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From the Publisher: This autobiography of a slave's rise to distinction asserts that a strong work ethic and excellence in whatever one is doing will be rewarded no matter what race or what position a person holds in life. As far as Washington was concerned, slavery only made the black person stronger. He argued that both blacks and whites would benefit more from giving blacks vocational training than from encouraging the "craze for Greek & Latin...
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Before John Glenn orbited the earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in...
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A remarkable account of early slavery and later freedom, The Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written By Himself, is the 1789 autobiography of former slave Olaudah Equiano. This memoir is a slave narrative, travel tale, and spiritual journey all-in-one. His life is a tale of terror as well as an exciting adventure.
This fascinating account describes Equiano's abduction from Africa at the age of ten and the years spent in labor...
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"Girlz 'n the Hood is the unsentimental, moving, and surprisingly humorous account of a girl and her ten siblings who grew up in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Mary's mother was a fierce matriarch, a single mom who raised eleven children with the help of welfare checks and a fire arm hidden in her bra. Drugs, guns, and pregnancies were everyday occurrences, but Mary and her siblings took it all in stride, spying on the grown-ups,...
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This powerful and unflinching memoir by young mother and fugitive slave, Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813 -1897), remains among the few remaining slave narratives written by a woman. The book was published in 1861 after Jacobs' harrowing escape from a wicked and predatory master, under the pseudonym Linda Brent since having her true identity revealed would have jeopardized her freedom under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Jacobs describes her life as a young...
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The author explores her mother's marriage -- and fourteen pregnancies -- in this "powerful memoir" ( Ebony ). One of Oprah.com's Best Memoirs of the Year Winner of the 2015 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction Tracing the four days between the moment she gets the dreaded call and the burial of her mother, Elizabeth Nunez tells of her lifelong struggle to cope with her parents' ambitions for their children -- and her mother's seemingly unbreakable...
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"In Mighty Justice, trailblazing African American civil rights attorney Dovey Johnson Roundtree recounts her inspiring life story that speaks movingly and urgently to our racially troubled times. From the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, to the segregated courtrooms of the nation's capital; from the male stronghold of the army where she broke gender and color barriers to the pulpits of churches where women had waited for years for the right to...
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A Cotton Club dancer and Communist Party leader shares the story of his life in arts and activism from the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights Era.
Through his extraordinary life, Howard "Stretch" Johnson epitomized the generation of African Americans who broke through boundaries to make the United States more democratic. In this lively and engaging memoir, Johnson traces his path to becoming a dancer in Harlem's historic Cotton Club, a...
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On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four...
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