Barry Wolfe

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Virginia

It's 1958 and school desegregation has already challenged so much of what Izzy White thinks he knows about Negroes, life, and himself. Jewish and insecure, Izzy has fallen in love with Rhythm and Blues, Black dance styles, basketball, and any girl who smiles at him. At the same time he fears that Negroes will either contaminate him in some way or kick his ass. A year later, because he has no money, feels guilty about his own racism, and has a ton of curiosity about Black people, he chooses to go to Howard University, "The Harvard of Negro Education." He enters Howard just when students in the South are beginning to challenge the Jim Crow Laws that have governed race relations for the past half-century. Izzy is filled with painful conflicts as he navigates between his white world in the suburbs and his Black world at Howard. He is shocked by the brutality experienced by American Negroes, astonished at the range of ways Negroes attempt to deal with second class citizenship, bemused by some of the Negro stereotypes of whites, and enraged at the current state of race relations. Izzy's sojourn involves many humorous attempts and missed opportunities to fully integrate himself into Howard's college life and a convoluted search for self-discovery.

Izzy White?

45145079-73db-4106-b007-81c2eabfb9e7-1

LaDarrion Williams

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

New York

A teenager on the run from his past finds the family he never knew existed and the community he never knew he needed at an HBCU for the young, Black, and magical. Enroll in this fresh fantasy debut unlike anything you've seen before. Ten years ago, Malik's life changed forever the night his mother mysteriously vanished and he discovered he had uncontrollable powers. Since then, he has kept his abilities hidden, looking out for himself and his younger foster brother, Taye. Now, at 17, Malik is finally ready to start a new life for both of them, far from the trauma of his past. However, a daring act to rescue Taye reveals an unexpected connection with his long-lost grandmother: a legendary conjurer with ties to a hidden magical university that Malik’s mother attended. At Caiman University, Malik’s eyes are opened to a future he never could have envisioned for himself— one that includes the reappearance of his first love, Alexis. His search for answers about his heritage, his powers, and what really happened to his mother exposes the cracks in their magical community as it faces a reawakened evil dating back to the Haitian Revolution. Together with Alexis, Malik discovers a lot beneath the surface at Caiman: feuding covens and magical politics, forbidden knowledge and buried mysteries. In a wholly unique saga of family, history and community, Malik must embrace his legacy to save what's left of his old family as well as his new one. Exploring the roots and secrets that connect us in an unforgettable contemporary setting, this heart-pounding fantasy series opener is a rich tapestry of atmosphere, intrigue, and emotion.

Blood at the Root

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Adam Harris

America’s colleges and universities have a shameful secret: they have never given Black people a fair chance to succeed. From its inception, our higher education system was not built on equality or accessibility, but on educating—and prioritizing—white students. Black students have always been an afterthought. While governments and private donors funnel money into majority white schools, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and other institutions that have high enrollments of Black students, are struggling to survive, with state legislatures siphoning away federal funds that are legally owed to these schools. In The State Must Provide, Adam Harris reckons with the history of a higher education system that has systematically excluded Black people from its benefits.

Harris weaves through the legal, social, and political obstacles erected to block equitable education in the United States, studying the Black Americans who fought their way to an education, pivotal Supreme Court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, and the government’s role in creating and upholding a segregated education system. He explores the role that Civil War–era legislation intended to bring agricultural education to the masses had in creating the HBCUs that have played such a major part in educating Black students when other state and private institutions refused to accept them.

The State Must Provide is the definitive chronicle of higher education’s failed attempts at equality and the long road still in front of us to remedy centuries of racial discrimination—and poses a daring solution to help solve the underfunding of HBCUs. Told through a vivid cast of characters, The State Must Provide examines what happened before and after schools were supposedly integrated in the twentieth century, and why higher education remains broken to this day. 

Illinois

Why America's Colleges Have Always Been Unequal--And How to Set Them Right

"A book that both taught me so much and also kept me on the edge of my seat. It is an invaluable text from a supremely talented writer." --Clint Smith, author of How the Word is Passed

The definitive history of the pervasiveness of racial inequality in American higher education

America's colleges and universities have a shameful secret: they have never given Black people a fair chance to succeed. From its inception, our higher education system was not built on equality or accessibility, but on educating--and prioritizing--white students. Black students have always been an afterthought. While governments and private donors funnel money into majority white schools, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and other institutions that have high enrollments of Black students, are struggling to survive, with state legislatures siphoning away federal funds that are legally owed to these schools. In The State Must Provide, Adam Harris reckons with the history of a higher education system that has systematically excluded Black people from its benefits.

