Non-fiction

  • PRE-ORDER: Jesse Jackson: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations (The Last Interview Series)
    $20.99

    "My clothes are different, my face is different, my hair is different, but I am somebody. I am black, brown, white. I speak a different language. But I must be respected, protected, never rejected. I am God’s child. ⁣I am somebody.” —Jesse Jackson

    Few figures loom as large as Reverend Jesse Jackson in the history of American civil rights. From marching in the 1960s with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to forming the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, to his historic presidential campaigns, Jesse Jackson spent his life at the forefront of the civil rights movement. Recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and NAACP Spingarn Medal, Jackson is undoubtedly one of the most consequential figures in the nation's history.

    Collected here are rare and previously uncollected interviews with magazines, newspapers, and television broadcasts. In them, Jackson talks of his work with Dr. King, and the tragic night when he was killed. He addresses the economic deregulation of the 1970s, how it translated to tax cuts for the wealthy but few benefits for the poor and underrepresented. He tells of his own presidential campaigns and, with the political rise of Barack Obama, anticipates the election of the country's first Black president. From these brief glimpses emerges a picture of a man of moral purpose, who taught us that the only justification to look down on someone is to stop and pick them up.

  • PRE-ORDER: Girl, Start That Business!: The Foolproof Plan to Turn Your Idea into Income and Change Your Life
    $32.00

    The pocket MBA for entrepreneurial moms and women of color who want to build a business from scratch, overcome financial obstacles, and shift the trajectory of their life, from a globally recognized entrepreneur, business coach, and digital educator.

    While starting a new business is hard for everyone—half close their doors within the first five years—it’s even harder for female entrepreneurs. Ellie Diop, founder and CEO of Ellievated Academy, Fully Funded Co., and Mommy to Millionaire, intimately knows the barriers that historically have kept women from economic freedom. She also knows how to overcome them.

    From starting her business with a single $1,200 stimulus check in 2020, to becoming a self-made millionaire in her very first year, Ellie has mastered the art of life changing entrepreneurial success—and now, with Girl, Start that Business!, she’s ready to share those secrets.

    The strategies within these pages are battle tested: Ellie has turned thousands of her clients into profitable business owners. And she’s done so by meeting them where they are. Ellie knows many women are starting from zero—no money, no business plan, no customers. What they do have is a great idea, hustle, heart, and street savvy. This non-judgmental, sassy, and whip-smart pocket MBA is what female entrepreneurs need to turn their dreams into life-changing reality.

    Let’s go, girl, start that business today!

  • PRE-ORDER: Blackness Thirteen Ways: Art, Life, & the Revisions of a Mulatta Lesbian
    $32.00

    The art historian, poet, and novelist close-reads images, moving and still, canonical and lesser known, that have shaped her evolving identity as an American “Mulatta” lesbian born at the end of the Civil Rights Movement in this singular blend of life-writing and cultural studies.

    The daughter of the WASP mother who raised her and a Black father she has never known, J. Vanessa Lyon delivers a candid memoir across thirteen uniquely structured chapters in conversation with enduring, often damaging, mis/representations of so-called race mixing in fine art and popular media. Reflecting on a lifetime of being “dis-read,” she examines insidious cultural tropes of White passing beginning with art from the era of transatlantic slavery—from Rembrandt and Rubens, Gentileschi and Stubbs, to Manet—before moving on to Br’er Rabbit, Louise Nevelson, 1950s melodrama, and Adrian Piper. Original analysis of a broad chronological range of visual art parallels the unfolding of Lyon’s sense of self as animated by the interiors and geographies—not to mention the challenging and remarkable women—that have figured in her life. Through her investigations, she comes to terms with long-withheld information and the seemingly unalterable reality of being an out lesbian who, legally Black, may never be viewed by Whites or other African Americans in the ways she experiences her own raced and gendered personhood.

    By turns scholarly and intimate, Blackness Thirteen Ways reveals surprising connections between the art Lyon teaches and the woman she has become, challenging history to accommodate an unapologetic image of herself and other “impassably” Black women.

  • PRE-ORDER: Fearless Freedom: A Manifesto for Unlocking Wealth and Equality for All
    $31.00

    An upcoming book to be published by Penguin Random House.

  • PRE-ORDER: Carla Bakes: Sweet, Savory, and from the Heart [A Baking Book]
    $40.00

    Acclaimed chef, TV host, Top Chef fan-favorite, and author Carla Hall returns to her first culinary love story—baking—with over 80 sweet and savory recipes.

