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  • Joy Goddess: A'Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance

    A'Lelia Bundles

    $29.99

    A vibrant, deeply researched biography of A’Lelia Walker—daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and herself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance—written by her great-granddaughter.

    Dubbed the “joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s” by poet Langston Hughes, A’Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author’s great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance.

    After inheriting her mother’s hair care enterprise, A’Lelia would become America’s first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her three New York homes—a mansion, a townhouse, and a pied-a-terre—where she entertained Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, W.E.B. DuBois, and other cultural, social and intellectual luminaries of the Roaring Twenties.

    Now, based on extensive research and Walker’s personal correspondence, her great-granddaughter creates a meticulous, nuanced portrait of a charismatic woman struggling to define herself as a wife, mother, and businesswoman outside her famous mother’s sphere. In Joy Goddess, A’Lelia’s radiant personality and impresario instincts—at the center of a vast, artistic social world where she flourished as a fashion trendsetter and international traveler—are brought to vivid and unforgettable life.

  • Caribe : A Caribbean Cookbook with History

    Keshia Sakarah

    $45.00
    An incredible journey through the social and culinary history of the Caribbean, with recipes from every nation.

    Caribe is the first cookbook to explore Caribbean food culture of the entire region: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Petite Martinique and the Carriacou, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, The French Caribbean, The Dutch West Indies and Trinidad and Tobago. Through years-long research including collaborations with historians and extensive travel to the islands, food writer and chef Keshia Sakarah explores the complicated and varied stories of each nation through its beloved dishes, addressing difficult truths while at the same time creating a joyful collection of the most celebrated recipes in the region to pay homage to those who created them, from Haitian Independence – Soup Joumou and Dominican Saltfish Accra Fritters, to Guyanese Pepperpot and Montserratian Fish Broth, passed on through generations.

    Including stunning location photography, essays and recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between, Caribe is the ultimate tome of Caribbean cooking.
  • The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe

    Stephon Alexander

    $18.99

    A spectacular musical and scientific journey from the Bronx to the cosmic horizon that reveals the astonishing links between jazz, science, Einstein, and Coltrane

    More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane put physics and geometry at the core of his music.

    Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander follows suit, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe. Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics-a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim — The Jazz of Physics reveals that the ancient poetic idea of the "Music of the Spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics.

    The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.

  • I Am Maroon : The True Story of an American Political Prisoner

    Russell Shoatz

    $32.50
    In this cinematic memoir, follow one man's journey from gang member to Black liberation leader to political prisoner–and the justice and redemption he fought for along the way.

    Inspired by Malcolm X, Russell Shoatz became a lifelong crusader for justice, a soldier in the most militant units of the Black Liberation Army. Shoatz was convicted to life in prison following a coordinated attack on a park police station that left one guard dead.The prison walls, however, could not deter Shoatz’s battle for personal and collective freedom. He escaped state prisons twice, making him a living legend, and endowed him with the moniker “Maroon,” once used to honor runaway slaves from plantations. He survived 22 years in solitary confinement, prompting an international campaign for his freedom.

    I Am Maroon charts a life of dizzying intrigue and a long struggle for liberation. With an unforgettable voice, Maroon reminds us that we too are capable of radical change, leaving us a blueprint for how we might dedicate our lives and minds to the ongoing fight for freedom.    
    Contributor Bio(s)

    Russell "Maroon" Shoatz was a dedicated community activist, founding member of the Black Unity Council, former member of the Black Panther Party, and soldier in the Black Liberation Army.

     Kanya D'Almeida is a writer and winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. As a journalist, she reported for a decade on global economic apartheid, reproductive justice and prison abolition.
  • Toward the African Revolution

    Frantz Fanon

    $17.00

    This powerful collection of articles, essays, and letters spans the period between Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Fanon’s landmark manifesto on the psychology of the colonized and the means of empowerment necessary for their liberation. These pieces display the genesis of some of Fanon’s greatest ideas — ideas that became so vital to the leaders of the American civil rights movement.

