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  • Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America

    by Linda Villarosa

    $18.00

    *ships in 7-10 business days

    From an award-winning writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributor to the 1619 Project comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation.

    In 2018, Linda Villarosa's New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa's article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

    Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading.

  • Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion Making in Jim Crow New Orleans (Class 200: New Studies in Religion)

    Ahmad Greene-Hayes

    $30.00

    A rethinking of African American religious history that focuses on the development and evolution of Africana spiritual traditions in Jim Crow New Orleans.

    When Zora Neale Hurston traveled to New Orleans, she encountered a religious underworld, a beautiful anarchy of spiritual life. In Underworld Work, Ahmad Greene-Hayes follows Hurston on a journey through the rich tapestry of Black religious expression from emancipation through Jim Crow. He looks within and beyond the church to recover the diverse leadership of migrants, healers, dissidents, and queer people who transformed their marginalized homes, bars, and street corners into sacred space.

    Greene-Hayes shows how, while enclosed within an anti-black world, these outcasts embraced Africana esotericisms—ancestral veneration, faith healing, spiritualized sex work, and more—to conjure a connection to freer worlds past and yet to come. In recovering these spiritual innovations, Underworld Work celebrates the resilience and creativity of Africana religions.

  • Undesirability and Her Sisters: Black Women's Visual Work and the Ethics of Representation (Minoritarian Aesthetics)
    Sold out

    How Black women’s visual work functions in an era of new racial and gender meaning

    In the wake of contemporary art’s post-Black turn and the mainstreaming of intersectionality, Undesirability and Her Sisters charts a new genealogy of Black women’s art that exposes the unfinished project of racial and gender empowerment in the twenty-first century. Tiffany Barber argues that Black women’s social positions at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class are inherently queer, thus spurring unexpected aesthetic strategies that throw into high relief the ethical terrain of what it means to be Black and a woman now.

    Undesirability and Her Sisters collates what Barber terms “undesirable” representations of Black female bodies in recent American sculpture, collage, photography, and dance-based performance art by Kara Walker, Wangechi Mutu, Xaviera Simmons, and Narcissister. These works not only engage the visual senses but also incorporate olfactory, haptic, and sonic experiences that challenge traditional interpretations of Blackness and womanhood in art history, Black Studies, feminist and gender studies, dance and performance studies, and queer studies. Instead of transcendental beauty, wholeness, and individual and collective becoming, the perverse Black female figures profiled here eschew sublimation and synthesis as necessary responses to racial and gender subjugation in the past, present, and future.

    Through its unique, groundbreaking analysis, this book contributes to the ongoing discussions on the ethics of representation―the capacity to speak and act for oneself, to have significance and impact, and ultimately, to reject acknowledgment.

  • Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
    $15.00

    Deep, trans-species lessons for a world in crisis.

    Undrowned is a book-length meditation for social movements and our whole species based on the subversive and transformative guidance of marine mammals. Our aquatic cousins are queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions our species has imposed on the ocean. Gumbs employs a brilliant mix of poetic sensibility and naturalist observation to show what they might teach us, producing not a specific agenda but an unfolding space for wondering and questioning. From the relationship between the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and Gumbs’s Shinnecock and enslaved ancestors to the ways echolocation changes our understandings of “vision” and visionary action, this is a masterful use of metaphor and natural models in the service of social justice.

  • Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America

    by Shefali Luthra

    $29.00

    "An absolute must-read; tell your friends; buy it for your family; sit with it on your own. This is storytelling we need." —Rebecca Traister

    An urgent investigation into the experience of seeking an abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade, and the life-threatening consequences of being denied reproductive freedom.

    On June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the impact was immediate: by 2024, abortion was virtually unavailable or significantly restricted in 21 states. In Undue Burden, reporter Shefali Luthra traces the unforgettable stories of patients faced with one of the most personal decisions of their lives.

    Outside of Houston, there’s a 16-year-old girl who becomes pregnant well before she intends to. A 21-year-old mother barely making ends meet has to travel hundreds of miles in secret for medical treatment in another state. A 42-year-old woman with a life-threatening condition wants nothing more than to safely carry her pregnancy to term, but her home state’s abortion ban fails to provide her with the options she needs to make an informed decision. And a 19-year-old trans man struggles to access care in Florida as abortion bans radiate across the American South.

