Virgil Abloh's iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry embodied a groundbreaking transformation of the relationship between who we are and what we wear.

Abloh's appointment as head of menswear for Louis Vuitton in 2018 shocked the fashion inudstry, as he became the first Black designer to serve as artistic director in the brand's 164-year history. But as Pulitzer Prize–winning culture critic Robin Givhan reveals, Abloh's story encompasses so much more than his own journey.

Using Abloh's surprising path to the top of the luxury establishment, Givhan unfolds the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below in the form of streetwear and designers unafraid to storm the gates—how their notions of what was luxury simultaneously anticipated and upended consumer preferences, and how a simple T-shirt held as much cultural power as a haute couture gown. As Givhan relays, Abloh rose during a time of existential angst for a fashion inudstry trying to make sense of its responsibilities to a diverse audience and the challenges of selling status to a generation of consumers who fetishized sneakers and prioritized comfort. How that moment came to be—how someone like Abloh, who had no formal training in patternmaking or tailoring, could come to symbolize and embody the industry's way forward—is the story at the heart of this book.

Make It Ours is at once a remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury. With access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries, and featuring a cast of fascinating characters ranging from visionary Black designers like Ozwald Boateng to Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding tale of a young man's rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste.

This book is the first to chronicle the lives of African American women in the urban north during the early years of the republic. A Fragile Freedom investigates how African American women in Philadelphia journeyed from enslavement to the precarious status of “free persons” in the decades leading up to the Civil War and examines comparable developments in the cities of New York and Boston.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar argues that early nineteenth-century Philadelphia, where most African Americans were free, enacted a kind of rehearsal for the national emancipation that followed in the post–Civil War years. She explores the lives of the “regular” women of antebellum Philadelphia, the free black institutions that took root there, and the previously unrecognized importance of African American women to the history of American cities.

“Who would black women get to be if we did not have to create from a place of resistance?”

Hip Hop Womanist writer and theologian EbonyJanice’s book of essays center a fourth wave of Womanism, dreaming, the pursuit of softness, ancestral reverence, and radical wholeness as tools of liberation. 

All The Black Girls Are Activists is a love letter to Black girls and Black women, asking and attempting to offer some answers to “Who would black women get to be if we did not have to create from a place of resistance?” by naming Black women’s wellness, wholeness, and survival as the radical revolution we have been waiting for.

About the Author: EbonyJanice is a dynamic lecturer, transformational speaker, passionate multi-faith preacher, and creative focused on Decolonizing Authority, Hip Hop Scholarship, Womanism as a Political and Spiritual/Religious tool for Liberation, Blackness as Religion, Dialogue as central to professional development and personal growth, and Women and Gender Studies focused on black girlhood.

EbonyJanice holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Political Science and a Master of Arts in Social Change with a concentration in Spiritual Leadership, Womanist Theology, and Racial Justice. She is the founder of Black Girl Mixtape, a multi-platform safe think-space centering the intellectual and creative authority of black women in the form of a lecture series, an online learning institute, and a creative collaborative.

EbonyJanice is also the founder of Dream Yourself Free, a Spiritual Mentoring project focused on black women's healing, dreaming, ease, play, and wholeness as their activism and resistance work.

Featuring more than 100 artists, this landmark book charts the intricate connections between photography and the Black Arts Movement
 
The Black Arts Movement brought together writers, filmmakers, and visual artists who were exploring ways of using art to advance civil rights and Black self-determination. This book examines the vital role of photography in the evolution of the Black Arts Movement, revealing how photographs operated across art, community building, journalism, and political messaging to contribute to the development of a distinctly Black art and culture.
 
Works by Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Kwame Brathwaite, Samuel Fosso, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Gordon Parks, Juan Sánchez, Robert A. Sengstacke, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among dozens of other celebrated and underappreciated artists, span documentary and fashion photography, portraiture, collage, installation, performance, and video. Pictured luminaries include Miles Davis, Mahalia Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, and many more. The book’s essays by distinguished scholars focus on topics such as women and the movement, community, activism, and Black photojournalism. Taking an expansive approach, the authors consider the complex connections between American artists and the African diaspora and the dynamic interchange of pan-African ideas that propelled the movement. Authoritative and beautifully illustrated, this is the definitive volume on photography and the Black Arts Movement.
 
Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
(September 21, 2025–January 4, 2026)
 
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
(February 24–May 24, 2026)
 
Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS
(July 25–November 1, 2026)

A new edition of a landmark work on Black women’s intellectual traditions.
 
An astonishing wealth of literary and intellectual work by nineteenth-century Black women is being rediscovered and restored to print in scholarly and popular editions. In Kristin Waters’s and Carol B. Conaway’s landmark edited collection, Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, sophisticated commentary on this rich body of work chronicles a powerful and interwoven legacy of activism based in social and political theories that helped shape the history of North America. The book meticulously reclaims this American legacy, providing a collection of critical analyses of the primary sources and their vital traditions. Written by leading scholars, Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions is particularly powerful in its exploration of the pioneering thought and action of the nineteenth-century Black woman lecturer and essayist Maria W. Stewart, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, novelist and poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, educator Anna Julia Cooper, newspaper editor Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and activist Ida B. Wells. The distinguished contributors are Hazel V. Carby, Patricia Hill Collins, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Kristin Waters, R. Dianne Bartlow, Carol B. Conaway, Olga Idriss Davis, Vanessa Holford Diana, Evelyn Simien, Janice W. Fernheimer, Michelle N. Garfield, Joy James, Valerie Palmer-Mehta, Carla L. Peterson, Marilyn Richardson, Evelyn M. Simien, Ebony A. Utley, Mary Helen Washington, Melina Abdullah, and Lena Ampadu. The volume will interest scholars and readers of African-American and women’s studies, history, rhetoric, literature, poetry, sociology, political science, and philosophy. This updated edition features a new preface by the editors in the light of new developments in current scholarship.

