African Art

Within a few years of its first issue in 1951, Jet, a pocket-sized magazine, became the "bible" for news of the civil rights movement. It was said, only half-jokingly, "If it wasn't in Jet, it didn't happen." Writing for the magazine and its glossy, big sister Ebony, for 53 years, longer than any other journalist, Washington bureau chief Simeon Booker was on the front lines of virtually every major event of the revolution that transformed America.

At the peak of the civil rights movement, Lydia Abarca was the first ballerina in a Black ballet company to grace the cover of Dance magazine. Alongside founding members Shelia Rohan and Gayle McKinney-Griffith and first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells, Abarca invited a bright light to shine on Black professional classical dancers. Grit, determination, and exquisite artistry propelled these swans of Harlem to dizzying heights as they performed around the world for audiences that included celebrities, dignitaries, and royalty.

How nature came to be is the basis of African folklore. From a greedy baboon, a vain crocodile, and a clever jackal, African animals are often the characters used to convey the message of human characteristics, their pitfalls, and their triumphs. And unlike stories in other parts of the world, the ending is not always happy. In fact, some African fables are downright gruesome! It was from this point that I wanted to adapt some of Africa’s best-loved stories into tales that could delight a very young audience.

The short-nosed elephants go down to the river to get a drink. But lurking in the depths is a crafty crocodile, who would love to eat one of these big animals. He chooses a young elephant and grabs a hold of his stubby nose. A lengthy struggle ensues. Eventually the young elephant breaks free, but his nose has taken on a long winding shape.

Through sublime landscapes and warm images of a boy and his family, this adaptation of the beloved folk song creates a dazzling, intimate interpretation that rejoices in the connectedness of people and nature.

Explore the life and career of writer and poet Jerry Pinkney, author of Soapstone Signs.

If you want to understand the Black experience in the US, you must understand hip-hop, and Psalms of My People is your guide. Treating hip-hop like sacred scripture, lenny duncan traces its history—the artists, their lyrics, and the cultural context—to reveal its role as a conduit to tell the modern story of Black liberation in this country, following the bloody trail from the end of the Civil Rights Era through the day George Floyd was sacrificed on the streets of america.

Se trata sin duda del arte más primitivo de nuestro tiempo y presenta serias semejanzas con los estilos más antiguos de nuestra historia, que todavía no puede explicar convincentemente la escasa evolución técnica y social de algunas partes de África y Oceanía. Esta escasa evolución económica dio lugar a una existencia primitiva que no puede compararse en modo alguno con la evolución normal de Occidente, como demuestran sus obras artísticas que resultan absolutamente genuinas y sorprendentes como podemos contemplar en esta serie.

The opening line of this call-and-response style verse asks the question that forms the thread throughout: Blues, what do you mean to me? In a magnificent collaboration of words and song, a timeline of the blues is presented in a soulful reading with dramatic musical accompaniment that offers a compelling evocation of the blues experience.

En Sueños en tiempos de guerra, Ngũgĩ dibuja hábilmente una era pasada, capturando el paisaje, la gente y la cultura. Narrado desde los ojos de un niño y al mismo tiempo la inteligencia de una vida dedicada, entre otras cosas, al estudio y la defensa de las culturas minorizadas, el audiolibro evidencia la vicisitudes sociales y políticas de la vida colonial y la guerra.

Explore the life and career of Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King-awarded author and illustrator Kadir Nelson.

Jordan Rose is a new high school graduate preparing to study archeology at the University of Michigan. She receives an unexpected invitation from a mysterious Oxford professor to join him on a fantastical quest in search of the ancient lost city of Azcar, and its mythic princess, Nadaya. What begins as a chance to earn extra college credits on the adventure of a lifetime, soon turns into a nightmare for the ages. Jordan Rose and the Tomb of Resurrection is a young adult action adventure by James J. Caterino, the author of The Anti-Matter Girl, Dreams, True Stories, To Meghan, Ghost Stories,...

Who Are We Anymore? Book of Poems, by author Reneé Drummond-Brown, will leave the reader pondering how did we arrive at this turbulent crossroad? One thing for sure, two for certain, we know, that we know, cellphones and trends hold our attention at bay from the global catastrophes that detain our mind. Distractions are the new norm, that for certain we do know. Societies present condition and these norms leaves one questioning who, what, where, when, why, and how?

When photographer Adraint Bereal graduated from the University of Texas, he self-published an impressive volume of portraits, personal statements, and interviews that explored UT's campus culture and offered an intimate look at the lives of Black students matriculating within a majority white space. Bereal's work was inspired by his first photo exhibition at the George Washington Carver Museum in Austin, entitled 1.7, that unearthed the experiences of the 925 Black men that made up just 1.7% of UT's total 52,000 student body.

Since her death in 2003, Nina Simone has been the subject of an astonishing number of rereleased, remastered, and remixed albums and compilations as well as biographies, films, viral memes, samples, and soundtracks. In Fantasies of Nina Simone, Jordan Alexander Stein examines the space between our collective and individual fantasies about Simone the performer, civil rights activist, and icon, and her own fantasies about herself. Stein outlines how Simone gave voice to personal fantasies through releasing dozens of covers of her white male contemporaries.

In We Can’t Breathe, Jabari Asim disrupts what Toni Morrison has exposed as the “Master Narrative” and replaces it with a story of black survival and persistence through art and community in the face of centuries of racism. In eight wide-ranging and penetrating essays, he explores such topics as the twisted legacy of jokes and falsehoods in black life; the importance of black fathers and community; the significance of black writers and stories; and the beauty and pain of the black body.

In this unique inspirational audiobook, we take a deep dive and remember the almost superhuman contributions of our greatest black leaders from the 20th century. Each in their own way educating liberating and freeing untold millions of souls from the heartless bondage they were forced to endure at the hands of a cruel largely racist selfinterested society. Fighting a Goliath of ignorance with little chance of success each in their own way overcame incredible obstacles to implement the finer attributes of Justice truth and freedom in the troubled world around them.

"Sometimes I wish I was a little girl again, because bruised knees heal faster than broken hearts.” When you are young sometimes life doesn't always go as you plan it. For Taliyah, life wasn't always easy or hard but she wrote her own life story. From smiles to heart break as a teen, Taliyah went through it all. Having one high sweetheart isn't as easy as it looks.

Three simple words that provided Kathryn Johnson, a reporter for The Associated Press' Atlanta bureau, unprecedented access to the grieving widow in the days following her husband's death. Johnson was on her way to a movie date when word came from Memphis that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. She immediately headed for the King home where, despite resistance from authorities on the scene, she was the only reporter allowed inside.

Rumba Evolution is a captivating informative journey of how a type of music unwillingly left Africa in slave ships, went to Cuba, and then to the rest of the world before returning home to Africa as Congolese rumba music and becoming a global phenomenon. Rumba Evolution is an informative voyage to explore rumba’s origins, spread, transformation, and influences, and how it became one of the most popular genres in the world.