172 results for “Martin Luther King Jr.”

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  • The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide cover image

    Howard W. French

    $39.99

    Named one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2025 by Foreign Policy

    “Howard French’s The Second Emancipation stands the second half of the last century on its geopolitical head.” ―David Levering Lewis, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

    From the acclaimed author of Born in Blackness comes an extraordinary account of Africa’s liberation from colonial oppression, a work that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of modern history.

    A work of epic dimension that recasts the liberation of twentieth-century Africa through the lens of revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah.

    The Second Emancipation, the second work in a trilogy from best-selling author Howard W. French about Africa’s pivotal role in shaping world history, underscores Adam Hochschild’s contention that French is a “modern-day Copernicus.” The title―referring to a brief period beginning in 1957 when dozens of African colonies gained their freedom―positions this liberation at the center of a “movement of global Blackness,” with one charismatic leader, Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), at its head.

    That so few people today know about Nkrumah is an omission that French demonstrates is “typical of our deliberate neglect of Africa’s enormous role in the birth of the modern world.” Determined to re-create Nkrumah’s life as “an epic twentieth-century story,” The Second Emancipation begins with his impoverished, unheralded birth in the far-western region of Ghana’s Gold Coast. But blessed with a deep curiosity, a young Nkrumah pursued an overseas education in the United States. Nowhere is French’s consummate style more vivid than in Nkrumah’s early years in Depression-era America, especially in his mesmerizing portrait of a culturally effervescent Harlem that Nkrumah encountered in 1935 before heading to college. During his student years in Pennsylvania and later as an activist in London, Nkrumah became steeped in a renowned international Black intellectual milieu―including Du Bois, Garvey, Fanon, Padmore, and C.L.R. James, who called him “one of the greatest political leaders of our century”―and formed an ideology that readied him for an extraordinarily swift and peaceful rise to power upon his return to Ghana in 1947.

    Four years later, in a political landslide he engineered while imprisoned, Nkrumah stunned Britain by winning the first general election under universal franchise in Africa, becoming Ghana’s first independent prime minister in 1957. As leader of a sovereign nation, Nkrumah wielded his influence to promote the liberation of the entire continent, pushing unity as the only pathway to recover from the damages of enslavement and subjugation. By the time national military and police forces, aided by the CIA, overthrew him in 1966, Nkrumah’s radical belief in pan-African liberation had both galvanized dozens of nascent African states and fired a global agenda of Black power.

    In its dramatic recasting of the American civil rights story and in its tragic depiction of a continent that once exuded all the promise of a newly won freedom, The Second Emancipation becomes a generational work that positions Africa at the forefront of modern-day history.

    16 pages of illustrations; 3 maps

  • The New Jim Crow

    by Michelle Alexander

    $19.99

    Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

    Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is "undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S."

    Now, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.

  • The Dream & the Hope: The Historic Rise of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Nation's Highest Court cover image
    $19.99

    This powerful biography follows Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s road to the Supreme Court as the first Black woman to be confirmed, for middle grade readers from New York Times bestselling author Garen Thomas and The Washington Post reporter Lori Rozsa. This inspiring story features key childhood moments and all those who influenced and encouraged her along the way.

    Before becoming the first black woman on the Supreme Court Ketanji Brown Jackson was a bright and happy kid with big dreams and determination. Guided by her parents, whose own stories influenced her, and who helped her navigate the obstacles she might face as a Black child, Ketanji’s spirit, drive, and belief in herself blossomed. She was popular in school and excelled in academics, debate, and theater, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Over the decades, she’d run up against a backdrop of people and Supreme Court rulings that sometimes opened doors for her . . . and sometimes shut them. By remaining true to herself and fighting for what’s right, Ketanji became an inspiration to children everywhere, accomplishing her lifelong goals and ascending to the nation’s highest court, where she now helps decide the direction of our country.

    From New York Times bestselling author Garen Thomas and Washington Post reporter Lori Rozsa comes this empowering biography that proves that with perseverance, dreams can come true!

