Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

New Jersey

In Send Her Back and other stories, Munashe Kaseke offers an awfully intimate, fresh telling of the immigrant experience of black women in the United States. Equally awash with the joys of exploring a new world as well as a myriad of challenges, her complicated, and often tangled, female Zimbabwean protagonists navigate issues of identity, microaggressions, and sexism in vibrant, indelible settings. Yet again, these are not only stories of navigating an at times tense US political climate, they are also marked by characters who rise to the top of their professional fields, seize the American dream, and travel the world in glee. Kaseke peels back on the inner wranglings of characters caught between two worlds, be it by stories of dating outside one's culture and race or failing to assimilate upon returning home after spending time abroad. Uncanny. Witty. Gripping. Send Her Back and other stories dazzles, leaving you newly awakened to the world we live in.

Send Her Back and Other Stories

6f8c61ec-8183-4593-9f98-b9244bca6121-1

Bryan Washington

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Illinois

Stories

One of Barack Obama’s “Favorite Books of the Year” "Phenomenal" --Justin Torres, author of We the Animals "Brilliant" --Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun “A profound exploration of the true meaning of borders.” —The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2019 in the New York Times by Dwight Garner A New York Times Notable Book of 2019 In the city of Houston - a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America - the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He's working at his family's restaurant, weathering his brother's blows, resenting his older sister's absence. And discovering he likes boys. Around him, others live and thrive and die in Houston's myriad neighborhoods: a young woman whose affair detonates across an apartment complex, a ragtag baseball team, a group of young hustlers, hurricane survivors, a local drug dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, a reluctant chupacabra. Bryan Washington's brilliant, viscerally drawn world vibrates with energy, wit, raw power, and the infinite longing of people searching for home. With soulful insight into what makes a community, a family, and a life, Lot explores trust and love in all its unsparing and unsteady forms.

0c8b1a76-027e-421c-a477-7d2387af46e3

Mary Hoffman

Some wear on corners. Old library marks. Significant signs of use on pages. Please see images.

Texas

Although a classmate says that she cannot play Peter Pan in the school play because she is black, Grace discovers that she can do anything she sets her mind to do.

Amazing Grace

32d22db7-027a-407f-b577-84074332f377-1

Minnesota

8 starred reviews ∙ William C. Morris Award Winner ∙ National Book Award Longlist ∙ Printz Honor Book ∙ Coretta Scott King Honor Book ∙ #1 New York Times Bestseller! "Absolutely riveting!" —Jason Reynolds "Stunning." —John Green "This story is necessary. This story is important." —Kirkus (starred review) "Heartbreakingly topical." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A marvel of verisimilitude." —Booklist (starred review) "A powerful, in-your-face novel." —Horn Book (starred review) Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life. And don't miss On the Come Up, Angie Thomas's powerful follow-up to The Hate U Give.

The Hate U Give

27d52d4a-c164-4226-8690-5e844f161c86-1

Ntozake Shange

Old library stamp on inner cover. Otherwise, mint book.

Multiple starred reviews greeted this amazing collaboration between Ntozake Shange and Kadir Nelson. As Booklist put it: "Poet and painter have joined forces to offer an indelible, emotional expression of the strength, beauty, and joy of one woman's character."

Celebrated poet and playwright Ntozake Shange captures the spirit of Civil Rights pioneer Coretta Scott King in this picture book biography gorgeously illustrated by Caldecott Medal artist Kadir Nelson. 

Walking many miles to school in the dusty road, young Coretta Scott knew the unfairness of life in the segregated south. A yearning for equality began to grow. 

Together with Martin Luther King, Jr., she helped lead change through nonviolent protest. It was the beginning of a journey--with dreams of freedom for all.

Coretta Scott

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Ayana Mathis

West Virginia

Traces the story of Great Migration-era mother Hattie Shepherd, who in spite of poverty and a dysfunctional husband uses love and Southern remedies to raise nine children and prepare them for the realities of a harsh world. A first novel.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

31e77304-e08a-47fb-bef3-8a5c2d6472b2-1

Jesmyn Ward

Oregon

A Novel

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey through Mississippi's past and present"--

Sing, Unburied, Sing

b6556e5d-d0fb-44ab-9acd-1f97969f2b23-1

Leesa Cross-Smith

From the award-winning Southern writer who Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller" comes a cathartic novel about the life-changing weekend shared between two strangers: a therapist and the man she prevents from ending his life. On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home from work when she spots a man precariously standing on the side of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally shares his name: Emmett. Over the course of the emotionally charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe space for Emmett, though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job. But what she doesn't realize is that he's not the only one who needs healing -- and she's not the only one with secrets. Alternating between Tallie and Emmett's perspectives as they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge's edge -- as well as the hard truths Tallie has been grappling with in her own life -- This Close to Okay is a vibrant, powerful story of two strangers brought together by wild chance at the moment they needed each other most.