  • African American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities

    Mr. Melvin Mitchell

    $25.00

    Melvin Mitchell believes that the 2016 opening of the NMAAHC signals either a black architect renaissance or the demise of the black architect-practitioner corps in the U.S. by 2040 if not earlier…along with the demise of Black America’s cultural, political, and spatial beachheads in America’s big cities. He argues in this book that America’s perennial housing crisis - most acutely manifested in Black America’s accelerating displacement from America’s cities – must be countered by a new progressive 21st century movement that re-invents the revolutionary construction-based architecture modus operandi deployed 100 years ago by Booker T. Washington. Mitchell believes that Washington completed the build-out of the Tuskegee Institute campus as a counter to America’s building of the “White City” aka the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair-Columbian Exposition 600 miles to the north in Chicago, Illinois. Mitchell argues that the centerpiece of a new “architecture” must realign with the needs of Black America for majorincreases in home and business ownership and wealth creation. That requires a massive “Buy the Block”-type redevelopmentin urban Black America. Today that must entail nothing short of the literal building of at least one million newaffordable housing units in urban Black America by Black America between now and 2030. The means to accomplishsuch a moon shot are there in existing and emerging progressive legislation. The American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, the Green New Deal, and the Opportunity Zones Act must all beharnessed with the trillions of available public dollars, private equity funds, and black nouveau rich wealth to createand sustain an African American-dominated urban affordable housing industry. That may not be the answer but is mostcertainly one of several heretofore missing pieces.

  • Talking to the Dead: Religion, Music, and Lived Memory among Gullah/Geechee Women

    LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant

    $28.95

    Talking to the Dead is an ethnography of seven Gullah/Geechee women from the South Carolina lowcountry. These women communicate with their ancestors through dreams, prayer, and visions and traditional crafts and customs, such as storytelling, basket making, and ecstatic singing in their churches. Like other Gullah/Geechee women of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, these women, through their active communication with the deceased, make choices and receive guidance about how to live out their faith and engage with the living. LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant emphasizes that this communication affirms the women's spiritual faith-which seamlessly integrates Christian and folk traditions-and reinforces their position as powerful culture keepers within Gullah/Geechee society. By looking in depth at this long-standing spiritual practice, Manigault-Bryant highlights the subversive ingenuity that lowcountry inhabitants use to thrive spiritually and to maintain a sense of continuity with the past.

  • Film Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of Black Film

    Michael Boyce Gillespie

    $26.95

    In Film Blackness Michael Boyce Gillespie shifts the ways we think about black film, treating it not as a category, a genre, or strictly a representation of the black experience but as a visual negotiation between film as art and the discursivity of race. Gillespie challenges expectations that black film can or should represent the reality of black life or provide answers to social problems. Instead, he frames black film alongside literature, music, art, photography, and new media, treating it as an interdisciplinary form that enacts black visual and expressive culture. Gillespie discusses the racial grotesque in Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin (1975), black performativity in Wendell B. Harris Jr.'s Chameleon Street (1989), blackness and noir in Bill Duke's Deep Cover (1992), and how place and desire impact blackness in Barry Jenkins's Medicine for Melancholy (2008). Considering how each film represents a distinct conception of the relationship between race and cinema, Gillespie recasts the idea of black film and poses new paradigms for genre, narrative, aesthetics, historiography, and intertextuality.

  • Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol

    by Nell Irvin Painter

    $18.99

    "A pathbreaking biography. It should command the widest popular attention and profound scholarly attention." —David Levering Lewis, author of W. E. B. DuBois

    Sojourner Truth: ex-slave and fiery abolitionist, figure of imposing physique, riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight-talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black women—indeed, for all strong women. Like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, she is regarded as a radical of immense and enduring influence; yet, unlike them, what is remembered of her consists more of myth than of personality.

    Now, in a masterful blend of scholarship and sympathetic understanding, eminent black historian Nell Irvin Painter goes beyond the myths, words, and photographs to uncover the life of a complex woman who was born into slavery and died a legend. Inspired by religion, Truth transformed herself from a domestic servant named Isabella into an itinerant pentecostal preacher; her words of empowerment have inspired black women and poor people the world over to this day. As an abolitionist and a feminist, Truth defied the notion that slaves were male and women were white, expounding a fact that still bears repeating: among blacks there are women; among women, there are blacks.

    No one who heard her speak ever forgot Sojourner Truth, the power and pathos of her voice, and the intelligence of her message. No one who reads Painter's groundbreaking biography will forget this landmark figure and the story of her courageous life.

  • Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography

    by Staci Robinson

    $35.00

    *Ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

    The first and only Estate-authorized biography of the legendary artist, Tupac Shakur, a moving exploration of his life and powerful legacy, fully illustrated with photos, mementos, handwritten poetry, musings, and more

    Artist, Poet, Actor, Revolutionary, Legend- Tupac Shakur


    Tupac Shakur is one of the greatest and most controversial artists of all time. More than a quarter of a century after his tragic death in 1996 at the age of just twenty-five, he continues to be one of the most misunderstood, complicated and prolific figures in modern history. Tupac’s unapologetic lyrics, for which he was villainized by many at the time, read in these pages as prophecy.  His cry of outrage in a country that repeatedly told Black men and women that their lives did not matter, continues to inspire his fans around the world.  

    In Tupac Shakur, author and screenwriter Staci Robinson—who knew Tupac as a young man and who was entrusted by his mother, Afeni Shakur, to write his biography—peels back the myths and unpacks the complexities that have shadowed Tupac’s existence. With exclusive access to his private notebooks, letters, unpublished lyrics and uncensored conversations with those who knew and loved him best, Robinson tells a powerful story of a life defined by politics and art, and a man driven by equal parts brilliance and impulsiveness.

    It is a story of a mother and son bound together by a love for each other and for their people, and the relationship that endured through their darkest times. It is a political story that begins in the whirlwind of the 60’s Civil Rights Movement, and takes you through a young artist's awakening to rage and purpose in the nineties era of Rodney King. It is a story of dizzying success and its devastating consequences. And, of course, it is the story of his music, his timeless message that will never die as it continues to touch and inspire past, present and future generations.

  • Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping

    by Shane McCrae

    $27.00

    *ship in 7-10 business days

    An unforgettable memoir by an award-winning poet about being kidnapped from his Black father and raised by his white supremacist grandparents.

    When Shane McCrae was three years old, his grandparents kidnapped him and took him to suburban Texas. His mom was white and his dad was Black, and to hide his Blackness from him, his maternal grandparents stole him from his father. In the years that followed, they manipulated and controlled him, refusing to acknowledge his heritage—all the while believing they were doing what was best for him.

    For their own safety and to ensure the kidnapping remained a success, Shane’s grandparents had to make sure that he never knew the full story, so he was raised to participate in his own disappearance. But despite elaborate fabrications and unreliable memories, Shane begins to reconstruct his own story and to forge his own identity. Gradually, the truth unveils itself, and with the truth, comes a path to reuniting with his father and finding his own place in the world.

    A revelatory account of a singularly American childhood that hauntingly echoes the larger story of race in our country, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun is written with the virtuosity and heart of one of the finest poets writing today. And it is also a powerful reflection on what is broken in America—but also what might heal and make it whole again.

  • Decolonizing the Body: Healing, Body-Centered Practices for Women of Color to Reclaim Confidence, Dignity, and Self-Worth

    by Kelsey Blackwell

    $19.95

    *Ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

    Decolonizing the Body explores the traumatic physical and emotional effects of colonization and systemic racism on the body and mind. Written by a woman of color for women of color, it offers body-centered somatic practices to free women from internalized oppression, so they can reclaim confidence, dignity, and self-worth.

    Powerful, body-based practices to help you reclaim confidence, dignity, and self-worth.

    As a woman of color, you are more likely to experience oppression, discrimination, and physical or sexual violence in your lifetime. In addition, your family may have experienced generational trauma and systemic racism going back for centuries. This old and new trauma can manifest in both the mind and body. However, there are ways you can free yourself from this trauma, build confidence in yourself and your abilities, and restore your powerful sense of self.

    Written by a woman of color for women of color, Decolonizing the Body offers proven-effective somatic, body-centered practices to help you heal from systemic oppression, trust the profound wisdom of your own body, and reconnect with your true self. And by slowing down, cultivating a daily ritual, and setting strong boundaries, you can reclaim your inherent dignity and worth—as well as those aspects of yourself that you may have cast aside in an effort to survive.

    With this empowering guide, you’ll discover:

    • How bodies are colonized through systems of oppression
    • Why slowing down is essential for healing
    • How to listen to what your body needs
    • How to create a space for ritual in your daily life
    • How to strengthen feelings of capability
    • How to cultivate community—starting with yourself

     

    To decolonize the body is to become whole again, and to come home again. Let this book be your guide on this crucial journey.

