African American Memoirs

In this thought-provoking and heartbreaking memoir, an award-winning writer tells the story of his father, John Stanley Ford, the first Black software engineer at IBM, revealing how racism insidiously affected his father’s view of himself and their relationship.

Seen around the world, John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s Black Power salute on the 1968 Olympic podium sparked controversy and career fallout. Yet their show of defiance remains one of the most iconic images of Olympic history and the Black Power movement. Here is the remarkable story of one of the men behind the salute, lifelong activist John Carlos.

Two Wisconsin soldiers stationed in Kentucky escort a runaway girl to Ohio's underground railroad while ruthless slave catchers track them. They must cross 100 miles of unknown territory, outrunning their pursuers, and avoiding John Hunt Morgan’s Thunderbolt Raiders to reach Levi Coffin and the Underground Railroad. This emotional story based on true events during the American Civil War is about finding common ground, overcoming ignorance, and fighting the good fight. Soldier Boy explores the relationship between its title character, who is learning to trust again, and Sgt. Jesse Berch, ...

Never Forget Our People Were Always Free illuminates for each of us how the path to healing America’s broken heart starts with each of us having the courage to heal our own.

In this first interpretative comprehensive history of Barack Obama's presidency in its entirety, Claude A. Clegg III situates the former president in his dynamic, inspirational, yet contentious political context. He captures the America that made Obama's White House years possible, while insightfully rendering the America that resolutely resisted the idea of a Black chief executive, thus making conceivable the ascent of the most unlikely of his successors.

Shaking up New York and national politics by becoming the first African American congresswoman and, later, the first Black major-party presidential candidate, Shirley Chisholm left an indelible mark as an "unbought and unbossed" firebrand and a leader in politics for meaningful change. Chisholm spent her formative years moving between Barbados and Brooklyn, and the development of her political orientation did not follow the standard narratives of the civil rights or feminist establishments.

Coach Shegog, as we still call him today, is one of the oldest living people with HIV. He received his diagnosis in 1986, five years before Magic Johnson. Treatment and outcomes during this time were so poor that contracting the virus was a death sentence. Coach Shegog lost numerous loved ones to the virus and he suffered multiple bouts with the often fatal opportunistic pneumonias. ˃˃˃ Yet he persisted. Driven by his passion for wrestling, he needed to make sure his students were on track with their classes, able to graduate high school, and ready to continue their postgraduate pursuits...

Nadine Cohodas's biography of the passionate, talented and difficult, but ultimately lovable, Nina Simone is an object lesson in American life. With thorough interviews and research, much new material and information that has never before come to light, Nadine tells the story of Eunice Wayman, born in Tryon NC in 1933, with a stunning musical talent that was spotted early by family and friends.

Born into slavery on a Maryland plantation, John Thompson spent the first twenty-five years of his life in bondage before escaping to the North. His fear of recapture drove him to a soul-searching new chapter of his life. He joined the crew of the Milwood, a whaling vessel on which Thompson would spend more than two years working and traveling the world. In this unique slave narrative, Thompson not only explores the brutal realities of the antebellum South but also provides a transcendent spiritual accounting of his own internal life.

Born to interracial American parents in Sweden, Jason Diakité grew up between worlds - part Swedish, American, black, white, Cherokee, Slovak, and German, riding a delicate cultural and racial divide. It was a no-man’s-land that left him in constant search of self. Even after his hip-hop career took off, Jason fought to unify a complex system of family roots that branched across continents, ethnicities, classes, colors, and eras to find a sense of belonging.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race relations. Now, decades after her quiet defiance inspired the modern civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks' own words tell of her courageous life, her passion for freedom and equality, and her strong faith.

Dr. Jordan B. Smith, Jr. became the first African-American to become the Color Company Commander at the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis or USNA) in 1976. The Class of 1976 African Americans set the pathway for changes, by demonstrating that Blacks and other minorities had earned the right to be in Annapolis. The incidents and events are authentic. This audiobook is about one of the Black men who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1976.

Nothing casts a more sinister shadow over our nation's history than the gruesome lynchings that happened between 1882 and 1937, claiming 4,680 victims. Often, in a show of racist violence, the lynchers tortured their victims before murdering them. Most killers were never brought to justice; some were instead celebrated as heroes, their victims' bodies displayed or even cut up and distributed as trophies.

In 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, had no idea she was changing history when, fed up and tired, she refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a bus in segregated Alabama. Today, she is immortalized for the defiance that sent her to jail and triggered a bus boycott that catapulted Martin Luther King, Jr. into the national spotlight. Who was she, before and after her historic act, and how did that act sound the death knell for Jim Crow?

In The Warrior Code, entrepreneur, philanthropist, reality star, and retired gunnery sergeant Tee Marie Hanible serves up 11 principles to awaken your inner badass and thrive in the face of adversity. With insightful honesty and wisdom and set against the backdrop of Tee’s life, The Warrior Code will help you understand that things can beat us back from realizing our true potential...but the key is finding the way to realize one’s own innate strength.

Marlon Peterson grew up in 1980s Crown Heights, raised by Trinidadian immigrants. Amid the routine violence that shaped his neighborhood, Marlon became a high-achieving and devout child, the specter of the American dream opening up before him. But in the aftermath of immense trauma, he participated in a robbery that resulted in two murders. At 19, Peterson was charged and later convicted. He served 10 long years in prison. In Bird Uncaged, Peterson challenges the typical “redemption” narrative and our assumptions about justice.

LaTonya Summers was only six years old the first time she unconsciously tried to be "more white". Recollecting experiences from her childhood in foster care through to her life today as an Assistant Professor and mother, LaTonya examines how her perception of self was affected by internalized racism and led her to adopt white norms - influencing everything from her music and clothing choices to her speech and values. Join LaTonya in her journey of realization.

Staking a Claim examines the life of Jake Simmons, Jr. - the international tycoon who was the most successful African American in the history of the oil industry - and affords us a rare perspective on this question.

Created by the founder of Breathing Space Creative Literary Studio, acclaimed writer and editor Chelene Knight, Let It Go draws on personal experience and the advice of leaders from various Black communities to share hard-won tools for joy-discovery—tools such as how to say no with love; how to call back activities that feel good; how to reshape communication with those closest to you; how to revise language; and most of all, how to learn to let go in order to redefine what we think joy is.

The Portable Anna Julia Cooper brings together, for the first time, Anna Julia Cooper's major collection of essays, A Voice from the South, along with several previously unpublished poems, plays, journalism, and selected correspondences, including more than 30 previously unpublished letters between Anna Julia Cooper and W. E. B. Du Bois. This volume will introduce a new generation to an educator, intellectual, and activist whose prescient insights underlie some of the most important developments in modern American intellectual thought and African American activism.