Escape from grind culture and dehumanizing systems with this visionary guide from the author of the New York Times bestseller Rest Is Resistance
 
We don’t believe we are worthy of rest unless we burn ourselves out to accomplish it. Our thinking has been limited by disconnection, sleep deprivation, and the unattainable call for perfection. The systems will never give us rest. It is something we must create for ourselves and each other. 
 
Just as the North Star guided the enslaved on their journeys to freedom, visionary artist and founder of The Nap Ministry Tricia Hersey leads us to imagine a new world: one in which we subvert the narrative of productivity at all costs and embrace rest as a healing spiritual practice. 
 
Inspired by vintage hymnals, prayer books, and abolitionist pamphlets, We Will Rest! is a modern sacred object, medicine for a sick and exhausted world. Weaving together meditations and poetry with storytelling and powerful art, Hersey provokes liberation through refusal and trickster rebellion in the face of capitalism and white supremacy. 
 
There is another way. Focus on the escape. Focus on the transformation. We can just be. We are beautiful. We are enough. We are escape artists. We Will Rest!
 
 ***
 
Have you ever noticed
when you ask for rest
the body becomes a holy trumpet
the walls come tumbling down?

Offering a compelling call to arms while challenging the pervasive grip of colonialism on the Black psyche, this manifesto charts a course toward a future defined by autonomy, dignity, and radical liberation. 

Delving into the historical currents of resistance—from Negritude to Black nationalism to pan-Africanism—this manifesto unapologetically confronts the insidious nature of modern colonialism. In a world where the very presence of the Black body incites fear and insecurity among white supremacists, Afro-Decolonial Manifesto exposes the fallacy of equating Black existence with reverse colonialism. It challenges the prevailing narratives of gratitude and guilt, asserting the right of the Black diaspora to reclaim its autonomy and dignity, and also examines the effectiveness of movements like Black Lives Matter, advocating for a renewed Black internationalism rooted in Africa’s unity and autonomy.  

In a stirring call to arms, Afro-Decolonial Manifesto heralds a new era of resistance, where reparation becomes not just a demand for restitution, but a catalyst for radical change. This volume emboldens Black people to reclaim their narrative, their agency, and their future. It is a testament to the enduring spirit of liberation and the indomitable resilience of Black lives.

What began as an effort to prevent the neglect and potential loss of hundreds of African objects at the University of Texas at Austin has evolved into one of the most significant collections on campus. The art collections at Black Studies were born from the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies’ Art and Archive Initiative, under the leadership of Cherise Smith, Omi L. Jones, and Edmund T. Gordon.

Today Black Studies at the University of Texas boasts approximately 900 objects from sub-Saharan Africa, over 200 contemporary works from African American and Afro-Caribbean artists, and more than 100 pieces jointly held with other collecting entities on campus, adding a diverse richness to the overall collections. Collecting Black Studies gathers and presents these holdings—including costumes, jewelry, paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and photography—and prominently features five Black artists whose work is particularly significant. Scholars and curators examine how John Biggers, Michael Ray Charles, Christina Coleman, Angelbert Metoyer, and Deborah Roberts—artists with deep relationships to Texas—contributed to the Black Studies collections, to art history, and to the culture of our state and beyond.

The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth’s integral importance to American history, as told by a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and Texas native.

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond. All too aware of the stories of cowboys, ranchers, and oilmen that have long dominated the lore of the Lone Star State, Gordon-Reed—herself a Texas native and the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s—forges a new and profoundly truthful narrative of her home state, with implications for us all.

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

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

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

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

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

Slaves to Fashion is a pioneering cultural history of the black dandy, from his emergence in Enlightenment England to his contemporary incarnations in the cosmopolitan art worlds of London and New York. It is populated by sartorial impresarios such as Julius Soubise, a freed slave who sometimes wore diamond-buckled, red-heeled shoes as he circulated through the social scene of eighteenth-century London, and Yinka Shonibare, a prominent Afro-British artist who not only styles himself as a fop but also creates ironic commentaries on black dandyism in his work. Interpreting performances and representations of black dandyism in particular cultural settings and literary and visual texts, Monica L. Miller emphasizes the importance of sartorial style to black identity formation in the Atlantic diaspora.

Dandyism was initially imposed on black men in eighteenth-century England, as the Atlantic slave trade and an emerging culture of conspicuous consumption generated a vogue in dandified black servants. “Luxury slaves” tweaked and reworked their uniforms, and were soon known for their sartorial novelty and sometimes flamboyant personalities. Tracing the history of the black dandy forward to contemporary celebrity incarnations such as Andre 3000, Miller explains how black people became arbiters of style and how they have historically used the dandy’s signature tools—clothing, gesture, and wit—to break down limiting identity markers and propose new ways of fashioning political and social possibility in the black Atlantic world. With an aplomb worthy of her iconographic subject, she considers the black dandy in relation to nineteenth-century American literature and drama, W. E. B. Du Bois’s reflections on black masculinity and cultural nationalism, the modernist aesthetics of the Harlem Renaissance, and representations of black cosmopolitanism in contemporary visual art.