  • Unbought and Unbossed by Shirley Chisholm
    $17.99

    In this classic work—a blend of memoir social criticism, and political analysis that remains relevant today—the first Black Congresswoman to serve in American history, New York’s dynamic representative Shirley Chisholm, traces her extensive political struggle and examines the problems that have long plagued the American system of government.

    “A tremendously impressive book.”—Washington Post

    “Her motto and title of her autobiography—Unbossed and Unbought—illustrates her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.”—National Women’s History Museum


    “I want to be remembered as a woman . . . who dared to be a catalyst of change.”

    Political pioneer Shirley Chisholm—activist, member of the House of Representatives and former presidential candidate—was a woman who consistently broke barriers and inspired generations of American women, and especially women of color. Unbossed and Unbought is her story, told in her own words—a thoughtful and informed look at her rise from the streets of Brooklyn to the halls of Congress. Chisholm speaks out on her life in politics while illuminating the events, personalities, and issues of her time, including the schism in the Democratic party in the 1960s and ’70s—all which speak to us today.

    In this frank assessment, “Fighting Shirley” recalls how she took on an entrenched system, gave a public voice to millions, and embarked on a trailblazing bid to be the first woman and first African American President of the United States. By daring to be herself, Shirley Chisholm shows how one person forever changed the status quo.

  • You Owe You : Ignite Your Power, Your Purpose, and Your Why by Eric Thomas, PhD
    $27.00
    You owe it to yourself to recognize your gifts, your power, and your place in the world, no matter your story or your struggle, and Eric Thomas—celebrated motivational guru, educator, and problem-solver to many of the top athletes and business leaders—has the blueprint to get you there.

    If you feel like success is for others, that only certain people get to have their dreams fulfilled, Eric Thomas’s You Owe You is your wake-up call. His urgent message to stop waiting for inspiration to strike and take control of your life is one he wishes someone had given him when he was a teenager—lost, homeless, failing in school, and dealing with the challenges of being a young Black man in America.

    Once he was able to break free from thinking of himself as a victim and truly understand his strengths, he switched the script. And now, with this book, Thomas reveals how you, too, can rewrite your life's script. With support, he recognized that his unique gift is being able to capture the attention of all kinds of people in all kinds of settings—boardrooms, locker rooms, churches, classrooms, even the streets—thanks to his wealth of experiences and command of language. Today, Thomas considers himself blessed to speak to an audience that is as large as it is diverse, from the rich and famous to kids struggling in school to young men in prison hoping for a new start.

    Thomas’s secrets of success have already helped hundreds of thousands on their journey, but this is his first guide to show you how to start today, right now. These critical first steps include deeply understanding yourself and the world around you, finding your why, accepting that you may have to give up something good for something great, and constantly stretching toward your potential. No matter where you are on your journey toward greatness, you owe it to yourself to become fully, authentically you. And Eric Thomas’s You Owe You can help get you there.
  • Teaching with Equity: Strategies and Resources for Building a Culturally Responsive and Race-Conscious Classroom by Aja Hannah
    $15.95

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

     Learn how to incorporate equitable teaching practices in your everyday classroom with this helpful guide designed to help your young students thrive.


    Bringing racial equity into the classroom doesn’t have to be an intimidating task. Teaching with Equity will help you take the first step in making your classroom a fun, safe, and fulfilling environment for all students.

    First, start off by establishing a baseline: Where is racial equity lacking in your classroom and where are there opportunities for change? Then learn about the common stereotypes that students of color often face before finally diving into resources like interactive worksheets, surveys, grading rubrics, lesson plans, and more designed to help teachers:

    • Talk about race effectively with your young students
    • Include diverse people and cultures in assignments and homework
    • Provide learning resources and material that feature people of color
    • Build racial comfort in your classroom
    • And more!
    Teaching with Equity will help K–5 school teachers gain the confidence and knowledge needed to make their classroom equitable for students of all backgrounds.
  • The Quaking of America : An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation's Upheaval and Racial Reckoning by Resmaa Menakem
    $18.95

    *ships in 7-10 business days

    *ships in 7-10 business days

    The New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother's Hands surveys America's deteriorating democracy and offers embodied practices to help us protect ourselves and our country. 

    In The Quaking of America, therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem takes readers through somatic processes addressing the growing threat of white-supremacist political violence.

