Stunning poetry and illustrations introduce a new generation to the beloved literary icon Toni Morrison, by New York Times bestselling author Andrea Davis Pinkney and Caldecott Honor winner Daniel Minter.

From imaginative child to visionary storyteller, Toni Morrison was a fiercely inspiring writer that helped change the world. This poetic picture book is part love letter and part biography, praising the power of this Nobel Prize winner. With its tender refrain, readers will know how much Morrison's stories -- and their own -- mean to the world. She was loved -- and so are they!

A portrait of worker solidarity in the South, and of the fight for Black liberation.

In 1928, the Third International adopted a resolution on the right of self-determination for African Americans in the Black Belt, in the southeastern US. Over the next decade, this resolution guided the CPUSA's regional focus in the US South, as a frontline organization in the struggle against white supremacy. This was a period of great experiments in building an independent multiracial working class movement in North America, a movement that confronted the remnants of slavery, under conditions that foreshadowed the fascism that would soon develop in Europe. Across the cities and rural areas of the US South, communists engaged existing traditions of struggle, and planted seeds for the growth of the movement against racism in the following decades.

This reader presents primary documents from the period to aid the study of the history, theory, and political application of the Black Belt thesis.

EUGENE PURYEAR is a journalist, activist, politician, and host on Breakthrough News. He is a founding member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and is the author of Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America.

""Negro Legislators Of Texas And Their Descendants"" is a historical account of the role of African Americans in Texas politics during the period of Reconstruction to Disfranchisement. The book is written by John Mason Brewer and provides an in-depth look at the lives of prominent black legislators and their descendants who played a significant role in shaping Texas politics during this tumultuous period.The book begins by exploring the political landscape of Texas after the Civil War, where African Americans were granted the right to vote and hold public office for the first time. It then delves into the lives of notable black legislators, including Richard Allen, Norris Wright Cuney, and Matthew Gaines, who fought for civil rights and equality in a state that was still deeply divided by racial tensions.The book also examines the challenges faced by black legislators and their descendants, including the rise of Jim Crow laws and the eventual disenfranchisement of African American voters. Despite these obstacles, the book highlights the resilience and determination of black Texans who continued to fight for their rights and make significant contributions to Texas politics.Overall, ""Negro Legislators Of Texas And Their Descendants"" is a comprehensive and insightful account of the role of African Americans in Texas politics during a pivotal moment in the state's history.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Covering 500 years of Ghana's history, The Ghana Reader provides a multitude of historical, political, and cultural perspectives on this iconic African nation. Whether discussing the Asante kingdom and the Gold Coast's importance to European commerce and transatlantic slaving, Ghana's brief period under British colonial rule, or the emergence of its modern democracy, the volume's eighty selections emphasize Ghana's enormous symbolic and pragmatic value to global relations. They also demonstrate that the path to fully understanding Ghana requires acknowledging its ethnic and cultural diversity and listening to its population's varied voices. Readers will encounter selections written by everyone from farmers, traders, and the clergy to intellectuals, politicians, musicians, and foreign travelers. With sources including historical documents, poems, treaties, articles, and fiction, The Ghana Reader conveys the multiple and intersecting histories of Ghana's development as a nation, its key contribution to the formation of the African diaspora, and its increasingly important role in the economy and politics of the twenty-first century.

Dive in to an exciting nonfiction graphic novel series about some of the greatest Black lives in history!

This fun and accessible graphic novel for middle grade readers brings to light the lives of great but lesser-known Black scientists. Great Minds of Science is a kid-friendly introduction to some of the greatest scientists in history—doctors, engineers, mathematicians, and biologists.

Each of them faced challenges as they rose to the top of their professions, but they didn’t back down. They kept experimenting and questioning and learning, and they made significant contributions in each of their scientific fields.

Black Lives is the new graphic novel series from award-winning author Tonya Bolden and illustrator David Wilkerson that celebrates the lives of Black innovators and legends and helps bring these histories to life.

Celebrate the lives and contributions of Black scientists throughout history with the inspiring Great Minds of Science.

