In celebration of Kwanzaa, our staff have suggested titles that celebrate the holiday or embody any (or all) of its seven principles: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (Faith).
The astonishing untold history of America's first black millionaires - former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring Twenties - self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison. Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of smart, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success.
From the creator of the popular platform BlackGirlsGardening, this collection of compelling stories and lush photography celebrates Black women in the garden.
A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue and its ... role in Black history and culture.
"NBC News reporter Char Adams writes a deeply compelling and rigorously reported history of Black political movements, told through the lens of Black-owned bookstores, which have been centers for organizing from abolition to the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Black-Owned celebrates small businesses and their role in community building-and in liberation.
World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world--for us all.
"The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
Facilitation and mediation are important skills in our highly organized world. Holding Change is a guide for attending to both in ways that align with nature, with pleasure, with our best imaginings of our future. It provides lessons for generating the ease necessary to move through life's inevitable struggles and for practicing the art of holding others without losing ourselves. Black feminists have evolved this wisdom, but it can serve anyone working to create change, individually, interpersonally, and within our organizations.
Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and--with outstanding economy and force--captures the troubled spirit of our own nation.
For centuries, Black creators have utilized oral and written storytelling traditions in crafting their art. But how does one begin the process of constructing a poem or story or character? How do Black writers, when faced with questions of "authenticity," dive deep into the essence of their lives and work to find the inherent truth? How We Do It addresses these profound questions. Not a traditional "how to" writing handbook, it seeks to guide rather than dictate and to validate the complexity and range of styles--and even how one thinks about craft itself.
A provocative, essential guide to showing up for each other and cultivating community, from activist, community organizer and thought leader whose viral TED talk has been viewed more than 1.8 million times.
In this work, Ruha Benjamin calls on us to take imagination seriously as a site of struggle and a place of possibility for reshaping the future. A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn't strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn't a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.
A guide to how Kwanzaa, a winter celebration of family, friends, and the African American community, can be part of life all year round provides information on the seven principles and offers ideas for planning Kwanzaa gatherings.
Now with a new introduction by award-winning writer and iconic culinary historian Jessica B. Harris, a foreword by chef and television personality Carla Hall, revised recipes and stories, and a fresh new package, A Kwanzaa Keepsake offers proverbs, ceremonies, family projects, inspirational biographies, blessings, and of course, wonderful recipes. Structured around the seven days of Kwanzaa and the virtues each day represents, Harris shares a themed feast for each night, designed to reflect the principle of the day.
Informed by KB Brookins's personal experiences growing up in Texas, those of other Black transgender masculine people, Black queer studies, and cultural criticism, Pretty is concerned with the marginalization suffered by a unique American constituency-whose condition is a world apart from that of cisgender, non-Black, and non-masculine people. Here is a memoir (a bildungsroman of sorts) about coming to terms with instantly and always being perceived as "other".
Like a great mixtape of radical politics and art, Shotgun Seamstress was a fanzine by and for Black punks that explored and documented the individual and collective possibilities of being outside of mainstream culture. Originally laid out by hand, photocopied, and distributed in small batches, each issue featured essays, interviews, historical portraits of important artists and scenes, reviews, and more. Shotgun Seamstress paid tribute to musicians and artists who typify free Black expression and interrupt notions of Black culture as a monolith.
Unapologetic is a 21st century guide to building a Black liberation movement through a Black queer feminist lens.
Written with rare honesty and striking transparency, Undivided opens a door on the lives of an American Islamic convert, Alana Raybon, a dedicated educator, and her devout Christian mother, Patricia Raybon, an award-winning author, as they struggle to reconcile and heal their family divided by faith.
The poet, Audre Lorde, depicts her life and examines the influence of various women on her development.