Non-Fiction
- If Kamala Can: . . . You Can Too!
If Kamala Can: . . . You Can Too!
Carole Boston Weatherford
Sold outThe inspirational life of Kamala Harris for kids!
From the newly-announced Young People's Poet Laureate comes a powerful and inspiring picture book that shares how each milestone and moment in Kamala Harris's life represents something that lies within young readers' reach, too―building community, asking for answers, learning from elders, standing up for what's right, pride, friendship, strength, and most of all―knowing that nothing is out of the reach of their future!
- Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins (Black Power)
Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins (Black Power)
Mary Frances Phillips
Sold outThe first biography of Ericka Huggins, a queer Black woman who brought spiritual self-care practices to the Black Panther Party.
In this groundbreaking biography, Mary Frances Phillips immerses readers in the life and legacy of Ericka Huggins, a revered Black Panther Party member, as well as a mother, widow, educator, poet, and former political prisoner. In 1969, the police arrested Ericka Huggins along with Bobby Seale and fellow Black Panther Party members, who were accused of murdering Alex Rackley. This marked the beginning of her ordeal, as she became the subject of political persecution and a well-planned FBI COINTELPRO plot.
Drawing on never-before-seen archival sources, including prison records, unpublished letters, photographs, FBI records, and oral histories, Phillips foregrounds the paramount role of self-care and community care in Huggins’s political journey, shedding light on Ericka’s use of spiritual wellness practices she developed during her incarceration. In prison, Huggins was able to survive the repression and terror she faced while navigating motherhood through her unwavering commitment to spiritual practices. In showcasing this history, Phillips reveals the significance of spiritual wellness in the Black Panther Party and Black Power movement.
Transcending the traditional male-centric study of the Black Panther Party, Black Panther Woman offers an innovative analysis of Black political life at the intersections of gender, motherhood, and mass incarceration. This book serves as an invaluable toolkit for contemporary activists, underscoring the power of radical acts of care as well as vital strategies to thrive in the world.
- The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir
The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir
Jenifer Lewis
$15.99From her more than three hundred appearances for film and television, stage and cabaret, performing comedy or drama, as an unforgettable lead or a scene stealing supporting character, Jenifer Lewis has established herself as one of the most respected, admired, talented, and versatile entertainers working today.
This “Mega Diva” and costar of the hit sitcom black-ish bares her soul in this touching and poignant—and at times side-splittingly hilarious—memoir of a Midwestern girl with a dream, whose journey took her from poverty to the big screen, and along the way earned her many accolades.
With candor and warmth, Jenifer Lewis reveals the heart of a woman who lives life to the fullest. This multitalented “force of nature” landed her first Broadway role within eleven days of her graduation from college and later earned the title “Reigning Queen of High-Camp Cabaret.”
In the audaciously honest voice that her fans adore, Jenifer describes her transition to Hollywood, with guest roles on hits like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Friends. Her movie Jackie’s Back! became a cult favorite, and as the “Mama” to characters portrayed by Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur, Taraji P. Henson, and many more, Jenifer cemented her status as the “Mother of Black Hollywood.”
When an undiagnosed mental illness stymies Jenifer’s career, culminating in a breakdown while filming The Temptations, her quest for wholeness becomes a harrowing and inspiring tale, including revelations of bipolar disorder and sex addiction.
Written with no-holds-barred honesty and illustrated with more than forty color photographs, this gripping memoir is filled with insights gained through a unique life that offers a universal message: “Love yourself so that love will not be a stranger when it comes.”
- The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
Wright Thompson
$35.00A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long
Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing.
In August 1955, two men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were charged with the torture and murder of the 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. After their inevitable acquittal in a mockery of justice, they gave a false confession to a journalist, which was misleading about where the long night of hell took place and who was involved. In fact, Wright Thompson reveals, at least eight people can be placed at the scene, which was inside the barn of one of the killers, on a plot of land within the six-square-mile grid whose official name is Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, fabled in the Delta of myth as the birthplace of the blues on nearby Dockery Plantation.