    “For years, I have had the pleasure of sitting next to Carla and listening to her explain the science and the art of baking. Now you get to experience her knowledge, wisdom, and humor as well in Carla Bakes.”—Duff Goldman

    For Carla Hall, baking is a creative outlet, her source of play, and her first true passion. But her journey from absolute beginner to Top Chef fan-favorite didn't start until she was well into her twenties with two careers— accounting and modeling —already behind her. Away from home and missing the Southern flavors she grew up with, she took to the kitchen and began to experiment, master, and perfect.

    Now, as a multi-cookbook author and guest judge on multiple baking competitions, Carla is ready to share all her baking knowledge that will guide you whether you're at novice baker or an expert one. Carla Bakes is filled with over 80 recipes for baking savory and sweet goods rooted in her Southern traditions and inspired by her world travels. Carla brings her joy and playfulness to every recipe, showing you just how much fun it is to bake and bring your own twists to new recipes, including:

    • breakfast treats like Sorghum Flour Drop Biscuits, Crisp Sweet Corn Waffles, and Savory Clafoutis with Tomatoes, Goat Cheese, and Smoky Tomato Curd
    • cookies like Nut Butter Puffed Cereal Treats, Southern Pecan Crinkle Baklava, and Shortbread Cookie Canvas
    • pastries like Giant Frosted Strawberry Pop Tart, Sweet Po-Punkin Pie, and Ham & Cheese Paris-Brest
    • cakes like Double Chocolate Oat Flour Snack Cake, Lemon Meringue Cake, and Fairytale Forest Party Cake
    • yeasted goods like Hot Cross Milk Buns with Port- and Hibiscus-Soaked Fruit, Butternut Squash Beignets with Spiced Sugar, and Chocolate Focaccia

    If you've ever felt intimidated by baking, set those fears aside. Carla's expert guidance and encouragement in Carla Bakes will leave you feeling confident and inspired in your kitchen!

  • PRE-ORDER: Major Taylor
    $30.00

    Celebrating the history-making Black American who smashed world records and became a global cycling sensation!

    Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor was one of the greatest American athletes of the early 20th century, setting records in regional bike races as a teen and winning his first world championship by the age of twenty. But Taylor was born in 1878 in Indianapolis and came of age during the height of the Jim Crow era, facing racism at every turn.

    Cartoonist Frederick Noland is a cyclist himself and in this epic 400 page graphic biography of America's first Black world champion, he thrills in the records Taylor broke and the adoring public he found across North America, Europe, and Australia, all the while showing how the invention of the bicycle changed society. Yet Noland also documents how racism inflected Black life in the post Civil War era: cyclists would collude to injure Taylor, and he faced segregationist policies even in liberal cities such as San Francisco. And while Taylor found respite racing overseas, he soon found American-style racism exported internationally to sell tickets.

    Noland pens a gorgeous, humane, graphic paean to Major Taylor, illustrating how the fastest man in America also had a deep well of integrity and fortitude not just to succeed, but to overcome the racist abuse he faced from fellow athletes and society at large. Major Taylor is a loving tribute to an exceptional American.

  • PRE-ORDER: How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington
    $35.00

    From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Franchise comes the little-known story of the pioneering Black women artists and activists who were seen, but barely heard, at the 1963 March on Washington.

    "Chatelain lets us see the complexities of these women’s lives, feel their pain, and marvel at their ability to cut through the thicket of racism and sexism."—Carol Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage

    "Chatelain brilliantly reframes one of the most enduring images in American memory through the women erased from its frame."—Alexis Coe, New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First

    There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered beneath the Lincoln Memorial to call for an end to segregation. There were reverends and rabbis, activists and Rat-Pack icons—and of course the day's headliner, whose prophetic dream of a post-Jim Crow world has forever defined the Civil Rights Movement. But there is no “class photo” of the Black women who helped organize the march, performed on its main stage, or were honored during its “Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom.”

    In How Bright the Path Grows, Marcia Chatelain weaves a gleaming group portrait of these singular women. Among this cohort were several household names: vaudeville icon Josephine Baker; civil rights activist Rosa Parks gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, and Daisy Bates, champion of the Little Rock Nine. But many were relative unknowns, including Eva Jessye, the choir director who designed the day’s musical program, and Anna Hedgeman, the coordinator who pushed in the eleventh hour for a tribute to Black women’s work.

    How Bright the Path Grows is a scintillating group biography, rendering the lives of thirteen Black women visionaries—some famous, others soon to be—in novelistic detail and like never seen before.