This Close to Okay

df86de7e-a33a-411c-9d18-27556dee299a-1

Angie Thomas

Amandla Stenberg

Maryland

Robert Jones, Jr.

California

Finalist for the National Book Award Instant New York Times Bestseller "May this book cast its spell on all of us, restore to us some memory of our most warrior and softest selves." —The New York Times Book Review “A new kind of epic...A grand achievement...While The Prophets' dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison...its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly.” —Entertainment Weekly A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets fearlessly reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.

The Prophets

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A Memoir

"Powerful memoir. . .Ford's thought-provoking narrative tells the story of African-American pride and perseverance."

-Publisher's Weekly (Starred)

"A masterful storyteller, Ford interweaves his personal story with the backdrop of the social movements unfolding at that time, providing a revealing insider's view of the tech industry. . . simultaneously informative and entertaining. . . A powerful, engrossing look at race and technology."

-Kirkus Review (Starred)

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.

In 1947, Thomas J. Watson set out to find the best and brightest minds for IBM. At City College he met young accounting student John Stanley Ford and hired him to become IBM's first black software engineer. But not all of the company's white employees refused to accept a black colleague and did everything in their power to humiliate, subvert, and undermine Ford.

Yet Ford would not quit. Viewing the job as the opportunity of a lifetime, he comported himself with dignity and professionalism, and relied on his community and his "street smarts" to succeed. He did not know that his hiring was meant to distract from IBM's dubious business practices, including its involvement in the Holocaust, eugenics, and apartheid.

While Ford remained at IBM, it came at great emotional cost to himself and his family, especially his son Clyde. Overlooked for promotions he deserved, the embittered Ford began blaming his fate on his skin color and the notion that darker-skinned people like him were less intelligent and less capable--beliefs that painfully divided him and Clyde, who followed him to IBM two decades later.

From his first day of work--with his wide-lapelled suit, bright red turtleneck, and huge afro--Clyde made clear he was different. Only IBM hadn't changed. As he, too, experienced the same institutional racism, Clyde began to better understand the subtle yet daring ways his father had fought back.

Think Black

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#hardcover #fiction #youngadult #youngadultfiction #thehateugive #africanamericans #ya #blm 

Oklahoma

The Hate U Give (little annotation)

Ex-library copy #hardcover #jewish #africanamericans #nonfiction #memoir #biography #autobiography #bestseller

Autobiography of a Shifting Self

Alice Walker and Mel Leventhal, like many blacks from the South and whites from the North were brought together by the Civil Rights Movement. When they married, Mel's family turned its back on him and the first grandchild, Rebecca. After her parents divorced, Rebecca was bounced between white, Jewish, upper middle class suburbs, and her mother's "artisan" class lifestyle. Being black, white, and Jewish, but none of these things, Rebecca turned, chameleon-like, into whomever she needed to be, whether she was in Mississippi, Brooklyn, Washington, DC, the Haight, Westchester, the Bronx or Yale. Confused, and mostly alone, she turned to sex, drugs, books and a cast of characters who walked the edge. This is the story of a child's unique struggle for identity and home when nothing in her world showed her who she was. Poetic reflections on memory, time, and identity punctuate this gritty exploration of race and sexuality.

Black, White and Jewish

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The Life of a Confederate General's Black Daughter

When Carrie Allen McCray was a child, she was afraid to ask about the framed photograph of a white man on her mother's dresser. Years later she learned that he was her grandfather, a Confederate general, and that her grandmother was a former slave. In her late seventies, Carrie McCray went searching for her history and found the remarkable story of her mother, Mary, the illegitimate daughter of General J. R. Jones, of Lynchburg, Virginia. Jones would later be cast out of Lynchburg society for publicly recognizing his daughter. FREEDOM'S CHILD is a loving remembrance of how Mary spent her life beating down the kind of thinking that ostracized her father. She was a leader in the founding of the NAACP and hosted the likes of Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois as they plotted the war against discrimination at her kitchen table. Carrie McCray's memories reward us with an extraordinarily vivid and intimate portrait of a remarkable woman. "Highly recommended for all readers."--Library Journal, hot pick; "I defy anyone to finish FREEDOM'S CHILD without a tear in their eye, a sense of meeting a great spirit, and an inspiration to act with generosity and justice."--Gloria Steinem; A BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB and QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOK CLUB SELECTION.