Even in the context of the racist caste regime of the time, the four-hour torture and murder of a Black boy barely in his teens for whistling at a young white woman was acutely depraved; Till’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to keep the casket open seared the crime indelibly into American consciousness. Wright Thompson has a deep understanding of this story—the world of the families of both Emmett Till and his killers, and all the forces that aligned to place them together on that spot on the map. As he shows, the full horror of the crime was its inevitability, and how much about it we still need to understand. Ultimately this is a story about property, and money, and power, and white supremacy. It implicates all of us. In The Barn, Thompson brings to life the small group of dedicated people who have been engaged in the hard, fearful business of bringing the truth to light. Putting the killing floor of the barn on the map of Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, and the Delta, and America, is a way of mapping the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wound.
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed : 50th Anniversary Edition (4th Edition)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed : 50th Anniversary Edition (4th Edition)
Paulo Freire
$26.95Paulo Freire outlines the revolutionary principles behind the educational methods that made him one of the 20th century's most influential education theorists.First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. Paulo Freire's work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing.
This 50th anniversary edition includes an updated introduction by Donaldo Macedo, a new afterword by Ira Shor and interviews with Marina Aparicio Barberán, Noam Chomsky, Ramón Flecha, Gustavo Fischman, Ronald David Glass, Valerie Kinloch, Peter Mayo, Peter McLaren and Margo Okazawa-Rey to inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come. - Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts (Winter/Spring 2025)
Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts (Winter/Spring 2025)
$15.00Begun by Donald Barthelme and Phillip Lopate, Gulf Coast is the nationally-distributed journal housed within the University of Houston's English Department, home to one of the US's top ranked creative writing programs. The journal spent its nascent years (1982-1985) as Domestic Crude, a name that nodded to the major industry of the Houston area. It was a 64-page (magazine-formatted) student-run publication, with editorial advising coming from Mr. Lopate, who also contributed work to the first issues.
In 1986, the name Gulf Coast premiered. It stuck. After some experimenting, the journal found its dimensions and, eventually, its audience. The journal has since moved beyond the student body of the University of Houston and into the larger world. Our readership of the print journal currently exceeds 3,000, with more and more coming to our ever-expanding website. The print journal comes out each April and October.
Gulf Coast is still student-run. We seek to promote and publish quality literature in our local and national communities while simultaneously teaching excellence in literary publishing to graduate and undergraduate students. While we are committed to providing a balanced combination of literary approaches and voices, all of the editorial positions are two-year terms, thus ensuring a regular turnover in the specific personality and style of the journal.
In addition, Gulf Coast differs from many other literary journals in its commitment to exploring visual art and critical art writing. The journal has always featured portfolios by two artists, along with short introductions from critics familiar with their work. Since October 2013, Gulf Coast commits sixteen pages to full-color visual art features and twenty-four pages to critical art writing in each issue. This expansion was made possible by Gulf Coast's merger with Texas art journal Art Lies, a publication with a respected history of putting artists, curators, scholars, and critics in dialogue with their colleagues around the world.
The journal has enhanced its community presence thanks to the Gulf Coast Reading Series, a monthly gathering at Lawndale Art Center in the Museum District neighborhood of Houston, as well as with its annual Spring Issue Release Party. These events continue to bring esteemed writers, editors, publishers and, of course, readers to the Houston area.
Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, generously funded by grants from the Brown Foundation, Inc.; theThe Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts; Inprint, Inc.; Houston Endowment, Inc.; the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance; theTexas Commission on the Arts; the University of Houston English Department; and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as through the support of individual contributions.
- Hippocrene Concise Dictionary: Haitian Creole-English English-Haitian Creole (Hippocrene Concise Dictionary)
Hippocrene Concise Dictionary: Haitian Creole-English English-Haitian Creole (Hippocrene Concise Dictionary)
Charmant Theodore
Sold outThe pocket-sized guide to Haitian Creole for basic communication
Perfect for travelers, students, and heritage speakers, this compact volume contains over 8,000 total entries. Haitian Creole, or kreyol ayisyen, is the national language of Haiti and spoken throughout the Caribbean and in Haitan communities in the U.S. and Canada. This guide also includes a short introduction to Haitian Creole grammar, common sense phonetic pronunciation for Creole and English, and modern, up-to-date entries in an easy-to-use format. Two-way format is suited to both English and Creole speakers.
Also available: Haitian Creole Practical Dictionary and Haitian Creole Dicitonary & Phrasebook.