    Before Dobbs, it was a common misconception that abortion restrictions affected only people in certain states but left one's own life untouched. Since the fall of Roe, a domino effect has cascaded across the entire country. As the landscape of abortion rights continues to shift, the experiences of these patients—who crossed state lines to seek life-saving care, who risked everything in pursuit of their own bodily autonomy, and who were unable to plan their reproductive future in the way they deserved—illustrate how fragile the system is, and how devastating the consequences can be.

    A revelatory portrait of inequality in America, Undue Burden examines abortion not as a footnote or a political pawn, but as a basic human right, something worthy of our collective attention and with immense power to transform our lives, families, and futures.

  • Unearthing Joy : A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning by Gholdy Muhammad
    $35.99
    In this follow-up to Cultivating Genius, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad adds a fifth pursuit—joy—to her groundbreaking instructional model. She defines joy as more than celebration and happiness, but also as wellness, beauty, healing, and justice for oneself and across humanity. She shows how teaching from cultural and historical realities can enhance our efforts to cultivate identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and-indeed-joy for all students, giving them a powerful purpose to learn and contribute to the world. Dr. Muhammad's wise implementation advice is paired with model lessons and assessment tools that span subjects and grade levels.
  • Unfurled: Designing a Living Home

    Hilton Carter

    $35.00

    In Unfurled: Designing a Living Home, acclaimed plant stylist Hilton Carter invites readers into the heart of his home―a personal sanctuary that has evolved, layer by layer, to reflect his style, creativity, and love for plants.

    Hilton takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey through every room, from the tranquil primary bedroom to the plant-filled sunroom, the vibrant studio to the inviting guest room, and beyond. With his eye for design, he shares the inspiration that lies behind each space, talking the reader through the mood boards he creates when embarking on a room renovation and explaining the thoughts behind a design, both functional and decorative. Hilton shares how each room has ‘unfurled’ beautifully over time, discussing how to choose colour and texture, offering expert advice on room layout, and showing how to use plants to breathe life into the home. Alongside personal stories and design insights, Unfurled is filled with practical tips and ideas for ways to recreate these looks in your own home, whether you’re working with a spare bedroom or a compact shower room. With Hilton’s guidance, you’ll learn how to incorporate thoughtful styling, select the right plants for your rooms and cultivate a home that's nurturing, dynamic and alive.

  • Unity and Struggle

    Amílcar Cabral, Michael Wolfers, and Basil Davidson

    $20.99

    One of the world's greatest revolutionary leaders, Amílcar Cabral's long and arduous campaign for the liberation of Portuguese-dominated Africa is explored in this vivid compilation of his most influential speeches and writings.

    Unity and Struggle is the compelling account of Amílcar Cabral's fight against imperialism, discrimination and injustice, as well as his progressive advocacy for religious toleration and gender equality – all of which combined to make him one of Africa's foremost political leaders.

    Introduction by Basil Davidson.

    'One of the most lucid and brilliant leaders in Africa' Fidel Castro
    'Figures like Amílcar Cabral... helped us to imagine the horizons of freedom in far broader terms than were available to us through what we now call "civil rights discourse".' Angela Davis

  • Universality: A Novel

    Natasha Brown

    $24.00

    Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of power.

    “Original, vital, and unputdownable.”—Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch

    Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

    An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

    A thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.

  • Unlikely Neighbors: A Spicy Opposites Attract Romance

    Renee Daniel Flagler

    Sold out

    A small-town woman’s journey of self-discovery takes an unexpected detour when she inherits a Brooklyn brownstone—complete with one hot next-door neighbor—in this sexy, emotional contemporary romance.

    When you least expect it, love comes knocking…

    Holland Davenport is ready to go beyond her small-town existence. Her plan involves moving into an apartment in Charleston—not inheriting a run-down brownstone in Brooklyn from a relative she never knew. Yet in a burst of daring, Holland meets the challenge head-on, moving to New York to learn more about her family and renovate the place. Add to that a gorgeous next-door neighbor who turns out to be a board member at her new job, and she’s definitely out of her depth.

    Noble Washington is the successful CEO of a company he spent a decade building. But his carefully ordered life begins to unravel the second he meets fiery social worker Holland—and spends one unforgettable night with a woman who should be off-limits.

    There’s a wall and a world of differences lying between them. But the sheltered Southerner and the ambitious native New Yorker feel a pull that just won’t be denied…

    From showing up to glowing up, the characters in Afterglow Books are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don’t miss any of these other fun titles…

    Frenemy Fix-Up by Yahrah St. John

    Church Girl by Naima Simone

    Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

  • Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines
    $22.00

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “The conscience of the AI revolution” (Fortune) explains how we’ve arrived at an era of AI harms and oppression, and what we can do to avoid its pitfalls.