  • How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power
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    Anyone can write a rant against the state of American democracy today. Anyone can talk trash about politicians, or bemoan the apathy of the electorate, the low turnout, the low attention span, the cynicism. How To Get Stupid White Men... is a guide to getting off one’s cynical ass and doing something about it. Over the past six months, William Upski Wimsatt has been working with a group of people who have hitherto engaged in myriad forms of social work and political activism to develop a strategy that will effect positive change on American society through the electoral process. Rather than taking to the streets, rather than "bombing [graffitting] the suburbs," Wimsatt and his colleagues plan to "throw the bums out." This book will tell the story of 19 such cases over the past couple of years and outline all the potential races for 2004, describing the tactics to be utilized in an array of contested races across the country by creating coalitions of gay, enviro, Black, Latino and other young groups of voters. The goal is to make this the most useful politically life-changing book any 15-35 year old could read this election year.

  • NIGO: From Japan with Love
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    The life and cultural impact of musician and streetwear pioneer NIGO, founder of A Bathing Ape, as told through clothes and ephemera from his personal archive

    Working across street style, fashion, music and beyond, NIGO is a multifaceted artist, designer and creative director who has been shaping contemporary culture for over three decades, ever since he founded the influential streetwear label A Bathing Ape. His ability to draw from wide-ranging disciplines and cultural references has produced some of the most influential products in recent fashion history, such as the Bapesta sneaker. While partially inspired by vintage Americana, his clothing and shoe designs remain deeply rooted in Japanese subcultures.
    Charting NIGO’s inspirations, output and legacy from the 1980s to the present day, From Japan with Love takes a chrono-thematic approach. NIGO’s life story is told primarily through objects from his personal archive and collections―many published here for the first time. These include collectible merchandise, garments, music and film ephemera and printed matter, complemented by his own voice and those of his peers. The book also explores NIGO’s more recent discovery of pottery making, studying with ceramic artists and learning the rituals of the Japanese tea ceremony.
    Tomoaki Nagao, known as NIGO (born 1970) founded streetwear brand A Bathing Ape in 1993 and served as its chief designer for 20 years. He is a member of Teriyaki Boyz and Honest Boyz, and has collaborated with artists such as Pharrell, ASAP Rocky and Flavor Flav. In 2021 he became Artistic Director at luxury fashion house KENZO.

  • In the House: Celebrating America’s Leading Black Interior Designers
    $59.95

    A vibrant and inspiring celebration of America’s leading Black interior designers

    In the House is a groundbreaking showcase of the talent, vision, determination, and impact of today’s leading Black interior designers. With gorgeous photography, compelling profiles, and vivid narratives spotlighting signature projects, this book offers an intimate look into the work and inspiration of 33 trailblazing designers, including Brigette Romanek, Tiffany Brooks, Elliott Barnes, Ishka Designs, Forbes Masters, Beth Diana Smith, Keita Turner, Laura Hodges, Justina Blakeney, Leyden Lewis, Rayman Boozer, and many more.

    Featuring designers working in an extensive variety of styles and aesthetics, In the House spotlights the breadth and collective brilliance of Black interior designers in one volume. These creatives are redefining style, forging new paths within the industry, and setting new standards in residential spaces across the country and around the world.

    Author Alton LaDay’s introduction draws on his extensive interviews to explore the Black experience in interior design, honoring pioneers such as Cecil Hayes (the first Black designer to be featured in Architectural Digest, in 1997, and included on the AD 100 list, in 2000) and examining how far the field has come - and where it’s headed.

    Perfect for design enthusiasts and professionals alike, In the House is more than a visual feast; it’s a powerful testament to the creative impact of today’s Black interior designers, and a source of inspiration for the next generation of talent.

  • The African Ancestors Garden: History and Memory at the International African American Museum
    $59.95

    ‘[Walter Hood is] one of the great American landscape artists.’ – Former President Joseph R. Biden

    The first publication to document the International African American Museum’s landscape design by Hood Design Studio, illuminating its mission and historic site

    The African Ancestors Garden is the first book to be published in conjunction with the International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina. The museum’s landscape design by Hood Design Studio, led by award-winning Walter Hood, exemplifies the museum’s mission to reflect on its location at Gadsden’s Wharf, the point at which nearly half of all enslaved Africans arrived in North America.

    With contributions by figures critical to the realization of the International African American Museum, this significant book presents the intensive site research and concepts that went into the distinct spaces at the museum, including an infinity reflecting pool and an ethnobotanical showcase of African plants brought to North America though that landing. Hood’s design response to these historic grounds addresses memory, tragedy, and culture, a moving homage to the living Charleston community and the African diaspora at large.

    Hood Design Studio, led by MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant-winner Walter Hood, is at the forefront of the expanding field of social activism through design, and this book allows us a detailed overview of the conceptualization and creation of a remarkable and deeply meaningful landscape, proposing a way of designing public spaces and cultural institutions that embody the African American experience.

  • Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
    $18.99

    A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of “extraordinary grit” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

    When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.

    Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.

    “A crisp and compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling” (USA TODAY), historian and National Book Award finalist Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked everything to gain freedom from the famous founding father and most powerful man in the United States at the time.

  • PRE-ORDER: The A Word: A Mother’s Journey Through Autism and Love
    $29.99

    Actress, comedian and mother Tisha Campbell (Martin, My Wife and Kids) shares her entertaining, emotional, and sometimes comical journey navigating her son’s Autism diagnosis, offering realistic insight and personal stories of the challenges and triumphs that come with raising a child on the spectrum.

    This heartfelt and humor-filled memoir takes readers on an emotional rollercoaster as Tisha Campbell, actress, mother, activist, shares her journey of raising her son, Xen, who was diagnosed with autism. With raw honesty and a touch of wit, Tisha recounts the challenges, triumphs, and unexpected moments of joy that have defined her family's life. From the initial shock of the diagnosis to navigating the labyrinth of therapies, schools, and societal misconceptions, Tisha's story is a testament to resilience, love, and the power of community.

    Tish's quick wit and candid observations bring levity to even the most trying situations. Whether she's recounting her son's uncanny ability to identify Winnie the Pooh characters at five months old or her own misadventures in advocating for his needs, her warmth and humor shine through the story, making it both relatable and uplifting.

    At its core, this memoir is a love letter to Xen, celebrating his unique spirit and the lessons he has taught his family about patience, acceptance, and the beauty of individuality. It's also a rallying cry for parents, caregivers, and advocates, offering hope and practical insights for navigating the world of autism.

    With its blend of humor, heart, and unflinching honesty, The A Word is a poignant reminder that even in the face of adversity, love and laughter can light the way. Tisha's journey is not just about overcoming challenges—it's about embracing them and finding joy in the unexpected.

  • PRE-ORDER: Essential: Being Latino and Indispensable in America
    $32.00

    A deeply reported and personal exploration of identity, resilience, and belonging from one of the most influential Spanish-language journalists in the world, Essential offers a nuanced, urgent portrait of what it means to be Latino in today’s America and the contradictions of being vital to a country that still struggles to recognize you fully.

    In a country still grappling with its sense of identity and the question of who belongs, Essential explores: What does it mean to be Latino in America today?

    Blending years of on-the-ground reporting with personal reflection, Enrique Acevedo offers a layered, urgent portrait of a community both shaping and being shaped by the nation’s future. Latinos comprise nearly one in five Americans, including more than eleven million in California alone. Yet their place in the national conversation is too often reduced, politicized, or misunderstood, especially when filtered through the narrow lens of immigration.

    With President Trump back in office and immigration again a defining fault line in American politics, this book arrives at a pivotal moment. From frontline workers during the pandemic to families navigating the opaque machinery of deportation, Essential explores labor, identity, resilience, and the quiet contradictions Latinos carry every day. It challenges the false choice between assimilation and exclusion. It calls on the country to expand its definition of belonging to reflect its people's full complexity and history.

    Part memoir, part chronicle, Essential is a powerful testament to the stories we tell about who we are and who we still have the chance to become.

  • Black Women In Bloom
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    Black Women in Bloom is a limited-edition coffee table book celebrating the becoming journeys of Black women across the diaspora. Curated from Carefree’s archives (with new, never-published essays!) and edited by Carefree Magazine founder Anayo Awuzie, it is both a collectible art object and an intimate reading experience.

    Featuring over 30 essays from Black women writers around the world, alongside photography and original illustrations from Black artists. Each chapter follows the six stages of growth inspired by the lifecycle of a flower: Seeds, Growth, Reproduction, Pollination, Thorns, and Blooming.

  • Black Summers: Growing Up in the Urban Outdoors
    $24.99

    Remember frolicking outside during the long, jubilant days of summer? This vibrant collection invites readers to breathe deeply and return to that "carefree" season. From riding bikes with friends through the neighborhood, to hopping the ferry to Boblo Island, catching catfish along the river, dancing on warm nights to Afrobeats and jazz music, and cooling off in the Swimmobile, those sun-drenched memories were often clouded by racism for the Detroiters in this evocative anthology. These emerging and award-winning creators of all ages recount the struggles and triumph of staking their claim to public spaces. Ranging from poetry to essay, creative nonfiction to comics, this collection blends nostalgia with struggle and resilience. Arising from the iconic city of the African American experience comes this exploration of Black joy in the urban outdoors.