- PRE-ORDER: Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks
PRE-ORDER: Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks
Charlamagne Tha God
$18.99PRE-ORDER. On Sale Date: March 4, 2025
From Charlamagne Tha God, host of the morning radio phenomenon The Breakfast Club, and founder and CEO of iHeartRadio’s Black Effect Podcast Network, a rundown on how small talk from small minds have taken over our world, and the BIG conversations needed to climb our way back.
For over a decade, Charlamagne Tha God has cohosted iHeartRadio’snationally syndicated morning radio show The Breakfast Cluband has proven his power as a culture mover and thought leader, by being his completely authentic self on-air. From his famous “You ain't black” moment with President Biden, to heartfelt chats with cultural icons like Sean “Jay-Z” Carter and Judy Blume, to viral classics with Kamala Harris and Soulja Boy, his incredible reach and impact on American culture continues to grow.
In Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks, Charlamagne takes full command of his new perch, broadening his scope and embracing his life roles as a cultural curator, social commentator, job-creator, mental health advocate, and Girl Dad in ways we’ve never seen before. In his signature irreverent style, he looks at the world through his own lens, concluding that many of our divisions, our unhappiness, and our dissatisfactions stem from our failure to have meaningful conversations with each other. With lessons pulled from his past, and an eye on the future, Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks makes us laugh, cry, and think as Charlamagne shares his thoughts on growth, empowerment, and evolution in our fast-changing world. In short—it’s time to stop lying to each other, and ourselves.
Fame, money, social media, politics, hip-hop culture, and fatherhood, he takes it all on here. This master of seeing through the BS even calls it on himself, as he delivers his most insightful and heartfelt work yet—his call to stop the insanity while we still can.
- Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel
Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel
Loretta J. Ross
$28.99From a pioneering Black feminist and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, an urgent and exhilarating memoir-manifesto-handbook about how to rein in the excesses of cancel culture so we can truly communicate and solve problems together.
In 1979, Loretta Ross was a single mother who’d had to drop out of Howard University. She was working at Washington, DC’s Rape Crisis Center when she got a letter from a man in prison saying he wanted to learn how to not be a rapist anymore. At first, she was furious. As a survivor of sexual violence, she wanted to write back pouring out her rage. But instead, she made a different choice, a choice to reject the response her trauma was pushing her towards, a choice that set her on the path towards developing a philosophy that would come to guide her whole career: rather than calling people out, try to call even your unlikeliest allies in. Hold them accountable—but do so with love.
Calling In is at once a handbook, a manifesto, and a memoir—because the power of Loretta Ross’s message comes from who she is and what she’s lived through. She’s a Black woman who’s deprogrammed white supremacists, a survivor who’s taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism. With stories from her five remarkable decades in activism, she vividly illustrates why calling people in—inviting them into conversation instead of conflict by focusing on your shared values over a desire for punishment—is the more strategic choice if you want to make real change. And she shows you how to do so, whether in the workplace, on a college campus, or in your living room.
Courageous, awe-inspiring, and blisteringly authentic, Calling In is a practical new solution from one of our country’s most extraordinary change-makers—one anyone can learn to use to transform frustrating and divisive conflicts that stand in the way of real connection with the people in your life.
- The Sustainability Class: How to Take Back Our Future from Lifestyle Environmentalists
The Sustainability Class: How to Take Back Our Future from Lifestyle Environmentalists
Vijay Kolinjivadi, Aaron Vansintjan
$27.99An original argument that environmental sustainability has been co-opted by the urban elite, along with examples from around the world of ways we can save our planet
“Caring for the environment means reclaiming ecology for everyone.” —from the introductionA sustainability apartheid is emerging. More than ever, urban residents want to be green, yet to cater to their interests, a green-tech service economy has sprung up, co-opting well-intentioned concerns over sustainability to sell a resource-heavy and exclusive “lifestyle environmentalism.” This has made cities more unsustainable and inaccessible to the working class.
The Sustainability Class is about those wealthy “progressive” urbanites convinced that we can save the planet through individual action, smart urbanism, green finance, and technological innovation. Authors Vijay Kolinjivadi and Aaron Vansintjan challenge many of the popular ideas about environmentalism, showing that it is actually the sustainability class itself that is unsustainable. The solutions they propose work to safeguard an elite minority, exclude billions of people, and ultimately hasten ecological breakdown, not reverse it.