    “AI is not coming, it’s here. If we answer the beautiful call inside these pages, we can decide who we are going to be and how we’re going to use technology in service of what it means to be fully human.”—Brené Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead

    A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Shortlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award

    To most of us, it seems like recent developments in artificial intelligence emerged out of nowhere to pose unprecedented threats to humankind. But to Dr. Joy Buolamwini, who has been at the forefront of AI research, this moment has been a long time in the making.

    After tinkering with robotics as a high school student in Memphis and then developing mobile apps in Zambia as a Fulbright fellow, Buolamwini followed her lifelong passion for computer science, engineering, and art to MIT in 2015. As a graduate student at the “Future Factory,” she did groundbreaking research that exposed widespread racial and gender bias in AI services from tech giants across the world.

    Unmasking AI goes beyond the headlines about existential risks produced by Big Tech. It is the remarkable story of how Buolamwini uncovered what she calls “the coded gaze”—the evidence of encoded discrimination and exclusion in tech products—and how she galvanized the movement to prevent AI harms by founding the Algorithmic Justice League. Applying an intersectional lens to both the tech industry and the research sector, she shows how racism, sexism, colorism, and ableism can overlap and render broad swaths of humanity “excoded” and therefore vulnerable in a world rapidly adopting AI tools. Computers, she reminds us, are reflections of both the aspirations and the limitations of the people who create them.

    Encouraging experts and non-experts alike to join this fight, Buolamwini writes, “The rising frontier for civil rights will require algorithmic justice. AI should be for the people and by the people, not just the privileged few.”

  • Unprotected: A Memoir by Billy Porter
    $28.00

    From the incomparable Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner, a powerful and revealing autobiography about race, sexuality, art, and healing

    It’s easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy. Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic Emmy-winning performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the groundbreaking Tony and Grammy Award-winning star of Broadway’s Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed recording artist, actor, playwright, director, and all-around legend, Porter was a young boy in Pittsburgh who was seen as different, who didn’t fit in. At five years old, Porter was sent to therapy to “fix” his effeminacy. He was endlessly bullied at school, sexually abused by his stepfather, and criticized at his church. Porter came of age in a world where simply being himself was a constant struggle.

    Billy Porter’s Unprotected is the life story of a singular artist and survivor in his own words. It is the story of a boy whose talent and courage opened doors for him, but only a crack. It is the story of a teenager discovering himself, learning his voice and his craft amidst deep trauma. And it is the story of a young man whose unbreakable determination led him through countless hard times to where he is now; a proud icon who refuses to back down or hide. Porter is a multitalented, multifaceted treasure at the top of his game, and Unprotected is a resonant, inspirational story of trauma and healing, shot through with his singular voice.

  • Unraveling: A Novel

    Karen Lord

    $18.00

    The search for a notorious serial killer takes a therapist on a nightmarish quest to an alternate world to find the sinister secret behind his crimes, in a dark fantasy inspired by Caribbean urban myth, from the award-winning author of The Blue, Beautiful World.

    “The natural heiress to Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin.”—Financial Times

    Dr. Miranda Ecuovo works as a forensic therapist, helping traumatized witnesses recover their memories so that they can testify about the crimes they observed. Her most famous case resulted in the conviction of the serial killer Walther Gray, a pathologist’s assistant known as the Butcher of the City.

    One day Miranda is seized by Chance, one of the spirits known as the Undying, and transported to a fantastical dreamlike world. There she is greeted by an Angel and presented with an unusual mission: Help catch the rogue Undying who was the true mastermind behind the Butcher’s crimes.

    Now Miranda and Chance must stop the murderer before he kills again. Together they will race through a surreal otherworld of magical labyrinths and wondrous spirits—but also into the maze of Miranda’s own memories when they retrace her original investigation.

    As Miranda draws closer to the truth, she finds herself confronted by even bigger questions than the killer’s identity. How could his victims’ deaths be forgotten so easily? And what can she do to create a world where the vulnerable can be safe and have their lives treated as precious?

  • Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives

    by Dana Canedy

    $29.99

    *Ships/ready for pick up in 5-8 business days*

    Hundreds of stunning images from black history have long been buried in The New York Times archives. None of them were published by The Times -- until now. UNSEEN uncovers these never-before published photographs and tells the stories behind them.