  • Latinx Dreams: Middle-Class Parents and the Promise of Mobility (Latina/o Sociology, 11)
    $30.00

    How newly middle-class Latinx parents navigate social mobility

    Latinx Dreams turns attention to Latinx parents who are new to the middle class―a group that has received little attention in past research on social class and parenting. How do newly middle-class Latinx parents engage in class-making through their parenting? What do they prioritize in their socialization of their children and why? And what parenting practices do they use to accomplish their goals? This book tells the story of the parenting strategies Latinxs engage in to negotiate upward mobility and how they think and feel about their approaches to raising their children.

    Based on in-depth interviews with middle class Latinx parents who grew up poor and working-class, Lorena Garcia shows how ethnoracial dynamics at the intersection of class, im/migration, and gender inform the lessons they teach their children about mobility, racialization, speaking Spanish, and developing skills for educational and future success. By accounting for the experiences of newly middle-class Latinx parents, this book offers further insight into class reproduction and mobility, and fills a gap in our understanding of how Latinxs who have grown up in the United States experience and navigate socioeconomic mobility.

  • Education for the Revolution: The Legacy of the Black Panther Party's Oakland Community School (Black Power)
    $30.00

    Traces the history of the Oakland Community School, the last Community Survival Program of the Black Panther Party

    Education for the Revolution offers the first comprehensive historical account of the last standing survival program of the Black Panther Party, the Oakland Community School. First established as the Children’s House in 1970 and operational until 1982, the Oakland Community School provided grade school children with holistic educational and communal practices that oriented them to the Black Panther Party’s political consciousness. Drawing from newspapers, oral histories, and archives, historian Robert P. Robinson links the history of the school to the Black historical tradition of resistance via education, framing the school as a union of Black self-determination and education history.

    Robinson situates the Oakland Community School within the Black Panther Party’s longstanding commitment to using education as a tool to achieve liberation. Long before terms like restorative justice, gender inclusion, and culturally relevant pedagogy were popular in classrooms, Robinson explores how students of the Oakland Community School were regarded as co-creators of knowledge alongside their teachers, local activists, and parents. Combining personal reflections from parents, students, and former faculty with an analysis of the school’s concrete teaching practices, the book asserts that their histories are vital to present-day educational efforts.

    Whereas popular narratives of the Black Panther Party argue that their political activism ceased by the early 1970s, this history of the Oakland Community School illuminates Black Panther women’s continued efforts to grow power through education. At once compelling and revelatory, Education for the Revolution cements the Oakland Community School’s legacy as one of the most enduring Black independent education projects for social justice, as well as a fascinating precursor to critical forms of education seen today.

  • The Black Catholic Movement: An Unfinished Fight for Self-Determination in the Church
    $30.00

    Charts the Black Catholic attempt to gain independence within the larger Catholic Church

    In 1971, a delegation of Black Catholics traveled to the Vatican seeking a meeting with Pope Paul VI. While they did not meet the pope, they informed Vatican officials of the plight of Black Catholics in the United States. They wished to form their own church governance, independent from the White bishops who oversaw their diocese, so that they could exercise governance over their parishes and schools, which were frequently under threat of closure. Their journey was a chapter in a long history of struggle around African American missions and the place of African Americans in the Catholic Church.

    The Black Catholic Movement charts the long arc of the movement among Black Catholics to seek independence within the Catholic Church. Influenced by the Black Power Movement’s struggle for self-determination as well as the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Black Catholic Movement hoped to establish new ecclesiastical structures that would give them ownership over their church. When American Catholicism proved inflexible to their demands, the break-away Afrocentric Church, Imani Temple, drew thousands of Black Catholics away from Roman Catholicism.

    Drawing on interviews and archival research in New Orleans, Detroit, and Washington, DC, the book reconstructs the Black Catholic struggle to maintain distinct Black Catholic communities and to preserve their spiritual, liturgical, and theological heritage. The volume comes up to the present, noting that although allowances have been made for Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church while maintaining their specific Anglican liturgies and traditions, the church has not granted this independence to Black Catholics. The debate about how to navigate unity within the Catholic Church while preserving Black Catholic heritage is still on-going. Ultimately, the book makes the case for the urgency of Black Catholic self-determination and self-governance.

  • Injurious Love: Racial Violence and Interracial Intimacy
    $32.00

    In Injurious Love: Racial Violence and Interracial Intimacy, Corrine Collins challenges one of the most durable liberal narratives of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: that interracial love functions as a natural antidote to racism. Across the United States and Great Britain, interracial relationships and multiracial families have frequently been celebrated as symbols of social progress, intimate proof that racial boundaries have softened. Collins asks what this story leaves out.