    Through the coordinated repetition of lies, anti-democratic elements in American society are working to incite mass radicalization, widespread chaos, and a collective trauma response in tens of millions of American bodies. 

    Currently, most of us are utterly unprepared for this potential mayhem. This book can help prepare us—and possibly prevent further destruction. This preparation focuses not on strategy or politics, but on practices that can help us

    • Build presence and discernment in our bodies
    • Settle our bodies during the heat of conflict
    • Maintain our safety, sanity, and stability in dangerous situations
    • Heal our personal and collective racialized trauma
    • Practice embodied social action
    • Turn toward instead of on one another

    The Quaking of America is a unique and perfectly timed guide to help us navigate our widespread upheaval and build an antiracist culture.

  • Rachel Ama's Vegan Eats: Tasty plant-based recipes for every day

    by Rachel Ama

    $39.95

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

    Find brilliant plant-based dishes that make cooking and enjoying delicious vegan food every day genuinely easy – and fun - in Rachel Ama’s Vegan Eats.

    No bland or boring dishes, and forget all-day cooking. Rachel takes inspiration from naturally vegan dishes and cuisines as well as her Caribbean and West African roots to create great full-flavour recipes that are easy to make and will inspire you to make vegan food part of your daily life.

    Rachel’s recipes are quick and often one-pot; ingredients lists are short and supermarket-friendly; dishes can be prepped-ahead and, most importantly, she has included a song with each recipe so that you have a banging playlist to go alongside every plate of delicious food.

    Cinnamon French toast with strawberries
    Chickpea sweet potato falafel
    Peanut rice and veg stir-fry
    Caribbean fritters
    Plantain burger

  • The Red Record

    by Ida B. Wells

    $6.99

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    A riveting examination of racial violence in America that occurred in the late-1800s. The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States, by Ida B. Wells, is an exemplary investigative report that details a wave of brutal murders plaguing African Americans, particularly in the South.

  • The Negro in the Making of America by Benjamin Quarles
    $24.99

    The bestselling, definitive study of African Americans throughout American history, now with a new introduction by noted scholar V. P. Franklin.

    In The Negro in the Making of America, eminent historian Benjamin Quarles provides one of the most comprehensive and readable accounts ever gathered in one volume of the role that African Americans have played in shaping the destiny of America. Starting with the arrival of the slave ships in the early 1600s and moving through the Colonial period, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and into the last half of the twentieth century, Quarles chronicles the sweep of events that have brought blacks and their struggle for social and economic equality to the forefront of American life.

    Through compelling portraits of central political, historical, and artistic figures such as Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, Duke Ellington, Malcolm X, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Quarles illuminates the African American contributions that have enriched the cultural heritage of America. This classic history also covers black participation in politics, the rise of a black business class, and the forms of discrimination experienced by blacks in housing, employment, and the media.

    Quarles's groundbreaking work not only surveys the role of black Americans as they engaged in the dual, simultaneous processes of assimilating into and transforming the culture of their country, but also, in a portrait of the white response to blacks, holds a mirror up to the deeper moral complexion of our nation's history. The restoration of this history holds a redemptive quality—one that can be used, in the author's words, as a "vehicle for present enlightenment, guidance, and enrichment."

  • The Perfect Day to Boss Up by Rick Ross
    $27.99

    Grammy-nominated hip hop icon and New York Times bestselling author Rick Ross' captivating and inspiring guide to building an untouchable empire from mud to marble, no matter what obstacles stand in the way

    *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*

    A captivating and inspiring guide to building an untouchable empire from mud to marble, no matter what obstacles stand in the way


    Rick Ross is a hip-hop icon and a towering figure in the business world, but his path to success was not always easy. Despite adversity and setbacks, Ross held tight to his vision and never settled for anything less than greatness. Now, for the first time, he shares his secrets to success, offering his own life as a road map to readers looking to build their own empire. Along the way he reveals: 
     

    • How to turn your ambition into action 
    • Tips for managing and investing your money 
    • Inside stories from his business and music ventures 
    • Why failure is central to success 
    • Secrets to handling stressful situations 
    • How to build the perfect team 
     
    As Ross explains, “It doesn’t matter what’s going on. Even the most dire situation is just another opportunity to boss up.”Intimate, insightful and brimming with no-nonsense advice, The Perfect Time to Boss Up is the ideal book for hustlers everywhere. 
     