Freedom's Child

23d932ec-48af-4376-bb3a-d49bb1c51e47-1

James Weldon Johnson

Ex-library copy includes: Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington; The Souls Of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois; The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson 

UP FROM SLAVERY The autobiography of Booker T Washington is a startling portrait ofone of the great Americans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The illegitimate son of 'a white man and a Negro slave, Washington, a man who struggled for his education, would go on to struggle for the dignity of all his people in a hostile and alien society. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK W.E.B. DuBois's classic is a major sociological document and one of the momentous books in the mosaic of American literature. No other work has had greater influence on black thinking, and nowhere is the African-American's unique heritage and his kinship with all men so passionately described. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLORED MAN Originally published anonymously, James Weldon Johnson's penetrating work is a remarkable human account of the life of black Americans in the early twentieth century and a profound interpretation of his feelings towards the white man and towards members of his own race. No other book touches with such understanding and objectivity on the phenomenon once called "passing" in a white society. These three narratives, gathered together in Three Negro Classics chronicle the remarkable evolution of African-American consciousness on both a personal and social level. Profound, intelligent, and insightful, they are as relevant today as they have ever been. The Autobiography of Booker T. Washington is a startling portrait of one of the great Americans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The illegitimate son of a white man and a Negro slave, Washington, a man who struggled for his education, would go on to struggle for the dignity of all his people in a hostile and alien society.W.E.B. DuBois's classic is a major sociological document and one of the momentous books in the mosaic of American literature. No other work has had greater influence on black thinking, and nowhere is the African-American's unique heritage and his kinship with all men so passionately described.Originally published anonymously, James Weldon Johnson's penetrating work is a remarkable human accout of the life of black Americans in the early twentieth century and a profound interpretation of his feelings towards the w3hite man and towards members of his own race. No other book touches with such understanding and objectivity on the phenomenon once called "passing" in a white society.These three narratives, gathered together in Three Negro Classics, chronicle the remarkable evolution of African-American consciousness on both a personal and social level. Profound, intelligent, and insightful, they are as relevant today as they have ever been.

Three Negro Classics

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Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

The Secret Life of Bees

80b7e115-7a80-452e-84cc-b5a40d2b6af8-1

Kentucky

Vera B. Williams

New York

A collection of children's books on the subject of mothers.

A Chair for My Mother

17bb3e6c-54e0-4595-8ce5-da0a441a414a-1

Colorado

#fiction #africanamericans #hardcover #lovestories #fourstories #fourauthors

Four Original Love Stories

Got to be Real

Previous owner’s name on inside cover #fiction #poetry #hardcover #americana #africanamericans #blackvoices #historicalfiction #history #america

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Kaseke Munashe

Send Her Back and Other Stories

Bryan Washington

Lot

Mary Hoffman

Amazing Grace

Angie Thomas; Nikki Giovanni (Foreword by)

The Hate U Give

Ntozake Shange

Coretta Scott

Ayana Mathis

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Leesa Cross-Smith

This Close to Okay

Angie Thomas; Amandla Stenberg

The Hate U Give

Robert Jones, Jr.

The Prophets

Clyde W. Ford

Think Black

Angie Thomas; Amandla Stenberg

The Hate U Give

Angie Thomas; Nikki Giovanni (Foreword by)

The Hate U Give

Angie Thomas; Nikki Giovanni (Foreword by)

The Hate U Give (little annotation)

Rebecca Walker

Black, White and Jewish

Carrie Allen McCray

Freedom's Child

James Weldon Johnson

Three Negro Classics

Bryan Washington

Lot

Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees

Leesa Cross-Smith

This Close to Okay

Vera B. Williams

A Chair for My Mother

Ayana Mathis

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Eric Jerome Dickey, Marcus Major, E. Lynn Harris, Colin Channer

Got to be Real

Marilyn Nelson

Carver