of progress on racial reconciliation

Soon to be an FX Networks TV series adaptation with a pilot directed by Janicza Bravo (Zola), written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen), and executive produced by Jacobs-Jenkins and Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain)

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby’s debut novel, republished in a new edition, with a new introduction from the author.

“I handle the bodies.”

Whether it's working at his cousin's funeral home or tossing around the local riffraff at his favorite bar, Nathan Waymaker is a man who knows how to handle the bodies. A former marine and sheriff's deputy, Nathan has built a reputation in his small Southern town as a man who can help when all other avenues have been exhausted. When a beloved local minister is found dead, his parishioners ask Nathan to make sure the death isn’t swept under the rug.

What starts out as an easy payday soon descends into a maze of mayhem filled with wannabe gangsters, vicious crime lords, porn stars, crooked police officers, and a particularly treacherous preacher and his mysterious wife. Nathan must use all his varied skills and some of his wit to navigate the murky waters of small town corruption even as dark secrets of his own threaten to come to the surface.

100% of the proceeds go to our friends at The Mahogany Project!

Founded in 2017 by advocate Verniss McFarland, The Mahogany Project aims to reduce social isolation, stigma, and violence that our most marginalized communities often face daily. A pillar of our work- creating safe spaces for transgender and queer communities of color in Houston, Texas- has allowed our work to impact the lives of trans communities in our local city, and across the United States.

The only Black trans-led/peer led community center in the state of Texas, The Mahogany Project provides supportive services, ranging from emergency housing resource navigation, food pantry, clothing closet, and case management support. In addition, we provide recreational and arts activities- from our media center/recording studio to painting classes to community celebrations- all with the aim of providing empowerment and safety for communities who have nowhere else to turn to for peer-led support. We believe that everyone deserves access to economic stability, dignified housing, quality healthcare, resources, community, and opportunities for healing. We provide and connect the most marginalized to programs that help individuals and communities thrive.

Grief expert Marisa Renee Lee’s incisive and compassionate guide on how to manage grief after the loss of a loved one, with special insight for women and African American communities, which also provides timely wisdom and care for the millions who have suffered loss during the pandemic

In Grief is Love, author Marisa Renee Lee reveals that healing does not mean moving on—healing means learning to acknowledge and create space for your grief. She guides you through the pain of early grief and shows you how to to honor your loss. It’s common to plow through our feelings in the name of being “OK,” but grief is so inextricably tied to love that you don’t just “get over it.” Grief is Love is about making space for the transformation that this constant state of learning requires. It is about learning to love yourself and the one you lost with the same depth, passion, joy, and commitment you did when they were alive, perhaps even more.
 
Lee shows that there isn’t only one way to grieve, and so your expression of it should be unique. She shepherds you through your grief as it arises and falls again and again. The transformation we each undergo after loss is the indelible imprint of the people we love on our lives, which is the true meaning of legacy. Healing after loss is not about burying pain but about acknowledging it and allowing grief to move through you in order to be whole. How do you manage the holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries? How do you get through the next year or even tomorrow?
 
In beautiful, compassionate prose, Lee elegantly offers wisdom about what it means to authentically and defiantly claim space for these complicated feelings and emotions. And Lee is no stranger to grief herself, after losing her mother, her fertility, a pregnancy, and, most recently, a cousin to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this book, she also explores the unique impact of grief on Black people, Black women in particular, and reveals the key factors that proper healing requires: acknowledgement, rest, community, reflection, support, care and more.
 
At its core, Grief is Love explores what comes after death, and shows us that if we are able to own and honor what we’ve lost, we can have a beautiful and joyful life in the midst of grief. 

A moving picture book about the history of Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas—and the origins of Juneteenth.

When people visit me, they are free—to run, play, gather, and rejoice.

They built me to remember.