    Drawing on Black studies, critical mixed race studies, and Black queer feminist thought, Injurious Love examines how intimacy unfolds within the long histories of enslavement and colonization that shape racial life in the Anglosphere. Rather than treating love as a race-neutral force capable of transcending difference, Collins argues that interracial relationships are structured by enduring asymmetries of power and by racialized politics of desire. The book pays particular attention to the figure of the Black multiracial child, often cast as the emblem of a more harmonious future, and shows how this symbolic role can obscure how Blackness is mobilized to stabilize white racial power.

    Moving beyond romantic coupling, Collins also investigates the quieter but no less consequential intimacies of family and friendship. Through close readings of memoir, fiction, and poetry by writers including Danzy Senna, Zadie Smith, Bernardine Evaristo, Natasha Trethewey, Jackie Kay, and Catherine McKinley, Injurious Love traces how literary texts expose the injuries, disavowals, and contradictions embedded within interracial intimacy. The result is a provocative rethinking of love, power, and racial formation in contemporary culture.

  • Mama, Don’t You Weep: Black Motherhood, Performance, and the Costs of Grief (Performance and American Cultures)
    $30.00

    How Black maternal grief sustains, resists, and remakes Black life

    In 1955, Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to display her son’s brutalized body transformed private mourning into public activism, establishing a paradigm of "grief capital." In Mama, Don’t You Weep, Rhaisa Kameela Williams interrogates this phenomenon, arguing that Black maternal grief functions simultaneously as a political and financial commodity and a deeply embodied experience. Williams traces how Black women navigate the "murky waters" where their pain is leveraged as symbolic currency―reproducible, marketable, and subject to contract―while they simultaneously perform the quiet, ongoing labor of living with loss.

    Spanning the years 1955 to 1986, Williams employs performance studies to analyze the shift from the racial liberalism of the Civil Rights era to the rise of liberal multiculturalism. She examines a diverse archive, contrasting the "grief tours" of Mamie Till-Mobley with the debt resistance of the National Welfare Rights Organization and the creative works of Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor. Williams challenges the "frozen image" of the strong Black mother, distinguishing between grievance―the linear, legal demand for justice―and grief, which is cyclical, messy, and pervasive. By shifting focus away from the spectacle of murdered Black men and toward the material realities of the women left behind, Mama, Don’t You Weep reveals how Black maternal grief is generative, capacious, and inextricably bound to the nation’s political economy.

  • Neurofutures: Neurodiversity in Crip Time
    $35.00

    Reimagines neurodiversity through intersections of race, disability, and social justice

    Neurodiversity has progressed from niche activism to a household term; our culture is now saturated with social media ads promising to "train" ADHD brains and media tropes like the quirky savant. But amidst this barrage of content urging self-optimization against a neurotypical template, Neurofutures pauses to ask: what comes next? Editors Diana R. Paulin, M. Remi Yergeau, Ralph James Savarese, and Elizabeth J. Donaldson gather a diverse array of scholars and creatives to think through "crip time" ― sideways, chronic, manic, and executive dysfunction time ― to reimagine the future of cognitive difference.

    Moving beyond a simplistic celebration of diversity, the collection interrogates the intersections of race, disability, and social justice. Contributors offer "mad provocations" that span from Black neurodivergence and Afrofuturism to neuroqueer paradigms and animal liberation. Through analyses of cultural texts ― ranging from the folklore of "Little Eight John" to the speculative worlds of Octavia Butler and Shirley Jackson ― the essays deconstruct the violence of neurotypical norms while advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people to full lives and care.

    Neurofutures refuses the linear march of progress, instead delving into the complex, often hidden realities of lived experience to map a world that welcomes divergence, dissent, and deep compassion.

  • Centering Families of Color: A Reimagination of Family Law (Families, Law, and Society)
    $35.00

    Centers families of color in family law, revealing their pivotal role in shaping justice, equality, and social change and how their perspectives reframe the scope of family law

    Centering Families of Color argues for the reframing of how we define “family law.” Centering the voices and perspectives of families of color, it expands and contextualizes how the law functions in relation to families. It exposes the impact of structural inequalities as they differentially and hierarchically impact families. This groundbreaking volume thus reorients how we think of family law, offering the experiences of families of color as critical to both the diagnoses and solutions for structural inequality.

    While conventional treatment of families of color marginalizes their role socially and politically as add-ons, this volume centers them as essential. Leading scholars across disciplinary groups unearth and expose the hidden norms of family law, identify the critical history of how the law impacts families of color, and detail their dynamic contributions to social transformation. Families of color offer affirmative, resilient strategies for social justice and reform.

