Wil Haygood

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Texas

One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World

"At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book ... without a doubt, not only the very best film book ... but it is also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read." --Shondaland This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies--from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther--using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown. Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation--which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster--Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves--including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others. An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

Colorization

e06574ce-6475-4f5c-8857-a118cdb53599-1

#hardcover #romance #love #drama #africanamerican#blackromance

Florida

In Another Man’s Bed 

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Illinois

An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices

Fresh and electrifying--stories, poems, and essays by African and diaspora writers, edited by author Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond.

Relations punctures the human illusion of separation. New and established storytellers reshape the narratives that divide and subjugate, revealing the truth of our shared humanity despite differences in language, identity, class, gender, and beyond. This vital anthology is Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond's striking vision of a meeting place of perspectives, centered in the African and diaspora experience.

In a post-Black Panther world, it is an urgent and welcome embrace of the diversity of Blackness. A refreshing collection of genre-spanning literature, it offers a vibrant meditation on being--inviting connection across real and imagined borders, and celebration of the most profound relations.

Relations ARC

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#africanamerican #childrens #childrensnonfiction #picturebook

This powerful picture book introduces young readers to a key event in the struggle for Civil Rights. Winner, Coretta Scott King Honor Award.

In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, thousands of African American children volunteered to march for their rights after hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak. They protested the laws that kept black people separate from white people. Facing fear, hate, and danger, these children used their voices to change the world.

Frank Morrison's emotive oil-on-canvas paintings bring this historical event to life, while Monica Clark-Robinson's moving and poetic words document this remarkable time.

I couldn't play on the same playground as the white kids. 

I couldn't go to their schools.  

I couldn't drink from their water fountains.  

There were so many things I couldn't do.

Let the Children March

5baffc83-c681-4e74-a5d3-69e0347c9955-1

Rosemarie Robotham

New Jersey

Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers

A celebration of modern black family life, featuring fiction, memoir, and poetry, by African American authors both new and renowned.

Mending the World

d711eece-f9ab-46f5-8aff-9e5f40715a74-1

Kimberly Jones

Gilly Segal

California

"An absolute page turner, I'm Not Dying with You Tonight is a compelling and powerful novel that is sure to make an impact. "--Angie Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give Over the course of one night, two girls with two very different backgrounds must rely on each other to get through the violent race riot that has enveloped their city. Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she's going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school. When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together. They aren't friends. They hardly understand the other's point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames, and they only have each other to rely on if they're going to survive the night. Additional Praise for I'm Not Dying with You Tonight: "A vital addition to the YA race relations canon."--Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin "An astounding achievement. This novel is an incendiary experience, one that does not shy away from difficult questions about privilege and violence. But Jones and Segal don't hold our hands to provide us easy answers; this is a book meant to be devoured in a single sitting and discussed for years to come."--Mark Oshiro, author of Anger is a Gift "I'm Not Dying With You Tonight is a powerful examination of privilege, and how friends are often found in surprising places. Jones and Segal have penned a page-turning debut, as timely as it is addictive."--David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland and Kids of Appetite

I'm Not Dying with You Tonight

ed991754-be6d-45eb-a134-e6b10ec2fb51-1

In Life and Leadership

It Worked for Me

1855179a-df4a-4bc5-821e-cb48ec84ae95-1

Jason Reynolds

Brendan Kiely

New York

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.