    It all started with Times photo editor Darcy Eveleigh discovering dozens of these photographs. She and three colleagues, Dana Canedy, Damien Cave and Rachel L. Swarns, began exploring the history behind them, and subsequently chronicling them in a series entitled Unpublished Black History, that ran in print and online editions of The Times in February 2016. It garnered 1.7 million views on The Times website and thousands of comments from readers. This book includes those photographs and many more, among them: a 27-year-old Jesse Jackson leading an anti-discrimination rally of in Chicago, Rosa Parks arriving at a Montgomery Courthouse in Alabama a candid behind-the-scenes shot of Aretha Franklin backstage at the Apollo Theater, Ralph Ellison on the streets of his Manhattan neighborhood, the firebombed home of Malcolm X, Myrlie Evans and her children at the funeral of her slain husband , Medgar, a wheelchair-bound Roy Campanella at the razing of Ebbets Field.

    Were the photos -- or the people in them -- not deemed newsworthy enough? Did the images not arrive in time for publication? Were they pushed aside by words at an institution long known as the Gray Lady? Eveleigh, Canedy, Cave, and Swarms explore all these questions and more in this one-of-a-kind book.

    UNSEEN dives deep into The Times photo archives -- known as the Morgue -- to showcase this extraordinary collection of photographs and the stories behind them.

  • Unspeakable

    by Carole Boston Weatherford

    $17.99

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    Longlisted for the National Book Award

    A Kirkus Prize Finalist

    A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book

    "A must-have"―Booklist (starred review)

    Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our nation's history. The book traces the history of African Americans in Tulsa's Greenwood district and chronicles the devastation that occurred in 1921 when a white mob attacked the Black community.

    News of what happened was largely suppressed, and no official investigation occurred for seventy-five years. This picture book sensitively introduces young readers to this tragedy and concludes with a call for a better future.

  • Unspoken : A Guide to Cracking the Hidden Corporate Code

    by Ella F. Washington

    $28.99

    The Corporate World Wasn’t Built for You. That Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Master It.

    There’s no “playbook” for navigating corporate spaces. Or if there is, it was written a long time ago, for a very specific group of people. For just about everyone else, the workplace can be a tough space to navigate, like a test where everyone knows all the answers except you. Unspoken: A Guide to Cracking the Hidden Corporate Code is designed to serve as the playbook they didn’t give you in college, helping you decipher the hidden rules that govern corporate spaces and develop the strategies you need to survive and thrive there, no matter who you are or where you come from.

    Written by organizational psychologist and DEI expert Ella F. Washington, PhD, Unspoken is the book for every professional who’s ever felt like they don’t fit in, battled imposter syndrome, or wondered how to expand their power and influence (and whether it’s actually acceptable to do so). Packed with the tools and tactics you need to navigate workspaces that may be uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or where you may be “the only one,” you’ll get the practical, actionable tips you need to get the most out of any corporate environment, grow your leadership skills, negotiate from a place of power, and, ultimately, achieve your career goals—all while remaining authentically yourself.

    Two years ago, Dr. Ella F. Washington, organizational psychologist, Founder and CEO of DEI strategy consulting firm Ellavate Solutions, and Professor of Practice at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, shared her vision for a fairer, healthier, more productive “workplace utopia” with business leaders looking to make positive change in The Necessary Journey: Making Real Progress on Equity and Inclusion. The book was a hit with the C-Suite, but left workers asking, What about me? How do I make sense of and navigate my workplace? How do I show up authentically when I’m the only person who looks like me? Do I even belong here? Now, Dr. Washington is back with Unspoken: A Guide to Cracking the Hidden Corporate Code, a practical guide for workers across the spectrum who want to succeed in the business world without sacrificing their authenticity. Unspoken is the book for every professional who’s asked these questions, battled imposter syndrome, or wondered how to expand their power and influence (and struggled with whether it’s okay to do so). In the book, Dr. Washington explains the unspoken rules that determine success in corporate settings, coaching readers in the tactics that will equip them to shape a successful career anchored in meaningful experiences. She shares practical strategies readers can use to own their story and their strengths, leverage their skills, and identify opportunities to excel and advance, along with stories from fellow professionals who have faced similar challenges and successfully navigated these spaces. Packed with fascinating research, helpful exercises, and real, practical advice, this book will help readers build their capacity to move forward more confidently, empowering them and equipping them with the tools and tactics they need to thrive at every level of their organization and build the careers and lives they want.

