Non-fiction
- Lovely One: A Memoir
Lovely One: A Memoir
by Ketanji Brown Jackson
$35.00In this inspiring, intimate memoir, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court chronicles her extraordinary life story.
With this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji BrownJackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.
Named “Ketanji Onyika,” meaning “Lovely One,” based on a suggestion from her aunt, a Peace Corps worker stationed in West Africa, Justice Jackson learned from her educator parents to take pride in her heritage since birth. She describes her resolve as a young girl to honor this legacy and realize her dreams: from hearing stories of her grandparents and parents breaking barriers in the segregated South, to honing her voice in high school as an oratory champion and student body president, to graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where she performed in musical theater and improv and participated in pivotal student organizations.
Here, Justice Jackson pulls back the curtain, marrying the public record of her life with what is less known. She reveals what it takes to advance in the legal profession when most people in power don’t look like you, and to reconcile a demanding career with the joys and sacrifices of marriage and motherhood.
Through trials and triumphs, Justice Jackson’s journey will resonate with dreamers everywhere, especially those who nourish outsized ambitions and refuse to be turned aside. This moving, open-hearted tale will spread hope for a more just world, for generations to come. - Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
by adrienne maree brown
$16.00Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.
- Bamboozled By Jesus
Bamboozled By Jesus
by Yvonne Orji
$26.00*ships/available for pickup in 7-10 business days
Thriving stand-up comic and actress Yvonne Orji—best known as Issa Rae's BFF on the HBO series, Insecure—shares the secrets to living the life of your dreams.
Yvonne Orji has never shied away from being unapologetically herself, and that includes being outspoken about her faith. Known for interpreting Biblical stories and metaphors to fit current times, her humorous and accessible approach to faith leaves even non-believers inspired and wanting more.
The way Yvonne sees it, God is a Sovereign Prankster, punking folks long before Ashton Kutcher made it cool. When she meditates on her own life—complete with unforeseen blessings and unanticipated roadblocks—she realizes it’s one big testimony to how God tricked her into living out her wildest dreams. And she wants us to join in on getting bamboozled. This is not a Self-Help book—it’s a Get Yours book! - The Fire Next Time
The Fire Next Time
by James Baldwin
$14.00A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation, gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today.
“Basically the finest essay I’ve ever read. …Baldwin refused to hold anyone’s hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates
At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two ”letters,“ written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as ”sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature. - How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
by Clint Smith
from $18.99Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.
It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned maximum security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.
In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country’s most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.
Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Sm
- Black Women Writers at Work
Black Women Writers at Work
by Claudia Tate
$24.95A critical collection of conversations with Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones and other Black women writers that changed the scope of Black literature in the 20th century and beyond.
“Black women writers and critics are acting on the old adage that one must speak for oneself if one wishes to be heard.” —Claudia Tate, from the introduction
Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the 20th century.Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose work laid the foundation for many who have come after.
Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art.
Finally available for a new generation, this classic work has an urgent message for readers and writers today. - Barack Obama Selected Speeches
Barack Obama Selected Speeches
by Barack Obama
Sold outThis curated collection of landmark speeches chronicles Barack Obama's presence on the national stage, covers his signature policy initiatives, and addresses major moments in American life and history during his eight-year term as the 44th president of the United States.
Also included are speeches he made after he left the White House—most notably, his eulogy for John Lewis and his speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Obama’s eloquent speaking style and ability to connect with a wide range of audiences made him one of the most admired presidents in recent memory, even as he dealt with staunch party-line opposition in Congress.
Barack Obama Selected Speeches is a volume that will appeal to those with a keen interest in history, politics, and the role that the United States has played in shaping today’s world.
- Sister Outsider
Sister Outsider
by Audre Lorde
$16.99In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde’s philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published. - Collective Creative Actions: Project Row Houses at 25
Collective Creative Actions: Project Row Houses at 25
Sold outThis book highlights the history of the Third Ward neighborhood and Project Row Houses’ role in its development over the past 25 years. It addresses the idea of social art practice from the perspective of Project Row Houses’ 5 pillars: art and creativity, education, social safety net, good and relevant architecture, and economic sustainability. The book will also include a timeline of 25 important moments in PRH’s history, which include but aren’t limited to selected documentation of the 300+ artists who have participated in Artist Rounds since 1994 and 60+ mothers who have participated in the Young Mothers Residential Program since 1996; and selected photographs of community individuals and events throughout PRH's storied past.