All American Boys

65f8c72b-e749-4084-8fc4-bd4ceea1671b-1

Charles Johnson

Ohio

A Novel

"Set against the racial turbulence of the Civil Rights era, Dreamer is the first work of fiction to explore King's life. Yet the story, told by Matthew Bishop, one of King's devoted followers, is also a tale of doubles, warring brothers, envy, and inequality." "The novel introduces us to Chaym Smith, a man whose startling physical resemblance to King wins him the job of official stand-in. In the course of training Chaym to shield King from danger, Matthew comes to realize the philosophical magnitude of our greatest civil rights leader and the ambiguities within the Movement itself, and he - and we - are irreversibly changed. What makes one man great and the other just a mirror for greatness? What does it mean to be of African descent in America? What does it take to change the face of a country forever?"--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Dreamer

09487b60-8ad3-417d-89bb-6433df5b49e9-1

Gwen Strauss

Calvin Alexander Ramsey

Iowa

Ruth and the Green Book is the story of one black family's trip from Chicago to Alabama by car in the late 1940s. Along the way they encounter prejudice, but they also discover The Green Book, a real guide to accommodations which was published for decades to aid African-American travelers as they faced prejudice on the roads across the country.

Ruth and the Green Book

c709009d-1041-4dc0-8c59-84db283230f3-1

#hardcover #new #countryromance #love #romance #africanamerican #black

An uplifting story about finding true love and a true voice—with a fresh spin on Pygmalion—from the bestselling author whose novels top 300,000 copies in print.Yolanda Joe has wowed thousands of fans with her lively storylines and savvy heroines. Now she introduces Imani, a rising star whose dreams and challenges will capture the hearts of thousands more.Talented, ambitious, and just twenty-two years old, Imani is surrounded by men with advice about her singing career. Her father, who owns a struggling nightclub, sees Imani’s future as a chance to fulfill his own failed dreams. Her boyfriend, Taz, is determined to become a mega-producer, with Imani’s street rapping as his ticket to fame. But Professor Orenthal Hopson, who teaches in the music department of a historically black college, has his own designs on her: he struck a bet with a colleague requiring him to transform Imani from a hip-hop hopeful into a traditional jazz singer. Like a modern-day Eliza Doolittle, Imani finds herself caught up in a musical makeover that causes her to question who she really wants to become. As Professor Hopson begins to sweep her off her feet, she also has to decide whether to stand by Taz, the man she’s cared about since childhood, or let herself fall for the dashing intellectual.A delight on every page, My Fine Ladypresents the dilemmas of romance, family, and career with Yolanda Joe’s signature wit and flair.

My Fine Lady

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Damon Young

A Memoir in Essays

From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him. It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the “being straight” thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to “Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies.” And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white. From one of our most respected cultural observers, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

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Zinzi Clemmons

"Raised in Pennsylvania, Zinzi Clemmons's heroine Thandi views the world of her mother's childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor--someone, or something, to love"--

What We Lose

e27edebd-8337-43da-a665-c9a880ee3268-1

Original tales of living, loving and learning told by a perfectly ordinary, quite commonly sensible, and absolutely are inspiring colored woman. #africanamerican #shortstories #folktales #NorthCarolina #heritage #africanamericanheritage #

Maryland

Original Tales of Living, Loving, Longing and Learning, As Told by a Perfectly Ordinary, Quite Commonly Sensible and Absolutely Awe-Inspiring Colored Woman

Sometimes black history doesn't march, Sometimes black history doesn't shout, Sometimes black history just comes wearily down a dirt road, dragging a cotton sack and wearning a head rag....

Just Plain Folks

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Rosalyn McMillan

Louisiana

A story of love, family and the search for the right someone to share it all with. Spice Witherspoon, a prosperous Detroit restaurateur, has two grown-up daughters. Mink has always been a joy, but Sterling has always been Trouble.

One Better

01ad6d10-5558-4f89-abfe-03edbf43e95b-1

#hardcover #historicalfiction #love #friendship  #africanamerican 

Virginia

In her funny, moving, and ambitious debut, Elyse Singleton introduces us to two inseparable and hard-minded idealists. Young Lilian endures the tribulations of Nadir, Mississippi, on the purity of her faith in people and her growing belief in herself. Her best friend, Myraleen, gets by on her sharp tongue and her unwillingness to give in-and perhaps because Lilian is always with her. In this lifelong story, Lilian and Myraleen struggle through dramatically changing times: From the stark realities of life in rural Mississippi, through the different sort of racism they find in workaday Philadelphia and France during World War II. For these women, the road to maturity in the messy American century is long and ragged. Along the way, Myraleen falls for a Tuskeegee flier and Lilian for a German prisoner of war. And each time they reassert their oldest ideals, everything they believe in is tested again--most of all what love requires in such a world.