  • Unsung Voices of Black History (From the Archives)

    KaaVonia Hinton

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    A perfect book for young readers to discover lesser-known people who have shaped Black history in the United States.

    The organizer behind the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The first Black American head coach in the National Football League. The first Black female state senator from New York. Throughout history, Black people have broken barriers and protested to fight for equality. Celebrate little-known people like these and learn about the social impact of their work on American history in Unsung Voices of Black History.

    ABOUT THIS SERIES:

    This brand-new series is rooted in a profound commitment to shedding light on some of the important -- and often lesser-known -- aspects of Black history. From the Archives features landmarks, events, people, and artistic endeavors that have played a significant role in the Black experience in America and offers a chance to celebrate them. Written in a vivid, engaging style and featuring a colorful combination of photos and illustrations, each title serves as a powerful vehicle for education, inspiration, and empowerment for young readers.

  • Untethered

    Angela Jackson-Brown

    $18.99

    Sometimes family is found in the most unlikely of places . . .

    In the small college town of Troy, Alabama, amidst the backdrop of 1967, Katia Daniels lives a life steeped in responsibility. At the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys, she pours her heart into nurturing the young lives under her care, harboring a longing for children of her own. Katia's romantic entanglement with an older man brings comfort but also stirs questions about the path she's chosen.

    The weight of her family's history bears down on her; a twin brother is missing in action in the heart of the Vietnam War. Having lost her father to cancer, Katia took up the mantle of caretaker, ensuring her mother and brothers were looked after. Her sense of duty extends to the boys at the group home, creating a web of obligations that stretches her emotional bandwidth thin.

    Amidst a power struggle at work with the board, Katia finds solace in the pages of romance novels and the soothing melodies of Nina Simone. When Seth Taylor, a familiar face from her high school days, reenters Katia's life, he brings with him a breeze of nostalgia and a reminder of a time when her dreams felt less tethered. As their friendship rekindles, Katia grapples with the idea of making choices for herself, even as the realization that she can no longer have children weighs heavily on her.

    This novel is a poignant tale of a woman torn between the demands of her heart and the responsibilities she's shouldered for so long. Set against the backdrop of a changing South, this novel delves into the complexities of love, family, and self-discovery in a time of transformation and upheaval.

    "Jackson-Brown (THE LIGHT ALWAYS BREAKS) delivers a touching story of a middle-aged Black woman and the burdens she shoulders during the Vietnam War . . . Jackson-Brown ably captures Katia's indomitable spirit and devotion to her family. This is worth a look." --Publishers Weekly

  • Until I'm Yours

    Kennedy Ryan

    $17.99

    USA Today bestselling author Kennedy Ryan delivers a scorching romance where one man must earn the trust of a woman with diamond-hard defenses in order to win her heart.

    The world knows her face . . .

    Mean girl. Goddess. Bitch. Supermodel Sofie Baston has earned those labels . . . yet they don't scratch the surface of who she really is. Before she can follow her own dreams, Sophie must do her daughterly duty and reel in a "fish" for her father's business-a tall, brown-eyed entrepreneur who immediately hooks her. He's a big guy with an even bigger heart . . . but will that heart be open to Sofie once her darkest secret is revealed?

    . . . but only one man knows her heart

    To Trevor Bishop, Sofie is a beautiful mystery he would gladly spend his life solving. He figures her tough demeanor is armor against a world that's hurt her too many times. Then Sofie's deepest wounds are reopened by the powerful, ruthless man who made them. When she musters the courage to take him down, her world shatters. Now Trevor is determined to help Sofie pick up the pieces so they can build a future together. The challenge will be convincing his ice princess that it's safe to melt in his arms . . .

  • Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Signature Editions)

    Booker T. Washington

    $9.99

    Booker T. Washington’s famous 1901 memoir, Up From Slavery, charts Washington’s rise from an enslaved child with a passion for learning to the nation’s most prominent Black educator and first president of Tuskegee University. A tireless advocate for Black economic independence, Washington attempted to balance his public acceptance of segregation with behind-the-scenes lobbying against voter disenfranchisement and financing anti–Jim Crow court cases. His memoir is both a crucial American document and an exercise in understanding the “double consciousness” coined by W.E.B. DuBois, himself one of Washington’s most vocal critics.

  • Up Home: One Girl's Journey

    by Ruth J. Simmons

    from $19.00

    An inspiring, indelible memoir from the daughter of sharecroppers in East Texas who became the first Black president of an Ivy League University—an uplifting story of girlhood and the power of family, community, and the classroom to transform one young person's life.

