"Set during Reconstruction-era New Orleans, this new work from the acclaimed author of Between Earth and Sky is a powerful story of human resilience--and of the unlikely bonds that hold fast even in our darkest moments. "The dead can't hurt you--only the living can." Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write,...

A memoir by the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement explains the movement's position of love, humanity, and justice, challenging perspectives that have negatively labeled the movement's activists while calling for essential political changes. "A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America--and the founding of a movement that demands restorative justice for all in the land at the tree Raised by a single...

Most people know Coretta Scott King as the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader. Coretta's march on freedom road made her a great leader, too. Alice Faye Duncan blends poetry and prose to follow Coretta from a challenging childhood in segregated Alabama, to music training in Boston, to her brave years as a wife, mother, and activist fighting for equal rights and her husband's legacy.

Looking through the lens of black business history, this book shows how black beauticians in the Jim Crow era showed their economic independence and access to a public community space into platforms for activism. The author argues that the beauty industry played a crucial role in the creation of the modern black female identity and that the seemingly frivolous space of a beauty salon actually has stimulated social, political, and economic change....

"From an early age, Little Amanda read everything she could get her hands on, from books to cereal boxes. Growing up with an auditory processing disorder and a speech impediment, Amanda had to work hard, but ultimately she took great strength from her experiences. After hearing her teacher read aloud to the class, she knew that she wanted to become a poet, and nothing would stand in her way. At the age of 19, she became America's first-ever National...