    At a time of diversity among families and dramatic changes in the pattern of life, this volume provides a critical examination of the legal structures that impact families from the much-needed perspective of families of color. Centering Families of Color showcases how families of color are central to understanding what family is and how families interact with the law.

  • This Book Is Full of Holes: Literary Bodies and the Invention of an Idiom
    $34.95

    Holes command attention. They make us giggle, squirm, and wonder. But what do they really mean to us and why are they so often surrounded by surprising discourses of power and control?

    For millennia, the figure of the hole stood as the cornerstone for idioms and expressions that denote emptiness, lack, absences, and voids. Approaching a hole makes one wary of imbalance or depravation. A hole demands to be filled. This Book Is Full of Holes challenges these hollow associations, offering instead a range of unexpected (and provocative) religious, sociosexual, philosophical, and scientific discourses.

    Through an analysis of a wide range of literary and cultural objects, yasser elhariry brings disparate discursive spheres into conversation. He nimbly juxtaposes the holey relationships between ancient Hebrew riddles and Hollywood space movies, ’90s grunge and Black astrophysics, Swiss cheese and philosophy, sacred ritual and postcolonial feminism.

    Satirical, dead serious, and deeply personal, elhariry’s treatise on this seemingly dead-end object―holes―illuminates the paradox that they nonetheless maintain a persistent hold on the imagination. His stylish analysis reveals their overlooked racialized, gendered, homophobic, and corporeal histories. Holes have been weaponized. This Book Is Full of Holes disarms.

  • Power in the Pews: Contesting the Pulpit in the Early Twentieth-Century Black Church
    $32.00

    Uses the life of a notorious early twentieth century Black evangelist to shed light on a transformative era for Black religious leadership and its perceived authority

    Power in the Pews explores one man’s meteoric rise to religious fame to illuminate how Black ministers’ power in urban Black life came to be contested in early 20th century America. Before the massive popularity of figures like Father Divine and "Sweet Daddy" Grace, traveling evangelist George Wilson Becton was the first of the charismatic African American religious leaders to enthrall the Black masses in cities across the nation.

    "The first known cult leader of Harlem," whose life is now largely forgotten, was a central focus of criticism of Black ministers within the Black Press, especially due to ongoing debates regarding his marital life, sexuality, alleged womanizing, and the likelihood that he was a swindler. George Wilson Becton became emblematic of larger concerns about the authority ― and the presumed morality ― of Black ministers and the institution of the Black Church.

    This microhistory uses Becton’s life and that of his wife, Josephine Bufford Becton, to illuminate a number of core issues swirling around Black churches of the time, from debates about the legitimacy of the call to preach versus formal religious education, to changing ideas about the authority of clergy versus congregational authority, to the acceptance of female ministers and concerns about ministers’ sexuality morality. The case of this famous and controversial figure illustrates how Black churches evolved into spaces of contention, empowering everyday Black people to define what constituted legitimate religious authority.

    At once compelling and insightful, Power in the Pews draws on Becton’s ministry to reconsider the role of the Black Church as not merely a refuge of faith and space for personal transformation, but as a site of cultural and social struggle between ministers and Black communities.

  • Inside the Body of Black Feminism: Science, Race, Culture (Black Feminism on the Edge)
    $28.95

    Inside the Body of Black Feminism connects historical studies of medical racism with Black feminist theories of the body to reimagine the material and metaphoric possibilities for political subjectivity across race, gender, and culture.

    Inside the Body of Black Feminism charts a cultural genealogy of antiracist and feminist engagement with some of the most objectified internal “parts” of racist medical and scientific inquiry: bones and blood, brains and hearts, guts and wombs. In a move counterintuitive to Black feminism’s emphasis on externalized representations of the body, Samantha Pinto reinterprets the relationship between embodiment, health, and race through cultural archives that reimagine the inside of the Black body. Working through materials such as medical textbooks, memoirs, data visualizations, museum displays, speculative fiction, and horror films, Pinto explores how a visually inaccessible corporeal interior becomes discernible and racialized in the public sphere. Inside the Body of Black Feminism engages expressive cultural work to ask how we might know the inside of the Black body differently through Black feminist theory and how scientific and medical inquiry might enable us to understand political subjectivity anew.

  • How We Get Free (Updated 2nd Edition): Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
    $19.95

    Winner of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction

    “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free.”
    ―Combahee River Collective Statement

    The Combahee River Collective, a pathbreaking group of radical Black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the antiracist and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and ’70s. In this collection of essays and interviews edited by activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, founding members and contemporary activists reflect on the organization’s contributions to Black feminism and its impact on today’s struggles.