As the popularity of women’s basketball burgeons, Karra Porter reminds us in Mad Seasons that today’s Women’s National Basketball Association, or WNBA had its origins in a ragtag league twenty years earlier. Porter tells the story of the Women’s Professional Basketball League WBL, which pioneered a new era of women’s sports.

Formed in 1978, the league included the not-so-storied Dallas Diamonds, Chicago Hustle, and Minnesota Fillies. Porter’s book takes us into the heart of the WBL as teams struggled with nervous sponsors, an uncertain fan base, and indifferent sportswriters. Despite bouncing paychecks, having to sleep on floors, and being stranded on road games, the players endured and thrived.

Karra Porter brings to life the pioneers of the WBL: “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin, who set lasting scoring records—then faced an historic custody battle because of her basketball career; Connie Kunzmann, a popular player whose murder rocked the league; Liz Silcott, whose remarkable talents masked deeper problems off the court; Ann Meyers, who went from an NBA tryout to the league she had rebuffed; Nancy Lieberman, whose flashy play and marketing savvy were unlike anything the women's game had ever seen.

A story of hardship and sacrifice, but also of dedication and love for the game, Mad Seasons brings the WBL back to life and shows in colorful detail how this short-lived but pioneering league ignited the imagination of a new generation of female athletes and fans.

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A timely groundbreaking book in the vein of Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well, one of the country's foremost voices on reparations, offers a radical and vital new framework going beyond the current debate over this controversial issue.

For over a century, the idea of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans has divided the United States. However, while the iconic phrase "40 acres and a mule" encapsulates the general notion of reparations, history has proven that the damages of enslavement on the African American community far exceed what a plot of land or a check could repair.  

While reparations are being widely debated once again, current petitions to redress the lasting and collateral consequences of slavery have not moved past economic solutions, even though we know that monetary redress alone is not enough. Not only would many wounds be left unhealed, but relying solely on economics would continue a legacy of neglect for African Americans. In this thoughtful and sure-to-be controversial book, Marcus Anthony Hunter argues that a radical shift in our outlook is necessary; we need more comprehensive solutions such as those currently sought by today's educators, historians, activists, organizers, Afrofuturists, and socially conscious citizens. 

In Radical Reparations, this conversation shifter, social justice pioneer, change agent, and inventor of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which redefined the global conversation on racism and social justice, offers a unifying and unconventional framework for achieving holistic and comprehensive healing of African American communities. Hunter reimagines reparations through a profound new lens as he defines seven types of compensation: political, intellectual, legal, economic, spatial, social, and spiritual, using analysis of historical documents, comparative international cases, and speculative parables. 

Profound and revolutionary, trenchant and timely, Radical Reparations provides a compellingly and provocatively reframing of reparations' past, present, and future, offering a unifying way forward for us all.

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Uncovers the often overlooked stories of the women who shaped the black freedom struggle

The story of the black freedom struggle in America has been overwhelmingly male-centric, starring leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Huey Newton. With few exceptions, black women have been perceived as supporting actresses; as behind-the-scenes or peripheral activists, or rank and file party members. But what about Vicki Garvin, a Brooklyn-born activist who became a leader of the National Negro Labor Council and guide to Malcolm X on his travels through Africa? What about Shirley Chisholm, the first black Congresswoman?

From Rosa Parks and Esther Cooper Jackson, to Shirley Graham DuBois and Assata Shakur, a host of women demonstrated a lifelong commitment to radical change, embracing multiple roles to sustain the movement, founding numerous groups and mentoring younger activists. Helping to create the groundwork and continuity for the movement by operating as local organizers, international mobilizers, and charismatic leaders, the stories of the women profiled in Want to Start a Revolution? help shatter the pervasive and imbalanced image of women on the sidelines of the black freedom struggle.

Contributors: Margo Natalie Crawford, Prudence Cumberbatch, Johanna Fernández, Diane C. Fujino, Dayo F. Gore, Joshua Guild, Gerald Horne, Ericka Huggins, Angela D. LeBlanc-Ernest, Joy James, Erik McDuffie, Premilla Nadasen, Sherie M. Randolph, James Smethurst, Margaret Stevens, and Jeanne Theoharis.