Featured essays
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“Artists in Action” by Ryan N. Dennis, PRH Curator & Programs Director
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“Bound Up: Project Row Houses’ Covert Curriculum” by Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chairman of Education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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“A Soft Place to Stand: Escaping the Interlocking Systems of Race, Class, and Gender” by Assata-Nicole Richards, PhD, Founding Director of the Sankofa Research Institute (SRI) and Young Mothers Residential Program alumna
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“The Collaboration of Rice Building Workshop and Project Row Houses” by Danny Samuels and Nonya Grenader, founders of the Rice Building Workshop (BRW) program
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“Neighborhood Development and Art-Based Community Making” by George Lipsitz, Professor of Black Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara
The Project Row Houses model for art and social engagement applies not only to Houston, but also to diverse communities around the world. This book speak to these ideas while offering insightful texts by important voices in the field.
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- On Girlhood
On Girlhood
by Glory Edim
Sold outWith On Girlhood, Edim has beautifully curated a canonical work centering around the voices of young Black characters as they contend with innocence, belonging, love, and self-discovery. From the timeless lessons in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” (“this is how you smile to someone you like completely”) to those in Dana Johnson’s “Melvin in the Sixth Grade” (“this is how kids start fights”), these short stories illuminate the power and the precariousness of Black girlhood. Highlighting both iconic and lesser-known authors—Edwidge Danticat, Amina Gautier, Dorothy West, Paule Marshall, Shay Youngblood, and more—this is an indispensable compendium that will instill readers with “the nerve to walk [their] own way” (Zora Neale Hurston).
- God Is a Black Woman
God Is a Black Woman
by Christena Cleveland
$17.99In this timely, much-needed book, theologian, social psychologist, and activist Christena Cleveland recounts her personal journey to dismantle the cultural “whitemalegod” and uncover the Sacred Black Feminine, introducing a Black Female God who imbues us with hope, healing, and liberating presence.
For years, Christena Cleveland spoke about racial reconciliation to congregations, justice organizations, and colleges. But she increasingly felt she could no longer trust in the God she’d been implicitly taught to worship—a white male God who preferentially empowered white men despite his claim to love all people. A God who clearly did not relate to, advocate for, or affirm a Black woman like Christena.
Her crisis of faith sent her on an intellectual and spiritual journey through history and across France, on a 400-mile walking pilgrimage to the ancient shrines of Black Madonnas to find healing in the Sacred Black Feminine. God Is a Black Woman is the chronicle of her liberating transformation and a critique of a society shaped by white patriarchal Christianity and culture. Christena reveals how America’s collective idea of God as a white man has perpetuated hurt, hopelessness, and racial and gender oppression. Integrating her powerful personal story, womanist ideology, as well as theological, historical, and social science research, she invites us to take seriously the truth that God is not white nor male and gives us a new and hopeful path for connecting with the divine and honoring the sacredness of all Black people.
- Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
by Dr. Joy DeGruy
$19.95In the 16th century, the beginning of African enslavement in the Americas until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and emancipation in 1865, Africans were hunted like animals, captured, sold, tortured, and raped. They experienced the worst kind of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Given such history, isn't it likely that many of the enslaved were severely traumatized? And did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the abolition of slavery?
Emancipation was followed by one hundred more years of institutionalized subjugation through the enactment of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, peonage, convict leasing, domestic terrorism and lynching. Today the violations continue, and when combined with the crimes of the past, they result in yet unmeasured injury. What do repeated traumas, endured generation after generation by a people produce? What impact have these ordeals had on African Americans today?
Dr. Joy DeGruy, answers these questions and more. With over thirty years of practical experience as a professional in the mental health field, Dr. DeGruy encourages African Americans to view their attitudes, assumptions, and behaviors through the lens of history and so gain a greater understanding of how centuries of slavery and oppression have impacted people of African descent in America.