- PRE-ORDER: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew
PRE-ORDER: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew
Emmanuel Acho & Noa Tishby
$19.99PRE-ORDER. On Sale Date: March 18, 2025
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From two New York Times bestselling authors, a timely, disarmingly honest, and thought-provoking investigation into antisemitism that connects the dots between the tropes and hatred of the past to our current complicated moment.
For Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby no question about Jews is off-limits. They go there. They cover Jews and money. Jews and power. Jews and privilege. Jews and white privilege. The Black and Jewish struggle. Emmanuel asks, Did Jews kill Jesus? To which Noa responds, “Why are Jewish people history’s favorite scapegoat?” They unpack Judaism itself: Is it a religion, culture, a peoplehood, or a race? And: Are you antisemitic if you’re anti-Zionist?
The questions—and answers—might make you squirm, but together, they explain the tropes, stereotypes, and catalysts of antisemitism in America today.
The topics are complicated and Acho and Tishby bring vastly different perspectives. Tishby is an outspoken Israeli American. Acho is a mild-mannered son of a Nigerian American pastor. But they share a superpower: an uncanny ability to make complicated ideas easy to understand so anyone can follow the straight line from the past to our immediate moment—and then see around corners. Acho and Tishby are united by the core belief that hatred toward one group is never isolated: if you see the smoke of bigotry in one place, expect that we will all be in the fire.
Informative and accessible, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew has a unique structure: Acho asks questions and Tishby answers them with deeply personal, historical, and political responses. This book will enable anyone to explain—and identify—what Jewish hatred looks like. It is a much-needed lexicon for this fraught moment in Jewish history. As Acho says, “Proximity breeds care and distance breeds fear.”
- PRE-ORDER: The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City
PRE-ORDER: The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City
Angela Garcia
$19.00PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: April 29, 2025
Based on over a decade of research, a powerful, moving work of narrative nonfiction that illuminates the little-known world of the anexos of Mexico City, the informal addiction treatment centers where mothers send their children to escape the violence of the drug war.
The Way That Leads Among the Lost reveals a hidden place where care and violence are impossible to separate: the anexos of Mexico City. The prizewinning anthropologist Angela Garcia takes us deep into the world of these small rooms, informal treatment centers for alcoholism, addiction, and mental illness, spread across Mexico City’s tenements and reaching into the United States. Run and inhabited by Mexico’s most marginalized populations, they are controversial for their illegality and their use of coercion. Yet for many Mexican families desperate to keep their loved ones safe, these rooms offer something of a refuge from what lies beyond them―the intensifying violence surrounding the drug war.
This is the first book ever written on the anexos. Garcia, who spent a decade conducting anthropological fieldwork in Mexico City, draws readers into their many dimensions, casting light on the mothers and their children who are entangled in this hidden world. Following the stories of its denizens, she asks what these places are, why they exist, and what they reflect about Mexico and the wider world. With extraordinary empathy and a sharp eye for detail, Garcia attends to the lives that the anexos both sustain and erode, wrestling with the question of why mothers turn to them as a site of refuge even as they reproduce violence. Woven into these portraits is Garcia’s own powerful story of family, childhood, homelessness, and drugs―a blend of ethnography and memoir converging on a set of fundamental questions about the many forms and meanings that violence, love, care, family, and hope may take.
Infused with profound ethnographic richness and moral urgency, The Way That Leads Among the Lost is a stunning work of narrative nonfiction, a book that will leave a deep mark on readers.
- Breaking Generational Silence: A Guide to Disrupt Unhealthy Family Patterns and Heal Inherited Trauma
Breaking Generational Silence: A Guide to Disrupt Unhealthy Family Patterns and Heal Inherited Trauma
Nicole Russell-Wharton
Sold outFrom regarded mental health expert Nicole Russell-Wharton, a guide to disrupt family patterns and heal from inherited trauma so you can break the cycle of silence for generations to come
What if one conversation was able to redirect a person’s life and create a ripple effect of healing that spans generations? It took a near-death experience for mental health expert Nicole Russell-Wharton to realize that after 35 years, she didn't know the body she was living in. After being diagnosed with a rare life-altering genetic condition that others in her family had, Nicole couldn't understand how everyone remained silent. “I’ve suffered through many things in silence over the years,” says Russell-Wharton. “It wasn’t until I started collecting data on generational issues like poverty and trauma that I had this awakening: our healing challenges are rooted in our families’ silence and psychological pathology.”