  • Book cover image

    Amílcar Cabral, Michael Wolfers, and Basil Davidson

    $20.99

    One of the world's greatest revolutionary leaders, Amílcar Cabral's long and arduous campaign for the liberation of Portuguese-dominated Africa is explored in this vivid compilation of his most influential speeches and writings.

    Unity and Struggle is the compelling account of Amílcar Cabral's fight against imperialism, discrimination and injustice, as well as his progressive advocacy for religious toleration and gender equality – all of which combined to make him one of Africa's foremost political leaders.

    Introduction by Basil Davidson.

    'One of the most lucid and brilliant leaders in Africa' Fidel Castro
    'Figures like Amílcar Cabral... helped us to imagine the horizons of freedom in far broader terms than were available to us through what we now call "civil rights discourse".' Angela Davis

  • Soul of A Nation

    by Edmund Gaither

    $39.95

    *ships in 7 - 10 business days*

    African American art in the era of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers

    In the period of radical change that was 1963–83, young black artists at the beginning of their careers confronted difficult questions about art, politics and racial identity. How to make art that would stand as innovative, original, formally and materially complex, while also making work that reflected their concerns and experience as black Americans?

    Soul of a Nation surveys this crucial period in American art history, bringing to light previously neglected histories of 20th-century black artists, including Sam Gilliam, Melvin Edwards, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams, Howardina Pindell, Romare Bearden, David Hammons, Barkley L. Hendricks, Senga Nengudi, Noah Purifoy, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Charles White and Frank Bowling.

    The book features substantial essays from Mark Godfrey and Zoe Whitley, writing on abstraction and figuration, respectively. It also explores the art-historical and social contexts with subjects ranging from black feminism, AfriCOBRA and other artist-run groups to the role of museums in the debates of the period and visual art’s relation to the Black Arts Movement. Over 170 artworks by these and many other artists of the era are illustrated in full color.

    2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the first use of the term “black power” by student activist Stokely Carmichael; it will also be 50 years since the US Supreme Court overturned the prohibition of interracial marriage. At this turning point in the reassessment of African American art history, Soul of a Nation is a vital contribution to this timely subject.

  • Angela Davis: An Autobiography

    by Angela Y. Davis

    $22.95
    This beautiful new edition of Angela Davis’s classic Autobiography features an expansive new introduction by the author.

    “I am excited to be publishing this new edition of my autobiography with Haymarket Books at a time when so many are making collective demands for radical change and are seeking a deeper understanding of the social movements of the past.” —Angela Y. Davis

    Angela Davis has been a political activist at the cutting edge of the Black Liberation, feminist, queer, and prison abolitionist movements for more than 50 years. First published and edited by Toni Morrison in 1974, An Autobiography is a powerful and commanding account of her early years in struggle. Davis describes her journey from a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century: from her political activity in a New York high school to her work with the U.S. Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Soledad Brothers; and from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI's list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Told with warmth, brilliance, humor and conviction, Angela Davis’s autobiography is a classic account of a life in struggle with echoes in our own time.
  • Race Against Time: The Politics of a Darkening America cover image
    $28.00

    A Cold Civil War has engulfed the nation.

    After a deadly pandemic, shocking incidents of police brutality, a racial justice crisis, and the fall of a dangerous demagogue, America remains more divided than at any time in decades. At the heart of this national crisis is the fear of a darkening America—a country in which there is no longer a predominant white majority.

    As the Republican Party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, its leaders have incited white Americans in a last-ditch race against time to stop the advance of a new, multiracial emerging majority. Keith Boykin, long time political commentator, has watched this white resentment consume the GOP over the course of a life in politics, activism, and journalism. He has also observed the divisions among Democrats, as white progressives have postponed demands for full racial equity, while Black voters have often been too forgiving of party leaders who have failed to deliver. America can no longer avoid its long overdue reckoning with the past, Boykin argues. With the familiarity of personal experience and the acuity of historical insight, Boykin urges us to fight racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia, and save the union, not just by making Black lives matter, but by making Black lives equal.

  • Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)

    by Stokely Carmichael

    $25.00
    The astonishing personal and political autobiography of Stokely Carmichael, the legendary civil rights leader, Black Power architect, Pan-African activist, and revolutionary thinker and organizer known as Kwame Ture.

