Black & African American

Malcolm X’s powerful 1964 speech Ballot or Bullet is a bold call for political action and self-determination. Delivered after his break from the Nation of Islam, it marks a turning point in his evolution—blending Black nationalism with a new urgency for civil rights through the vote. This edition includes a brief introduction, the full unabridged speech, and a reflective afterword exploring its lasting legacy.

In The Battle for the Black Mind, Dr. Karida Brown explores the struggle to define and control the education of African Americans amid shifting societal attitudes and forms of systemic exclusion. From the perspective of freed slaves seeking empowerment and liberation through education, to the white elites aiming to shape the future of the workforce and consolidate power, The Battle for the Black Mind explores the formation of segregated education systems and the influence of philanthropic organizations, religious institutions, and Black educators themselves.

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the use of race in college admissions was unconstitutional, many predicted that the black middle class was doomed. One byproduct of a half century of affirmative action is that it has given people the impression that blacks can’t advance without special treatment. In The Affirmative Action Myth, Jason L. Riley details the neglected history of black achievement without government intervention. Using empirical data, Riley shows how black families lifted themselves out of poverty prior to the racial preference policies of the 1960s and 1970s.

With impeccable research and original reporting, Mark Whitaker tells the story of Malcolm X’s far-reaching posthumous legacy. It stretches from founders of the Black Power Movement such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton to hip-hop pioneers such as Public Enemy and Tupac Shakur. Leaders of the Black Arts and Free Jazz movements from Amiri Baraka to Maya Angelou, August Wilson, and John Coltrane credited their political awakening to Malcolm, as did some of the most influential athletes of our time, from Muhammad Ali to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and beyond.

A respectful, thoughtful, yet clear-eyed reframing of a national hero’s personal and political odyssey, My Father’s House is John Conyers III's love letter to his father and a record of his own journey. Conyers reveals a towering figure in modern American political history and an ordinary family man; a leader whose work in Washington necessitated his many absences as a father from a son coming of age in Detroit.

Step into a world where your melanin becomes a source of power and enlightenment. Imagine embracing the Divine Feminine within you, connecting with ancient African practices, and reclaiming your true essence. In this captivating guide, you will embark on a transformative journey that celebrates the sacredness of being a Black Woman. Keep reading to discover your special bonus offer! Imagine you find yourself surrounded by the wisdom of the Yoruba religions, Ifá, Santería, and Vodun.

Drawing on disparate philosophies and science behind electronic beat-making, lyricism, dance, memory, myth, and cosmology in the African and African Disaporic traditions, this book seeks to demonstrate relationships between rhythm, space, and ways of being as an articulation of futures and alternate realities made present.

In How to Lose the Hounds, Celeste Winston explores marronage—the practice of flight from and placemaking beyond slavery—as a guide to police abolition. She examines historically Black maroon communities in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, that have been subjected to violent excesses of police power from slavery until the present day.

For too long, the narratives surrounding Black communities in America have been dominated by deficit-based thinking, focusing on perceived weaknesses rather than the inherent strengths and resilience that have been fostered through generations of hardship. This book seeks to challenge that paradigm, offering a critical but constructive analysis of the socio-political and economic realities confronting Black Americans.

The Rainbow Ain’t Never Been Enuf fills a necessary gap in our understanding of how racism, transphobia, and antiblackness operate in liberal spaces. Black feminist and queer theorist Kaila Adia Story blends analysis, pop culture, and her lived experiences to explore the silencing practices of mainstream queer culture.

Step into the vibrant streets of Harlem in the 1960s place where culture, resilience, and political consciousness collided to shape a defining era in American history. In The Rise and Resilience of Harlem in the 1960s, journey through a community that transformed the national stage with its artistry, activism, and strength. Drawing on personal memories, historical insights, and cultural reflections, this book brings to life the heartbeat of Harlem's jazz clubs, the stirring calls for civil rights, and the unbreakable bonds of a neighborhood fighting for justice and recognition.

Acclaimed historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a kaleidoscopic narrative history of 1963, the pivotal moment in America’s long civil rights movement—the year of the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and the assassinations of Medgar Evers and John F. Kennedy.

The Harlan Renaissance is an intimate remembrance of kinship and community in eastern Kentucky’s coal towns written by one of the luminaries of Appalachian studies, William Turner. Turner reconstructs Black life in the company towns in and around Harlan County during coal’s final postwar boom years, which built toward an enduring bust as the children of Black miners, like the author, left the region in search of better opportunities.

"By Any Dreams Necessary" is a transformative guide that offers a strategic vision for enhancing sustainability, building resilience, and achieving environmental justice in African American communities. Dr. Bruce Strouble delivers a strategic plan for African Americans to address systemic racial oppression, economic disenfranchisement, and environmental injustice and turn them into opportunities for empowerment through practical solutions and strategic action. This book blends rigorous academic research with an on-the-ground roadmap for transforming harsh realities into tangible change.

Few have ever valued literacy as much as the enslaved Black people of the American South. For them, it was more than a means to a better life; it was a gateway to freedom and, in some instances, a tool for inspiring revolt. And few governments tried harder to suppress literacy than did those in the South. Everyone understood that knowledge was power: power to keep a person enslaved in mind and body, power to resist oppression. In the decades before the Civil War, Southern governments drove Black literacy underground, but it was too precious to be entirely stamped out.