  • We Should All Be Feminists: A Guided Journal

    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    $20.00

    *ships in 7-10 business days*

    From the best-selling author and global feminist icon—an illustrated, guided journal containing her most powerful and inspiring quotes, as well as an introductory essay written exclusively for this publication, to help readers discover their own feminist journeys.


    Her award-winning novels, including Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah; her stirring calls to arms We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele; her collaboration with Beyoncé; sharing the stage with Michelle Obama—each of these accomplishments has contributed to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s becoming one of the most iconic feminist figures of our time.

    Now, in this beautiful journal, her most inspirational words encourage you to find your own voice, to define what feminism means to you, and to tell your own story. Featuring a series of writing prompts, quotes, and important events in the history of feminism, We Should All Be Feminists: A Guided Journal promises to give readers the tools to understand feminism, as well as to empower them to become better, more confident writers and communicators.

  • The South by Adolph L. Reed
    $24.95

    A historical account of growing up Black in the Jim Crow South

    The last generation of Americans with a living memory of Jim Crow will soon disappear. They leave behind a collective memory of segregation shaped increasingly by its horrors and heroic defeat but not a nuanced understanding of everyday life in Jim Crow America. In The South, Adolph L. Reed Jr. — New Orleanian, political scientist, and according to Cornel West, “the greatest democratic theorist of his generation” — takes up the urgent task of recounting the granular realities of life in the last decades of the Jim Crow South.

    Reed illuminates the multifaceted structures of the segregationist order. Through his personal history and political acumen, we see America’s apartheid system from the ground up, not just its legal framework or systems of power, but the way these systems structured the day-to-day interactions, lives, and ambitions of ordinary working people.

    The South unravels the personal and political dimensions of the Jim Crow order, revealing the sources and objectives of this unstable regime, its contradictions and precarity, and the social order that would replace it.

  • Of Blood and Sweat

    by Clyde W. Ford

    $18.99

    In this, provocative, timely, and painstakingly researched book, the award-winning author of Think Black tells the story of how Black labor helped to create and sustain the wealth of the white one percent throughout American history.

    Clyde W. Ford uses the lives of individual Black men and women as a lens to explore the role they have played in creating American institutions of power and wealth—in agriculture, politics, jurisprudence, law enforcement, culture, medicine, financial services, and many other fields—while not being allowed to fully participate or share in the rewards. Today, activists have taken the struggle for racial equity and justice to the streets. Of Blood and Sweat goes back through time to excavate the roots of this struggle, from pre-colonial Africa through post-Civil War America. As Ford reveals, in tracing the history of almost any major American institution of power and wealth you’ll find it was created by Black Americans, or created to control them.

    Painstakingly researched and documented, Of Blood and Sweat is a compelling look at the past that holds broad implications for present-day calls for racial equity, racial justice, and the abolishment of systemic racism, and offers invaluable insight into our understanding of Black history and the story of America.

  • The Memo

    by Mindy Harts

    $17.99

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    From microaggressions to the wage gap, The Memo empowers women of color with actionable advice on challenges and offers a clear path to success.

    Most business books provide a one-size-fits-all approach to career advice that overlooks the unique barriers that women of color face. In The Memo, Minda Harts offers a much-needed career guide tailored specifically for women of color.

    Drawing on knowledge gained from her past career as a fundraising consultant to top colleges across the country, Harts now brings her powerhouse entrepreneurial experience as CEO of The Memo to the page. With wit and candor, she acknowledges "ugly truths" that keep women of color from having a seat at the table in corporate America. Providing straight talk on how to navigate networking, office politics, and money, while showing how to make real change to the system, The Memo offers support and long-overdue advice on how women of color can succeed in their careers.

  • Blood Brothers

    by Randy Roberts

    $18.99
    *ships/available for pickup in 7-10 business days*
    In 1962, boxing writers and fans considered Cassius Clay an obnoxious self-promoter, and few believed that he would become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X, the most famous minister in the Nation of Islam—a sect many white Americans deemed a hate cult—saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation’s message. The two became fast friends, keeping their interactions secret from the press for fear of jeopardizing Clay’s career. Clay began living a double life—a patriotic “good Negro” in public, and a radical reformer behind the scenes. Soon, however, their friendship would sour, with disastrous and far-reaching consequences.