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Journalist and author Mark Whitaker explores the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity expressed in the slogan “Black Power” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.

In gripping, novelistic detail, Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenomenon began to challenge the traditional civil rights movement in the turbulent year of 1966. Saying It Loud takes you inside the dramatic events in this seminal year, from Stokely Carmichael’s middle-of-the-night ouster of moderate icon John Lewis as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to Carmichael’s impassioned cry of “Black Power!” during a protest march in rural Mississippi. From Julian Bond’s humiliating and racist ouster from the Georgia state legislature because of his antiwar statements to Ronald Reagan’s election as California governor riding a “white backlash” vote against Black Power and urban unrest. From the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, to the origins of Kwanzaa, the Black Arts Movement, and the first Black studies programs. From Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ill-fated campaign to take the civil rights movement north to Chicago to the wrenching ousting of the white members of SNCC.

Deeply researched and widely reported, Saying It Loud offers brilliant portraits of the major characters in the yearlong drama, and provides new details and insights from key players and journalists who covered the story. It also makes a compelling case for why the lessons from 1966 still resonate in the era of Black Lives Matter and the fierce contemporary battles over voting rights, identity politics, and the teaching of Black history.

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Illuminates how the Rastafari movement managed to evolve in the face of severe biases

Misunderstood, misappropriated, belittled: though the Rastafari feature frequently in media and culture, they have most often been misrepresented, their political and religious significance minimized. But they have not been vanquished.

Charles Price’s Rastafari: The Evolution of a People and Their Identity reclaims the rich history of this relatively new world religion. Charting its humble and rebellious roots in Jamaica’s backcountry in the late nineteenth century to the present day, Price explains how Jamaicans’ obsession with the Rastafari wavered from campaigns of violence to appeasement and cooptation. Indeed, he argues that the Rastafari as a political, religious, and cultural movement survived the biases and violence they faced through their race consciousness and uncanny ability to ride the waves of anti-colonialism and Black Power.

This social movement traveled throughout the Caribbean, Africa, Central America, and the United States, capturing the heart and imagination of much of the African diaspora. Rastafari spans the movement’s struggle for autonomy, its multiple campaigns for repatriation to Africa, and its leading role in the Black consciousness movements of the twentieth century. Not satisfied with simply narrating the past, Rastafari also takes on the challenges of gender equality and the commodification of Rastafari culture in the twenty-first century without abandoning its message of equality and empowering the downpressed.

Rastafari shows how this cultural and political context helped to shape the development of a Black collective identity, demonstrating how Rastafarians confronted society-wide ridicule and oppression and emerged prouder and more united, steadfast in their conviction that they were a chosen people.

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The groundbreaking debut by the award-winning author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, revised and updated.

Saidiya Hartman has been praised as “one of our most brilliant contemporary thinkers” (Claudia Rankine, New York Times Book Review) and “a lodestar for a generation of students and, increasingly, for politically engaged people outside the academy” (Alexis Okeowo, The New Yorker). In Scenes of Subjection—Hartman’s first book, now revised and expanded, with a new foreword, afterword, and illustrations—her singular talents and analytical framework are turned toward the “terrible spectacle” of slavery, illuminating the intertwining of violence, subjugation, and selfhood even in abolitionist depictions of enslavement. Through unmasking the hidden and overlooked at the margins of the historical archive, Hartman radically reshapes our understanding of history, in a work as resonant today as it was on first publication, now for a new generation of readers.

Now part of the HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck

The 20th anniversary edition of a pioneering classic that explores the contexts in which history is produced—now with a new foreword by renowned scholar Hazel Carby
 
Placing the West’s failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution—the most successful slave revolt in history—alongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Michel-Rolph Trouillot offers a stunning meditation on how power operates in the making and recording of history.

This modern classic resides at the intersection of history, anthropology, Caribbean, African-American, and post-colonial studies, and has become a staple in college classrooms around the country. In a new foreword, Hazel Carby explains the book’s enduring importance to these fields of study and introduces a new generation of readers to Trouillot’s brilliant analysis of power and history’s silences.

Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares, originally published in 1985, was the first book to make an in-depth examination of the cadre of African American lawmakers in Texas after the Civil War. Those few books that addressed the subject at all treated black legislators en masse and offered little or nothing about their individual histories. Early scholars tended to present isolated events of the violence and political deterrents inflicted upon black voters but said very little about how these obstacles affected black lawmakers.

Author Merline Pitre has departed from this traditional method and relied upon the untapped original materials found on these black lawmakers. This third edition features a new preface and extended, updated appendixes, ensuring that this study will remain useful to political scientists, sociologists, and historians of Texas political history, Afro-American history, and revisionists of Reconstruction.

Celebrate the life of the extraordinary civil and human rights activist Coretta Scott King with this picture book adaptation of her critically acclaimed adult memoir.

This is the autobiography of Coretta Scott King—the founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (The King Center), the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and a singular twentieth-century American civil and human rights activist. Learn about how a girl born in the segregated Deep South became a global leader at the forefront of the peace movement and an unforgettable champion of social change. Resilience, bravery, and joy lie at the center of this timeless story about fighting for justice against all odds.

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Until now, you've only heard one side of the story: how slavery began, and how America split itself in two to end it. Here's the true story of America from the African American perspective.

From the moment Africans were first brought to the shores of the United States, they had a hand in shaping the country. Their labor created a strong economy, built our halls of government, and defined American society in profound ways. And though the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't signed until 300 years after the first Africans arrived, the fight for freedom started the moment they set foot on American soil. 
This book contains the true narrative of the first 300 years of Africans in America: the struggles, the heroes, and the untold stories that are left out of textbooks. If you want to learn the truth about African American history in this country, start here.

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Tiffany N. Florvil examines the role of queer and straight women in shaping the contours of the modern Black German movement as part of the Black internationalist opposition to racial and gender oppression. Florvil shows the multifaceted contributions of women to movement making, including Audre Lorde’s role in influencing their activism; the activists who inspired Afro-German women to curate their own identities and histories; and the evolution of the activist groups Initiative of Black Germans and Afro-German Women. These practices and strategies became a rallying point for isolated and marginalized women (and men) and shaped the roots of contemporary Black German activism.Richly researched and multidimensional in scope, Mobilizing Black Germany offers a rare in-depth look at the emergence of the modern Black German movement and Black feminists’ politics, intellectualism, and internationalism.

A groundbreaking book telling the story of how a pivotal 1968 event shattered the illusion of racial unity in Churches of Christ.

Churches of Christ are a Southern American denomination, and throughout their history they have behaved much like their regional peers. From the late nineteen century to the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, African American and white members of Churches of Christ perpetuated an illusion of racial unity by playing their long-established roles in southern society. For decades this illusion was protected through denominational journals, lectureships, and schools. Just as the Civil Rights Movement was forcing whites and African Americans to deal with generations of racism, however, a pivotal event in Nashville, Tennessee, shattered the illusion of racial unity in Churches of Christ.

The events surrounding the closing of the Nashville Christian Institute revealed the secret that had long remained hidden, namely that within Churches of Christ there existed two racially defined factions with their own customs, identities, and views concerning race relations. The public spectacle that ensued shattered the illusion of unity between African Americans and whites. And since that pivotal 1968 civil rights case entered the courts, the distance between these two racial factions has grown.

Drawing upon original research in the primary sources, this important book tells this story and argues this case with compelling grace and insight, concluding that if these two racial factions are ever to realize meaningful unity, they must find common ground, not only in questions of race, but also in issues of theology.

Winner of a 2005 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award (Honorable Mention)The Mexican Revolution was a defining moment in the history of race relations, impacting both Mexican and African Americans. For black Westerners, 1910-1920 did not represent the clear-cut promise of populist power, but a reordering of the complex social hierarchy which had, since the nineteenth century, granted them greater freedom in the borderlands than in the rest of the United States. Despite its lasting significance, the story of black Americans along the Mexican border has been sorely underreported in the annals of U.S. history. Gerald Horne brings the tale to life in Black and Brown. Drawing on archives on both sides of the border, a host of cutting-edge studies and oral histories, Horne chronicles the political currents which created and then undermined the Mexican border as a relative safe haven for African Americans. His account addresses blacks' role as 'Indian fighters' the relationship between African Americans and immigrants, and the U.S. government's growing fear of black disloyalty, among other essential concerns of the period: the heavy reliance of the U.S. on black soldiers along the border placed white supremacy and national security on a collision course that was ultimately resolved in favor of the latter. Mining a forgotten chapter in American history, Black and Brown offers tremendous insight into the past and future of race relations along the Mexican border.