Harris weaves through the legal, social, and political obstacles erected to block equitable education in the United States, studying the Black Americans who fought their way to an education, pivotal Supreme Court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, and the government's role in creating and upholding a segregated education system. He explores the role that Civil War-era legislation intended to bring agricultural education to the masses had in creating the HBCUs that have played such a major part in educating Black students when other state and private institutions refused to accept them.

The State Must Provide is the definitive chronicle of higher education's failed attempts at equality and the long road still in front of us to remedy centuries of racial discrimination--and poses a daring solution to help solve the underfunding of HBCUs. Told through a vivid cast of characters, The State Must Provide examines what happened before and after schools were supposedly integrated in the twentieth century, and why higher education remains broken to this day. 

The State Must Provide

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Xavier university of Louisiana hbcu graduation gift for graduates

Smoke free, no pets

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Louisiana

History

New XULA class of 2025 cup

Huge Paperback (6 to 8 lbs)

Michigan

Drew Collins Books 2 & 3

The First Family + When a Wolf Loves the Moon

29e8b90b-884b-4f7b-84c1-08f08e916f17-0

Kristen R. Lee

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Texas

A striking debut novel about racism on elite college campuses. Fans of Dear White People will embrace this activist-centered contemporary novel about a college freshman grappling with the challenges of attending an elite university with a disturbing racist history, which may not be as distant as it seems.

Savannah Howard sacrificed her high school social life to make sure she got into a top college. Her sights were set on an HBCU, but when she is accepted to the ivy-covered walls of Wooddale University on a full ride, how can she say no?

Wooddale is far from the perfectly manicured community it sells on its brochures, though. Savannah has barely unpacked before she comes face to face with microagressions stemming from racism and elitism. Then Clive Wilmington's statue is vandalized with blackface. The prime suspect? Lucas Cunningham, Wooddale's most popular student and son of a local prominent family. Soon Savannah is unearthing secrets of Wooddale's racist history. But what's the price for standing up for what is right? And will telling the truth about Wooddale's past cost Savannah her own future?

A stunning, challenging, and timely debut about racism and privilege on college campuses.

Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman

9271af99-1652-453a-8fdd-ea72c4377485-1

Alan R. Sadovnik

Susan F. Semel

Sharon Gay Pierson

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

HBCU Laboratory Schools and Alabama State College Lab High in the Era of Jim Crow

During the progressive education movement, laboratory high schools evolved from model schools that were part of the core teacher training curriculum at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). These laboratory schools were at the vanguard of the accreditation battle, participated in national curriculum studies, and boasted high graduation and college entrance rates. Led by well-educated, reform-minded African Americans who molded their own approaches to teaching and curriculum and were grounded in sound progressive educational theory, these HBCU lab high schools represented privileged educational experiences. Yet, this collective effort of high-achieving Black lab schools has been overlooked by historians. Through an examination of Alabama State Teachers College Laboratory High School (1920-1960), Laboratory of Learning illuminates the strategies, challenges, and successes of providing secondary education to Southern Black citizens during the Jim Crow era and provides evidence that HBCU laboratory schools and Lab High should be added to our histories as an example of distinctive, progressive schooling.

Laboratory of Learning

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Barry Wolfe

Izzy White?

LaDarrion Williams

Blood at the Root

Adam Harris

The State Must Provide

XULA

New XULA class of 2025 cup

Granger

The First Family + When a Wolf Loves the Moon

Kristen R. Lee

Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman

Alan R. Sadovnik; Susan F. Semel; Sharon Gay Pierson

Laboratory of Learning

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Save this search

Barry Wolfe

Izzy White?

LaDarrion Williams

Blood at the Root

Adam Harris

The State Must Provide

XULA

New XULA class of 2025 cup

Granger

The First Family + When a Wolf Loves the Moon

Kristen R. Lee

Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman

Alan R. Sadovnik; Susan F. Semel; Sharon Gay Pierson

Laboratory of Learning