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome helps to lay the necessary foundation to ensure the well-being and sustained health of future generations and provides a rare glimpse into the evolution of society's beliefs, feelings, attitudes and behavior concerning race in America.
- The Will To Change
The Will To Change
by bell hooks
Sold outEveryone needs to love and be loved—even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving.
In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.
With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves. - South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
by Imani Perry
$19.99An essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South—and a revelatory argument for why you must understand the South in order to understand America
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.
This is the story of a Black woman and native Alabaman returning to the region she has always called home and considering it with fresh eyes. Her journey is full of detours, deep dives, and surprising encounters with places and people. She renders Southerners from all walks of life with sensitivity and honesty, sharing her thoughts about a troubling history and the ritual humiliations and joys that characterize so much of Southern life.
Weaving together stories of immigrant communities, contemporary artists, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes, her own ancestors, and her lived experiences, Imani Perry crafts a tapestry unlike any other. With uncommon insight and breathtaking clarity, South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.
- Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy
Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy
by Ali Velshi
$30.00A captivating family history that illustrates how small actions can have an outsized political impact.
Small acts of courage matter. Sometimes, they change the world. Our history books are filled with the stories of those who fought for democracy and freedom―for idealism itself―against all odds, from Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. These iconic struggles for social change illustrate the importance of engagement and activism, and offer a template for the battles we are fighting today. But using the right words is often easier than taking action; action can be hard, and costly.
More than a century ago, MSNBC host Ali Velshi’s great-grandfather sent his seven-year-old son to live at Tolstoy Farm, Gandhi’s ashram in South Africa. This difficult decision would change the trajectory of his family history forever. From childhood, Velshi’s grandfather was imbued with an ethos of public service and social justice, and a belief in absolute equality among all people―ideals that his children carried forward as they escaped apartheid, emigrating to Kenya and ultimately Canada and the United States.
In Small Acts of Courage, Velshi taps into 125 years of family history to advocate for social justice as a living, breathing experience―a way of life more than an ideology. With rich detail and vivid prose, he relates the stories of regular people who made a lasting commitment to fight for change, even when success seemed impossible. This heartfelt exploration of how we can breathe new life into the principles of pluralistic democracy is an urgent call to action―for progress to be possible, we must all do whatever we can to make a difference.
- Worthy
Worthy
by Jada Pinkett Smith
$32.00*Ships in 7-10 business days*
A gripping, at times painfully honest, and irresistibly inspirational memoir from global superstar Jada Pinkett Smith. Pulling no punches, Smith chronicles lessons of her storied life—from her rebellious youth running the Baltimore streets in the heyday of drug trafficking, to in-demand actress, outspoken activist, to wife and mother in a seeming dream-come-true of Hollywood success. A rollercoaster ride into the shadow of feeling incurably unlovable, Smith’s account takes us from the depths of suicidal depression to the heights of self-love, spiritual healing, and a collective celebration of authentic feminine power.
In a media landscape full of false narratives imposed on celebrities, and in a culture primed to deny women their own heroic journeys, Jada Pinkett Smith has chosen to tell her story in her way—by having a conversation with readers, sharing her journey from lost girl to woman warrior to queen of her own heart, to the knowledge that we are all indeed Worthy.
I open my story at age forty, desperate for help and on the brink of taking my own life. For years I thought I’d checked all the right boxes needed for happiness—career, family, marriage, fame and fortune. All the while I had been running from the wounds within that prevented me from feeling the love and well-being I so wanted. Having come to a point where there was nowhere else to run, I set out on a journey towards curing my urges of self-destruction which required me to confront the truths of the past—from my birth to two teenaged parents, both struggling with addiction, to the haven created by my grandmother who taught me the power of familial love; from my deep friendship with Tupac Shakur that began in high school to my early career breaks and refusal to play the Hollywood game; from my joyful embrace of motherhood to the complicated journey I’ve shared with my husband Will Smith, to lessons learned in the best and worst of times—including “the Slap”; from a deepened spiritual quest for answers to life’s most confounding mysteries to my search to truly understand what it means to love and be loved. Writing Worthy has reinforced my belief that for all our differences, far too many of us suffer from the lies of being unlovable, so much so that we lose sight of who we are and of the richly rewarding lives that are our due. My hope is that my story, as unconventional as it may seem, may give you back your story and the parts that remind you how you came to this life to know—love. Let that love begin with you through the understanding that no matter what—you are Worthy.