It's the silence that's harming us.
“Generational silence” is a term applied to families who have experienced suppressed thoughts or repressed emotions for at least two generations. In this book, Nicole speaks from personal experience about how slavery left an intergenerational impact on her family’s emotional and physical health, and it invites readers to explore the legacy of their own family history. This book will help you explore:
• The cycle and impact of issues like substance abuse, religion, racism, education inequality, and parenting
• Research, practical tools, and exercises to begin to explore your family history and open up conversations
• The root of silence in your own life, so you can break the cycle for generations to comeBreaking Generational Silence will help you begin to break the cycle of silence, find the courage to face your family challenges, and become your own best advocate.
- Unity and Struggle
Unity and Struggle
Amílcar Cabral, Michael Wolfers, and Basil Davidson
$20.99One 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 - PRE-ORDER: Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It
PRE-ORDER: Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It
Andre M. Perry
$27.99PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: April 15, 2025
From the creator of “a unified field theory of racism” (NPR’s Planet Money), a dollars-and-cents reckoning of the state of Black America and a new framework to close the power gap
Historically, Black Americans’ quest for power has been understood as an attempt to gain equal protections under the law. But power in America requires more than basic democratic freedoms. It is inextricably linked with economic influence and ownership―of one’s self, home, business, and creations.
Andre M. Perry draws on extensive research and analysis to quantify how much power Black Americans actually have. Ranging from property, business, and wealth to education, health, and social mobility, Black Power Scorecard moves across the country, evaluating people’s ability to set the rules of the game and calculating how that translates into the ultimate means of power―life itself, and the longevity of Black communities. Along the way, Perry identifies woefully overlooked areas of investment that could close the racial gap and benefit all.
An expansive take on power supported by documentation and data, Black Power Scorecard is a fresh contribution to the country’s reckoning with structural inequality, one that offers a new approach to redressing it.
- PRE-ORDER: Universality: A Novel
PRE-ORDER: Universality: A Novel
Natasha Brown
$24.00PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: March 4, 2025
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.
- PRE-ORDER: Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age
PRE-ORDER: Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age
Vauhini Vara
$30.00PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: April 8, 2025
From the author of The Immortal King Rao, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize,a personal exploration of how technology companies have both fulfilled and exploited the human desire for understanding and connection
When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching AI-powered machines to write. Its creators had a sweeping ambition—to build machines that could not only communicate, but could do all kinds of other activities, better than humans ever could. But was this goal actually achievable? And if reached, would it lead to our liberation or our subjugation?
Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with these questions. In 2021, she asked a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister’s death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral.
The experience, revealing both the power and the danger of corporate-owned technologies, forced Vara to interrogate how these technologies have influenced her understanding of her self and the world around her, from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen, to using social media as the Wall Street Journal’s first Facebook reporter, to asking ChatGPT for writing advice—while compelling her to add to the trove of human-created material exploited for corporations’ financial gain. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of internet life—including the viral AI experiment that started it all. Searches illuminates how technological capitalism is both shaping and exploiting human existence, while proposing that by harnessing the collective creativity that makes humans unique, we might imagine a freer, more empowered relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another.
- Everybody's Protest Novel: Essays
Everybody's Protest Novel: Essays
James Baldwin
$20.00“I am completely indebted to Jimmy Baldwin’s prose. It liberated me as a writer.”—Toni Morrison
This collectible edition celebrates James Baldwin’s 100th-year anniversary, probing the shortcomings of the American protest novel and the harmful representations of Black identity in film and fiction
Originally published in Notes of a Native Son, the essays “Autobiographical Notes,” “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” “Many Thousands Gone,” and “Carmen Jones: The Dark is Light Enough,” showcase Baldwin’s incisive voice as a social and literary critic.