The Responsibility of Intellectuals in the Age of Fascism and Genocide is Boston Review’s 50th anniversary issue. This milestone issue features many of our longtime contributors, including Robin D. G. Kelley, Vivian Gornick, and Elaine Scarry, and celebrates classics from our archive.  In this issue, historian and Boston Review contributing editor Robin D. G. Kelley revisits Noam Chomsky’s landmark 1967 essay, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals,” published near the height of the Vietnam War. The essay’s dissident injunction―that those in privileged positions have a duty to “speak the truth and expose lies”―remains a powerful call to conscience, Kelley argues, but the anti-fascist and anti-colonial struggles of even earlier decades reveal its limits, and they show how to refuse and resist complicity in our own age of fascism and genocide. Political philosopher Martin O’Neill, Palestinian human rights lawyer Jennifer Zacharia, and historian David Waldstreicher expand on what this moment requires―of intellectuals, of journalists, and of us all.

Also in the issue, Vivian Gornick reviews Shulamith Firestone’s Airless Spaces, Elaine Scarry challenges the wisdom that Plato banished the poets, Brandon M. Terry interviews political scientist Cathy Cohen about social movements and the future of Black politics, Joelle M. Abi-Rached exposes the contradictions of the liberal international order over Gaza, Samuel Hayim Brody reviews three memoirs on the Arab Jewish world destroyed by colonialism, David Austin Walsh explains what Zohran Mamdani’s triumph means for the future of the Democratic Party, and Sandeep Vaheesan looks to the New Deal to assess the “abundance” agenda.

Plus, seven writers reflect on notable essays from our archive in a special anniversary feature:

* Susan Faludi on Vivian Gornick and anti-feminism
* Naomi Klein on William Callison + Quinn Slobodian and the global right
* Jay Caspian Kang on Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò and identity politics
* Ryu Spaeth on Merve Emre and the personal essay
* Lea Ypi on Joseph Carens and amnesty
* Nathan J. Robinson on Noam Chomsky and U.S. foreign policy
* Rick Perlstein on Elaine Scarry and democracy after 9/11

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series.

“Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again

“Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review

From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box,and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America.

For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues.

In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion.

But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

“An important part of American history told with a clear-eyed and forceful brilliance.” —National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson

“We Refuse to Forget reminds readers, on damn near every page, that we are collectively experiencing a brilliance we've seldom seen or imagined…We Refuse to Forget is a new standard in book-making.” —Kiese Laymon, author of the bestselling Heavy: An American Memoir
 
A landmark work of untold American history that reshapes our understanding of identity, race, and belonging

In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations—even to Cow Tom himself.

Why did this happen? How was the U.S. government involved? And what are Cow Tom’s descendants and other Black Creeks doing to regain their citizenship? These are some of the questions that Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving into the history and interviewing Black Creeks who are fighting to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism and greed at the heart of this story. We Refuse to Forget is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of white supremacy and marginalization that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.

Black Magic looks at the origins, meaning, and uses of Conjure―the African American tradition of healing and harming that evolved from African, European, and American elements―from the slavery period to well into the twentieth century. Illuminating a world that is dimly understood by both scholars and the general public, Yvonne P. Chireau describes Conjure and other related traditions, such as Hoodoo and Rootworking, in a beautifully written, richly detailed history that presents the voices and experiences of African Americans and shows how magic has informed their culture. Focusing on the relationship between Conjure and Christianity, Chireau shows how these seemingly contradictory traditions have worked together in a complex and complementary fashion to provide spiritual empowerment for African Americans, both slave and free, living in white America.