Worthy is told in loose chronological order, with segues between the main passages that offer prescriptive, straight to the reader messages and suggestions for applying lessons universally. Meant to be conversation starters, these sections will be in red ink, bringing readers to the “table” and asking them to examine their own lives. An impactful, authentic, and rare memoir that engages and educates, Worthy is a love song to self, to family, to life, and to the world.
- Black Futures
Black Futures
by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham
$40.00Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work—art, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more—to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics.
- Imagination: A Manifesto
Imagination: A Manifesto
by Ruha Benjamin
from $12.00In this revelatory work, Ruha Benjamin calls on us to take imagination seriously as a site of struggle and a place of possibility for reshaping the future.
A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn’t strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.
Imagination: A Manifesto is her proclamation that we have the power to use our imaginations to challenge systems of oppression and to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable—but all emerged from the human imagination.
The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems.
Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison’s instruction: “Dream a little before you think.”
- Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture
by Sherronda J. Brown
$17.95For readers of Ace and Belly of the Beast: A Black queer feminist exploration of asexuality--and an incisive interrogation of the sex-obsessed culture that invisibilizes and ignores asexual and A-spec identity.
Everything you know about sex and asexuality is (probably) wrong.
The notion that everyone wants sex--and that we all have to have it--is false. It’s intertwined with our ideas about capitalism, race, gender, and queerness. And it impacts the most marginalized among us. For asexual folks, it means that ace and A-spec identity is often defined by a queerness that’s not queer enough, seen through a lens of perceived lack: lack of pleasure, connection, joy, maturity, and even humanity.
In this exploration of what it means to be Black and asexual in America today, Sherronda J. Brown offers new perspectives on asexuality. She takes an incisive look at how anti-Blackness, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and capitalism enact harm against asexual people, contextualizing acephobia within a racial framework in the first book of its kind. Brown advocates for the “A” in LGBTQIA+, affirming that to be asexual is to be queer--despite the gatekeeping and denial that often says otherwise.
With chapters on desire, f*ckability, utility, refusal, and possibilities, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality discusses topics of deep relevance to ace and a-spec communities. It centers the Black asexual experience--and demands visibility in a world that pathologizes and denies asexuality, denigrates queerness, and specifically sexualizes Black people.
A necessary and unapologetic reclamation, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is smart, timely, and an essential read for asexuals, aromantics, queer readers, and anyone looking to better understand sexual politics in America. - A Black Women's History of the United States
A Black Women's History of the United States
by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
$28.95A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are—and have always been—instrumental in shaping our country.
A Black Women’s History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women’s lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women’s history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
as told to Alex Haley
$9.99ONE OF TIME’S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America. - The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine
The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine
Ricardo Nuila
Sold out“Nuila’s storytelling gifts place him alongside colleagues like Atul Gawande.” —Los Angeles Times
This “compelling mixture of health care policy and gripping stories from the frontlines of medicine” (The Guardian) explores the question: where does an uninsured person go when turned away by hospitals, clinics, and doctors?
Here, we follow the lives of five uninsured Houstonians as their struggle for survival leads them to a hospital that prioritizes people over profit. First, we meet Stephen, the restaurant franchise manager who signed up for his company’s lowest priced plan, only to find himself facing insurmountable costs after a cancer diagnosis. Then Christian—a young college student and retail worker who can’t seem to get an accurate diagnosis, let alone treatment, for his debilitating knee pain. Geronimo, thirty-six years old, has liver failure, but his meager disability check disqualifies him for Medicaid—and puts a life-saving transplant just out of reach. Roxana, who’s lived in the community without a visa for more than two decades, suffers from complications related to her cancer treatment. And finally, there’s Ebonie, a young mother whose high-risk pregnancy endangers her life. Whether due to immigration status, income, or the vagaries of state Medicaid law, all five are denied access to care. For all five, this exclusion could prove life-threatening.