On June 19, 1865, the 250,000 enslaved people of Texas learned they were free, ending slavery in the United States. This day was soon to be memorialized with the dedication of a park in Houston. The park was called Emancipation Park, and the day it honored would come to be known as Juneteenth.  

In the voice and memory of the park itself—its fields and pools, its protests and cookouts, and, most of all, its people—the 150-year story of Emancipation Park is brought to life. Through lyrical text and vibrant artwork, Tonya Duncan Ellis and Jenin Mohammed have crafted an ode to the struggle, triumph, courage, and joy of Black America—and the promise of a people to remember.

From the author of Oprah's Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller Nightcrawling, here is an astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle.

Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.

The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.

Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends’ secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.

During the first quarter of the twenty-first century, more than one hundred institutions of higher education in the United States launched projects to study and share their histories concerning slavery, segregation, and racial injustice. Slavery, Segregation, and the Second Founding of Rice University joins these wider efforts. Authored by award-winning historians Alexander X. Byrd and W. Caleb McDaniel, the book engages questions specific to Rice’s history as the last major private research university in the country to begin desegregation. Although Rice did not open its doors for classes until 1912, it was connected to the history of slavery through the life of its first founder and namesake, William Marsh Rice, whose fortune was deeply intertwined with the enslavement of Black people.

Byrd and McDaniel place the history of one of the nation’s most renowned universities within a longer and larger context, showing that desegregation required changes to Rice so fundamental that they amounted to a “second founding” of the school. Following the story from slavery through segregation to the second founding, they highlight pivotal points of intersection between the history of Black Houston and the history of Rice University, revealing the seldom acknowledged roles of Black students, Black communities, and HBCUs in creating change at and around Rice. Their study challenges readers to consider anew who counts as a university’s founder―a question relevant to ongoing discussions about statues, naming, and the history of higher education. They also reveal what higher education institutions do at their best: create new knowledge and forge solutions to trenchant social problems, thus providing guidance for those committed to doing the valuable work of the “second founding” at colleges and universities today.

From Newbery Medal honoree and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds comes a hilarious, hopeful, and action-packed middle-grade novel about the greatest young superhero you’ve never heard of, filled with illustrations by Raúl the Third!

Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes—like his parents and two best friends—stay super. And safe. Super safe. And he does this all in secret. No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy!

But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives.

All this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. His parents are fighting all the time. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too—as soon as he figures out how.

Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all.

Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes—like his parents and two best friends—stay super. And safe. Super safe. And he does this all in secret. No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy! But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives. All this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. His parents are fighting all the time. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too—as soon as he figures out how. Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all.

A high-stakes, propulsive young adult thriller with a body-swap twist thoughtfully explores themes of friendship and identity, perfect for fans of Tiffany D. Jackson.

Seventeen-year-old Megan has been jumping from friend group to friend group in her Atlanta-area suburb, trying on identities like outfits. Nothing ever felt right. Until she meets LC, the adventurous, charismatic girl who appeared at Megan’s favorite coffee shop like magic. They’ve been inseparable ever since, and Megan feels like she’s coming into who she’s really meant to be: someone like LC.

But LC has secrets—dangerous ones. On the night of their friendiversary, LC offers Megan a drug that makes Megan pass out at a party. When she awakens, she realizes that she and LC have swapped bodies and even worse . . . LC is already at Megan’s house, pretending to be Megan.

Now Megan has to fight against the horror of being trapped in someone else’s body while trying to figure out how to get her life back. The only way to do that is to own what makes Megan Megan . . . or die trying.

A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry

Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.

Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as “Blue Black.” The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.

Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.

Discover the roots of modern-day herbal remedies, plant medicine, holistic rituals, natural recipes, and more that were created by African American herbal healers throughout history.

This first-of-its-kind herbal guide takes you through the origins of herbal practices rooted in African American tradition—from Ancient Egypt and the African tropics to the Caribbean and the United States. Inside you’ll find the stories of herbal healers like Emma Dupree and Henrietta Jeffries, who made modern American herbalism what it is today. 

