#africanamerican #childrens #childrensnonfiction #picturebook

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Illinois

This powerful picture book introduces young readers to a key event in the struggle for Civil Rights. Winner, Coretta Scott King Honor Award.

In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, thousands of African American children volunteered to march for their rights after hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak. They protested the laws that kept black people separate from white people. Facing fear, hate, and danger, these children used their voices to change the world.

Frank Morrison's emotive oil-on-canvas paintings bring this historical event to life, while Monica Clark-Robinson's moving and poetic words document this remarkable time.

I couldn't play on the same playground as the white kids. 

I couldn't go to their schools.  

I couldn't drink from their water fountains.  

There were so many things I couldn't do.

Let the Children March

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#hardcover #romance #love #drama #africanamerican#blackromance

Florida

In Another Man’s Bed 

Wil Haygood

Texas

One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World

"At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book ... without a doubt, not only the very best film book ... but it is also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read." --Shondaland This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies--from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther--using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown. Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation--which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster--Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves--including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others. An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

Colorization

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New Jersey

In Life and Leadership

It Worked for Me

1855179a-df4a-4bc5-821e-cb48ec84ae95-1

Jason Reynolds

Brendan Kiely

New York

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.

All American Boys

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Gwen Strauss

Calvin Alexander Ramsey

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Iowa

Ruth and the Green Book is the story of one black family's trip from Chicago to Alabama by car in the late 1940s. Along the way they encounter prejudice, but they also discover The Green Book, a real guide to accommodations which was published for decades to aid African-American travelers as they faced prejudice on the roads across the country.

Ruth and the Green Book

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#hardcover #new #countryromance #love #romance #africanamerican #black

An uplifting story about finding true love and a true voice—with a fresh spin on Pygmalion—from the bestselling author whose novels top 300,000 copies in print.Yolanda Joe has wowed thousands of fans with her lively storylines and savvy heroines. Now she introduces Imani, a rising star whose dreams and challenges will capture the hearts of thousands more.Talented, ambitious, and just twenty-two years old, Imani is surrounded by men with advice about her singing career. Her father, who owns a struggling nightclub, sees Imani’s future as a chance to fulfill his own failed dreams. Her boyfriend, Taz, is determined to become a mega-producer, with Imani’s street rapping as his ticket to fame. But Professor Orenthal Hopson, who teaches in the music department of a historically black college, has his own designs on her: he struck a bet with a colleague requiring him to transform Imani from a hip-hop hopeful into a traditional jazz singer. Like a modern-day Eliza Doolittle, Imani finds herself caught up in a musical makeover that causes her to question who she really wants to become. As Professor Hopson begins to sweep her off her feet, she also has to decide whether to stand by Taz, the man she’s cared about since childhood, or let herself fall for the dashing intellectual.A delight on every page, My Fine Ladypresents the dilemmas of romance, family, and career with Yolanda Joe’s signature wit and flair.

My Fine Lady

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Charles Johnson

Ohio

A Novel

"Set against the racial turbulence of the Civil Rights era, Dreamer is the first work of fiction to explore King's life. Yet the story, told by Matthew Bishop, one of King's devoted followers, is also a tale of doubles, warring brothers, envy, and inequality." "The novel introduces us to Chaym Smith, a man whose startling physical resemblance to King wins him the job of official stand-in. In the course of training Chaym to shield King from danger, Matthew comes to realize the philosophical magnitude of our greatest civil rights leader and the ambiguities within the Movement itself, and he - and we - are irreversibly changed. What makes one man great and the other just a mirror for greatness? What does it mean to be of African descent in America? What does it take to change the face of a country forever?"--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Dreamer

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#hardcover #historicalfiction #love #friendship  #africanamerican 

Virginia

In her funny, moving, and ambitious debut, Elyse Singleton introduces us to two inseparable and hard-minded idealists. Young Lilian endures the tribulations of Nadir, Mississippi, on the purity of her faith in people and her growing belief in herself. Her best friend, Myraleen, gets by on her sharp tongue and her unwillingness to give in-and perhaps because Lilian is always with her. In this lifelong story, Lilian and Myraleen struggle through dramatically changing times: From the stark realities of life in rural Mississippi, through the different sort of racism they find in workaday Philadelphia and France during World War II. For these women, the road to maturity in the messy American century is long and ragged. Along the way, Myraleen falls for a Tuskeegee flier and Lilian for a German prisoner of war. And each time they reassert their oldest ideals, everything they believe in is tested again--most of all what love requires in such a world.

This Side of the Sky

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Original tales of living, loving and learning told by a perfectly ordinary, quite commonly sensible, and absolutely are inspiring colored woman. #africanamerican #shortstories #folktales #NorthCarolina #heritage #africanamericanheritage #

Maryland

Original Tales of Living, Loving, Longing and Learning, As Told by a Perfectly Ordinary, Quite Commonly Sensible and Absolutely Awe-Inspiring Colored Woman

Sometimes black history doesn't march, Sometimes black history doesn't shout, Sometimes black history just comes wearily down a dirt road, dragging a cotton sack and wearning a head rag....