Each patient eventually lands at Ben Taub, the county hospital where Dr. Nuila has worked for over a decade. Nuila delves with empathy into the experiences of his patients, braiding their dramas into a singular narrative that contradicts the established idea that the only way to receive good health care is with good insurance. As readers follow the moving twists and turns in each patient’s story, it’s impossible to deny that our system is broken—and that Ben Taub’s innovative model, where patient care is more important than insurance payments, could help light the path forward.
- African American Herbalism: A Practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions
African American Herbalism: A Practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions
by Lucretia Van Dyke
Sold outDiscover the roots of modern-day herbal remedies, plant medicine, holistic rituals, natural recipes, and more that were created by African American herbal healers throughout history.
This first-of-its-kind herbal guide takes you through the origins of herbal practices rooted in African American tradition—from Ancient Egypt and the African tropics to the Caribbean and the United States. Inside you’ll find the stories of herbal healers like Emma Dupree and Henrietta Jeffries, who made modern American herbalism what it is today.
After rediscovering the forgotten legacies of these healers, African American Herbalism dives into the important contributions they made to the world of herbalism, including:- Rituals for sacred bathing and skin care
- Herbal tinctures, potions, and medicine
- Recipes for healing meals and soul food
- And more!
- Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America
Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America
by Joel Edward Goza
$34.99Like many well-intentioned white people, Goza once believed that he could support Black America’s struggle for equality without supporting reparations. Reparations, he thought, were altogether irrelevant to the real work of racial justice.
This is a book about why he was wrong. In fact, any effort to heal our nation’s wounds will fail without reparations.
In Rebirth of a Nation, Goza exposes lesser-known aspects of racism in American history and how Black people have consistently been depicted as responsible for their own oppression to justify slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration and gross inequality. Goza’s iconoclastic and incisive account exposes how revered figures like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln embedded white supremacy deep into our nation’s consciousness—and how Ronald Reagan manipulated this ideology so that society cheered as he advanced a set of policies that wounded our nation and intensified Black America’s suffering.But Rebirth of a Nation is not merely about accountability. It is also about hope. A reparations process is not a utopian dream; Goza offers a practical path toward closing the racial wealth gap. Rebirth of a Nation shows readers how they can join the reparative process, working toward the creation of a more perfect union.
- I Finally Bought Some Jordans: Essays
I Finally Bought Some Jordans: Essays
by Michael Arceneaux
$19.99"Very good writers have an ability to make you understand what they're feeling. But the very best writers have an ability to make you understand what you're feeling. And that's where Michael Arceneaux sits, and that's what he does in this new book. It's like he's crawling around inside your head opening file cabinets and telling you what the gibberish you've scribbled on each page in each file means. What a great, fun read."—Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author
New York Times bestselling author Michael Arceneaux returns with a hilarious collection of essays about making your voice heard in an increasingly noisy and chaotic world.
In his books I Can't Date Jesus and I Don't Want to Die Poor, Michael Arceneaux established himself as one of the most beloved and entertaining writers of his generation, touching upon such hot-button topics as race, class, sexuality, labor, debt, and, of course, paying homage to the power and wisdom of Beyoncé. In this collection, Arceneaux takes stock of how far he has traveled—and how much ground he still has to cover in this patriarchal, heteronormative society. He explores the opportunities afforded to Black creatives but also the doors that remain shut or ever-so-slightly ajar; the confounding challenges of dating in a time when social media has made everything both more accessible and more unreliable; and the allure of returning home while still pushing yourself to seek opportunity elsewhere.
I Finally Bought Some Jordans is both a corrective to, and a balm for, these troubling times, revealing a sharply funny and keen-eyed storyteller working at the height of his craft.
- The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love
The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love
by Sonya Renee Taylor
$18.95*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*
The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world—for us all.