    Head of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party. Bestselling author. Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) is an American legend, one whose work as a civil rights leader fundamentally altered the course of history—and our understanding of Pan-Africanism today. Ready for Revolution recounts the extraordinary course of Carmichael's life, from his Trinidadian youth to his consciousness-raising years in Harlem to his rise as the patriarch of the Black Power movement.

    In his own words, Carmichael tells the story of his fight for social justice with candor, wit, and passion—and a cast of luminaries that includes James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro, among others. Carmichael's personal testimony captures the pulse of the cultural upheavals that characterize the modern world. This landmark, posthumously published autobiography reintroduces us to a man whose love of freedom fueled his fight for revolution to the end.
  • The Highest Tribute: Thurgood Marshall’s Life, Leadership, and Legacy

    by Kekla Magoon

    $8.99

    This inspirational picture book biography, a collaboration between two Coretta Scott King Honor winners, tells the story of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice on the Supreme Court. Now available in paperback.

    Growing up in segregated Baltimore, Thurgood Marshall saw that things weren’t fair. Laws said Black and white people couldn’t attend the same schools, play in the same parks, or even drink from the same water fountains. When he was assigned to read the Constitution as a school punishment, his eyes were opened. Thurgood knew that Jim Crow laws were wrong, and he was willing to do whatever it took to change them.

    His determination to fight for equality for all Americans led him to law school and then to the NAACP, where he argued cases like Brown v. Board of Education before being appointed as a Supreme Court justice. But to get to the highest court in the land, Thurgood had to make space for himself every step of the way.

    Coretta Scott King Honor winners Kekla Magoon and Laura Freeman unite to tell the incredible story of the first Black Supreme Court justice, who was a remarkable fighter for civil rights and equality throughout his life.

  • The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series Three: Correspondence, Volume 4: 1881-1888 cover image
    $125.00

    Douglass’s letters from the 1880s reveal both his unrelenting efforts to protect African American rights and little-known details about his personal life
     
    The fourth volume of the Correspondence Series presents Frederick Douglass as a still-influential public figure but also as a man aware that the gains African Americans made during the Civil War and Reconstruction were not as well secured as he had hoped.
     
    For this volume, the editors selected 247 of the 914 known letters sent to or from Douglass between 1881 and 1888. An active partisan, Douglass corresponded regularly with Republican party leaders from the local to national level about campaign tactics and strategies. Douglass also often received letters from African Americans who detailed the deteriorating state of race relations across the South in the 1880s. Douglass used his correspondence to advance the political stature of Republicans he regarded as most sympathetic to protecting African American rights.
     
    Douglass wrote about his taste in reading; his fondness for carriage riding; his feuds with family members and neighbors; his first wife, Anna Murray; and his remarriage, to Helen Pitts, and the controversy that the interracial marriage generated. Douglass’s correspondence details the seven-month honeymoon the couple took in Europe and Egypt, the reunion with old abolitionist friends in Great Britain, and candid appraisals of places he visited and people he met overseas.

  • Democracy in Black

    by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

    $17.00

    *ships in 7-10 business days*

    America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of African Americans. But today the situation has grown even more dire. Democracy in Black is Eddie S. Glaude Jr.'s impassioned response. Part manifesto, part history, part memoir, it argues that we live in a country founded on a “value gap”—with white lives valued more than others—that still distorts our politics today. 

  • Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People (Significations) cover image

    Tiya Miles

    $30.00

    Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography • A Washington Post Notable Book • Finalist for the PEN America Literary Award •One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best History Books of the Year • One of AAIHS's Best Black History Books of 2024

    “Though broad strokes of Tubman’s story are widely known, Miles probes deeper, examining her inner life, faith and relationships with other enslaved Black women to paint a deeper, more vibrant portrait of a historical figure whose mythic status can sometimes overshadow her humanity.” –The New York Times

    From the National Book Award–winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand

    Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she’s a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero. Despite being barely five feet tall, unable to read, and suffering from a brain injury, she managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some seven hundred people. You could almost say she’s America’s Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood.

    Tiya Miles’s extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman’s life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman’s surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes more palpable the more we understand it—a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.

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