    Based on previously untapped sources, from Malcolm’s personal papers to FBI records, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. Acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith reconstruct the worlds that shaped Malcolm and Clay, from the boxing arenas and mosques, to postwar New York and civil rights–era Miami. In an impressively detailed account, they reveal how Malcolm molded Cassius Clay into Muhammad Ali, helping him become an international symbol of black pride and black independence. Yet when Malcolm was barred from the Nation for criticizing the philandering of its leader, Elijah Muhammad, Ali turned his back on Malcolm—a choice that tragically contributed to the latter’s assassination in February 1965.

    Malcolm’s death marked the end of a critical phase of the civil rights movement, but the legacy of his friendship with Ali has endured. We inhabit a new era where the roles of entertainer and activist, of sports and politics, are more entwined than ever before. Blood Brothers is the story of how Ali redefined what it means to be a black athlete in America—after Malcolm first enlightened him. An extraordinary narrative of love and deep affection, as well as deceit, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the public and private lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.
    Randy Roberts is a distinguished professor of history at Purdue University. An award-winning author, he has written biographies of iconic athletes and celebrities, including Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Bear Bryant, and John Wayne. Roberts lives in Lafayette, Indiana.

  • The Women Who Caught The Babies

    by Eloise Greenfield

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    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    The Women Who Caught the Babies highlights important aspects of the training and work of African-American midwives and the ways in which they have helped, and continue to help, so many families by “catching” their babies at birth. The blend of Eloise Greenfield's poetry and Daniel Minter's art evokes heartfelt appreciation of the abilities of African-American midwives over the course of time. The poem “Africa to America" begins the poetic journey. The poem “The Women" both heralds the poetry/art pairing and concludes it with a note of gratitude. Also included is a piece titled “Miss Rovenia Mayo,” which pays tribute to the midwife who caught newborn Eloise.

  • So You Want to Talk About Race

    by Ijeoma Oluo

    $16.99

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    Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy -- from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans -- has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. How do you tell your roommate her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law take umbrage when you asked to touch her hair -- and how do you make it right? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend?

  • We Heal Together: Rituals and Practices for Building Community and Connection

    by Michelle Cassandra Johnson

    $19.95
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    A hopeful, wise, and practical guide to help us move  into spaces of individual and collective healing,  community, and relationship building—with practices to shed our isolation, connect, and thrive.

    ​In times of isolation, heartbreak, and brokenness, reaching out to each other, being in conversation, finding ways to connect with compassion and openness can help us heal, and thrive. This powerful, positive guide coaxes us to go beyond  our individual and collective grief, and courageously re-enter and reclaim our sense of community—which then further strengthens our spiritual practice.  

    Through spiritual teachings drawn from the Bhagavad Gita, mindfulness practices, rituals, resources, and journaling prompts in each chapter, Michelle Cassandra Johnson shows us how we can heal and facilitate healing; reclaim what it means to hold space and build community; find joy; connect to and summon support from our ancestors; connect with nature to strengthen and restore ourselves; and love, alchemize, dream, and conjure in community.

    Examples of practices include journaling on what community means to you; meditation with a ritual object; progressive muscle relaxation; Yoga Nidra; and many more—all adapted for use alone or in a group. Includes simple, evocative line drawings by Vashon Island, WA-artist, Ivan Moy.
  • Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America
    $31.00

    We all feel it, the teetering toward a place in America from which there is no return. The battle to remain hopeful in spite of injustice after injustice. In this powerful story of one lawyer’s fight for his community, both justice and hope are redeemed.

    The Greenwood neighborhood of North Tulsa was once a promised land for African Americans, deemed “Black Wall Street.” But on May 31, 1921, the deadliest race massacre in U.S. history sent Greenwood up in flames. At the time, Lessie Randle was just a child running to safety as bullets ricocheted around her. Almost a century later, lawyer Damario Solomon-Simmons knocks on her door asking if she’d be willing to run toward justice this time.

    In Redeem a Nation, we follow Solomon-Simmons’s fight for justice, from the courtrooms of Tulsa to our nation’s capital, representing three centenarians: the last survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Documenting a race against the calendar and the courts, Redeem a Nation grapples with the truth about corruption and disenfranchisement in America through this historic legal case for reparations and the deeply moving stories of survivors and descendants of the Massacre.