As she explores the role of Conjure for African Americans and looks at the transformations of Conjure over time, Chireau also rewrites the dichotomy between magic and religion. With its groundbreaking analysis of an often misunderstood tradition, this book adds an important perspective to our understanding of the myriad dimensions of human spirituality.

Since the first African American denomination was established in Philadelphia in 1818, churches have gone beyond their role as spiritual guides in African American communities and have served as civic institutions, spaces for education, and sites for the cultivation of individuality and identities in the face of limited or non-existent freedom.

In this Very Short Introduction, Eddie S. Glaude Jr. explores the history and circumstances of African American religion through three examples: conjure, African American Christianity, and African American Islam. He argues that the phrase "African American religion" is meaningful only insofar as it describes how through religion, African Americans have responded to oppressive conditions including slavery, Jim Crow apartheid, and the pervasive and institutionalized discrimination that exists today. This bold claim frames his interpretation of the historical record of the wide diversity of religious experiences in the African American community. He rejects the common tendency to racialize African American religious experiences as an inherent proclivity towards religiousness and instead focuses on how religious communities and experiences have developed in the African American community and the context in which these developments took place.

About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. EveryVery Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

A groundbreaking investigation of the Caribbean as both an idyll in the American imagination and a dark laboratory of Western experimentation, revealing secrets to racial and environmental progress that impact how we live today.

“Dark Laboratory is a gargantuan, soulful work. It obliterates most of what I thought I knew about the Caribbean’s utility to Western Wealth.”
—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy

In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the Caribbean Island of Guanahaní to find an Edenic scene that was soon mythologized. But behind the myth of paradise, the Caribbean and its people would come to pay the price of relentless Western exploitation and abuse. In Dark Laboratory, Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe embarks on a historical journey to chart the forces that have shaped these islands: the legacy of slavery, indentured labor, and the forced toil of Chinese and enslaved Black people who mined the islands’ bounty—including guano, which, at the time, was more valuable than gold—for the benefit of European powers and at the expense of the islands’ sacred ecologies.

Braiding together family history, cultural reportage, and social studies, Goffe radically transforms how we conceive of Blackness, the natural world, colonialism, and the climate crisis; and, in doing so, she deftly dismantles the many layers of entrenched imperialist thinking that shroud our established understanding of the human and environmental conditions to reveal the cause and effect of a global catastrophe. Dark Laboratory forces a reckoning with the received forms of knowledge that have led us astray.

Through the lens of the Caribbean, both guide and warning of the man-made disasters that continue to plague our world, Goffe closely situates the origins of racism and climate catastrophe within a colonial context. And in redressing these twin apocalypses, Dark Laboratory becomes a record of the violence that continues to shape the Caribbean today. But it is also a declaration of hope, offering solutions toward a better future based on knowledge gleaned from island ecosystems, and an impassioned, urgent testament to the human capacity for change and renewal.

Pleasure refers to the freedom to pursue a desire, deliberately sought in order to satisfy the self. Putting pleasure first is liberating. During their extraordinary lives, Lena Horne, Moms Mabley, Yolande DuBois, and Memphis Minnie enjoyed pleasure as they gave pleasure to both those in their lives and to the public at large. They were Black women who, despite their public profiles, whether through Black society or through the world of entertainment, discovered ways to enjoy pleasure.They left home, undertook careers they loved, and did what they wanted, despite perhaps not meeting the standards for respectability in the interwar era. See Me Naked looks at these women as representative of other Black women of the time, who were watched, criticized, and judged by their families, peers, and, in some cases, the government, yet still managed to enjoy themselves. Among the voyeurs of Black women was Langston Hughes, whose novel Not Without Laughter was clearly a work of fiction inspired by women he observed in public and knew personally, including Black clubwomen, blues performers, and his mother. How did these complicated women wrest loose from the voyeurs to define their own sense of themselves? At very young ages, they found and celebrated aspects of themselves. Using examples from these women’s lives, Green explores their challenges and achievements.

PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: March 24, 2026

The award-winning co-anchor of PBS NewsHour presents a sweeping and insightful retrospective on the history of Black comedy in America.