    I was born at a crossroads: a crossroads in history, a crossroads in culture, and a geographical crossroads in North Houston County in East Texas.

    Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity to light the two crowded rooms, no books to read. Yet despite this—or, in her words, because of it—Simmons would become one of America’s preeminent educators. The former president of Smith College and Brown University, and now the outgoing president of Prairie View A&M, Texas's oldest HBCU, for decades Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.

    In Up Home, Simmons takes us back to Grapeland to show how the people who love us when we are young shape who we become: We meet her caring, tireless mother who managed to feed her large family with an often empty pantry; her father, who refused to let racial and economic injustice crush his youngest daughter's dreams; the doting brothers and sisters; and the attentive teachers who welcomed Ruth into the classroom, guiding her to a future she could hardly imagine as a child.

    From the farmland of East Texas to Houston's Fifth Ward to New Orleans at the dawn of the civil rights movement, Simmons depicts an era long gone but whose legacies of inequality we still live with today. Written in clear and timeless prose, Up Home is both an origin story set in the segregated South and the uplifting chronicle of a girl whose intellect, grace, and curiosity guide her as she creates a place for herself in the world.

  • Up in Smoke

    Nick Brooks

    $19.99

    A girl determined to clear her brother's name. A boy determined to keep his out of the line of fire. A secret smoldering between them. This edge-of-your-seat mystery from the author of Promise Boys is perfect for fans of Karen McManus and The Hate U Give.

    Unmask a murderer or take the fall.

    After Cooper King is pressured by big brother figure Jason to go on a looting spree during a local march, the unthinkable happens: gunshots ring in the air and someone ends up dead. After Cooper flees, the news shows four teens in ski masks near the scene of the murder―Cooper and his friends. Cooper fears the cops will come knocking at his door, and the pressure only mounts when a suspect is taken into custody: Jason.

    Monique, Jason's sister and Cooper's longtime crush, is willing to go any length to clear her brother's name. Even if she needs to go into the belly of the beast and confront the killer herself. When she teams up with Cooper, they fall down the investigation rabbit hole and start to fall for each other. But little does Monique know that within this web of deception, Cooper is shrouding the truth that he was there when the shots went off. If the pair fail to uncover the real murderer, Jason will get locked up for a crime he didn't commit―and drag down Cooper with him.

    Pick this up if you love:
    ● high stakes, dual POV thrillers
    ● page-turning mysteries
    ● will-they-won't-they romance
    ● twists and turns you never see coming

  • Urban Apologetics: Restoring Black Dignity with the Gospel

    by Eric Mason

    Sold out

    This book will be a first-of-its-kind resource in the market, engaging cults and alternative religious groups specific to the African American community.

    Urban Apologetics examines the legitimate issues that Black communities have with Western Christianity and shows how the gospel of Jesus Christ—rather than popular, socioreligious alternatives—restores our identity.

    African Americans have long confronted the challenge of dignity destruction caused by white supremacy. While many have found meaning and restoration of dignity in the black church, others have found it in ethnocentric socioreligious groups and philosophies.

    These ideologies have grown and developed deep traction in the black community and beyond. Revisionist history, conspiracy theories, and misinformation about Jesus and Christianity are the order of the day. Many young African Americans are disinterested in Christianity and others are leaving the church in search of what these false religious ideas appear to offer, a spirituality more indigenous to their history and ethnicity.

    Edited by Dr. Eric Mason and featuring a top-notch lineup of contributors, Urban Apologetics is the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the black community. The book is divided into three main parts:

    • Discussions on the unique context for urban apologetics so that you can better understand the cultural arguments against Christianity among the Black community.
    • Detailed information on cults, religious groups, and ethnic identity groups that many urban evangelists encounter—such as the Nation of Islam, Kemetic spirituality, African mysticism, Hebrew Israelites, Black nationalism, and atheism.
    • Specific tools for urban apologetics and community outreach.

    Ultimately, Urban Apologetics applies the gospel to black identity to show that Jesus is the only one who can restore it. This is an essential resource to equip those doing the work of ministry and apology in urban communities with the best available information.