“Autobiographical Notes” outlines Baldwin’s journey as a Black writer and his hesitant transition from fiction to nonfiction. In the following essays, Baldwin explores the Black experience through the lens of popular media, critiquing the ways in which Black characters—in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, and the 1950s film Carmen Jones—are reduced to digestible caricatures.
Everybody’s Protest Novel: Essays is the first of 3 special editions in the James Baldwin centennial anniversary series. Through this collection, Baldwin examines the façade of progress present in the novels of Black oppression. These essays showcase Baldwin’s profound ability to reveal the truth of the Black experience, exposing the failure of the protest novel, and the state of racial reckoning at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement.
- The Harlem Ghetto: Essays
The Harlem Ghetto: Essays
James Baldwin
$20.00This collectible edition celebrates James Baldwin’s 100th-year anniversary, revealing and critiquing the realities of Black life in mid-century US
Originally published in Notes of a Native Son, the essays "The Harlem Ghetto," "Journey to Atlanta," and "Notes of a Native Son" will appeal to those interested in the personal and political turmoil of Baldwin's life.
“The Harlem Ghetto” introduces readers to the extremities of life in Baldwin’s native city. “Journey to Atlanta” depicts the faulty relationship between the Black community and the politician, following a quartet called The Melodeers on a trip to Atlanta under the auspices of the Progressive Party. Baldwin concludes this collection with “Notes of A Native Son,” a powerful autobiographical essay about his fractured relationship with his father.
The Harlem Ghetto: Essays explores the American condition through a mix of analytic and autobiographical essays. This second collection in the Baldwin centennial anniversary series is Baldwin’s most personal as he grapples with his childhood and his own affinity with Blackness.
- Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
Eve L. Ewing
$32.00Why don’t our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they’re actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America’s classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to maintain the nation’s inequalities. It’s a task at which they excel.
“This book will transform the way you see this country.”—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
If all children could just get an education, the logic goes, they would have the same opportunities later in life. But this historical tour de force makes it clear that the opposite is true: The U.S. school system has played an instrumental role in creating and upholding racial hierarchies, preparing children to expect unequal treatment throughout their lives.
In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that our schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to “civilize” Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Education was not an afterthought for the Founding Fathers; it was envisioned by Thomas Jefferson as an institution that would fortify the country’s racial hierarchy. Ewing argues that these dynamics persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. The most insidious aspects of this system fall below the radar in the forms of standardized testing, academic tracking, disciplinary policies, and uneven access to resources.
By demonstrating that it’s in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective and underacknowledged mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that we need a profound reevaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place we send our children for eight hours a day. - The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance
The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance
Sabrina Strings
$18.95From Playboy to Jay-Z, the racial origins of toxic masculinity and its impact on women, especially Black and “insufficiently white” women
More men than ever are refusing loving partnerships and commitment, and instead seeking out “situationships.” When these men deign to articulate what they are looking for in a steady partner, they’ll often rely on superficial norms of attractiveness rooted in whiteness and anti-Blackness.
Connecting the past to the present, sociologist Sabrina Strings argues that following the Civil Rights movement and the integration of women during the Second Wave Feminist movement, men aimed to hold on to their power by withholding love and commitment, a basic tenet of white supremacy and male domination, that served to manipulate all women. From pornography to hip hop, women—especially Black and “insufficiently white” women—were presented as gold diggers, props for masturbation, and side-pieces.
Using historical research, personal stories, and critical analysis, Strings argues that the result is fuccboism, the latest incarnation of toxic masculinity. This work shows that men are not innately “toxic.” Nor do they hate love, commitment, or sex. Instead, men across race have been working a new code to effectively deny loving partnerships to women who are not pliant, slim, and white as a new mode of male domination.
- How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community
How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community
Mia Birdsong
$18.99An Invitation to Community and Models for Connection
After almost every presentation activist and writer Mia Birdsong gives to executives, think tanks, and policy makers, one of those leaders quietly confesses how much they long for the profound community she describes. They have family, friends, and colleagues, yet they still feel like they're standing alone. They're "winning" at the American Dream, but they're lonely, disconnected, and unsatisfied.