Just Plain Folks

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Rosalyn McMillan

Louisiana

A story of love, family and the search for the right someone to share it all with. Spice Witherspoon, a prosperous Detroit restaurateur, has two grown-up daughters. Mink has always been a joy, but Sterling has always been Trouble.

One Better

01ad6d10-5558-4f89-abfe-03edbf43e95b-1

Rosemarie Robotham

Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers

A celebration of modern black family life, featuring fiction, memoir, and poetry, by African American authors both new and renowned.

Mending the World

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Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

After the death of his father, the flamboyant and controversial Judge Oliver Garland, his son Talcott must unravel the truth about his father's life, a quest that brings him face to face with old scandals and family secrets.

The Emperor of Ocean Park

4887fff7-82fa-48a0-b64f-287561966fd7-1

Maya Angelou

A couple small bends along dust jacket but otherwise in near perfect new condition! This book was an extra copy so just selling the second one

California

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A moving memoir about the legendary author’s relationship with her own mother. Emma Watson’s Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick! The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call “Lady,” revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them. Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights. Praise for Mom & Me & Mom “Mom & Me & Mom is delivered with Angelou’s trademark good humor and fierce optimism. If any resentments linger between these lines, if lives are partially revealed without all the bitter details exposed, well, that is part of Angelou’s forgiving design. As an account of reconciliation, this little book is just revealing enough, and pretty irresistible.”—The Washington Post “Moving . . . a remarkable portrait of two courageous souls.”—People “[The] latest, and most potent, of her serial autobiographies . . . [a] tough-minded, tenderhearted addition to Angelou’s spectacular canon.”—Elle “Mesmerizing . . . Angelou has a way with words that can still dazzle us, and with her mother as a subject, Angelou has a near-perfect muse and mystery woman.”—Essence

Mom and Me and Mom

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Sue Monk Kidd

The #1 New York Times bestseller of hope, daring, and the quest for freedom taken on by two unforgettable American women, from the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees. “A remarkable novel that heightened my sense of what it meant to be a woman – slave or free . . a conversation changer.” – Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine “Powerful…furthers our essential understanding of what has happened among us as Americans – and why it still matters.” –The Washington Post Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

The Invention of Wings

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Margot Theis Raven

Retired school library book. Previous owner’s information has been marked out on the inside of the front and back covers. Interior pages are in excellent condition.

Missouri

Recounts the true story of spirit and determination from America's early civil rights history and the Cannon Street all-stars who were not allowed to play in the World Series game.

Let Them Play

1c9de190-71ac-4b68-92dc-0902639c7b27-0

Christopher Paul Curtis

Book jacket is a little beat up but book is in good condition 

North Carolina

(Newbery Medal Winner)

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H. E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

Bud, Not Buddy

b358f73d-18f3-4233-8ca7-499e9785172e-1

Wes Moore

Wisconsin

One Name, Two Fates

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The "compassionate" (People), "startling" (Baltimore Sun), "moving" (Chicago Tribune) true story of two kids with the same name from the city: One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. 
 
In development as a feature film executive produced by Stephen Curry, who selected the book as his "Underrated" Book Club Pick with Literati

The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.

In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. 

Wes just couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?

That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they'd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.

Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

The Other Wes Moore

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#hardcover #politics #socialjustice #mitchalbom #judge #africanamerican

Federal Judge Damon J. Keith

The Honorable Damon J. Keith was appointed to the federal bench in 1967 and has served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit since 1977, where he has been an eloquent defender of civil and constitutional rights and a vigourous enforcer of civil rights law. In Crusader for Justice: Federal Judge Damon J. Keith, author Trevor W. Coleman presents the first ever biography of native Detroiter Judge Keith, surveying his education, important influences, major cases, and professional and personal commitments. Along the way, Coleman consults a host of Keith's notable friends and colleagues, including former White House Deputy Counsel John Dean, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and industrialist Edsel Ford II for this candid and comprehensive volume.

Coleman traces Keith's early life, from his public school days in Detroit to his time serving in the segregated U.S. army and his law school years at Howard University at the dawn of the Civil Rights era. He reveals how Keith's passion for racial and social justice informed his career, as he became co-chairman of Michigan's first Civil Rights Commission and negotiated the politics of his appointment to the federal judiciary. Coleman goes on to detail Keith's most famous cases, including the Pontiac Busing and Hamtramck Housing cases, the 1977 Detroit Police affirmative action case, the so-called Keith Case (United States v. U.S. District Court), and the Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft case in 2002. He also traces Keith's personal commitment to mentoring young black lawyers, provides a candid look behind the scenes at the dynamics and politics of the Six Circuit Court of Appeals, and even reveals some of Keith's difficult relationships (with the Detroit NAACP and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas).