    This expanded second edition features a new introduction by Taylor and a powerful new interview with Angela Y. Davis.

  • Negro Liberation
    $24.95

    A major work in the Black Communist tradition by worker-intellectual Harry Haywood, now in a new edition featuring a foreword by Dr. Rebecca Hall and an introduction by Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly.

    In 1948, Harry Haywood, a leading member of the Communist Party USA, published Negro Liberation, a pathbreaking book that lays out his argument that the Black Belt South constitutes a distinct nation and an internal colony of U.S. imperialism. Applying a Marxist-Leninist lens to questions of nationalism, colonialism, and land distribution, Haywood lays out the dire stakes of Jim Crow violence and oppression and critiques the emptiness and insufficiency of liberal solutions. Along the way, he makes a powerful case for Black self-determination.

    Framed by Rebecca Hall’s moving meditation on her father’s legacy and Charisse Burden-Stelly’s clear-eyed case for how Haywood reveals the contradiction between ruling-class politics and Black liberation today, this new edition of Negro Liberation is a must-read for anyone fighting against oppression.

  • Black Study: The Influence of David Walker’s Appeal (Sojourners for Justice)
    $7.00

    This zine situates study itself as an act of defiance, remembrance and freedom work by tracing the enduring legacy of David Walker’s An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829), a radical pamphlet calling for Black resistance, self-determination, and liberation. Through archival photographs of Black people studying across generations―including images from Mariame Kaba’s personal newswire collection―Black Study meditates on the long lineage of intellectual and political struggle sparked by Walker’s words. Banned and denounced in its time, The Appeal nevertheless circulated widely, fueling abolitionist movements and shaping the philosophies of Black nationalism, civil rights, and direct action.

  • Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans
    $32.95

    An unsettling exploration of the persistence of racism in reproductive healthcare in the US—and why even affluent Black women are imperiled by substandard care.

    From a leading expert on race, class, maternal health, and reproductive rights.

    Racism in maternal healthcare is not reserved for the poor. An unsparing picture of inequities in prenatal care and childbirth in the United States, Expecting Inequity reveals that not only are black people three to four times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, but racial disparities in maternal mortality persist across income levels. That is, wealthier black people are much more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period than their white counterparts. Focusing on a San Francisco obstetrics clinic that caters to the affluent, Khiara Bridges looks at the choices around prenatal care and childbirth that class-privileged, pregnant black people are making in order to survive what has been called the “black maternal health crisis.”

    Bridges, whose previous work exposed how race and racism are embedded in maternal healthcare for the poor, draws on two years of participant-observation to show how wealthier black people try to leverage their class privilege to avoid some of the negative effects of their blackness—only to discover that in a country that has never reckoned with its horrific racial past, there is no escaping racism’s reach. Throughout the book, engaging, heartbreaking, infuriating stories of women’s experiences with pregnancy and prenatal care illustrate how race and racism matter regardless of wealth or status.

  • Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
    $39.95

    First published in 2014, Jessica Gordon Nembhard’s Collective Courage quickly became an important tool for understanding the history of cooperative economic enterprises in the African American community. This now-classic work recounts how African Americans benefited greatly from cooperative ownership and democratic economic participation throughout the nation’s history.

    Many of the players in this story are well known―among them W. E. B. Du Bois; A. Philip Randolph and the Ladies’ Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Nannie Helen Burroughs; Fannie Lou Hamer; Ella Jo Baker and George Schuyler of the Young Negroes’ Co-operative League; the Federation of Southern Cooperatives; and the Black Panther Party. Drawing on media reports and co-op records, Gordon Nembhard uncovers the challenges they faced and highlights their hard-won victories.

    This tenth anniversary edition of Collective Courage features a substantial preface that expands on material in the first edition and addresses the development of the Black co-op movement through the second decade of the twenty-first century. It remains an indispensable resource for readers interested in the history of the struggle for African American economic freedom and equity.

  • The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir
    $16.00

    FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY

    An engrossing memoir of escaping the First Liberian Civil War and building a life in the United States

    When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States.

    Spanning this harrowing journey in Moore’s early childhood, her years adjusting to life in Texas as a black woman and an immigrant, and her eventual return to Liberia, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women is a deeply moving story of the search for home in the midst of upheaval. Moore has a novelist’s eye for suspense and emotional depth, and this unforgettable memoir is full of imaginative, lyrical flights and lush prose. In capturing both the hazy magic and the stark realities of what is becoming an increasingly pervasive experience, Moore shines a light on the great political and personal forces that continue to affect many migrants around the world, and calls us all to acknowledge the tenacious power of love and family.

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