It seems counterintuitive that living the "good life"--the well-paying job, the nuclear family, the upward mobility--can make us feel isolated and unhappy. But in a divided America, where only a quarter of us know our neighbors and everyone is either a winner or a loser, we've forgotten the key element that helped us make progress in the first place: community. In this provocative, groundbreaking work, Mia Birdsong shows that what separates us isn't only the ever-present injustices built around race, class, gender, values, and beliefs, but also our denial of our interdependence and need for belonging. In response to the fear and discomfort we feel, we've built walls, and instead of leaning on each other, we find ourselves leaning on concrete.
Through research, interviews, and stories of lived experience, How We Show Up returns us to our inherent connectedness where we find strength, safety, and support in vulnerability and generosity, in asking for help, and in being accountable. Showing up--literally and figuratively--points us toward the promise of our collective vitality and leads us to the liberated well-being we all want.
- PRE-ORDER: Financially Lit!: The Modern Latina's Guide to Level Up Your Dinero & Become Financially Poderosa
PRE-ORDER: Financially Lit!: The Modern Latina's Guide to Level Up Your Dinero & Become Financially Poderosa
Jannese Torres
$19.99PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: March 18, 2025
Now available in paperback! Build financial literacy, improve your money management skills, and make the dinero work for you!
In many immigrant households, money isn’t often a topic of discussion, so financial education can be minimal—especially when a family is just trying to survive the day-to-day. Despite being the largest minority group in the United States, the Latino community still faces cultural and systemic barriers that prevent them from building wealth. As a first-generation Latina, Jannese Torres, award-winning money expert, educator, and podcaster, knows these unique challenges well. She set out to pursue the traditional American Dream, becoming the first woman in her family to graduate from college, climb the corporate ladder, and secure the six-figure paycheck, only to find herself miserable and unfulfilled. She soon realized that everything she’d been taught about money and success wasn’t as it seemed. After discovering the true meaning of wealth, Torres resolved to pave her own path, leaving the life she was told she should want for one of entrepreneurship, autonomy, and financial freedom.
In Financially Lit! Torres offers you culturally relevant and relatable personal finance advice that will allow you to finally feel seen, heard, and understood. Whether it’s the guilt you feel from being the first person to “make it” while members of your family are still struggling, or the way financial trauma manifests itself in negative and limiting beliefs around money, Torres is here to guide you through it all.
With the warmth and no-nonsense wisdom of someone who’s been there before, Torres will teach you how to:
* set boundaries with your dinero
* protect yourself from financial abuse
* navigate the complicated relationship between amor and money
* invest like a white dude—or better!
With Financially Lit! at your side, you’ll harness the powerful ways money can be used to create the life of your dreams, and be empowered to step into financial freedom. - Sapiens [Tenth Anniversary Ed]: A Brief History of Humankind
Sapiens [Tenth Anniversary Ed]: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari
$27.99One hundred thousand years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?
In Sapiens, Professor Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical—and sometimes devastating—breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology, and economics, and incorporating full-color illustrations throughout the text, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Can we ever free our behavior from the legacy of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?
Bold, wide-ranging, and provocative, Sapiens integrates history and science to challenge everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our heritage . . . and our future.
- PRE-ORDER: Fela: Music Is the Weapon
PRE-ORDER: Fela: Music Is the Weapon
Jibola Fagbamiye and Conor McCreery
$34.99PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: October 7, 2025
A vivid and explosive graphic novel about the life and times of the legendary Fela Kuti - the Pan-African frontman, multi-instrumentalist, sociopolitical powerhouse, and father of Afrobeat.
- African History of Africa, An: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence
African History of Africa, An: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence
Zeinab Badawi
$32.50Already a major international bestseller, Zeinab Badawi’s sweeping and much-needed survey of African history traces the continent’s extraordinary legacy from prehistory to the present from the African perspective.
“Equal parts gripping and galvanizing. . . . Researched across more than 30 countries, it brings the dazzling civilizations of pre-colonial Africa vividly to life. A book that feels both long-overdue—and wholly worth the wait.” —British Vogue
Everyone is originally from Africa, and this book is therefore for everyone.
For too long, Africa’s history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Now, Zeinab Badawi sets the record straight.
In this fascinating book, Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history—from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilizations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, she unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our global story.
The result is a gripping new account of Africa: an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves.