Judge Keith's forty-five years on the bench offer a unique viewpoint on a tumultuous era of American and legal history. Readers interested in Civil Rights-era law, politics and personalities will appreciate the portrait of Keith's fortitude and conviction in Crusader for Justice.

Crusader for Justice

82cfeccc-8e55-46ca-a5c3-ffc25be858d0-1

W. Kamau Bell

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Tales of a 6' 4 , African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian

A memoir and manifesto from the comedian, hit podcast host, and star of United Shades of America

You may know W. Kamau Bell from his critically acclaimed hit show on CNN United Shades of America. Or maybe you've read about him in the New York Times, which called him "the most promising new talent in political comedy in many years." Or maybe in the New Yorker, fawning over his brand of humor, writing, "Bell's gimmick is intersectional progressivism: he treats racial, gay, and women's issues as inseparable."

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell is a humorous, well-informed take on the world today, tackling a wide range of current and evergreen issues such as the 2016 election, race relations, fatherhood, the state of law enforcement today, comedians and superheroes, right-wing politics, failure, his interracial marriage, his upbringing by divorced and very strong-willed, race-conscious parents, his early days struggling to find his comedic voice, why he never felt at home in Black comedy circles, what it means to be a Black nerd, the balance between racism and feminism, and much, much more.

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell

380a2289-50e0-4fdf-9a4e-dbd177be7677-1

Solomon Northup

Eric Ashley Hairston

New Hampshire

Twelve Years a Slave

2c0a0f46-1063-4b08-bf9b-9fad985f6e58-1

Alice Brière-Haquet

library binding. Some library stickers on cover and marks on inner covers. The rest of the book is mint. Please see all images. C

Jazz Legend and Civil-Rights Activist Nina Simone

With evocative black-and-white illustrations and moving prose, readers are introduced to jazz-music legend and civil-rights activist Nina Simone. A stunning picture-book biography of the High Priestess of Soul and one of the greatest voices of the 20th century. Shared as a lullaby to her daughter, a soulful song recounts Simone's career, the trials she faced as an African American woman, and the stand she took during the Civil Rights Movement. This poignant picture book offers a melodic tale that is both a historic account of an iconic figure and an extraordinary look at how far we've come and how far we still need to go for social justice and equality. A timeless and timely message aptly appropriate for today's social and political climates. ♦ "A good introduction to Simone’s life, from her early love of music to her rise to the status of legend" —Kirkus Reviews, starred review ♦ "Strikingly illustrated" —Booklist, starred review ♦ "Hauntingly beautiful illustrations" —Foreword Reviews, starred review "Stirring and powerful. . . " —BookPage

Nina

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James E. Ransome

Recipient of a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of 2019 A young slave girl witnesses the heartbreak and hopefulness of her family and their plantation community when her brother escapes for freedom in this brilliantly conceived picture book by Coretta Scott King Award winner James E. Ransome. Every single morning, the overseer of the plantation rings the bell. Daddy gathers wood. Mama cooks. Ben and the other slaves go out to work. Each day is the same. Full of grueling work and sweltering heat. Every day, except one, when the bell rings and Ben is nowhere to be found. Because Ben ran. Yet, despite their fear and sadness, his family remains hopeful that maybe, just maybe, he made it North. That he is free. An ode to hope and a powerful tribute to the courage of those who ran for freedom, The Bell Rang is a stunning reminder that our past can never be forgotten.

The Bell Rang

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#hardcover #nonfiction #blm #woke #politics #African-American #women

Georgia

The four most powerful African American women in politics share the story of their friendship and how it has changed politics in America. The lives of black women in American politics are remarkably absent from the shelves of bookstores and libraries. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics is a sweeping view of American history from the vantage points of four women who have lived and worked behind the scenes in politics for over thirty years—Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore—a group of women who call themselves The Colored Girls. Like many people who have spent their careers in public service, they view their lives in four-year waves where presidential campaigns and elections have been common threads. For most of the Colored Girls, their story starts with Jesse Jackson’s first campaign for president. From there, they went on to work on the presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Over the years, they’ve filled many roles: in the corporate world, on campaigns, in unions, in churches, in their own businesses and in the White House. Through all of this, they’ve worked with those who have shaped our country’s history—US Presidents such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, well-known political figures such as Terry McAuliffe and Howard Dean, and legendary activists and historical figures such as Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, and Betty Shabazz. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics is filled with personal stories that bring to life heroic figures we all know and introduce us to some of those who’ve worked behind the scenes but are still hidden. Whatever their perch, the Colored Girls are always focused on the larger goal of “hurrying history” so that every American — regardless of race, gender or religious background — can have a seat at the table. This is their story.

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Monica Clark-Robinson; Frank Morrison (Illustrator)