The question "Do black landscapes matter?" cuts deep to the core of American history. From the plantations of slavery to contemporary segregated cities, from freedman villages to northern migrations for freedom, the nation’s landscape bears the detritus of diverse origins. Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape.

Essayists examine a variety of U.S. places—ranging from New Orleans and Charlotte to Milwaukee and Detroit—exposing racism endemic in the built environment and acknowledging the widespread erasure of black geographies and cultural landscapes. Through a combination of case studies, critiques, and calls to action, contributors reveal the deficient, normative portrayals of landscape that affect communities of color and question how public design and preservation efforts can support people in these places. In a culture in which historical omissions and specious narratives routinely provoke disinvestment in minority communities, creative solutions by designers, planners, artists, and residents are necessary to activate them in novel ways. Black people have built and shaped the American landscape in ways that can never be fully known. Black Landscapes Matter is a timely and necessary reminder that without recognizing and reconciling these histories and spaces, America’s past and future cannot be understood.

‘[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.

A striking book on the international operations of racism and the global meaning of Black Power

In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated.
In this classic work published in the heady days of anti-colonial revolution, Groundings with My Brothers follows the global circulation of emancipatory ideas, from the black students of North America to the Rasta counter-culture of Jamaica and beyond. The book is striking in its simultaneous ability to survey the wide and heterogenous international context while remaining anchored in grassroots politics, as Rodney offers us first-hand accounts of mass movement organizing. Having inspired a generation of revolutionaries, this new edition will re-introduce the book to a new political landscape that it helped shape, with reflections from leading scholar-activists such as Carole Boyce Davies

A dying gangster's plea sends Joe King Oliver on a quest for a missing woman across America's coasts―unraveling a dark and violent family history along the way―in this engrossing new novel from one of the most celebrated and acclaimed crime writers at work today.

Joe King Oliver is the big man you call to solve the most delicate and dangerous of problems. Fresh off unraveling the mystery of his own parents’ fates, King finds himself accepting (again at his grandmother’s request) a case from Arman Babylon, a powerful Los Angeles gangster now dying from cancer.

Babylon’s granddaughter, Twyla Mann, has been missing for years, and he’s desperate to find her before he passes. The search pulls King into the Babylons’ stained past and the cold case of Dalia Shorts, a torch singer who vanished without a trace and whom Arman was once suspected of killing.

As King follows her trail from L.A. to New York and back, he’ll realize nothing is what it seems as he uncovers a pattern of violence that has targeted the women around Babylon for decades. How much will King be willing to risk to finally set things right?

An exciting, eye-catching repackage of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers' bestselling paperbacks! With a Introduction by Coretta Scott King Author Honor winner Varian Johnson and bonus material by Coretta Scott King Award winner Christopher Myers.

"Those shackles didn't rob us of being black, son, they robbed us of being human."

This is the story of one family. A family whose history saw its first ancestor captured, shackled, and brought to this country from Africa. A family who can still see remnants of the shackles that held some of its members captive ― even today. It is a story of pride, determination, struggle, and love. And of the piece of the land that holds them together throughout it all.

Denishia Boswell is a successful florist and owner of Happily Ever After Floral Shop. Although she creates beautiful bouquets and floral designs to enhance any romantic or intimate setting, she’s having problems enhancing her own love life. She’s in a lackluster relationship that she is ready to give the ax to, but the fear of being alone has kept her from doing so. However, a celebrity client comes her way, and he is after more than just flowers. She finds it extremely hard to ignore his romantic advances, despite her current relationship status.

Ezekiel Wheeler is focused on advancing his acting career. He’s determined to be a sought-after actor that can name his price. None of that means anything if he has no one to celebrate his accolades with. He doesn’t want the celebrity girlfriend or the women approaching him. He wants to be the aggressor. While planning a surprise party for his mother, he contacts a florist to provide the perfect setup for the festivities. The moment he hears her voice, he’s all in.

Denishia and Ezekiel have an undeniable attraction to one another, although her current situation forces her to somewhat deny it in the beginning. When things change and heartache suddenly finds her address, Ezekiel is there to help her pick up the pieces. However, will the ensuing drama force them apart, or will they tread through the moments of uncertainty together?