After rediscovering the forgotten legacies of these healers, African American Herbalism dives into the important contributions they made to the world of herbalism, including: 

• Rituals for sacred bathing and skin care
• Herbal tinctures, potions, and medicine 
• Recipes for healing meals and soul food 
• And more!

The Day God Saw Me as Black is a genre-defying, cultural critique of white supremacy in the Black Pentecostal religious experience through the lenses of race, gender, sexual expression, and class analyses. A narrative that weaves between critique and meditation, decolonization and reconciliation, the theoretical and the deeply personal, The Day God Saw Me as Black is an imagining of what could be if we stopped denying ourselves — and each other — full liberation.

The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.

The Conjuring of America tells the epic story of conjure women, who, through a mix of spiritual beliefs, herbal rituals, and therapeutic remedies gave rise to the rich tapestry of American culture we see today. Feminist philosopher, Lindsey Stewart, tells the stories of Negro Mammies of slavery; the Voodoo Queens and Blues Women of Reconstruction; and the Granny Midwives and textile weavers of the Jim Crow era. These women, in secrecy and subterfuge, courageously and devotedly continued their practices and worship for centuries and passed down their traditions. 
 
Emerging first in the American South during slavery, these women were thrust into the heart of national conflicts over generations of African American life. They combined ancestral magic and hyperlocal resources to respond to Black struggles in real time, forging a secret well of health and power hidden to their oppressors. As a result, conjure informs our lives in ways remarkable and ordinary—from traditional medicines that informed the creation of Vicks VapoRub and the rise of Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix, to the original magic of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (2023), and the true origins of the all-American classic blue jean.
 
From the moment enslaved Africans first arrived on these shores, conjure was heavily regulated and even outlawed. Now, Stewart uncovers new contours of American history, sourcing letters from the enslaved, dispatches from the lore of Oshun and other African mystics. The Conjuring of America is a love letter to the real magic Black women used, their magic Black women, their herbs, food, textiles, song, and dance, used to sow rebellion, freedom, and hope.

No more self-denial. Politics should be a resounding, erotic "yes," not another deadening "no."

How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor Adrienne Maree Brown finds the answer in something she calls “pleasure activism,” a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, she challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism. Her mindset-altering essays are interwoven with conversations and insights from other feminist thinkers, including Audre Lorde, Joan Morgan, Cara Page, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Together they cover a wide array of subjects—from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs—building new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own.

Building on the success of her popular Emergent Strategy, brown launches a new series of the same name with this volume, bringing readers books that explore experimental, expansive, and innovative ways to meet the challenges that face our world today. Books that find the opportunity in every crisis!

Tali Saunders had one goal: to leave Union City and never look back. Going off to college with her sister Shandea was a perfect way to escape becoming a product of the street. She never imagined on her last night in Union City that she would meet someone who made her question everything she thought she knew about herself. Meeting Henny wasn’t in her plans, but after one night of pleasure and demands, a connection was made.

Will Tali keep her to vow leave? Or will she stay?

Hendrix ‘Henny’ Pharma had one plan that didn’t include meeting Tali Saunders. In an instant, he knew things would have to change to include his new addiction. One night wasn’t enough, but life had other plans. Will Henny get the chance to be with Tali? Or will he be left a fiend, craving the high she gave him without her to satiate him?

Lennox ‘Oz’ Anderson met what would become his obsession the night Shandea ‘Dea’ Saunders sat down to play a game of poker.The only problem was that Dea belonged to someone else. Or at least she thought she did. Oz knew what he wanted, and it was Dea. He planned to make sure she understood that it meant forever once he made her his.
Dea counted down the days until her sister Tali would graduate so they could leave Union City behind. Nothing and no one in Union City could keep her there, even her so-called boyfriend, Rodney.
Dea always seemed to have a problem choosing the right man. But what happens when the right man chooses her?