  • Us: The Complete Annotated Screenplay

    Jordan Peele

    $19.95

    A masterpiece of identity horror and a dark reflection on America’s past and present, Us presents chilly atmospherics, psychological torment and old-world suspense-building plot twists. Whereas Get Out was considered more a mixture of drama and suspense, Peele leaned fully into the horror genre with his sophomore film, using urban legends such as doppelgangers to tease out the uniquely American perceptions of xenophobia and “othering.” Critic Monica Castillo wrote of the film: “Us is another thrilling exploration of the past and oppression this country is still too afraid to bring up. Peele wants us to talk, and he’s given audiences the material to think, to feel our way through some of the darker sides of the human condition.”
    Published in conjunction with the fifth anniversary of the critically acclaimed film’s release, this companion paperback features Oscar®-winning director Jordan Peele’s screenplay, alternate endings and deleted scenes, and is richly illustrated with over 150 stills from the motion picture. Specially commissioned annotations by hannah baer, Theaster Gates, Jamieson Webster, Jared Sexton, Mary Ping, Shana Redmond and Leila Taylor present a cosmology of images, definitions and inspirations that extend the themes of the film. Continuing in the legacy of 1960s paperbacks that documented the era’s most significant avant-garde films―such as Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Godard’s Masculin Féminin and Antonioni’s L’Avventura―Us is an indispensable guide to a deeper understanding of this important film.
    Jordan Peele (born 1979) is a writer, actor and filmmaker who rose to fame as half of the comedy duo Key & Peele. He has written and directed three feature films: Get Out (2017), Us (2019) and Nope (2022). He was the first Black screenwriter to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

  • Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite

    edited by Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C. Parker

    $12.99

    *This item will ship or be ready for pick up in 7-10 business days

    Eleven diverse vampire stories from YA’s leading voices!

    From Bram Stoker to Anne Rice to Stephenie Meyer, vampires are always popular—and modern-day fans are thirsty for a new incarnation. In this collection, you’ll find stories about vampires engaged in social justice movements, vampires longing for reflections so they can finally take selfies, vampires trying to escape matchmaking by their immigrant families, and more! Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, V. E. Schwab, and Kayla Whaley.

  • Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite (Untold Legends, 1)

    Zoraida Córdova

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    Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices fill this bestselling anthology―including V.E. Schwab's First Kill, now a major Netflix adaptation!

    "Boundary-pushing... Stories that stake a new claim on old tropes." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

    In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night.

    Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page.

    Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley.

    An Imprint Book

    "Vampire fans, sink your teeth into this satisfying collection." ―Kirkus Reviews

  • Vampires of El Norte

    by Isabel Cañas

    $28.00

    *ships in 7-10 business days* 

     

    Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda.


    As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.

    Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.

    Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind.

    When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.

    And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.

     

  • Vanguard

    by Martha S. Jones

    $18.99

    “An elegant and expansive history” (New York Times) of African American women’s pursuit of political power—and how it transformed America   

     
    In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women’s political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of Black women—Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more—who were the vanguard of women’s rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.   
      
    Now revised to discuss the election of Vice President Kamala Harris and the vital contributions of Black women in the 2020 elections, Vanguard isessential reading for anyone who cares about the past and future of American democracy. 

  • Vegan Africa: Plant-Based Recipes from Ethiopia to Senegal

    by Marie Kacouchia

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    Here is plant-based Africa: more than 70 healthy and authentic recipes from 13 different African countries, including the author’s own home country of the Ivory Coast.

    An authentically African and naturally vegan culinary journey across the continent 
     
    Drawing from the cultures and traditions of more than 15 countries, years of cooking expertise, and cherished memories from her own childhood on the Ivory Coast, Marie Kacouchia takes us on a tour of flavorful, healthy, naturally plant-based African dishes. Explore over 70 irresistible recipes for main courses, rice dishes, sauces, snacks, desserts, and drinks, including: 

    • Peanut Hummus
    • Cassava Tabbouleh with Radishes and Herbs
    • Yassa Burger
    • Paprika-Spiced Plantain Chips
    • Sweet Potato and Ginger Loaf
    • Coconut Rice Pudding
    • Lemongrass Lemonade, and so much more! 
    Vegan Africa guides you through diverse vegan cuisine from Ghana to Ethiopia, from Nigeria to South Africa. Kacouchia also shines a spotlight on the superfoods—like cacao, garlic, ginger, and sweet potato—that make these recipes both mouthwatering and packed with vital nutrients. Whether you’re a newcomer to African cuisine or looking to make familiar favorites, Vegan Africa will help you bring healthful, delicious dishes to your kitchen. 
  • Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine

    Bryant Terry

    $18.99

    James Beard Award-winning chef Bryant Terry's first cookbook, a vegan homage to Southern, African American, and Afro-Caribbean food