Black comedians have long played a pivotal role in shaping the American sense of humor. The 1990s showcased a golden era for Black comedy, highlighted by the surge of iconic sitcoms that redefined television and left a lasting cultural imprint. Shows like In Living Color, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Living Single, Martin, and A Different World stood on the shoulders of decades of groundbreaking work by Black comedians, both on-screen and on-stage, to deliver nuanced portrayals of life, family, and culture. Yet, just decades earlier, the idea of Black artists dominating American airwaves with characters that were both hilarious and heartfelt would have been unimaginable. How did it come to be?

The journey begins with 19th-century minstrel shows – offensive by today’s standards but the first stage for Black performers to reach mainstream audiences. Over time, comedians challenged racial stereotypes, exploring race and identity through humor. Icons like Jackie “Moms” Mabley, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg, and Eddie Murphy shifted perceptions and changed how the nation understood itself. In this incisive history, Geoff Bennett tells the story of how they did it.

In Black Out Loud, Bennett chronicles the transformative history of Black comedy in America, drawing on research and interviews with the actors and executives behind some of the most impactful shows. This brilliant exploration traces the evolution of Black comics and provocateurs who reshaped the culture and ultimately became powerful agents of social change -- transforming the way America laughed along the way.

Includes interviews and insights from: Martin Lawrence, Robert Townsend, Debbie Allen, Tisha Campbell, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Quinta Brunson, Arsenio Hall, and many more!

PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: December 9, 2025

Until now, you've only heard one side of the story: how Abraham Lincoln defeated the Confederacy to end slavery, but the truth involves a vast network of abolitionists who would keep fighting for freedom long after the end of the war. Here's the true story of the Civil War and Reconstruction, from the African American perspective.

By 1850, Africans had already been in the United States for nearly 300 years. Their labor created a strong economy and defined American society in profound ways, but their rights nearly tore the country apart, a century after its founding.

The beginning of the Civil War marked a turning point: the beginning of a public fight to recognize African Americans as Americans. Though much of this played out on the battlefield, the real fight was going on in every corner of the country: North and South, free households and enslaved, in the halls of government and secret meetings. That fight didn't end when the South surrendered, and young people were central to the way abolitionists envisioned the future. From soldiers to public speakers to the Underground Railroad, this is the true story of the African American experience of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

The acclaimed collection of Black photography, now featuring more than one hundred photographs from twenty-first-century artists, fundamentally redefines our understanding of American history.

“If a picture truly is worth a thousand words, then Deborah Willis has given us nothing less than an epic history of Homeric proportions. Taken together, Willis’s magnificent gathering of images accompanied by her powerful narrative overturns many common ideas about black life during the last century and a half, and in so doing rewrites American history.”―Robin D. G. Kelley, from the Foreword

Originally published in 2000, Reflections in Black was the first single-volume work to collect the images of leading African American photographers―from the daguerreotype to the digital age. Through its sheer power and inherent beauty, Deborah Willis’s groundbreaking assemblage of photographs of African American life from 1840 to the present triumphantly celebrated family, endurance, and spirituality over the last two centuries as it upended stereotypes and rewrote American history. Aware that so much has changed since 2000, Willis―a world-renowned photographer, curator, and author―has now created a breathtaking twenty-fifth anniversary edition, juxtaposing hundreds of images that appeared in the original edition with 130 new ones.

As the photographic panorama unfolds, we are immersed in hugely moving glimpses of African American life, from the last generation of enslaved people to the urban pioneers of the great migrations of the 1920s, from the rare antebellum daguerreotypes of freemen to the courtly celebrants of the Harlem Renaissance, and from civil rights activists to the postmodern photographic artists of the digital age. Each photograph suggests an astonishing, often spellbinding story. Augustus Washington’s mid-nineteenth-century portraits of key abolitionist figures, for example, offer a seemingly calm window into an era known for its violence. A startling suite of J. P. Ball photographs depicts the life, death, and burial of a Black man hanged for murder in the Montana Territory. Documenting a vibrant family life and a nascent Black middle class as well as Black tenant farmers and educators, the book features James VanDerZee’s famous shot of Marcus Garvey in a Universal Negro Improvement Association parade; Addison N. Scurlock’s dignified portraits of Black intellectuals, artists, and musicians; and John W. Mosley’s World War II–era image of a young drum majorette in an Elks parade in Philadelphia. Reflections in Black also includes a stunning array of celebrity images, among them Booker T. Washington, Langston Hughes, Gladys Bentley, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, and a veiled Coretta Scott King, now accompanied in this edition by Michelle Obama, the Roots, and Angela Davis.