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an ambitious masterwork of political economy, detailing the impact of slavery and colonialism on the history of international capitalism. In this classic book, Rodney makes the unflinching case that African maldevelopment is not a natural feature of geography, but a direct product of imperial extraction from the continent, a practice that continues up into the present. Meticulously researched, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa remains an unshakably relevant study of the so-called "great divergence" between Africa and Europe, just as it remains a prescient resource for grasping the the multiplication of global inequality today.

In this new edition, Angela Davis offers a striking foreword to the book, exploring its lasting contributions to a revolutionary and feminist practice of anti-imperialism.

Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories—heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. He overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints a subtle, powerful portrait of each of these unique individuals. In "The Good News Is," a man’s insecurity about his weight gives way to a serious illness and the intense loneliness that accompanies it. Deeply vulnerable, he allows himself to be taken advantage of in return for a little human comfort in a raw display of true need. "Pet Fly," previously published in the New Yorker, follows a man working as a mailroom clerk for a big company—a solitary job for which he is overqualified—and the unforeseen repercussions he endures when he attempts to forge a connection beyond the one he has with the fly buzzing around his apartment. And "Almost Alyce" chronicles failed loves, family loss, alcoholism, and a Zen approach to the art of begging that proves surprisingly effective.

Having her own successful baking business literally fell into Harper Richardson’s lap. She’s strong, smart, independent, and well-rounded. Her life has already been figured out, and she is living it to the best of her abilities, along with her year-long boyfriend, Zaire. Things seem to be going well until Harper is given some news that stuns her, leaving her angry with herself for being so naïve. Zaire isn’t the man she thought he was. Still reeling from that news, she decides to go and have a great time at the Houston Livestock Show. Her interest was only in the concerts happening, but a certain bull rider steals her attention. Doing her best to resist him only makes her want him more.

Legend Semien, bull rider extraordinaire and a legend in the making, has made his passion a professional career. He loves the risk and suspense of it all. Being in the limelight of the rodeo circuit causes him to be cocky, and he expects to be able to get whatever he wants. That expectation applies to women too. His conquests always approach him, and he is living the life he thinks is meant for him to live. The moment he sees Harper, he knows that he wants her. There’s something different about her though. She doesn’t approach him. Destined to make her his, he steps out of his comfort zone in a quest to get what he wants.

While Harper and Legend are like night and day, they are attracted to each other like magnets. Despite the baggage and complications of their past lives, they attempt to get to know one another. Will they be able to leave their old lives behind in pursuit of a life together?

An exciting, eye-catching repackage of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers' bestselling paperbacks!

With an Introduction by National Ambassador of Young People's Literature Jason Reynolds and bonus material by Coretta Scott King Award winner Christopher Myers.

A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why Black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the US is even there at all.

If confidence was a women’s size twenty, then its name would have to be Aspen St. Andrews. The thirty-one-year-old freelance journalist is living life on her own terms, except in one area. Love. She feels somewhat stuck in an engagement to a man that she once loved and that she decided to cohabitate with. They argue about her career as if it’s a hobby and Aspen is sick of it. As their engagement is on the verge of being dissolved, she decides to take a trip to the little town of Nome, Texas to interview ranchers about their livestock that are mysteriously dying. What she doesn’t expect, is to meet a man that threatens to change everything she found attractive in a man. Aspen couldn’t have these sorts of desires for a stranger who was tactless and rude. No matter how pitiful her relationship was, she was still engaged to be married.

Seven Storm Henderson is a man that knows what he wants. Until he finds it, or he stumbles upon it, he chooses to live life to the fullest. Being the youngest of seven children, he’s used to getting his way. He owns a full-service center and mechanic shop, and his family pretty much owns the entire town. However, he loves taking care of the animals in their pastures, especially the cattle. Women are willing to throw themselves at his feet, but he only wants one thing from them. Even with him being rude and nasty to most of them, they still continue to chase the Storm. One day, what he feels is his destiny, drops in his lap, but he soon realizes that she isn’t like most women he’s dealt with.

Storm and Aspen have a rocky start, because Storm can’t seem to speak intelligently enough to woo Aspen. He realizes that she may be too good for him, but that doesn’t stop his pursuit. Will Storm make the necessary changes to have Aspen all to himself or will Aspen make the necessary adjustments in her life to actually give Storm a chance?