    Yet this isn’t just a story of Tulsa. The community is a microcosm of the continued harm America inflicts through racial violence and economic injustice. The damage of generational poverty and loss of opportunity isn’t some relic of the past. It is happening right now. Redeem a Nation offers a way forward for communities across the nation through systemic change and community love. The Time is now to resist, repair, and redeem a land once promised.

    “You think we can win?” Randle asked that day. This story is Solomon-Simmons’s answer.

  • The Myth of Bouncing Back: Ditching the Lies of Resilience and Learning How to Rise for Real
    $18.99

    A Roadmap for Coming Back Stronger After Life's Hardest Falls
    · How to lament, learn to stand again, and ultimately rebuild a beautiful life
    · Helps you understand how you grow and change as a result of life's challenges and disappointments
    · A hopeful, encouraging, and energizing book for the hurting

    There's no such thing as bouncing back. Whether that sentence made you frown in disagreement or sigh with relief that someone finally gets it, this book is for you. There's a lot of talk about resilience these days, but true resilience isn't just maintaining a positive attitude in the face of obstacles or returning to where you were before some difficulty or trauma occurred. It's a lifelong practice of falling, learning, and rising again with each new challenge. It's about becoming who you're meant to be.

    With deeply personal stories and biblical reflections, Charaia Rush guides you through a process of building resilience through the cycles of failure, faith, and transformation. She shows you how to
    · face your fears
    · own your story--yes, even the hard parts
    · release relationships, roles, or mindsets that no longer serve you
    · reclaim your intrinsic worth apart from achievements or approval
    · redefine success
    · trust the process
    · hold on to hope even when the future feels uncertain
    · and more

    Firmly grounded in God's promises, this practical and hopeful book offers a road map for rising again after life's hardest falls--while finding purpose in the process.

  • America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries
    $31.00

    The New York Times bestselling author of Begin Again confronts America’s unfinished story in this blistering reassessment of race, freedom, and the myths that bind us.

    Celebrated public intellectual Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. presents a groundbreaking analysis of the vicious cycles of American history and the country’s enduring refusal to face its true nature—especially at the moments when national anniversaries steer us back toward the mythology meant to disguise the truth.

    America, U.S.A., deliberately formulated and beautifully written, details a heart-wrenching exploration of America’s legacy. It is a magnificently complex combination of lessons and voices—from W.E.B. DuBois and John Dos Passos to Herman Melville and Martin Luther King, Jr.—that, together, paint a sprawling and honest tableau of the United States, its complicated past, and ever more tenuous future. Glaude’s is a powerful voice of conscience in our tumultuous world. He pulls no punches, calling on us to interrogate our conceptions of innocence and freedom and the stories we tell ourselves about our past and present.

    Centered around the major celebrations of America’s milestone birthdays across 250 years of history, the book offers a riveting look at the battles over who has a stake in writing the American story. Devastatingly candid, profoundly moving, and deeply reflective, America, U.S.A. is a shining meditation on how we must reckon with a grim past in order to strive for the better angels of our future.

  • Malcolm in the Desert: Wisdom from the Spiritual Transformation of Malcolm X
    $27.00

    Powerful self-transformation practices for navigating an increasingly uncertain world inspired by Malcolm X’s final years, written by his daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz.

    When Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, he did more than cross geographic borders–he transformed his vision of faith, justice, and freedom. In Malcolm in the Desert, his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz invites us to walk beside him on that journey of spiritual transformation. In retracing his steps, she helps us see how the work of changing the world so often begins within. 

    In Malcolm in the Desert, Shabazz reframes pilgrimage as a modern practice. She extracts keen lessons from her father’s life and legacy that show us the value of slowing down, listening deeply, and remembering who we truly are. Shabazz calls us to respond to crisis with courage, to meet grief with love, to rediscover faith as a creative force for change, and to dream in more revolutionary colors. These pages paint a new picture of Malcolm X through compassionate prose and galvanizing historical insight that shine alongside Jungian, Buddhist, and Islamic principles and wisdom from leading poets and scholars. Shabazz ties it all together  with simple practices to help us answer three central questions: Who are you? What do you care about? What is yours to do?

    Malcolm in the Desert reveals the human heart of a legend. It is a reminder of the outer challenges we all face and the inner work it takes to be a light in an unstable world.  It is both a daughter’s offering to her father’s legacy and a compassionate guide for anyone seeking direction through the deserts of their own becoming.

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