This enhanced volume, with a new foreword from Robin D. G. Kelley and a coda from Kalia Brooks, once again affirms the power of photography to reconfigure our conception of Black life in the African diaspora and American history. Featuring the works of photographers such as Albert Chong, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lorna Simpson, Allison Janae Hamilton, Renee Cox, Carrie Mae Weems, Andre D. Wagner, and Hank Willis Thomas, this new edition is dedicated to the artists who stretch the definition of photography, creating pieces more akin to multimedia and conceptual art. Written and curated during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the aftermath of the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade, the images that follow serve as a visual response to these unthinkable experiences as well as to the beauty of life.

Exceptionally handsome and historically consequential, Reflections in Black is not only the rare volume that can be given as a gift on any occasion but a work so significant that it has the power to reconfigure the imagination. This anniversary edition demands to be included in every American’s library as an essential part of our country’s heritage.

544 photographs

A moving portrait of a grim period in American immigration history, when approximately one million ethnic Mexicans―mostly women and children who were US citizens―were forced to relocate across the southern border.

From 1921 to 1944, approximately one million ethnic Mexicans living in the United States were removed across the border to Mexico. What officials called “repatriation” was in fact banishment: 60 percent of those expelled were US citizens, mainly working-class women and children whose husbands and fathers were Mexican immigrants. Drawing on oral histories, transnational archival sources, and private collections, Marla A. Ramírez illuminates the lasting effects of coerced mass removal on three generations of ethnic Mexicans.

Ramírez argues that banishment served interests on both sides of the border. In the United States, the government accused ethnic Mexicans of dependence on social services in order to justify removal, thereby scapegoating them for post–World War I and Depression-era economic woes. In Mexico, meanwhile, officials welcomed returnees for their potential to bolster the labor force. In the process, all Mexicans in the United States―citizens and undocumented immigrants alike―were cast as financially burdensome and culturally foreign. Shedding particular light on the experiences of banished women, Ramírez depicts the courage and resilience of their efforts to reclaim US citizenship and return home. Nevertheless, banishment often interrupted their ability to pass on US citizenship to their children, robbed their families of generational wealth, and drastically slowed upward mobility. Today, their descendants continue to confront and resist the impact of these injustices―and are breaking the silence to ensure that this history is not forgotten.

A wrenching account of expulsion and its afterlives, Banished Citizens illuminates the continuing social, legal, and economic consequences of a removal campaign still barely acknowledged in either Mexico or the United States.

The Romare Bearden Reader brings together a collection of new essays and canonical writings by novelists, poets, historians, critics, and playwrights. The contributors, who include Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, August Wilson, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and Kobena Mercer, contextualize Bearden's life and career within the history of modern art, examine the influence of jazz and literature on his work, trace his impact on twentieth-century African American culture, and outline his art's political dimensions. Others focus on specific pieces, such as A Black Odyssey, or the ways in which Bearden used collage to understand African American identity. The Reader also includes Bearden's most important writings, which grant readers insight into his aesthetic values and practices and share his desire to tell what it means to be black in America. Put simply, The Romare Bearden Reader is an indispensable volume on one of the giants of twentieth-century American art.

Contributors. Elizabeth Alexander, Romare Bearden, Mary Lee Corlett, Rachel DeLue, David C. Driskell, Brent Hayes Edwards, Ralph Ellison, Henri Ghent, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Harry Henderson, Kobena Mercer, Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, Robert G. O’Meally, Richard Powell, Richard Price, Sally Price, Myron Schwartzman, Robert Burns Stepto, Calvin Tomkins, John Edgar Wideman, August Wilson