    One of the foremost voices in food activism and justice, Bryant Terry brings soul food back to its roots with plant-based, farm-to-table, real food recipes that leave out heavy salt and refined sugar, "bad" fats, and unhealthy cooking techniques, and leave in the down-home flavor. Vegan Soul Kitchen recipes use fresh, whole, healthy ingredients and cooking methods with a focus on local, seasonal, sustainably raised food. Bryant developed these vegan recipes through the prism of the African Diaspora-cutting, pasting, reworking, and remixing African, Caribbean, African-American, Native American, and European staples, cooking techniques, and distinctive dishes to create something familiar, comforting, and deliciously unique. Reinterpreting popular dishes from African and Caribbean countries as well as his favorite childhood dishes, Named one of the best vegetarian/vegan cookbooks of the last 25 years by Cooking Light Magazine, Vegan Soul Kitchen reinvents African-American and Southern cuisine -- capitalizing on the complex flavors of the tradition, without the animal products.

    With recipes for: Double Mustard Greens & Roasted Yam Soup; Cajun-Creole-Spiced Tempeh Pieces with Creamy Grits; Caramelized Grapefruit, Avocado, and Watercress Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette; and Sweet Cornmeal-Coconut Butter Drop Biscuits and many more.

  • Vegan Soulicious: Plant-Based Island Cooking

    Charlise Rookwood

    $35.00

    Charlise Rookwood, the vegan influencer and host of The Black Vegan Cooking Show, brings a vegan approach to African and Caribbean-style cooking

    Whether you are new to vegan cooking, simply want to reduce the amount of meat and dairy you are consuming, or are an experienced plant-based cook, Vegan Soulicious has a fresh and delicious point of view, offering an exciting approach to cooking that is irresistibly soulful and centered on wellness and joy.

    In her debut cookbook, Vegan Soulicious, Charlise Rookwood shares her favorite vegan dishes, as well as recipes that showcase African and Caribbean flavors that will make your tastebuds sing. In the process, she proves that plant-based food can be boldly flavorful, vibrantly beautiful, easy to make, and a reflection of cultural roots.

    Inspired by her Jamaican and Mauritian heritage, Rookwood wants to help readers fall in love with their favorite childhood dishes all over again with a new, healthy approach, and spice up everyone’s cooking with exciting flavor profiles and new techniques.

    Rookwood incorporates tropical and African influences in every recipe, from Ackee and Dumplings to Green Banana Porridge, Jamaican Bread Pudding, and Coconut Chutney, while telling stories about her family, growing up in London, working in the music industry, and traveling to visit her loved ones in Jamaica and Mauritius.

    The recipes in Vegan Soulicious span Jamaican comfort food, essential and outrageously delicious Mauritian condiments, and plant-based twists on familiar soul food favorites from the American South. Her cooking focuses on dishes that are naturally satisfying without meat and dairy, due to both the way they have always traditionally been enjoyed and thanks to clever innovations Rookwood has developed.

    Charlise Rookwood, vegan chef and host of The Black Vegan Cooking Show, brings plant-based cooking to a place we haven’t seen it before with this beautiful cookbook.

  • Vengeance Feminism: The Power of Black Women’s Fury in Lawless Times

    by Kali Gross

    $29.00

    From an award-winning historian, an alternative model of feminism driven by the legacy of Black women who took justice into their own hands 
      
    So often failed by the state, demeaned by racism and sexism, and denied respectable means of redress, Black women have nevertheless patiently resisted myriad injustices. Yet history shows an alternative path. It involved razors, pistols, hatchets, and blackjacks, and playacting for courts and reporters—whatever it took to beat the system. In a world where Black women are castigated and caricatured for being angry, Vengeance Feminism tells the story of those who leaned into their fury, crafting a different kind of ideology that scratched and stabbed and sometimes even succeeded. 

    Vengeance Feminism is about the Black women who hit back—not always figuratively, and not necessarily nobly either. Weaving together historical narrative with Black feminist analysis, Gross illuminates the stories of Black women who fought for their dignity on their own terms, from the nineteenth-century “badger thieves” who robbed men on the streets of Philadelphia to victims of intimate partner violence who defended their honor and bodily autonomy with deadly force. 
     
    Reckoning with women who lied, robbed, and cheated a racist, misogynistic world, Vengeance Feminism grapples with the volatile power of violence in pursuit of racial and gender justice.

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