- Things No One Taught Us About Love: How to Build Healthy Relationships with Yourself and Others
Things No One Taught Us About Love: How to Build Healthy Relationships with Yourself and Others
Vex King
$19.99Beloved spiritual teacher Vex King follows up his international bestseller Good Vibes, Good Life with this essential guide to building meaningful, mindful, and loving relationships.
Humans are social animals. But it is nearly impossible to build healthy, sustainable bonds with others without first having a good relationship with yourself. To get along with others, we often alter our habits or subsume our unique personalities. By trying to transform or suppress our true selves, we erode our self-worth and self-knowledge. We begin to lose sight of who we really are and what we truly want. When our self-understanding and self-confidence are damaged, it ultimately hurts our relationships.
In this wise and transformative book—a revised edition of Closer to Love—Vex King helps us find and sustain the connections we want with ourselves and others. Good relationships begin with loving ourselves and recognizing our own desires and needs. This self-discovery allows our best selves to radiate with confidence and to attract and choose partners—romantic and platonic—who are truly compatible. When we feel comfortable in our own skin, we are able to give and receive love without being blocked by the destructive emotions and past trauma that previously held us back and prevented us from forming fulfilling and lasting relationships.
Filled with Vex King’s profound wisdom, thoughtful self-practices, and easy-to adopt-habit builders, this guide opens you up to the love you deserve and shows you how to bring it into your life.
- Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
Bianca Mabute-Louie
$29.99A scholar and activist’s brilliant socio-political examination of Asian Americans who refuse to assimilate and instead build their own belonging on their own terms outside of mainstream American institutions.
In this hard-hitting and deeply personal book, a combination of manifesto and memoir, scholar, sociologist, and activist Bianca Mabute-Louie transforms the ways we understand race, class, citizenship, and the concept of assimilation and its impact on Asian American communities from the nineteenth century to present day.
UNASSIMILABLE opens with a focus on the San Gabriel Valley (SGV), the first Asian ethnoburb in Los Angeles County and in the nation, where she grew up. A suburban neighborhood with a conspicuous Asian immigrant population, SGV thrives not because of its assimilation into Whiteness, but because of its unapologetic catering to its immigrant community.
Mabute-Louie then examines “Predominantly White Institutions With A lot of Asians” and how these institutions shape the racial politics of Asian Americans and Asian internationals, including the fight against affirmative action and the fight for ethnic studies. She moves on to interrogate the role of the religion, showing how the immigrant church is a sanctuary even as it is an extension of colonialism and the American Empire. In the book’s conclusion, Bianca looks to the future, boldly proposing a reconsideration of the term Asian American for a new label that better clarifies who Asians in America are today.
UNASSIMILABLE offers a radical vision of Asian American political identity informed by a refusal of Whiteness and collective care for each other. It is a forthright declaration against assimilation and in service of cross-racial, anti-imperialist solidarity and revolutionary politics. Scholarly yet accessible, informative and informed, this book is a major addition to Ethnic Studies and American Studies.
- Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
Imani Perry
$28.99A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry
Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.
Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as “Blue Black.” The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.
Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.
- Black Belt Thesis: A Reader
Black Belt Thesis: A Reader
Black Belt Study Group
$20.00A 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.
- A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine
A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine
Reza Aslan
$19.99Open the door to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the path to peace.
What is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Why is it happening? Is peace possible? When kids ask questions like these, are grownups prepared to answer? This book was created to provide context for this conflict, open the door to conversation, and lay a path for understanding, peace, and compassion for our shared future.
- The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
Don Miguel Ruiz
$12.95In The Four Agreements, bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.
• A New York Times bestseller for over a decade
• An international bestseller published in 52 languages worldwide“This book by don Miguel Ruiz, simple yet so powerful, has made a tremendous difference in how I think and act in every encounter.” — Oprah Winfrey
“Don Miguel Ruiz’s book is a roadmap to enlightenment and freedom.” — Deepak Chopra, Author, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
“An inspiring book with many great lessons.” — Wayne Dyer, Author, Real Magic
“In the tradition of Castaneda, Ruiz distills essential Toltec wisdom, expressing with clarity and impeccability what it means for men and women to live as peaceful warriors in the modern world.” — Dan Millman, Author, Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Stay Informed. We're building a community committed to celebrating Black authors + artisans. Subscribe to keep up with all things Kindred Stories.