This Side of the Sky

36312196-61ad-411f-9b80-9ed245ad2b9d-1

Michigan

Erotic Black Fiction

Brown sugar

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

After the death of his father, the flamboyant and controversial Judge Oliver Garland, his son Talcott must unravel the truth about his father's life, a quest that brings him face to face with old scandals and family secrets.

The Emperor of Ocean Park

4887fff7-82fa-48a0-b64f-287561966fd7-1

W. Kamau Bell

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Tales of a 6' 4 , African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian

A memoir and manifesto from the comedian, hit podcast host, and star of United Shades of America

You may know W. Kamau Bell from his critically acclaimed hit show on CNN United Shades of America. Or maybe you've read about him in the New York Times, which called him "the most promising new talent in political comedy in many years." Or maybe in the New Yorker, fawning over his brand of humor, writing, "Bell's gimmick is intersectional progressivism: he treats racial, gay, and women's issues as inseparable."

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell is a humorous, well-informed take on the world today, tackling a wide range of current and evergreen issues such as the 2016 election, race relations, fatherhood, the state of law enforcement today, comedians and superheroes, right-wing politics, failure, his interracial marriage, his upbringing by divorced and very strong-willed, race-conscious parents, his early days struggling to find his comedic voice, why he never felt at home in Black comedy circles, what it means to be a Black nerd, the balance between racism and feminism, and much, much more.

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell

380a2289-50e0-4fdf-9a4e-dbd177be7677-1

Maya Angelou

A couple small bends along dust jacket but otherwise in near perfect new condition! This book was an extra copy so just selling the second one

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A moving memoir about the legendary author’s relationship with her own mother. Emma Watson’s Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick! The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call “Lady,” revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them. Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights. Praise for Mom & Me & Mom “Mom & Me & Mom is delivered with Angelou’s trademark good humor and fierce optimism. If any resentments linger between these lines, if lives are partially revealed without all the bitter details exposed, well, that is part of Angelou’s forgiving design. As an account of reconciliation, this little book is just revealing enough, and pretty irresistible.”—The Washington Post “Moving . . . a remarkable portrait of two courageous souls.”—People “[The] latest, and most potent, of her serial autobiographies . . . [a] tough-minded, tenderhearted addition to Angelou’s spectacular canon.”—Elle “Mesmerizing . . . Angelou has a way with words that can still dazzle us, and with her mother as a subject, Angelou has a near-perfect muse and mystery woman.”—Essence

Mom and Me and Mom

6aa77654-acbe-4ff4-b62c-ddc160c5129d-1

Margot Theis Raven

Retired school library book. Previous owner’s information has been marked out on the inside of the front and back covers. Interior pages are in excellent condition.

North Carolina

Recounts the true story of spirit and determination from America's early civil rights history and the Cannon Street all-stars who were not allowed to play in the World Series game.

Let Them Play

1c9de190-71ac-4b68-92dc-0902639c7b27-0

Jesmyn Ward

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey through Mississippi's past and present"--

Sing, Unburied, Sing

b6556e5d-d0fb-44ab-9acd-1f97969f2b23-1

Christopher Paul Curtis

Book jacket is a little beat up but book is in good condition 

(Newbery Medal Winner)

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H. E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

Bud, Not Buddy

b358f73d-18f3-4233-8ca7-499e9785172e-1

Danyel Smith

Oklahoma

Told from the alternating points of view of two sisters, "More Like Wrestling" is a story about love--its potential for salvation and its limitations--as well as the dangers of apathy and the ultimate necessity for forgiveness.

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