African American Nonfiction

Learn about the bomb blast that rocked the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, killing four young girls.

This chapter-book edition of the number-one New York Times best seller by luminaries Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds is an essential introduction to the history of racism and antiracism in America.

America's leading young black intellectual reveals the hidden rules of race that dominate politics, society, and cultural life. The author discusses the state of Black leadership; the Black Church and sex; Black youth, pop culture, and the politics of nostalgia; why in a color-blind society race will continue to rule; and other important issues. Michael Eric Dyson, former welfare father, and now an ordained Baptist Minster and Princeton Ph.D., is professor of Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina.

In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.

All throughout history, Black men have made important contributions to scientific discovery. This collection of biographies for kids explores 15 of these intelligent men and the extraordinary scientific accomplishments they achieved—even when they faced huge challenges. You’ll learn how they stood up against racism and inequality and never stopped following their passions for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Actress, activist, and now Dancing with the Stars competitor Skai Jackson is a star! Her rise to fame started on the popular Disney Channel shows Bunk'd and Jessie. Her cool sense of style led her to create her own fashion line. And her success has made her a major influencer, with millions of followers on Instagram, who isn't afraid to stand up for what she believes in.

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. This seemingly small act triggered civil rights protests across America and earned Rosa Parks the title "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement".

Before May 31, 1921, the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a thriving neighborhood of 10,000 Black residents. There, Black families found success and community. They ran their own businesses, including barbershops, clothing stores, jewelers, restaurants, movie theatres, and more. There also were Black doctors, dentists, and lawyers to serve the neighborhood. Then, in one weekend, all of this was lost. A racist mob tore through the streets, burning everything to the ground and killing scores of innocent residents.

One of America's favorite African-American storytellers remembers her childhood in tender, unforgettable new stories. Jackie Torrence, a frequent headliner at the National Storytelling Festival, is known to audiences nationwide as The Story Lady.

Personal and prophetic, these essays uncover what it means to live in a racist American society with insights that feel as fresh today as they did over the four decades in which he composed them. Longtime Baldwin fans and especially those just discovering his genius will appreciate this essential collection of his great nonfiction writing. Along with 46 additional pieces, it includes the full text of dozens of famous essays from such books as:

No one knows where the term Underground Railroad came from - there were no trains or tracks, only "conductors" who helped escaping slaves to freedom. Including real stories about "passengers" on the "railroad", this audiobook chronicles slaves' close calls with bounty hunters, their exhausting struggles on the road, and what they sacrificed for freedom.

Reverend F. D. Reese’s favorite subject to teach his students was freedom. But in Selma, Alabama, unfair tests and police officers’ swinging billy clubs kept African Americans from voting. Reverend Reese knew something had to change, so he asked his fellow teachers to do something dangerous - something that might lead to beatings and prison time. He asked them to march.

Growing up as the child of former sharecroppers in a segregated Baltimore, Elijah Cummings saw firsthand how injustice could run rampant, even in a democracy that promises fairness and equality. But with a strong support system and fiery self-discipline, Elijah utilized the momentum of the civil rights movement to overcome the obstacles of poverty and racism to effect change at a time when our country so badly needed it.

Featuring 18 trailblazing Black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Among these biographies, listeners will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come.

Black activist Opal Lee had a vision of Juneteenth as a holiday for everyone. This true story celebrates Black joy and inspires children to see their dreams blossom. Growing up in Texas, Opal knew the history of Juneteenth, but she soon discovered that many Americans had never heard of the holiday. Join Opal on her historic journey to recognize and celebrate "freedom for all."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was only 25 when he helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott and was soon organizing black people across the country in support of the right to vote, desegregation, and other basic civil rights. Maintaining nonviolent and peaceful tactics even when his life was threatened, King was also an advocate for the poor and spoke out against racial and economic injustice until his death - from an assassin's bullet - in 1968.

Taking up that challenge and drawing from Baldwin's fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and interviews, You Mean It or You Don't will spur today's progressives from conviction to action. It is not enough, authors Hollowell and McGhee urge us, to hold progressive views on racial justice, LGBTQ+ identity, and economic inequality. True and lasting change demands a response to Baldwin's radical challenge for moral commitment. Called to move from dreams of justice to living it out in communities, churches, and neighborhoods, we can show that we truly mean it.

When Ruby Bridges was just six years old, she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South. Based on the pivotal events that happened in 1960 and told from her own point of view for the first time, in a poetic reflection on her experience that changed the face of history and the trajectory of the civil rights movement. I Am Ruby Bridges offers hope and confidence to all children and is a perfect learning tool for schools and libraries to teach the story of Ruby Bridges as never before.

Through clouds and over mountains and farmland... Two flies accompany listeners on an adrenaline-pumping flight over war-torn Europe as the U.S. Army Air Corps' Tuskegee airmen take on a heroic, history-making mission during World War II.

I Know I've Been Changed is an anthology featuring the testimonies of 17 women of God's transformative power! Featuring co-writers: Tina Michelle Baker Ingrid M. Buchanan Shawndell Burney-Speaks Linda D. Coleman Bernita Jackson Dorsharica A. Jefferson Cheryl Johnson Tracy T. Johnson Sharri Joyner Pastor Adrian Partlow Bernadette Rhodes Billika Rodgers Dr. Angela M. Sinkfield-Gray Wenifred Emily Thomas CaMilla Williams Courtney Williams