Living Up There

At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights move...

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is a poignant biography as told to Olive Gilbert by Isabella Bomefree-a slave born at the end of the eighteenth century who later took the name of Sojourner Truth. She recounts the harshness of life under slavery, as...

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memora...

Uncertain of his date of birth or the identity of his father, Frederick Douglass came into the world with one surety: he was born a slave, and would die a slave. But as he grew up, Douglass determined that he would teach himself to read and write, a...

Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Research NonfictionNamed one of the Top 3 JFK Books by Parade Magazine. Named 1 of The 5 Essential Kennedy assassination books ever written by The Daily Beast. Named one of the Top Nonfiction Books of...

Solomon Northup was born in the early 1800s in New York, and was born as a free man. He lived as a free man for over 30 years, until he was tricked into moving to Washington, D.C. by men offering him a job as a musician. Once he made it to D.C., he ...

Sandra Brown revisits two pivotal Christmases from her own past in this heartfelt and intimate essay. One needn't be familiar with Brown's previous works to be deeply moved by this personal reflection on the meaning of family, faith, celebration, ...

This book is a love story, as much like poetry as prose. It is filled with Jay Jagoe's love for Gulfport, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, his family, his friends, and the servants. Jay tells his story like you were sitting on the front porch of his home...

The classic memoir of an 18th-century British former slave, and leading figure in the abolitionist movement, Olaudah Equiano. Introduced by David Olusoga, author of the highly acclaimed Black and British.Kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age ...