This second edition includes stories from Taylor’s travels around the world combating body terrorism and shines a light on the path toward liberation guided by love. In a brand new final chapter, she offers specific tools, actions, and resources for confronting racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia. And she provides a case study showing how radical self-love not only dismantles shame and self-loathing in us but has the power to dismantle entire systems of injustice. Together with the accompanying workbook, Your Body Is Not an Apology, Taylor brings the practice of radical self-love to life. - Black Love Letters
Black Love Letters
by Cole Brown & Natalie Johnson
$24.00One of W magazine’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023
"We reserve this space for our humanity in all of its fond, ironic, elated, grief-stricken, confused glory . . . When you find yourself alone and downtrodden, when the news is too much, return to these pages. This one is for you." —from the introduction by Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson
"There's something particularly special about Black Love. When you consider the history of our people, the strife and adversity we've overcome, love seems an almost illogically ambitious act of resistance." —from the foreword by John Legend
From celebrated Black writers, creators, and thinkers—and with a foreword by John Legend—comes a collection of letters and original illustrations on the subject of Black love, a powerful and heartfelt celebration of Blackness in all its many forms.
In this exquisite anthology of letters and illustrations, Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson bring together a constellation of influential Black figures to write to the people, places, and moments that mean the most to them. With a foreword from John Legend and contributions from Brontez Purnell, Morgan Jerkins, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Dr. Imani Perry, among many others, Black Love Letters is an ode to a phenomenal community: a testament to the fact that where there has been pain and suffering, there has also always been immeasurable, irrepressible joy and love.
With letters from: Akili King • Reverend Al Sharpton • Alexandra Elle • Allisa Charles-Findley • Barbara Edelin • Belinda Walker • Ben Crump • Bill Whitaker • Bilquisu Abdullah • Brianna Holt • Brontez Purnell • Cole Brown • Danez Smith • Dick Parsons • Deborah Willis • Doug Jones • Douglas Kearney • Imani Perry • Jamila Woods • Jan Menafee • Jayne Allen • Jeh Charles Johnson • Jenna Wortham • Jonathan Capehart • John Legend • Joel Castón • Joy-Ann Reid • Justus Cornelius Pugh • Kwame Dawes • Lynae Vanee Bogues • Mahogany Browne • Malachi Elijah • Michael Eric Dyson • Morgan Jerkins • Nadia Owusu • Natalie Johnson • Raka Reynolds • Rhianna Jones • Chef Rōze Traore • Sojourner Brown • Tarana Burke • Tembe Denton-Hurst • Topaz Jones • Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts • VJ Jenkins - Remember Love: Words for Tender Times
Remember Love: Words for Tender Times
By Cleo Wade
$26.00Cleo Wade is that friend you dream of having—the one you could phone in your darkest hours, confident she’d say the perfect thing, because no matter what you’re going through, she’s going to meet you with warmth and understanding. She’s never shied away from her own setbacks and heartbreaks; she’s embraced them and distilled them into pearls of essential truth and sincere advice which can help get you through, can make you see that tomorrow still lies straight ahead. If only you had such a friend...
And now you do.
Remember Love, Cleo Wade’s first original work for adults since her widely adored Heart Talk, offers the consoling, inspiring voice that so many are craving amid the chaos of modern life. In clear, deep, generous poetry and prose, she urges those feeling confused, lost, or overwhelmed by change to return to what’s essential: love. Time and again, she reminds us that love, particularly self-love, is what saves us, even on our worst days—especially on our worst days. Love, Cleo says, is the sacred birthright of every human being. It’s not a want; it’s a need, and we require its nourishment now more than ever.
Reminiscent of the comfort found in classic favorites from Maya Angelou and Mary Oliver, Remember Love is a counsel, an offering, a beautiful lifeline for members of every generation. - Sweet Potato Soul
Sweet Potato Soul
by Jenne Claiborne
$19.99100 vegan recipes that riff on Southern cooking in surprising and delicious ways, beautifully illustrated with full-color photography.
Jenné Claiborne grew up in Atlanta eating classic Soul Food—fluffy biscuits, smoky sausage, Nana's sweet potato pie—but thought she'd have to give all that up when she went vegan. As a chef, she instead spent years tweaking and experimenting to infuse plant-based, life-giving, glow-worthy foods with the flavor and depth that feeds the soul.
In Sweet Potato Soul, Jenné revives the long tradition of using fresh, local ingredients creatively in dishes like Coconut Collard Salad and Fried Cauliflower Chicken. She improvises new flavors in Peach Date BBQ Jackfruit Sliders and Sweet Potato-Tahini Cookies. She celebrates the plant-based roots of the cuisine in Bootylicious Gumbo and savory-sweet Georgia Watermelon & Peach Salad. And she updates classics with Jalapeño Hush Puppies, and her favorite, Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls.