In a single night, soul ties were created that bonded these two couples in ways they’d never planned or imagined. But will betrayal, jealousy, and death make them second guess their connections being destiny or tear them apart?

***This book contains explicit language, graphic violence, and strong sexual content. It is intended for adults.***

Hustle culture is out, intentional living is in. Morgan DeBaun, the visionary founder and CEO of Blavity Inc., is here to help you become the CEO of your life and revolutionize your approach to success and fulfillment.

In her transformative book, Rewrite Your Rules, DeBaun delivers a powerful call to action: redefine the guiding principles of your life. This isn’t about minor adjustments; it’s about radically transforming what you believe is possible, challenging you to break free from societal expectations and design your own path.

In Rewrite Your Rules, DeBaun doesn’t just question the norms—she obliterates them. With the wisdom of a seasoned entrepreneur and the relatability of your most trusted friend, DeBaun offers a refreshing antidote to toxic hustle culture. Her powerful three-part framework will guide you to:

• Master Yourself: Uncover your true values, passions, and potential
• Master Your Method: Align daily actions with your goals
• Master Your Growth: Adapt continuously to life’s challenges and opportunities

Each chapter of the book provides practical steps for evaluating life’s big questions and dismantling outdated rules. Whether rethinking your career, relationships, or routines, Rewrite Your Rules puts you firmly back in the driver’s seat to focus on what matters most. This is a straight-talking resource you’ll want to return to, at any stage, to build a life that feels truly yours—one that balances financial achievement with deep personal fulfillment. DeBaun proves that true success is rooted in authenticity, purpose, and the courage to chart your own course.

New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams returns with an intensely romantic, deliciously sexy tale about a woman searching for her handsome seatmate on a European flight--and the unexpected places her hunt for love leads her.

Sasha Cruz knows types. As a booked-and-busy casting agent, she's always casting -- at happy hour, the post office, the grocery store, everywhere. She's all about finding the perfect person to slot into the perfect role. What she doesn't do, however, are relationships. Too much energy, not enough time. Men find her intimidating, and she likes it that way.

But when Sasha's seated next to a mysterious, broodingly handsome Italian man on the way to a work trip in Paris, sparks fly - but they miss the chance to exchange contact information. Now, convinced that she's lost out on her soulmate, Sasha is on a manhunt to find Seat F.

Sasha enlists her work friend for help in the search, but when she accidentally emails the entire global company, colleagues around the world begin looking for Seat F, too - with some finding love along the way. Meanwhile, Sasha takes matters into her own hands, hiring a smoldering detective who complicates matters in unforeseen ways.

From Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Award-winner Kadir Nelson comes a story about the power of one kind act.

If you plant a carrot seed, carrots will grow.

If you plant a lettuce seed, lettuce will grow.

But what happens if you plant a seed of kindness?

Or selfishnessÉ?

This is a resonant, gently humorous story about the power of our actions, and the rewards of compassion and generosity, from award-winning, beloved author-illustrator Kadir Nelson.

A Nigerian storyteller explores the continent of Africa country by country: its geography, peoples, animals, history, resources, and cultural diversity. The book is divided into five distinct sections—South, East, West, Central, and North—and each country is showcased on its own bright, energetic page brimming with friendly facts on science, industry, food, sports, music, wildlife, landscape features, even snippets of local languages. The richest king, the tallest sand dunes, and the planet’s largest waterfall all make appearances along with drummers, cocoa growers, inventors, balancing stones, salt lakes, high-tech cities, and nomads who use GPS!

Celebrate baby’s first steps with a board book that follows one curious baby’s journey to this important milestone.

Hand in hand

Left, right, left

Hands out wide

Step, step, step

Hands On! is the cheerful and triumphant story of a baby’s journey from playing and grasping with their hands to stumbling on their feet to taking their very first steps. Anne Wynter’s spare and lyrical text—alongside Alea Marley’s colorful, appealing art—makes for an irresistible board book to be read over and over again.