Along the way, Jenné explores the narratives surrounding iconic and beloved soul food recipes, as well as their innate nutritional benefits—you've heard that dandelion, mustard, and turnip greens, okra, and black eyed peas are nutrition superstars, but here's how to make them super tasty, too.
From decadent pound cakes and ginger-kissed fruit cobblers to smokey collard greens, amazing crabcakes and the most comforting sweet potato pie you'll ever taste, these better-than-the-original takes on crave-worthy dishes are good for your health, heart, and soul. - Freedom Dreams (TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION): The Black Radical Imagination
Freedom Dreams (TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION): The Black Radical Imagination
by Robin D.G. Kelley
$19.95*ships in 7 - 10 business days*
The 20th-anniversary edition of Kelley’s influential history of 20th-century Black radicalism, with new reflections on current movements and their impact on the author, and a foreword by poet Aja Monet
First published in 2002, Freedom Dreams is a staple in the study of the Black radical tradition. Unearthing the thrilling history of grassroots movements and renegade intellectuals and artists, Kelley recovers the dreams of the future worlds Black radicals struggled to achieve.
Focusing on the insights of activists, from the Revolutionary Action Movement to the insurgent poetics of Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, Kelley chronicles the quest for a homeland, the hope that communism offered, the politics of surrealism, the transformative potential of Black feminism, and the long dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow.
In this edition, Kelley includes a new introduction reflecting on how movements of the past 20 years have expanded his own vision of freedom to include mutual care, disability justice, abolition, and decolonization, and a new epilogue exploring the visionary organizing of today’s freedom dreamers.
This classic history of the power of the Black radical imagination is as timely as when it was first published. - Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships
Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships
by Nedra Glover Tawwab
$27.00From the bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, a road map for understanding and moving past family struggles—and living your life, your way.
Every family has a story. For some of us, our family of origin is a solid foundation that feeds our confidence and helps us navigate life’s challenges. For others, it’s a source of pain, hurt, and conflict that can feel like a lifelong burden. In this empowering guide, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers clear advice for identifying dysfunctional family patterns and choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and moving forward.
Covering topics ranging from the trauma of emotional neglect, to the legacy of addicted or absent parents, to mental health struggles in siblings and other relatives, and more, this clear and compassionate guide will help you take control of your own life—and honor the person you truly are. - The Enneagram for Black Liberation: Return to Who You Are Beneath the Armor You Carry
The Enneagram for Black Liberation: Return to Who You Are Beneath the Armor You Carry
by Chichi Agorom
$19.99Am I worthy of belonging? Am I loved just as I am? Am I safe to exist without worry?
How do Black women return to our truest selves in systems that answer "no" to these three questions?
The Enneagram is an ancient system of human development that shows us the limiting stories that keep us stuck in unhelpful patterns, and invites us into more expansive stories. For too long, conversations about the Enneagram and its personality types have been centered on and by whiteness. In The Enneagram for Black Liberation, certified Enneagram teacher and trained psychotherapist Chichi Agorom reclaims the Enneagram as a powerful tool for Black women to rediscover our wholeness and worth that existed long before systems of supremacy told us we weren't enough.
For Black women in particular, our Enneagram personality types reflect more than just our way of being in the world; they are shaped by armor that we use to protect ourselves from pain, suffering, and shame. Breaking down each Enneagram type as a form of armor, this book offers practices to help Black women, and all who live on the margins, begin to build a sense of self separate from our mechanisms of self-protection, while working to dismantle the systems that require us to stay constantly armored up. Chichi Agorom takes readers through each of the nine Enneagram types, along with stories of Black women who identify with them, to illustrate the stories people must tell themselves in order to feel safe. In the process, Agorom seeks to inspire us to expand beyond our type patterns.
Wholeness work is justice work. Centering freedom, ease, and rest for Black women, Agorom invites each of us to claim the Enneagram as our tool for resilience-building in the continued fight for liberation.
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